Tipsheet

Maddow Interrupts Clinton Interview to Show a Panda Video

Sometimes you don’t know what you’re in for when you turn the channel to MSNBC. 

Host Rachel Maddow interrupted a live, on-set interview with Hillary Clinton Thursday night to show a video of a panda sneezing. 

“Welcome back,” she said after a commercial break. “My interview with Secretary Hillary Clinton is subject to an interruption because of this important video of a sneezing panda."

Clinton could be heard laughing in the background as Maddow showed a viral video of a baby panda sneezing and scaring its mother.

"Madam Secretary, one of the things that you deal with in a surprisingly straightforward way in your new book is that people are obsessed with your human nature," Maddow said.

"In the book, you called [people's interest in you] the panda principle, which is why we were visited there by the sneezing panda," she said to Clinton.

People wanted to know about what she ate, what she did in the mornings, and who did her hair and makeup, the former secretary of state wrote in the book. 

"Pandas just live their lives," Maddow said reading a segment from Clinton’s newly release book, "What Happened." "They eat bamboo. They play with their kids but for some reason, people love watching pandas hoping for something, anything to happen.”

"It is true, people ask me these questions all the time," Clinton replied. "And I thought well, you know what? I just want to embrace it and go ahead and tell you what I have for breakfast and all the rest of it and maybe it will give people a little bit of satisfaction that they know me better than they thought they did."