The Nicole Sandler Show

It's Monday, the day of the week that Jonathan Larsen, the man behind The Fucking News Substack joins me to help unpack the news which, these days, is horrific, terrifying and really fucked up. As glad as I am that January has finally ended, it's now February. Don't let that fact that it's only 28 days make you think it'll go by quicker. At this rate, it's on track to feel...

Each week seems to be more insane than the last. I think it's even more evident because Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net joins me each Friday to recap some of what made news in the preceding week. Just think about it... Alex Pretti was murdered by ICE this past Saturday. That's how this week started, on Saturday morning. And it kept on sliding downward since. The FBI raided the Fulton Count...

My old friend and Air America colleague Jack Rice is a jack of all trades. When we met, he was a radio host on Air America. Before that, he was a prosecutor, and a Special Agent for the CIA! Since then, he's returned to the law and is a practicing criminal defense attorney in the Twin Cities, so he's been in the thick of the horrors that Trump has set loose on Minneapolis. He was here just...

Historian Matt Delmont 's new book, Until the Last Gun is Silent:A Story of Patriotism, The Vietnam War, and the Fight to Save America's Soul just hit stores yesterday. I've had him scheduled for a while now, but there's definitely some correlation between his book and the madness confronting us today, which we certainly discussed. I opened the show with Erica Connell , a familiar...

Another busy day here on The Nicole Sandler Show... We catch up on some of the latest news including the TACO turnaround and more. Plus Economist Dean Baker on how the orange blob in the oval office is tanking our economy (and what you should do with your money, if you still have any)... Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On Friday, Marcy Wheeler and I went on about how overwhelming last week was. But it didn't prepare us for what would unfold the next morning. It just never stops.. ICE did it again, in Minnesota, with a lot of guns. Yep, Dump's armed, masked goons murdered another US citizen in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti was a 37 year-old, white, ICU nurse for the VA who was trying to help a woman who some o...

It was another overwhelming week, so thankfully Marcy Wheeler takes her weekly break from emptywheel.net to join me here to stick a fork in it, especially as it lasted six thousand one hundred and eighty-four days! Marcy will explain near the beginning of today's show, that mostly centers on how the evil orange man is destroying everything that made this country great. Advertising Inquiries: h...

I don't know why Trump-era Republicans do anything they do,but having Jack Smith , a highly respected prosecutor and the former special counsel who investigated and got multiple indictments against Donal Trump is now being investigated by Trump's Dept of Justice. His Attorney General is acting as D'ump's personal attorney carrying out his vindictive retributive orders to go after h...

That's one way to put it. Heather 'Digby' Parton has been a semi-regular guest on my show for many years. I always consider our conversations to be cathartic, but Digby was in rare form today. I think she's at least as fed up with the DC dumpster fire as I am, if not more! I was prepared to discuss many things with her, but it was his gaslighting/lying and narcissistic showings in...

Today marks the first anniversary of this immoral, destructive regime in the White House. We know that we can't continue like this. It's time for action and for change! We must engage as we've been, but we must do more. Call your Republican representatives in Congress DAILY and tell them how the Oval Office occupant is unfit for office and is destroying our nation. And get involved as...

I struggled with whether I should do a show today, as it is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a federal and a state holiday (yes, here in Arizona too!). I decided I would, and then Jonathan Larsen, who's usually here on Mondays, told me he wasn't working today in honor of the holiday. So I went back and forth on it and decided, since I have to put together a show to air regardless, that I'd...

Every Friday, we wrap up the week with Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net. She and I try to make sense of the insanity that is destroying our country. Given what's transpired this week, the madman seems bound and determined to take down not only the US, but the world. If we're trying to put a positive spin on it, I guess I could point out that he's unraveling, and Marcy tells us that the...

My good radio news is that a new radio station hit the airwaves in Phoenix today and, once again, I get to play my kind of music on the air! I explain at the start of the show. But I'm still here. Since the former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura is back in the news, I dug out an interview he and I did on Air America Radio in 2009 that I shared today, along with his re-entry into the news j...

I had fully intended on speaking with Blue Amp Media's Cliff Schecter today and adding laughs and some snark to the sickening news of the day. Unfortunately, I found out mid-show that Cliff had a family emergency and was unable to join us. I still had plenty to talk about between the shitty news of the day and another project I'm working on that I can't tell you about until tomorrow. A...

If I had a dollar for every law the orange idiot has broken while he's occupied the oval office I wouldn't necessarily be rich, but I'd certainly be able to pay my bills, probably easier than I can these days. Aside from that pretty big deal, there are tons of other legal issues in play that the administration seems to not care about or consider when the do the insane things they do. T...

If you had hoped things would lighten up a bit as the calendar turned to 2026, I'm sorry to remind you that we live in Opposite World, and it's awful here. There's an explosion of ugly news to go through today, so thankfully Jonathan Larsen is here from his eponymous Substack where he brings us original reporting and from the one with the attitude, thefuckingnews.substack.com . But at...

As she does every Friday morning, Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net joins us to recap and discuss some of the news made over the week. In keeping with tradition, today we marked the end of another year-long week. The week began when, just a few hours after we recorded last week's show, the White House idiots invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president. Also this week, ICE murdered a US citizen...

I'm happy to welcome MS NOW's Senior Political and National Reporter Jacob Soboroff to the show today. The occasion is the release of his new book, FIRESTORM: THE GREAT LOS ANGELES FIRES AND AMERICA'S NEW AGE OF DISASTER which hit shelves on the first anniversary of those historic and horrific fires which he covered for NBC News. As usual, we'll begin with today's news which is...

We started today's Nicole Sandler Show with breaking news from Minnesota where an ICE agent shot and killed a 37-year old mother, a US citizen, who was attempting to drive away. Of course, everyone from Kristi Noem to the orange dick-tator said she was a terrorist who tried to kill the murderer. Videos show what happened and confirm that they are lying. Executive Editor of The American Prospec...

Today is an anniversary I'd prefer that we not recognize. But we must, because the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol five years ago today and their criminal leader would like nothing more than for us to move on and forget it ever happened. We can't and we won't. Because, if we do, we surrender and declare our democracy dead. That, we refuse, now and forever. I was on the air th...

And we're back.. It's the start of the first full week of the new year 2026 and nothing is normal. I hope everyone got some good rest and relaxation because it's unlikely we'll have more of that for a while. We begin the week on a Monday and, if it's Monday, it's Jonathan Larsen of his two important substack newsletters: The Fu%&ing News and Jonathan Larsen where he doe...

Let’s get this new year started! We’re back for the first live show of 2026 as  Marcy Wheeler  joins me to kick it off with a new Emptywheel Friday! Today, we’ll talk about what happened over the holiday break (Epstein files, Jack Smith deposition, Mamdani swearing in as NYC Mayor, etc). And Marcy will walk us through the article she posted this morning at emptywheel.net, “ Where We Go From Here:...

Today For the final show of 2025 (good riddance), I opted to feature some past moments from the show over the years that still resonate today, sharing a little bit of everything - including a visit or two from Bernie Sanders , and my appearance on Rock & Roll Jeopardy . I've been sick over the holidays, so please excuse my voice as I introduce the various segments I'll share. Today is...

I only met and interviewed T om Petty once. Unlike most of the artist interviews I did during my music radio years, he did not perform live for us. He just came into the studio at Channel 103.1 (KACD and KBCD in Los Angeles) on April 30, 1999 and hung out with me for a while on the air. He was promoting the album that had just been released, ECHO. Following that interview, we'll move ahead abo...

We're in the final stretch of 2025, and I can't wait to put this shitty year behind us. If you remember back around a year ago, Trump promised he'd end the Russian war again Ukraine in a day, after taking office again. Well here we are, a year later and he hasn't. But he's still kissing up to Putin, siding with him over Zelinksyy and Ukraine and selling out western Democracies...