The Nicole Sandler Show

I just made it home from seeing Joe Jackson in concert in Tucson last night in time for today's show, and walked straight into a news cycle that would make your brain melt. Trump held up what looked like a third grade school project in the Oval Office this morning comparing the reflecting pool to three skyscrapers. Why? Maybe to prove that size matters? I don't know. Obviously neither does...

Remember when Marco Rubio called Trump a con artist? When JD Vance said he was noxious? When Tulsi Gabbard, Lindsey Graham, Pete Hegseth, and Megan Kelly were all falling over each other to explain why Donald Trump was unfit for office? Yeah. We remember too. Today we're catching up on a LOT of news — Scott Pelley's devastating farewell statement after being fired from 60 Minutes , the Tod...

My guest today was one of my favorites, Alex Lawson , executive director of Social Security Works . He was featured in a new video from two-time Emmy winners More Perfect Union about what this regime is doing to Social Security field offices around the country. They went to Iowa and found closed offices, five-hour hold times that end in dropped calls, and elderly people who have nowhere to turn. I...

Get ready for a conversation that starts with Cannes and ends up at Bruce Springsteen, and somehow it all connects. That was today. Brian Karem — White House correspondent for Salon.com, author of seven books, and filmmaker — joined me to talk about his new documentary The First 100. He just screened it at the Cannes Film Festival to a crowd of Europeans who are, let's say, very concerned abou...

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 Fl...

These last few weeks have been insane. About three weeks ago I ended up in the hospital for four days after what looked like a cardiac event. My arteries are clear, we still don't know exactly what happened, and I've been kind of scattered ever since. But Digby was here today and we had so much to talk about that I almost forgot to be tired. Here's what we covered: Trump is literally b...

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 ceasef...

Today, I have a different kind of Memorial Day show for you. Instead of the usual music, I'm honoring two dear friends we lost too recently — Boca Brit Summers, the comedic genius behind so much of this show's best imaging and parody music, and Howie Klein, former president of Reprise Records and my weekly guest for nearly 15 years. We revisit a 2023 show Brit and I did together when she w...

Every week feels like an eternity, and this one seemed worse than normal. On today's Emptywheel Friday, Marcy Wheeler and I covered a lot of territory. 🏰 Trump's billion-dollar ballroom got killed by the Senate parliamentarian and some help from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse — because Republicans forgot which committees have jurisdiction over the White House. Oops. 💰 The so-called "terrori...

A LOT going on today on the Nicole Sandler Show ... Trump created a $1.776 billion slush fund to pay off his Jan. 6 insurrectionists (yes, that number was chosen on purpose — cute, right?). And now the Pillow Guy wants $400 million from it, a Proud Boy leader wants $5 million because his "life was messed up," and actual Republicans in Congress are starting to say... wait, what? We cover th...

I'm Nicole Sandler, and today I nearly lost my mind before I even got to my guest. Between Trump dropping his IRS lawsuit only to magically produce a $1.776 BILLION "weaponization fund" to pay off his convicted cronies — oh, and a little addendum granting himself and his whole family immunity from tax prosecution forever — I needed someone smarter than me to talk me off the ledge. That...

Today's show was one I didn't plan. I woke up to watch the Senate grill Todd Blanche over Trump's $1.776 billion slush fund (yes, 1776 — he literally can't help himself), and then I got the news that my dear friend and radio comedy legend Boca Britany Somers passed away last night. So I did what I always do — I showed up, played her bits, cried a little, and kept going. That's...

So Trump flew to China, brought Eric and the Nvidia guy instead of any actual China experts, accomplished nothing on Hormuz or Taiwan, got a lecture from Xi about Sparta and Athens, and came home. Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net and I spent an hour plus breaking down what it all means — plus Kash Patel snorkeling a war grave, which is exactly as bad as it sounds. Advertising Inquiries: https://red...

I've been waiting to talk with my favorite legal expert Lisa Graves about this latest, most despicable outrage from the Extreme Court. Just last week they gutted what was left of the Voting Rights Act. Lisa breaks down how we got here- from Roberts, who started his career as a Reagan revolutionary attacking the VRA's effects provisions, to the neo-Confederate legislatures that instantly mo...

Nicole Sandler is joined by Kaswar Klasra — journalist, founder, and Editor-in-Chief of The Islamabad Telegraph — for a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred conversation about the world Trump has made. Calling in from Islamabad at midnight his time, Kaswar brings a firsthand view from Pakistan: a country caught in the crossfire of Trump's war with Iran, mediating between nuclear powers, watching gas...

Nicole Sandler returns after an unplanned absence following a scary health event that landed her in the hospital for several days. She breaks down what happened — heart racing at 143 BPM, chest pressure, possible AFib, and a pericarditis scare — and why she's still not entirely in the clear. On the news front: Trump's Iran nuclear negotiations have collapsed after he rejected Tehran's...

Nicole Sandler is back after a health scare, but she tries to never miss an Emptywheel Friday episode! So she and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net are here for their weekly breakdown of lots of what the corporate media is underreporting. This week: the Iran War is far more catastrophic than the White House is letting on — bases may be permanently abandoned, Saudi Arabia...

It's another Emptywheel Friday, when national security journalist Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net joins me to break down the week, and this one was a mess! The Supreme Court finished off what was left of the Voting Rights Act, we saw two days of "Whiskey Pete" Hegseth hearings (House AND Senate Armed Services Committees), the Jim Comey "8647" indictment #2 and why it's a me...

It's a long, busy show today! We opened with old friend and longtime progressive writer Dave Johnson , now living as an American expat in a tiny village outside Cambridge, England. He talks NHS, the UK's surging Green Party, the lessons Labour's collapse holds for US Democrats, and what it's like watching America from across the Atlantic — where literally everyone hates Trump. Then...

The Supreme Court's extremist majority struck again today — this time gutting what's left of the Voting Rights Act in a 6-3 ruling written by Samuel Alito. Elena Kagan wrote the dissent — which pointedly drops the word "respectfully" — which isn't the usual. Then: Friday is May Day, and the movement is calling for a nationwide day of economic disruption. No work, no school, no...

It's the Monday after the "Nerd Prom" — and wow, what a weekend. We open the show with Jesse Wells' brand new song "Lone Wolves" (already at 53K views!), then journalist Jonathan Larson from The F'ng News joins to break down the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Trump's bizarre 60 Minutes interview with Nora O'Donnell, and what we a...

It's another Emptywheel Friday! Every Friday, Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net joins Nicole Sandler to wrap up the week's news. Today, Marcy explains why Trump is psychologically trapped in the Iran war — he can't confront Russia, and he can't admit Obama's JCPOA was better than anything he could negotiate. The global jet fuel crisis is already crashing airlines (hello, Spirit),...

Today I needed a laugh — and honestly, so did you. We kick things off with the best Trump impression on the internet, JL Cauvin . Today's guest is Mark Malkoff , author of  Love, Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan's Journey to Find the Genius Behind the Legend , about the man who invented late night as we know it. We get into what Carson really thought about Trump back in the '80s and &#...

Yes, my favorite expert on the law, Lisa Graves - @TheLisaGraves.bsky.social - will join us in the last half-hour of today's show. I had invited her to discuss today's SCOTUS opinions, but they weren't the big ones we were hoping for (or dreading). There's still plenty to discuss, like yesterday's important wins in the ballot box in Virginia! Though- as I'm posting this cam...

Tom Steyer is running for governor of California and still hasn't taken my advice from 2019. We dig into the full California governor's race — who's in, who's out (looking at you, Swalwell), and what to think about the candidates left standing. Then we go to the Wayback Machine for my actual December 2019 interview with Steyer, where I made the case — live on air — that he should p...