by Joe Scarborough | Jul 27, 2026 | Morning Joe, News Analysis, Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea Spilled Morning Joe, The Tea, Spilled
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
by Shawna Thomas | Jul 25, 2026 | News Analysis
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 The administration has withdrawn its subpoenas of New York Times reporters (and some of their loved ones), but just last week Trump used a primetime speech on (debunked) 2020 election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
by David Armiak | Jul 25, 2026 | AI, ALEC, ALEC annual meeting, American Legislative Exchange Council, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Climate Crisis, Critical Infrastructure Bills, data centers, education, Energy, Fossil Fuel Industry, Heritage Foundation, ICE, Leonard Leo, News Analysis, PFAS, Privatization, Voter ID, Voter Suppression, Voting Rights
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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by Chip Gibbons | Jul 24, 2026 | Cold War, counterterrorism, Criminalization, cuba, Donald Trump, FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, Marco Rubio, McCarthyism, News Analysis, NSPM-7, Stephen Miller, Surveillance, Trump Administration, War On Terror
The Trump administration’s drive to turn the machinery of counterterrorism against left-wing movements worldwide kicked into a higher gear this month surrounding its convening of an international “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism.” On July 16, 2026, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau stood before representatives of over 60 nations assembled for the global summit…
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by Laurel Elder | Jul 24, 2026 | 2026 midterms, Abortion, Abortion Access, abortion bans, abortion rights, Dobbs v. Jackson, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, elections, midterms, News Analysis, Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court
It’s been four years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion. In the immediate aftermath of the decision, national attention centered on implementation of state bans and a rapidly shifting legal landscape. But four years later, one of the most impactful developments has…
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by Eman Abu Zayed | Jul 24, 2026 | environmental crisis, Gaza, medical waste, News Analysis, Palestine, Pollution, sanitation, Toxic Waste, Waste Management
Just a few hundred meters from Al-Ma’madani Hospital in the center of Gaza City lies Firas Market, which has turned into a site for heaps of mixed garbage as medical waste accumulates alongside household trash, commercial trash, and rubble remnants. The piles stretch across the market and between buildings, suffocating the city with choking odors and rising dust, right next to passersby and…
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