by Joe Scarborough | Jul 8, 2026 | Morning Joe, News, Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea, Spilled
This is the July 8, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
“I don’t want to deal with them, but they’re scum. You know what scum is? They’re scum, they’re sick people, they’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”
— President Donald Trump, saying the memorandum of understanding with Tehran is over in his view, after the U.S. and Iran exchanged new strikes
JOE’S NOTE
JD Vance went on CNN last month and called it “the coolest thing” that IRGC officials were willing to sit down with the United States.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that has spent 47 years funding terrorism — killing Americans and our allies.
There is nothing cool about lifting sanctions and allowing $10 billion in oil revenue to flow to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
There is nothing cool about promising Iran $300 billion in reparations — more than Germany had to pay at the end of World War I at Versailles.
There is nothing cool about a memorandum of understanding worth half a trillion dollars that does nothing except let Iran blackmail us with the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the administration lifted sanctions, the State Department warned that the money would be used to fund terrorism and kill Americans. One week later, it lifted the sanctions anyway.
The Obama administration understood that there was no deal until the entire deal was done. You do not give away your leverage in installments and hope
by Joe Scarborough | Jul 3, 2026 | Morning Joe, News, Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea, Spilled
AMERICA’S 250TH — A GUEST ESSAY BY WALTER ISAACSON
When Thomas Jefferson finished a first draft of what was to become the Declaration of Independence, he sent it to Benjamin Franklin on the morning of Friday, June 21, 1776. “Will Doctor Franklin,” he wrote in his cover note, “suggest such alterations as his more enlarged view of the subject will dictate?”
For the next 10 days, the drafting committee made edits and tweaks. Most notable was the crafting of the soaring second sentence. Other nations had been born out of conquests and rebellions, usually based on tribal or religious identities.
But the United States was born out of an ideal, which they proclaimed in the memorable words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
It may be the greatest sentence ever crafted by human hand.
As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the nation it brought forth, we have become increasingly polarized. But birthdays can be a time to put differences aside and celebrate, with gratitude, who we are. One way to lower the temperature is by appreciating anew the sentence that became our common creed and mission statement.
ON THE CALENDAR
No birthday party quite like a 250th. Americans will turn out this weekend in red, white and blue for barbecues, fireworks, parades and more in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Charlotte and everywhere in between. Happy birthday, America.
In the Big Apple, the “largest flotilla of the world’s tall ships” from more than 20 nations
by Joe Scarborough | Jun 24, 2026 | Morning Joe, News, Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea, Spilled
This is the June 24, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“They want you and your family and all of us to be killed. They want to wipe our civilization off the map. That’s their national motto.”
— Republican senator and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy on the Trump administration’s push to normalize the Iranian regime
JOE’S NOTE
Tip O’Neill, the legendary Democratic speaker of the House, liked to say all politics is local. He always said he got the line from his father.
And last night, Democrats showed they still understand that.
Pundits and podcasters are going to look at New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s endorsed candidates swept all three of their primaries last night, and say the Democratic Party has gone too far left.
But when I ran for Congress in Northwest Florida, people didn’t care what was happening on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They cared about Northwest Florida.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to see in South Carolina.
Democrats there nominated Nancy Lacore, a retired three-star admiral who devoted her life to this country — until Pete Hegseth fired her.
South Carolina voters in November aren’t going to be thinking about whether Mamdani is too much of a socialist or too tough on Israel. They’re going to look at the two candidates in front of them and decide: the war hero or the one who does whatever Trump says?
Same story up north of New York City, where Democrats nominated Cait Conley to take on Mike Lawler. Conley spent 16 years in the Army as
by Rev. Al Sharpton | Jun 19, 2026 | Morning Joe, News, Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea, Spilled
This is the June 19, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
ON JUNETEENTH – By Rev. Al Sharpton
This year, Juneteenth comes to us at a defining hour in the life of this nation. It is a charge to rise to the moral demand this country has so often fallen short of. We know all too well that justice delayed is not an accident; it is a decision. So let us be clear: The work is not finished.
When the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas, finally learned they were free, they were hearing a truth deliberately withheld from them. On June 19th, we reflect on that injustice and indict every force that has tried to make people beg for what is already theirs.
We are living in a time when old fights have new names and new machinery. We are fighting for voting rights because there are still those who want to prevent our people from choosing their leaders. We are fighting redistricting schemes as representation is carved up and diluted behind closed doors. We are fighting for affordability and labor rights because freedom means nothing if families cannot live with dignity. We must not be found asleep while others work to turn back the clock.
This Juneteenth, let us honor the past by refusing to surrender the present. The work is not finished. The dream remains unfinished, and we must not go silent until the promise of freedom is not just remembered but realized.
ON THE CALENDAR
On June 19, 1865, the last enslaved Americans learned they were free. This
by Joe Scarborough | Jun 17, 2026 | Morning Joe, News, Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea, Spilled
This is the June 17, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
HERO OF THE DAY
Maja Hitij – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images
Lionel Messi — the man, the myth, the legend — en route to a hat trick as Argentina defeated Algeria 3-0 yesterday in the 38-year-old’s sixth World Cup.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“If they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head.”
— President Donald Trump on the draft deal with Iran
JOE’S NOTE
Last year, Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump he was “the greatest friend Israel ever had in the White House.”
A year later, not so much.
“Without me, there would be no Israel.”
“I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”
“He has no fucking judgment,” Netanyahu’s best bud said of him.
Strong supporters of Israel have a right to feel betrayed.
It has been a long and bitter journey for Israel and its Arab neighbors since Oct. 7, when more Jews were killed than on any other day since the Holocaust.
Israelis supported Netanyahu’s brutal policies after that slaughter because of the horrors Hamas unleashed on Israel’s sons and daughters. And they continued backing Netanyahu despite his active role in funding the Palestinian terrorist organization in the years leading up to Oct. 7.
So here we are after three years of unrelenting attacks against Hamas, Hezbollah, and neighboring Arab countries. And a few short months after Netanyahu foolishly pushed Donald Trump into invading Iran.
So what has three years of bloodshed brought Israel?
Tragically, a stronger Iran and a more isolated
by Joe Scarborough | Jun 4, 2026 | Morning Joe, News, Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea, Spilled
This is the June 4, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
JOE’S NOTE
During my days in Congress, a pollster presented a study on what made some students more successful in school than others. There were several common denominators for most national honor society members.
Many findings were predictable.
Students whose families had dinner together several nights a week had a better chance of excelling in school, as did those whose families regularly attended worship services together.
But one finding in the research that surprised me was how important family vacations were to a child’s development, especially when it brought a family together on a trip for at least a week every year. I never asked why that was, but intuitively, the research tracked.
Many of my earliest memories come from the backseat of my parents’ station wagon, jammed between my older sister and brother, while our family made its way out of our suburban neighborhood in Doraville, Georgia, all the way to my grandparents’ house in San Diego.
Dad’s family moved out West following the Second World War, and it always provided an excuse for Mom and Dad to show us the country every few years.
We made that journey in a few days because Dad would pack the car with suitcases and kids well before the sun came up, and would then drive 14 hours before unloading us all at a Holiday Inn somewhere in the middle of America.
Along the way, we would pass the Mississippi River, drive endlessly across the flatlands that spanned the Plains states, go through the Painted
