If there’s one thing we’ve learned from abortion opponents, it’s that abortion rights, no matter how many times they are affirmed and supported by the electorate, are never a settled issue. In August 2022, less than two months after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Kansas made a defiant stand in favor of abortion rights, one that reverberated across the country. But abortion opponents refuse to take no…
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Tom Mariani spent nearly 40 years working as an environmental attorney inside the U.S. Department of Justice. But the return of President Donald Trump to office last year marked the end of his government career. His departure was part of a mass exodus of civil servants across the federal government, including at the DOJ, in the beginning of the second Trump administration. Over the last year…
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In a recent video released by the State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared, “The inspiration of America to the rest of the world has been extraordinary.” The video, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, hails the legacy of the framers while a voiceover praises the generations who “dedicated themselves to building a more peaceful and…
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This is the July 27, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
Sometimes history rhymes. Sometimes it jumps up and down and repeats.
It is bitterly ironic that the president who for a year has mocked Jimmy Carter for how Iran played him now finds himself in the same position.
Chris Matthews was a speechwriter in the Carter White House, and he’s talked on “Morning Joe” repeatedly about how the Iranians knew exactly what they were doing in 1979 — the flag burnings, the blindfolded diplomats, the daily humiliations designed to destroy Carter politically before the 1980 election.
They knew he was desperate for a deal, and they used that against him. They didn’t release the hostages until Carter left office — minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in.
Now here we are, more than four decades later, and the Iranians are using the same playbook on Donald Trump.
The president — and really more his party — wants out of this war at any cost because of an upcoming election. And the Iranians are using that false deadline to humiliate this president in every possible way. They’re just going to sit back, get the terms they want, and make him look weak.
Asked recently why he didn’t send Special Forces into Iran, Trump answered: “I didn’t feel like being Jimmy Carter.”
The Iranians are already saying “too late.”
CHART OF THE DAY
WHAT THEY SAID
Jon Meacham on content warning signs at the Smithsonian
“The American republic was founded, in part, to resist the human tendency toward autocracy — which makes the present irony as thick as
As the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner approached Friday night, there was continued annoyance in some quarters about journalists sitting down with President Donald Trump as tensions between his administration and the media have dominated headlines.
So why hold the dinner at all?
Some question the point of of attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, after the April gala was cut short when a gunman breached a security checkpoint.
Yes, the Trump team’s hostility toward journalists and journalism has been on display. The administration has withdrawn its subpoenas of New York Times reporters (and some of their loved ones), but just last week Trump used a primetime speech on (debunked) 2020 election interference to criticize ABC News and NBC News for making an independent editorial decision to not air his remarks live.
“In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech,” Trump said. “They knew what it was about; because of the fact that they don’t like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is, and they don’t want to reveal it. They and others in the media are part of a plot.” He soon added: “Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses.”
Play
Fact-checking Trump’s primetime speech election claims
July 17, 2026 / 03:04
To be clear, there is no evidence of fraud or a larger media plot. But that has not stopped Trump from repeating such accusations or from being harshly disparaging of journalists, particularly women. Some of his low blows over the past year include scolding, “Quiet, quiet, piggy” when a Bloomberg reporter asked about the Epstein files. He
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) faithful descend on the Sunshine State this week for the right-wing bill mill’s annual meeting at the four-star JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes. In addition to smoking stogies at a “late night cigar reception,” sipping drinks, and trying out Meta’s latest “AI-powered wearable technologies,” attendees are considering model policies designed to…
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