The Nicole Sandler Show

It's Emptywheel Friday, and Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net is back to help us wrap up another ridiculously absurd and awful week. We cover the Supreme Court's TPS ruling — which strips protection from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and is dressed up by Alito as something other than what it plainly is: racism with a legal fig leaf. This ruling has a human cost that people need to understand. Marcy breaks down who's actually running things in the White House right now — Bill Pulte, illegally installed as acting DNI and already firing analysts; Natalie Harp, the gatekeeper to the president's social media diet- and quite likely a whole lot more (eew); and a man who, as Marcy puts it, is rotting in plain sight, mentally and physically, doing whatever the last person in the room tells him to do. We spend serious time on what I think is one of the most important and under-covered stories going: DOJ's systematic effort to criminalize protest. The Prairie Land sentences — up to 100 years — are shocking. The new Minnesota indictment is terrifying in a different way: it sweeps up organizers, AFL-CIO members, DSA members, and 50501 activists by trying to make "Antifa" into an actual organization on par with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. It is not. There is no membership, no dues, no leader, no headquarters. Marcy has an extensive post at emptywheel.net breaking the Minnesota case down in detail. Read it. We also get into Todd Blanche being ordered by a judge to follow the Epstein Transparency Act, Kushner and Witkoff's suspected cut of the $300 billion Iran reconstruction deal, JD Vance's Nixon rehabilitation tour, the reflecting pool con and manufactured "Antifa vandalism" narrative, Tulsi Gabbard's cult history, and Elon Musk's brief, already-over trillionaire moment. Buckle up, it a rough and rocky one. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's Wednesday, which means Driftglass is here — and today's conversation went deep and wide. We started with Trump's "deflecting pool" — his preferred name for what used to be the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool before a no-bid contract turned it into an algae-choked disaster, and the administration started blaming "antifa" with a knife. Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado is calling on Trump to personally pay for the damage, which is exactly the right call. From there, Driftglass and I traced the accountability vacuum that got us here — Obama's "look forward, not back" decision after Bush, Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon, and the lesson that gets learned every single time: if you don't hold them accountable, they just come back worse. George W. Bush walked so Trump could run. My husband David jumped in with a sharp, pointed history of antisemitism — how it was essentially a marketing tool in the early days of Christianity and has never gone out of style — and we talked about how that history connects to what's happening right now as the Democratic Party fractures over the Israel-Palestine issue in the primaries. I said some things about the primaries that will make some of you mad at me. I stand by them. And I wrapped up by finally telling you - and Driftglass - about seeing Bob Dylan in Phoenix last night. Musically brilliant. Dylan in a hoodie behind a keyboard, totally anonymous. Songs you've probably not heard before and, if you had, you likely wouldn't have recognized. Lucinda Williams, post-stroke and as angry at this administration as I am. It was exactly the kind of evening that reminds you why music matters. And we were running late, sadly, thanks to the shitty GPS who sent us in circles downtown, so we missed all but one song from John Doe. He sounded good though! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

I don't like Mondays. Yeah, it's a song but it's also a general rule. It hit 114 degrees here in Chandler, AZ today, I wasn't feeling great, and the news was its usual dumpster fire self. But I showed up, because that's what we do. I started with a Jonathan Pie clip that had me cackling despite myself — his breakdown of Trump's Iran "victory" is one for the ages. Then the incredibly talented Patrick Fitzgerald with a parody of the Doobie Bros "Black Water," - done as "Green Water" about the reflecting pool disaster that features Marco Rubio as the pool boy. You need to see the image. Then Dr. Art Jipson joined me, and we covered a lot of ground: the $14 million no-bid reflecting pool catastrophe and the three-time Olympian being arrested for touching a peeling piece of paint; the mainstreaming of "re-migration" by white nationalist networks and Stephen Miller; the Reagan-to-Trump throughline on the destruction of norms; and the Obama Presidential Center dedication — including Michelle Obama's moving words about John McCain. My husband David popped in to note that the term "re-migration" would make George Orwell smile. (He's right.) I think what made me feel so sick today is the knowledge that it's not even close to over. But there is music in the air... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today's show opened with the split screen to end all split screens: the dedication ceremony for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago — featuring Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, and a stunning speech from Michelle Obama — running simultaneously with JD Vance's press conference trying to sell the world on Trump's Iran "deal" that is, in fact, a memo of understanding signed two days early in Versailles. Yes, Versailles. I played extended clips from Michelle Obama's remarks, including her powerful tribute to Barack and the barely-veiled contrast she drew between his presidency and the current one. Then Philadelphia Inquirer national columnist Will Bunch joins me to dig into JD Vance's authoritarian true-believer tendencies, discuss what Bill Pulte is really doing vying for the DNI position the spectacular failure that is Trump's Iran policy, plus the historical echoes of Versailles, the collapse of congressional independence since Watergate, the Chris Rabb primary win in Philadelphia, and the complicated politics of Israel in the 2026 Democratic landscape. Whew. Yeah, the show ran a bit long again today. Tomorrow is Emptywheel Friday — Marcy Wheeler joins me every Friday. And tomorrow also happens to be Juneteenth, the official opening day of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. I'll be in Arizona and Marcy in Ireland, both as usual Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today's show started out chaotic — I discovered live on air that Arizona had quietly changed my voter registration to "inactive." I have my registration card right here. Correct address. Everything. And yet.. So yes, I'm going to say it again: go to vote.gov and check your registration right now. Arizona's primary is July 21st and you need to be registered 29 days out. Don't get caught the way I almost did. The good news is I had a wonderful guest — Elizabeth Lee, the nurse running for Congress in Arizona's 5th district. She is the real deal. The district is splitting a third Democrat, a third Republican, a third independent, and she has already canvassed 60% of it. She's got two primary opponents. Should she win (and she should), her opponent would like be former Pinal County sheriff Mark Lamb, who apparently doesn't even live here- and that's the least objectionable thing about him. He's a liar, a cheat and a felon. You know, just like today's Republican leadership. Nurse Lee does live here, and is the real thing! I'm voting for her and I think you should too if you're in AZ05. Check her out at nurseleaf4az.com. Then the show took a turn I didn't entirely plan. I read aloud a Sam Harris essay called Why I Won't Debate Critics of Israel. I'd had it in my inbox for days and read it for the first time last night. I agreed with every word of it. I didn't know what to expect, but he was spot on. Apparently, quite a few of my listeners didn't agree. Oh well. As I said, you don't have to agree with me on everything.. But I'd like to know what you don't agree with. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's Emptywheel Friday and Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net is joining me LIVE from a Paris terrace instead of her usual place at home in Ireland Today: the White House demolition derby, Iran falling apart in real time, Delaney Hall hunger strikes, DOJ corruption, the Texas primary's real story, and why Trump's birthday concert has Milli Vanilli as a headliner. (No, really.) Or is it FloRiDa? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

I'm playing catch up with the news, so today I'm covering Trump's third hospital visit this year, the alarming details about his daytime somnolence (falling asleep in the Oval Office, possibly at Arlington on Memorial Day — yikes), and his midnight rhino meme that makes zero sense. Plus the Texas Senate runoff — Cornyn vs. Paxton — and how Trump just torpedoed a nearly-done Iran ceasefire deal by throwing the Abraham Accords in at the last minute like an afterthought. Then my guest Mark Malkoff — author of Love Johnny Carson and a veteran of the late night world — joins me to talk about the end of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. 33 years of the CBS late night franchise, gone. We cover it all: the joke that supposedly got the show canceled, Colbert's brilliant post-finale appearance on Monroe Community Media's public access channel with Jack White, Eminem and Jeff Daniels, the CBS copyright freakout, what happens to the Ed Sullivan Theater now, and whether we'll ever see late night TV at this scale again. Spoiler: probably not. And I close with one more gut punch — the Trump administration wants every federal employee to sign an NDA. Because why not finish off what's left of free speech? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy