"Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order" is the story of one of the most shocking decisions in American history: the executive order to target and round up innocent citizens, Japanese Americans, at the outbreak of World War II. This six-episode narrative podcast will examine and shed new light on how that policy came to be, who was behind it, who attempted to stop it, and the heroism needed to end the policy for good. Brazen lies and stereotypes about a minority group being pushed by senior government officials. Desperate efforts to prevent the policy from going into place. A community terrorized on the streets by the U.S. military, grabbed from their homes and sent to faraway, hastily built detention camps. Government reports gathered up and set on fire to suppress the truth behind the policy. And a bombshell discovery in the unlikeliest of places that would ultimately expose it all. This is the story of the American government's decision to pursue and carry out an extreme and unconstitutional policy against its own citizens, and it's the story of what it finally took to stop it. Rachel Maddow's previous narrative podcasts -- "Bag Man," "Ultra," and "Ultra: Season 2" -- all reached #1 on the Apple podcast charts and have received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award, a Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism, and most recently, a 2025 national Edward R. Murrow Award. Her new series, "Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order," premieres December 1, 2025.
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"Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order" is the story of one of the most shocking decisions in American history: the executive order to target and round up innocent citizens, Japanese Americans, at the outbreak of World War II. This six-episode narrative podcast will examine and shed new light on how that policy came to be, who was behind it, who attempted to stop it, and the heroism needed to end the policy for good. Brazen lies and stereotypes about a minority group being pushed by senior government officials. Desperate efforts to prevent the policy from going into place. A community terrorized on the streets by the U.S. military, grabbed from their homes and sent to faraway, hastily built detention camps. Government reports gathered up and set on fire to suppress the truth behind the policy. And a bombshell discovery in the unlikeliest of places that would ultimately expose it all. This is the story of the American government's decision to pursue and carry out an extreme and unconstitutional policy against its own citizens, and it's the story of what it finally took to stop it. Rachel Maddow's previous narrative podcasts -- "Bag Man," "Ultra," and "Ultra: Season 2" -- all reached #1 on the Apple podcast charts and have received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award, a Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism, and most recently, a 2025 national Edward R. Murrow Award. Her new series, "Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order," premieres December 1, 2025.
An incarceree-turned researcher and a federal inmate-turned Harvard educated lawyer comb through the archives and begin to peel back all of the layers of the government's program to mass incarcerate Japanese Americans. With their startling findings in hand, they and the Japanese American community set out to force the U.S. government to directly confront its actions.
As the cases of the four Japanese Americans challenging the U.S. government's mass incarceration policy arrive at the Supreme Court, a crisis suddenly erupts inside the Justice Department and the War Department as the true motivations behind the policy are now at risk of being revealed. A fierce battle is waged inside the government over whether to disclose the information to the courts, or cover it up.
A principled politician puts his career on the line to stand up against the authoritarian actions of an emboldened federal government. While Americans largely sit by and watch their fellow Americans rounded up and stripped of their rights, a small group of brave resisters sets out to challenge the aggressive actions of the U.S. government and bring an end to them for good.
The U.S. military is deployed on the streets of America, tasked with carrying out the mass round-up of innocent immigrants and American citizens labeled by the government as the "enemy" within. Tens of thousands of American families are forced to live in hastily constructed prison camps — enduring inhumane conditions — while government officials scramble to figure out what to do with them all.
In the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack, the man in charge of defending the American west coast has a serious case of the jitters... and also a bright, young aide who is busy drawing up plans to target a racial group in America en masse. With the clock running out, lawyers inside the Justice Department mount a furious effort to stop the policy from going into effect.
The bombshell discovery of a report that U.S. government officials had ordered burned has the potential to expose the truth about one of the most radical policy decisions in all of American history. A policy that one young Naval intelligence officer desperately tried to warn his superiors was unwarranted and unnecessary.
"Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order" is the story of one of the most shocking decisions in American history: the executive order to target and round up innocent citizens, Japanese Americans, at the outbreak of World War II. This six-episode narrative podcast will examine and shed new light on how that policy came to be, who was behind it, who attempted to stop it, and the heroism needed to end the policy for good. Brazen lies and stereotypes about a minority group being pushed by senior government officials. Desperate efforts to prevent the policy from going into place. A community terrorized on the streets by the U.S. military, grabbed from their homes and sent to faraway, hastily built detention camps. Government reports gathered up and set on fire to suppress the truth behind the policy. And a bombshell discovery in the unlikeliest of places that would ultimately expose it all. This is the story of the American government's decision to pursue and carry out an extreme and unconstitutional policy against its own citizens, and it's the story of what it finally took to stop it. Rachel Maddow's previous narrative podcasts -- "Bag Man," "Ultra," and "Ultra: Season 2" -- all reached #1 on the Apple podcast charts and have received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award, a Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism, and most recently, a 2025 national Edward R. Murrow Award. Her new series, "Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order," premieres December 1, 2025.
