The Michael Fanone Show

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com If you want to know what a country is, watch who it prosecutes — and when. This week, Letitia James — the New York attorney general who took Trump to the mat on civil fraud — got indicted over a 2020 mortgage. Not some offshore maze. A rider and a rate. That doesn’t make it nothing. It makes it revealing. Two...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com The Secret ICE Doesn’t Want on Camera When “orderly deportation” turns into something else entirely. Power isn’t just built in hearings or headlines. Sometimes it’s forged where the public never sees — holding rooms, jet bridges, cabins where the windows are shut and the phones are off. That’s where ICE has be...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Everyone remembers the “chaos” in Portland — protests, federal agents, and unmarked vans pulling people off the street. What most Americans didn’t see is what was really being tested. This was a trial run for domestic federal force operations — the kind of deployment that skirts the Constitution by using obscu...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Everyone remembers Trump railing against the “Deep State.” What most people don’t realize is that he’s spent the years since quietly building his own. This episode dives into how Trump’s allies inside and outside government are rewriting the rules at the DOJ and FBI — purging career officials, replacing them w...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Power doesn’t just come from elections — it comes from money, and who’s willing to spend it. In this episode, I dig into the political financiers pulling strings in the next Trump operation. We connect the dots between dark money networks, new “nonprofits” acting as legal shields , and the same players who ban...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Every time Trump talks about “law and order,” there’s a subtext people miss. This episode breaks down the leaked communications showing how his team was preparing to use America’s most elite combat forces — the 82nd Airborne — inside the U.S. This wasn’t about foreign enemies. It was about controlling cities,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com When people talk about “the deep state,” they usually mean some vague conspiracy on the internet. But what I’m seeing right now isn’t a theory — it’s happening in real time. I dug into how the Pentagon’s leadership has quietly been expanding its influence over what happens inside our own borders. And the guy l...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Everyone’s talking about the shutdown. But almost no one’s talking about what it’s doing to our security. And I don’t mean politics. I mean actual cybersecurity — the digital backbone that keeps our elections, infrastructure, and data safe. Because here’s the truth: the shutdown didn’t just stop paychecks. It...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Every power grab in history starts with something small. A memo. A directive. A line of language that sounds reasonable enough to ignore. The memo directs federal agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle networks fomenting political violence within the United States.” Sounds good, right? No one wants p...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Every election, there’s a race that starts long before ballots are printed. It’s not between candidates. It’s between the people trying to protect our system — and the people trying to break it. Right now, that race is being run without one of its most important players. Most Americans have never heard of CISA...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Every few months, a story slips through the cracks — not because it’s unimportant, but because it’s too uncomfortable for Washington to talk about. This one started with a Signal chat leak inside the West Wing. A few screenshots. A few short lines. And one of them said: “82nd prepped for rapid deployment — awa...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Political power isn’t just built in Congress or on cable news. Sometimes it’s shaped in rooms the public never sees — the kind of rooms where the chandeliers are dim, the guest list is secret, and the price of admission is measured in checks with more zeroes than most of us will ever write. That’s exactly what...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Every time America faces political violence, Washington responds the same way: more laws, more surveillance, more power handed over to law enforcement. Sometimes those measures help. Sometimes they backfire. And sometimes, they become something far more dangerous than what was promised. Now, in the wake of Cha...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com For years, Tom Homan built his reputation as the face of Trump’s immigration machine. As head of ICE, he defended family separations, led high-profile raids, and turned “law and order” into a personal brand. When Trump returned to power, Homan wasn’t just back in the conversation — he was elevated. Handpicked...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk shook the country. A major political figure, gunned down in public. The kind of case that demands a steady hand, airtight investigation, and trust that the people in charge can deliver justice. But what America got instead was something else entirely. Because the story...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com When someone picks up a gun, we ask: who taught them to aim? When someone climbs a stage and yells a threat, we ask: who handed them the megaphone? Words aren’t harmless. They shape how people see the world. They tell a restless person who to fear. They tell an angry person who to hate. And when those words co...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com In America right now, the First Amendment is being tested in ways we haven’t seen before. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was shown the door. Why? Because he wouldn’t stop mocking Donald Trump. That’s the story floating through media circles — and it’s one that should alarm anyone who believes in free speech. But...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com For decades, the Christian Right has been building power brick by brick. School boards. State legislatures. A Supreme Court stacked with conservative justices. They got Roe v. Wade overturned. They’ve rolled back LGBTQ rights. They’ve rewritten the meaning of “religious freedom.” But here’s the truth: that was...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Last week, Charlie Kirk was assassinated on stage in Utah. His death was a tragedy. No one should be killed for their political beliefs — not Charlie, not anyone. But almost immediately, the right moved to recast his life, his work, and now his death into something else entirely. They’re not just memorializing...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Across the country, a new wave is hitting schools. Titles disappearing from shelves. Classrooms told to pull whole sections from reading lists. Libraries forced to box up the stories that once sat in plain sight. The push is happening fast — faster than most parents even realize. Local boards meet, pressure mo...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Last week, Charlie Kirk was assassinated on stage in Utah. The headlines exploded. Vigils. Outrage. Political finger-pointing. But while America was locked on that story, another slipped almost entirely under the radar — and it should chill every single one of us. Because at the very same time Kirk’s death was...

I want to start with a thank you. When we launched the GoFundMe to help me travel the country and cover the fight for democracy where it’s actually happening — in city halls, state legislatures, and communities under pressure — I didn’t know how folks would respond. Now, just a couple days later, we’re already halfway to our goal. That’s not just money in a campaign. That’s fuel. That’s plane tick...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Behind closed doors at the Department of Justice, a proposal started to take shape. A new rule, framed as public safety. One that would put limits on who could own a firearm. The kind of move that, at least on paper, sounded like it might pass quietly. But nothing about guns in America ever stays quiet. Becaus...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit michaelfanone.substack.com Nothing new. Nothing flashy. Another date on the calendar in a city used to political noise. Even organizers braced for a small turnout. A couple hundred, maybe a few thousand. A blip on the radar. But when the day came, the streets told a different story. Crowds swelled far beyond the predictions. Chanting, m...