Hi, everyone. It's Rachel Maddo. I'm excited to tell you that we're releasing a brand new second season of my podcast, Ultra.

In the first season, we heard an all but forgotten true story of sitting members of Congress working with a Nazi agent and allying themselves with the violent ultra-right.

It all ended with the worrying reasons they mostly got away with it.

Well, this new season, Season 2, reveals what happens next, the unnerving consequences of those guys not being helped to account.

This is another story that really happened. It feels a little bit ripped from today's headlines, but for this one, we do have the benefit of knowing how it all turned out in the end. Episodes drop Mondays. Stay right here to listen to a special preview of the first episode. You can also subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. If you do that, you will get early access to every episode the Friday before it drops. And with MSNBC BBC Premium, you can listen to all of Ultra Season 1 and Season 2 with zero ads.

Lester Hunt ran for public office for the first time in 1932. He was a Democrat. He ran for a seating the state legislature, and he won. He quickly attracted notice from the democratic leadership in the state. After he'd served just one term in the legislature, legislature, they asked if he would consider running for a statewide office, and he did. He ran for Secretary of State in Wyoming, and he won.

Dr. Lester Seahant, Secretary of State.

Then he ran for a second term as Secretary of State, and he won re-election as well. Then, flush with that success, he decided to run for the top job in the state.

He ran for governor in 1942.

That governor's race was a real long shot for Lester Hunt. To win that job, Lester Hunt would have to oust the incumbent Republican governor. But Hunt was able to do it. He won the race.

It is a pleasure to return again to the realm of my first experience in state government. The Halls of the state legislature.

And he did very well in the job, so much so that he became the first person ever to serve two consecutive terms as the state's governor. And he did it as a Democrat in what even then was Republican, Republican, Wyoming.

Somebody said when he got elected to the legislature in this small rural Republican county, said, If a Democrat gets elected in this county, it's because people really like him. And that was what kept him in public office throughout many, many years in a very Republican state. People genuinely liked him, and for good reason.

And, governor, if you will promise just to Call me Bill from now on. I'll promise just to call you Governor.

Bill, just call me Doc. Just call you Doc? That's what everybody else calls me around home. All right, Doc.

The people of Wyoming really did like him. He was a Democrat, which meant he was in the minority party in the state, but he'd never lost an election, even the ones that seemed improbable on their face. He'd had just resounding success in all of his time in public office, including his unprecedented two consecutive terms as governor. With that track record, Lester Hunt ultimately decided that he would keep going, keep running for higher office. He set his sights on the US Senate, and he won that race, too.

Our distinguished guest for this evening is the Honorable Lester C. Hunt, United States Senator from Wyoming.

Lester Hunt goes from bartender and Minor League baseball pitcher to small town dentist to novice local politician to roof-crawling pigeon-exterminating governor, all the way to United States Senator, never losing an election along the way. He was very good at not just running for office, but serving as an elected official. People just really liked him for it.

He was really just an honest, straightforward fellow who believed in democracy, believed in the integrity of the institutions, and it's what made him the most popular politician in the state.

The most popular politician in his state. Lester Hunt, newly elected a US Senator. He heads to Washington to do what he has always done, to advocate for his constituents, for the people of Wyoming. Also now to try to do some good for the whole rest of the country through service in the United States Senate. He is as poised as anyone could be for success in that job. But things are about to change for him, radically. What he is about to encounter in Washington will cost him his life. He will not live to see the end of even one term as US Senator. The environment he is about to step into in Washington, just a few years after World War II, is an environment that is still electrified by some of the most dangerous currents that had run through that previous era. Political figures willing to align themselves with violent and extreme forces, no matter the consequences. Elements so extreme, they're working to do away with American democracy, while at the same time, they and their allies are ascending to the height of American political power. That is what solid, popular, problem-solving, devoted dad, Lester Hunt, would be walking into when he arrived in Washington.

It would be a buzz saw coming right for him. It was unlike anything he had encountered back home in Wyoming. It would take his life, and it would signal deeply troubling things for the country, not just then, but for decades to come. This is season 2 of Rachel Maddo presents Ultra.

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