Eddie Glaude believes that, “if we're not angry about our current moment, something's wrong.” Bonded by their experiences covering some of the nation’s most haunting modern stories, the author and Princeton professor joins Nicolle to speak candidly about America as it approaches its 250th anniversary — its complicated history and the sweeping wave of white nationalism surging across it. He touches on his new book, “America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries,” whose first sentence is an assertion of his position: “I do not love America, and never have, especially now." Glaude tells Nicolle that, unlike James Baldwin — who insisted on the right to criticize America because he loved her — he does not “begin with love” when thinking about the nation, and asks a poignant question rooted in his experience as a Black man in America: “Why would you think I would love the country, given my formation?” And yet, however disillusioned, he has hope. “The power of America has always been in its people,” he says. “We just need to get clear on who those people are.”

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Pablo Torre thinks sports are the “skeleton key.” The journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning host of the podcast of “Pablo Torre Finds Out” joins Nicolle to talk about the potent power of the game: how sports weave their way through the political spiderweb, the colossal economic influence of a winning team franchise and how the game — any game — can bring people together and give strangers commonality. But Pablo is quick to call out the increasingly transactional lines between the economics of sports and politics, and he asks a simple but enduring question: “Who's getting rich?” He and Nicolle analyze the spectacle of a cage match on the White House lawn and the awkward reality of a World Cup host at war with a nation it's hosting. But they also celebrate the historic Knicks win against the Spurs, noting the pure joy emanating from New York City as a poignant example of why we are, perhaps, “a better country if we have more sports fans.” Ultimately, Pablo believes that sports are a throughline that connects us all — allowing a first-generation American born in New York and a California native to laugh about a bad Mets season.

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Don Lemon was one of the first journalists that “pissed Trump off,” Nicolle charges out of the gate. A year and a half into the president’s second term, the independent journalist and former CNN anchor is upfront about President Trump’s waning energy, noting that his “battery is fading” and that what happened at MSG during Game Three was a vibe shift: “I think that there'll be a reckoning,  and I think that that reckoning started at Madison Square Garden with the boos.” Operating independently as the host of "The Don Lemon Show" since 2023, Don joins Nicolle this week to talk about the freedom he has now to meet people where they are, amplifying voices that often get lost in the national conversation. Don also shares the backstory of his arrest and subsequent federal charges after covering a protest in a Minneapolis church earlier this year. But for Don, the volatile political climate only means that the pendulum will, inevitably, swing back. “Something good is going to happen to America — and, I believe, the world,” he says, “because of all this turmoil that we're in right now.”

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