Podcast
The Nicole Sandler Show
Hosted by Nicole Sandler · EN
Speaking Truth to Power from a progressive point of view with the irreverence it demands
112episodes
Episodes
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Emptywheel Friday: Bribery, Binance, Bolton & More BS
Jun 601:28:22Tap to summarizeIt's another Emptywheel Friday in which Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net helps us figure out what went on this week. Today, we got into Todd Blanche literally telling Congress that Trump can't be held accountable for accepting a bribe... and then getting named acting AG the next day. We talked about the DOJ "fraud task force" that's really just a scheme to chase people on SNAP while shielding Trump's billion-dollar crypto corruption. Pam Bondi's Epstein deposition transcript dropped and there's a lot to unpack — including what's still being hidden and why. Plus the SPLC superseding indictment, FISA leverage, Bolton's guilty plea, Trump sleeping through cabinet meetings on camera, and a UFC cage in front of the White House that Trump is now comparing to the Eiffel Tower. No, really.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Trump Makes No Sense, but Lisa Graves Tries to Explain Anyway
Jun 501:17:42Tap to summarizeI 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 he!Meanwhile, the official legal expert of the Nicole Sandler Show joined me from Netroots Nation (just getting underway in Philly) to explain how the Roberts Court is systematically bleaching out Black voters in the South — and what we can actually DO about it.Also: Marco Rubio was "co-located" at a UFC fight during a nuclear crisis. That's his word. Co-located. And there's a lot more on today's show, including a mystery from the concert and the beautiful Fox Theater in Tucson too.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Catching Up on Blanket Immunity, Slush Funds, the Murder of 60 Minutes & more
Jun 301:03:58Tap to summarizeRemember 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 Todd Blanche testimony where he somehow couldn't figure out what a conflict of interest is, the blanket immunity deal the DOJ quietly handed Trump (no, the slush fund got walked back, but THAT part didn't), Dr. Oz explaining that people who don't use their insurance are committing fraud (???), and my husband David Sloane — sports agent of 40+ years — joins me to explain why the Protect College Sports Act is neither protective nor sporting.Plus: Tina Peters gets out of jail and immediately goes back to the greatest hits. And even more!Subscribe, share, and try to remember to take your blood pressure medication first.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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The DOGe Ate Our Social Security with Alex Lawson of Social Security Works
Jun 201:01:19Tap to summarizeMy 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. It's heartbreaking and infuriating, and you need to see it.Then Alex and I talked about: Why "Medicare Advantage" is neither Medicare nor an advantage — and what happens when you actually get sick, the trillion-dollar Medicaid cut that's already closing hospitals in Montana and Nebraska, prior authorization showing up in TRADITIONAL Medicare now (I'm living it — literally wearing a heart monitor right now). Plus what "bureaucratic disentitlement" means and how Florida has turned it into a profitable business, and why we're not hopeless — and what Zohran Mamdani is showing us is possibleIf you have a family member on Medicare or Medicaid, or you're getting close to 65 and making decisions, please listen to this episode and share it. This is our money. These are our programs. And they are being dismantled on purpose.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Karem Goes To Cannes, Spreads Chaos Courtesy of Trump
Jun 101:01:27Tap to summarizeGet 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 about us. We covered press freedom (the US is now ranked 64th in the world!), the absurdity of the first 100 days of Trump 2.0, why Brian has roughly zero faith in either party right now, and the Bruce Springsteen concert that somehow made both of us feel like things might be okay. At least for one night. As for me, I went kayaking on the Salt River this weekend, got a strangely artistic sunburn and capsized. And we didn't even catch a glimpse of the wild horses. But I heard that a herd crossed about five minutes down the river from where we exited. Just call me lucky, or not.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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It's Another Emptywheel Friday with Marcy Wheeler on the Nicole Sandler Show
May 2901:12:06Tap to summarizeIt'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 IrelandToday: 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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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How Can This Life Be Real? Digby Joins Nicole Sandler to Make Sense of the Insanity
May 2701:12:15Tap to summarizeThese 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 building a coliseum on the White House lawn for a UFC fight on his 80th birthday. He tried to strongarm Arab leaders into the Abraham Accords during a ceasefire call — as an afterthought — and there was dead silence on the line. The Iran war is over and we lost. Ken Paxton, one of the most corrupt politicians in America, just won the Texas Republican Senate primary because Trump endorsed him and his cult followers said "good enough for Trump, good enough for me."AND — there may actually be a path for James Talarico to win that Senate seat. We talked about what Nate Cohn is seeing in the numbers, and it's more hopeful than I expected. I'll take whatever I can get, at this point!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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CBS Killed Late Night and Free Speech Too!
May 2601:22:30Tap to summarizeI'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/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Memorial Day Memorializing 'Boca' Britany Somers and Howie Klein
May 2501:29:04Tap to summarizeToday, 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 was finally feeling well enough to come back on the air, featuring some of her greatest hits. Then Howie, in his own words, remembering his close friend Lou Reed just days after Lou's death in October 2013. Grab a tissue. Or maybe a laugh. Probably both.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Emptywheel Fridays with Marcy Wheeler who Explains it All
May 2201:20:19Tap to summarizeEvery 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 "terrorist slush fund" — a $1.8 billion bounty that could, allegedly, pay pardoned January 6th rioters, cop assaulters, and at least one convicted child sex abuser who used the promise of a payout to try to silence his victim. And Todd Blanche lied his face off about it in front of the Senate. There are a few lawsuits already challenging this travesty.⚖️ The Broadview 6 case is OVER — dismissed with prejudice after a judge discovered the DOJ had hidden grand jury misconduct with redactions. This is a pattern.🎸 The Late Show's final night was last night, with Paul McCartney helping Stephen turn off the lights. Oh, and the right wing billionaires who killed off one of Trump's biggest TV critics is also shuttering the original news authority - CBS News Radio no longer exists after today. For someone whose entire career has been in radio and who spent a few years in the CBS building on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, this is a true punch in the gut, and just plain wrong.Plus — what YOU can do this Memorial Day weekend while your representatives are out in public. Listen now!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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