This is the May 12, 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
“You’ll never see me sleeping in front of cameras.”
— President Donald Trump, on Andrew Schultz’s podcast in 2024
JOE’S NOTE
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
When Joe Biden appeared to nod off at the global climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, Donald Trump had a verdict: “Nobody that has true enthusiasm and belief in a subject will ever fall asleep.”
Yesterday, Trump was resting his eyes during a maternal health care event in the Oval Office — in between making threats to Sen. Katie Britt.
The White House response: “He was blinking, you absolute moron.”
Trump has called Biden “Sleepy Joe” for years. Biden closed his eyes for three seconds at a memorial for the Maui wildfire victims, and the entire Trump machine went crazy.
Last night, while you were sleeping, @realDonaldTrump was wide awake — posting crazed rants 55 times in three hours.
He claimed Barack Obama staged a coup. Hillary Clinton committed treason. The 2020 election was stolen. And Obama — who continues to live rent-free in the president’s head — is “the most DEMONIC FORCE in American politics.”
Maybe sleep is the least of Trump’s problems.
Hunter Biden’s $3 million Ukrainian fee was a scandal, and it was rightly covered for years.
And now? The Trump family is pulling in billions — with family members openly bragging about Pentagon deals and their goal of becoming the richest family in the world by the end of the Trump presidency.
JD Vance wrote the op-ed “Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars.” Tulsi Gabbard said a vote for Kamala Harris was a vote for war, war, and more war.
And now? They justify Trump’s endless wars.
Republicans treated $3.25 gas like a national emergency.
But now? It’s at $4.50 — and suddenly nobody has much to say.
As Jonathan Lemire said today on “Morning Joe,” it’s not that these people are stupid.
“They’re shameless,” he said. “That’s their superpower.”
They said Biden was too old. Too tired. Too compromised. Too dangerous.
And now? They want you to pretend you never heard any of it.
But it’s all on tape. Every word. Every rally. Every tweet.
Recommended
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
It’s still hard to believe 77 million Americans got fooled again.
CHARTS OF THE DAY
ON THIS DATE
In 1963, a “promising young hobo” named Bob Dylan was set to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Dylan planned to perform “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” a satirical song about a John Birch Society member who suspected everyone around him of being a communist. But after a CBS executive asked him to perform a less controversial song, Dylan refused — and the performance was scrapped.
WHAT THEY SAID
Jim VandeHei on “scaling sin”
“We haven’t educated younger people about the consequences of gambling, pornography, or smoking weed. The effects are far more powerful than people realize, and any commonsense person would agree this is all going to have a profound impact — especially on young men.”
Mike Barnicle on Pittsburgh baseball
“For my money, the Pirates play in one of the best ballparks built in the last 10 or 15 years. They’ve got a bunch of young kids and the best pitcher in Major League Baseball — and it’s good to see them coming back. Pittsburgh is a sneaky good story.”
David Ignatius on Iran
“Trump faces a terrible dilemma in Iran: Tehran is trying to choke out the United States and its allies by blocking oil exports from the Gulf, and it looks like the Iranian choke-out may be working more quickly than the U.S. choke-out on Iran. Right now, Trump doesn’t have good answers — on either the diplomatic or military front.”
HOW TRUMP IS TRYING TO FOOL AMERICANS WITH HIS GAS TAX HOLIDAY
The national average price for gas remained above $4.50 per gallon Monday, according to AAA, with little relief on the horizon as the war with Iran remains locked in a stalemate. President Donald Trump said Monday that he would be open to suspending the national gas tax to help with the soaring costs — but it’s a proposal that would do more harm than good in the long term, while providing little immediate help for Americans draining their wallets at the pump.
Trump told CBS News on Monday that a pause on the gas tax is “a great idea” and that when the price of gas does go down, “we’ll let it phase back in.” Later that day, the president told reporters in the Oval Office that the tax would ideally be suspended until “it’s appropriate.” His comments echoed those of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who told NBC News on Sunday that “all measures that can be taken to lower the price at the pump and lower the prices for Americans, this administration is in support of.”
EXTRA HOT TEA
55
— The number of times President Trump posted in three hours overnight
ONE MORE SHOT
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Former Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., is co-host of MS NOW's "Morning Joe" alongside Mika Brzezinski — a show that Time magazine calls "revolutionary." In addition to his career in television, Joe is a two-time New York Times best-selling author. His most recent book is "The Right Path: From Ike to Reagan, How Republicans Once Mastered Politics — and Can Again."