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!

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Music is the medicine I needed today. Variety's senior music writer and chief critic Chris Willman joins me for a wide-ranging conversation about Bob Dylan's current tour — which I'm catching tonight in Phoenix — the legacy of Clive Davis, Bruce Springsteen's Land of Hope and Dreams run, Taylor Swift, and the new artists worth paying attention to. We also cover Keir Starmer's resignation as UK Prime Minister and what it means (or should mean) for a certain American president who has no intention of following suit. A necessary break from the madness — and a reminder of why music matters more than ever right now.

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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...

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It's Emptywheel Friday — the one day a week where Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net and I sit down to connect the dots and try not to lose our minds. This week we dig into Trump's Iran capitulation: what's actually in the 14-point MOU, why the $300 billion "reconstruction fund" is a payoff to Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff and their Gulf state clients, and why the Strait of Hormuz was already shut again within hours of the announcement. We also cover the reflecting pool algae disaster, the Epstein files and what Todd Blanche was really doing in that Ghislaine Maxwell interview, Bill Pulte at ODNI, FISA 702 going dark, the Broadview 6, and Pete Hegseth's Juneteenth record. Plus — I found out my own voter registration was marked inactive. Check yours. Arizona primary is almost 29 days out (the deadline!). We end with one genuine piece of good news. You'll want to hear it.

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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

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My friend Driftglass is best-known as one of the OGs of the Progressive Blogisphere. Today I helped him mark the eve of the Professional Left Podcast's 1,000th episode with a wide-ranging Wednesday that covers everything from the 40-year history of right-wing media radicalization to Trump's Iran "deal" - actually just a memorandum of understanding that doesn't understand anything. I pulled out a clip from 1984 when one of the original right wing hate talk radio voices Bob Grant -whose show I produced at WMCA at the time. The clip is a shocker to hear today, 42 years later. He was warning candidates then not to be mean. Seriously! He said that the meanest candidate loses. I'd love to see data on that.

In other news, we learned that the January 6th rioters are now attempting to collect millions of dollars of taxpayer money via an obscure federal tort loophole. And while Trump continues lying about President Obama and the deal he made with Iran 10 years ago- and said that the Iranians laughed at him, we looked at the Lego propaganda videos coming out of Iran that are, frankly, more accurate than anything you'd ever hear from the orange one. Plus: JB Pritzker, Illinois politics, and why your uncle probably isn't getting deprogrammed anytime soon.

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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.

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On Sunday night, the evil orange guy who occupies the White House hosted a UFC fight on the South Lawn. With a branded octagon. And military honor guards as ambiance. And a fighter who, after winning his match, grabbed the mic to announce to smear Michelle Obama by saying she's better than he is (that's what he meant, right?). While Joe Rogan grinned next to him like a golden retriever who just found out about steaks.

I didn't watch it. I don't do fights, certainly not trashy fights at the WH, but you can't avoid the sickening clips.

To help make sense of all of it, I brought back Dr. Art Jipson, professor of sociology at the University of Dayton, who studies extremism, culture, and the ways societies lose their collective minds. We talked about what laws the White House UFC event may (or may not) have broken, why we can no longer tell parody from reality (there was an AI video that nearly convinced me the Trump family was suing MSG owner James Dolan over crowd boos, and honestly, I didn't immediately doubt it), and Jean Baudrillard's concept of hyper-reality — which sounds very French-professor-y but is actually the perfect framework for what we're all living through right now.

And a whole lot more, including two clips from one of the early hate-talk radio precursors to today's moronic mic hogs- Bob Grant in 1984 (yes, I was his producer then) that might blow your mind.

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It's another Emptywheel Friday, when Marcy Wheeler brings her vast knowledge from emptywheel.net to the Nicole Sandler Show, and we covered a lot of ground today.  Elon Musk's paper trillionaire status and the fact that he's ALSO currently inciting far-right riots in Belfast (third time in the UK, by the way). The stolen election scanner situation in Maricopa County. The terrorist slush fund — which a federal judge just put on hold, thank you Judge Brinkema. Trump's "Fraud Task Force" that is itself fraudulent. The Epstein investigation, including what the big New York Times piece mysteriously forgot to include (hint: it rhymes with "Schmelania"). And, of course, the UFC cage at the White House, sponsored by Bud Light, Pit Boss Grills, and approximately six other brands, because apparently we live here now.

And as Marcy tells us regularly, the fight against fascism is a slog. It's supposed to be a slog. You will lose sleep and battles and people along the way. But we keep fighting on every front — legal, political, activist — because that's the only way any of this actually moves. And Trump said he loves inflation. So there's that...

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I warned you. I've been talking about the coming El Niño for weeks while the corporate media looked the other way — and then the AP runs the story the same morning I'm finally doing a show on it. Of course!

On today's show, I bring in two essential guests: Kurt Cobb, energy writer and author of the peak oil novel Prelude, breaks down just how precarious the global oil situation is — with the Iran war disrupting supply, strategic reserves draining fast, and futures prices that may spike to $150–$200 a barrel by fall. And Tom DiLiberto, former NOAA El Niño forecaster and now media director at Climate Central, confirms what I've been dreading: El Niño is officially here, it could be the strongest in recorded history, and with climate change amplifying everything, we're in for a rough ride through 2027.

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