Steve Kornacki

It’s one of those screws with the + sign on the head, and you don’t have one of those screwdrivers. What do you do? Find a little flathead straight screwdriver and try to fit it into one of the grooves? Maybe that will work? Package needs opening. Hmm. Butter knife? Bottle cap? Teeth!

We’ve all done it. The makeshift, might work approach.

But there comes a point in life where you come to value the safety and satisfaction of applying the right tool to the job.

NBC and MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki was put on this earth to process political data, synthesize it in his head and explain it to the rest of us—flawlessly, live, for hours on end and with next to no sleep—as we saw during the 2020 presidential election.

All of us in the news business are capable of regurgitating election results from this or that precinct, and maybe even putting those numbers in some context. But Kornacki is better at it than all of us combined.

To be in the studio with him while he is running full tilt is an awe-inspiring, humbling thing. More than anyone else I’ve ever seen work, he is the master of his task.

Maddow hosts The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC