This is the May 22, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
Don’t look now, but Republicans have spent the past few days pushing back against their supreme leader — Donald J. Trump. And not just those who have found their voice after being chased from Congress.
That kind of “courage” will likely last no longer than a two-martini lunch at the Capitol Hill Club, but still, a few things are worth noting:
GOP senators are finally saying no to the funding of Trump’s Marie Antoinette Ballroom; they are rebelling against his $1.776 billion slush fund for cop beaters; and many are pushing for a vote on authorizing the war in Iran.
While Trump still holds sway over his party’s most extreme base, the president’s recent victories over his GOP enemies in primary contests are already proving pyrrhic.
Republican senators — angry that Trump endorsed John Cornyn’s opponent and worked to beat Bill Cassidy — are taking out their anger on the White House’s most outrageous projects.
Let’s see how their profiles in courage last.
On the subject of true courage, we remember those Americans who gave their lives for the cause of freedom this Memorial Day weekend.
My family and I are forever grateful for these heroes’ service and sacrifice to America. And today, let us remember those who lost friends and family members in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While editorial writers and cable news commentators may still call those wars strategic failures, people who were forced to endure life under those evil regimes owe much to American heroes who died to liberate them from tyrants and religious extremists.
Both wars were bitter strategic failures.
Afghanistan dissolved into chaos before the last U.S. plane left its airspace, and the Iraq War was built on a lie.
But as Gen. Mark Hertling explained this morning, our troops’ sacrifices during that time led to real successes in the closing chapters of Iraq.
What Hertling and Gen. David Petraeus achieved during the surge of 2007-08 transformed the country in ways unimaginable just a few years earlier.
If you have a moment, read this 2008 article from the great war correspondent Dexter Filkins. It is a reminder that despite repeated political failures from Washington, our troops overcame civilian failures and achieved great things.
Iraq is far from a model of Jeffersonian democracy in 2026, but its people are more free today — and have hope for a better tomorrow — because American and allied troops gave their last full measure of devotion at the height of that terrible war.
I remember interviewing NBC war correspondent Richard Engel on the 20th anniversary of the war’s start. The same great reporter who was rightly one of George W. Bush’s most searing critics told me two decades later about students sitting behind him who were loudly debating America’s impact on their country. Richard briefly choked up while noting that before the war, students like those debating behind him could have been killed if leaders didn’t like what they said.
The same will surely be true one day in Afghanistan. American heroes gave Afghans two decades of freedom from the Taliban’s radicalism and tyranny.
Though neither war ended with a majestic ceremony on a battleship, few things in life have such clean endings. Instead, victory is won over time — sometimes over generations — by countless acts of heroism, courage, and sacrifice.
For families who have suffered unimaginable loss, few can comprehend the pain you endure every day. All we can do is offer our prayers — and the assurance that we will do everything we can to guarantee that all they nobly fought and died for will not be in vain.
That, at least, will be my prayer this Memorial Day.
ON THE CALENDAR
The nation’s capital is hosting a Memorial Day concert honoring service members and military families. Gary Sinise and Mary McCormack host this year’s 37th annual broadcast from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol — a moving lineup that includes Noah Wyle, Alan Jackson, Andy Grammer, Mickey Guyton, and the National Symphony Orchestra. It airs live on PBS Sunday at 8 p.m. ET and streams on YouTube.
In New York, Knicks fever is running high — the team is in the Eastern Conference Finals, one win away from a trip to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999. Game 3 tips off Saturday night in Cleveland.
Indie music lovers in the Windy City, this weekend belongs to you. The Warm Love Cool Dreams music and arts festival features indie rock and eclectic acts, including Courtney Barnett and Toro y Moi — and free boat rides on the Chicago River.
Out west in the Mission, Carnaval San Francisco is back for its 48th year — and showing no signs of slowing down. Seventeen blocks of Harrison Street transform into a free two-day celebration of Latin American, Caribbean, and African diasporic culture, with five stages, 400 vendors, and a Grand Parade on Sunday morning that stops traffic in the best possible way. ¡Vamos!
Calling all geeks and friends of geeks: Atlanta’s MomoCon — four days of anime, gaming, comics, and eye-popping cosplay — wraps up this Sunday at the Georgia World Congress Center.
If you’re in South Florida, look up. Miami Beach hosts the Hyundai Air and Sea Show — “The Greatest Show Above the Earth” — Saturday and Sunday along Ocean Drive. All six branches of the U.S. military are represented, the Air Force Thunderbirds headline the aerial program, and it’s free. No better way to spend a Memorial Day weekend.
Now, let’s get to your questions.
MAILBAG
$1.776 billion weaponization slush fund? It seems President Trump is trying to recruit a private army, letting people know he would not only pardon them for doing violent acts to ensure he maintains control of Congress, he would also reward them for doing so.
— Rick K., Paris, Me.
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Rick, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but many Republican senators agree with you. The criticism of this slush fund has been overwhelming, with both Democrats and Republicans attacking Donald Trump for wanting to pay people for beating up cops. It looks like this is one awful plan that will be shut down by Congress.
I’m perplexed: Where is all this money coming from? Is there so much tax revenue that paying for ballrooms, slush funds, reflecting pool, etc., etc. is available for spending? If the U.S. Treasury is borrowing all of this and then some, how long is this borrowing/spending frenzy sustainable?
— Beatriz C., Oshkosh, Wis.
Beatriz, it stopped being sustainable years ago. The federal debt is racing toward $40 trillion and is now larger than the U.S. economy.
Washington spends more of your tax dollars paying interest on the national debt than paying for America’s national defense.
That is a far cry from what things were like when I was in Congress. We balanced the budget four years in a row for the only time in the past century, and we actually started to pay down the national debt.
Since then, most of America’s debt has been piled up by Republican presidents — and every Republican president since Dwight Eisenhower has created bigger deficits than their Democratic successor.
All of Trump’s reckless spending has caused such a fiscal crisis that even Social Security and Medicare will go bankrupt in the next seven years.
To save those programs and our economy, Congress needs to repeal Trump’s tax cuts for the rich and cut Pentagon spending from Trump’s outrageous $1.5 trillion proposal this year to about half that amount — which is what it was during Trump’s first year in office.
We also need to spend smarter.
Ukraine has proven that the face of war is changing radically. The Pentagon must adapt with smaller, more agile, and less expensive weapon systems if we want to stay competitive — and fiscally solvent.
Why do the Republicans and Trump think everyday Americans need to be “patriotic “ and sacrifice for his war, and not require anything from the wealthy and billionaires? They got two tax cuts from him. Wouldn’t it be patriotic if they gave them up? You refer to the ballroom as the Marie Antoinette Ballroom. I think this whole administration is right out of Dickens. The laws don’t apply equally, and neither does taxation.
— Katherine G., Moorhead, Minn.
The rich keep getting richer and the middle class keeps getting left further behind. Donald Trump’s massive tax cuts were targeted to help the top 1%, and the tax code continues to favor those with the biggest bank accounts, the most tax lawyers, and the shrewdest consultants.
Congress needs to repeal Trump‘s tax cuts and put a 2% tax on every billionaire — not to punish their success but to dig out of the financial hole Republicans have put America in. Everyone needs to pitch in.
I enjoy your Friday segment with Ryan Holiday. His book, “The Daily Stoic,” is on the table next to my chair. When you talked about “Gift From the Sea,” I was reminded of how much that book meant to me when I was in my 20s. I am 60 now. It hits differently. What books, songs, paintings, sculptures, TV shows have you rediscovered?
— Karen C., Painesville, Ohio
Karen, what a great question.
The most obvious example of this is “The Great Gatsby.” It is the Great American Novel that every high school student is assigned to read. There are themes and subtle emotional complexities that roll through that book that I didn’t understand at 17. Now they are more meaningful and poignant every time I reread F. Scott Fitzgerald.
There’s a William Faulkner book called “Absalom, Absalom” that also strikes me differently now than when I was younger. That is probably because my relationship with the South has grown more complex over the past 10 years.
I grew up in the New South. But over the past decade, politicians in my home region have regressed on many fronts. So Faulkner’s words cut even more deeply today.
I’ve also restarted “Mad Men” and am struck by the timelessness of that remarkable TV series.
Programming note: We will be off on Monday, May 25. See you on Tuesday!
ONE MORE SHOT
A member of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment carries her daughter on her shoulders while placing flags at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on Thursday. Before dawn each year, soldiers begin the process of marking each of the cemetery’s roughly 260,000 headstones ahead of Memorial Day.
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