Success breeds success, just as failure feeds failure. And right now, President Donald Trump’s Republican Party is getting buried by a blizzard of bad news:
- Democrats’ massive wins over the GOP in last week’s elections keep looking worse for the party that owns Washington.
- Republicans stand to lose six seats through redistricting fights after Election Day.
- Just 1 in 3 Americans now approve of Donald Trump’s management of the U.S. government.
- Democrats are enjoying their largest polling lead over Republicans since the massive “blue wave” election of 2018.
But wait. There’s more.
Yesterday’s explosive news surrounding the Epstein emails created a five-alarm political fire that Team Trump has spent the past 24 hours desperately trying to put out.
In a preposterously inappropriate move, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly lobbied Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., to remove her name from the discharge petition that would force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Boebert was unmoved.
In a sign of Trump’s waning strength on all things Jeffrey Epstein, South Carolina’s Rep. Nancy Mace also rejected White House overtures to strike her signature from the petition, saying releasing the Epstein documents was personal to her.
With a flood of Epstein emails going public, Politico’s Kyle Cheney and Nahal Toosi report that Epstein offered to act as a conduit between the Russians and Donald Trump.
The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich details how D.C. Republicans are increasingly viewing the president as a lame-duck president whose power is in decline. I interview Mark below.
And, in a “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” debut, Mika writes about the swearing-in of Adelita Grijalva to the People’s House yesterday in an extraordinarily moving moment.
Enjoy ☕️
“It’s time for Congress to act as a check and balance on this administration. That’s why I’ll sign the Epstein petition now. Justice can’t wait.”
Rep. Adelita Grijalva, during her first floor speech as a member of congress
FEAR OF FILES FLUMMOXES GOP
The one story the White House wants Washington to ignore is the one story Americans can’t get enough of.
And yesterday, Trump’s team took a bad situation surrounding the Epstein files and made it worse. Republicans on both sides of Pennsylvania Ave. kept stumbling over themselves in ways that guaranteed even more breathless press coverage.
As the two top Justice Department officials tried — and failed — to pressure Boebert to remove her name from the Epstein discharge petition, the GOP erred again: The Republican-led House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 documents, apparently hoping to distract from the smaller batch of damning materials Democrats made public hours before.
Instead of overwhelming reporters with documents, the GOP’s move only fanned the political flames.
Because of the GOP’s collective panic attack, Democrats in Congress and reporters across Washington now have weeks of new material to dig through — all tied to the one story Donald Trump most wants to keep out of the headlines.
And now begins the countdown to the U.S. House voting on releasing the Epstein files. Imagine the stories and subplots that process will create.
The drama will then move to the other side of the Capitol complex in the Senate chamber. For those lazily suggesting the bill will be dead on arrival there, ask yourself why the White House is fighting so hard to kill it before it even gets a vote in the House.
Think about how tough it will be for any Republican senator to vote against full transparency in a case involving the most notorious pedophile of this century — especially when that’s what the MAGA base wants most.
ADELITA GRIJALVA ENTERS STAGE LEFT
A guest essay by Mika Brzezinski
“Gracias,” she said, greeted by applause in the House chamber.
“I stand as the proud granddaughter of a bracero — a hardworking Mexican immigrant who came here for a better life — and as the daughter of a U.S. congressman.”
At 55, this mother of three is now the Democratic face fighting for health care and against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and pressing for justice in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal — delayed 50 days by the Republican speaker. For Democrats looking for hope, Adelita Grijalva’s floor speech delivered.
“From bracero to Congress in one generation — that’s the promise of America, and the country I want for my children.”
Finally celebrating her landslide win to fill her late father’s seat, Grijalva spoke in both English and Spanish, marking her milestone as the first Latina and first Chicana from Arizona in Congress.
She wasted no time in addressing the moment’s challenge:
“The real concern is not just what this administration has done, but what the majority in this body has failed to do — hold Trump accountable as a coequal branch of government.”
Her delayed swearing-in made her the decisive 218th vote to force action on releasing the Epstein files.
“It’s time for Congress to act as a check and balance on this administration. That’s why I’ll sign the Epstein petition now. Justice can’t wait.”
Speaker Mike Johnson — who blamed the 50-day delay on the shutdown — still praised Grijalva: “She’s going to be an excellent member of Congress.”
Hear, hear. We agree.
DONALD TRUMP: LAME DUCK
The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich posted a column yesterday morning on Donald Trump’s waning influence even before the latest Epstein controversy erupted. Leibovich noted that Republicans were beginning to view Trump as a lame duck president for the first time. I asked Mark about his reporting — and about how the latest Epstein news could deepen Trump’s early onset of lame-duck syndrome.
JS: Do Republicans increasingly view Donald Trump as a lame-duck president?
ML: Donald Trump, clinically speaking, is a lame duck. He is term-limited, and, up to now, his main overriding concern has been that no one noticed he was a lame duck — and that no one treated him like one. Little by little, it becomes more evident that he is. And little by little, people will begin treating him that way. Expect the president to get angry and try to punish those who start slighting him. I don’t think it will be pretty.
JS: Republican Ed Rogers had a fascinating insight in your piece. He said Donald Trump’s scam of running for a third term was to delay his “lame-duckedness.”
ML: That’s a real word in Alabama.
JS: Yes, it is. Have you noticed any change in attitudes toward him since the president admitted he couldn’t run for a third term?
ML: The combination of him being more definitive about not being able to run and the crushing defeats in New Jersey and Virginia have had an impact. I would usually call out people for overstating the importance of most elections, but you can’t ignore its impact on how people view Trump, because the margins were just so astonishing. Hispanics went sharply against Republicans, young people defected in droves, and now the Epstein controversy will be difficult for Republicans and the White House to keep spinning.
JS: There was a fascinating moment you described when Donald Trump went to the Senate and was pushing Republicans to ditch the filibuster. A Republican senator laughed at him?
ML: Yeah. Mike Rounds laughed out loud at Trump. And he’s not a Susan Collins or Rand Paul type. But none of them were going to even consider killing the filibuster for Donald Trump. That’s an indication that something is happening in Washington — but I wouldn’t quite call it a jailbreak.
EXTRA HOT TEA
After more than two centuries of loyal service, the penny — the lightest coin in our pockets, the heaviest in history — was officially laid to rest yesterday. The cause of death: irrelevance and escalating expense, according to the Department of the Treasury.
Born in 1793 and bearing the likeness of Abraham Lincoln since 1909, the 1-cent coin weathered recessions, recoveries and the ringing of registers across the nation. Once a proud emblem of thrift — “a penny saved is a penny earned” — it gradually became more nuisance than necessity, abandoned in couch cushions and on sidewalks and costing almost 4 cents to make.
The penny is survived by the nickel, dime, quarter and a generation of sentimental Americans who still stoop to pick it up for luck.
In the end, it simply didn’t make cents.
ONE LAST SHOT
CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE
SPILL IT!
This week, Edgar Wright and Lee Pace join us to discuss their new film, “The Running Man.” Want to ask a question? Send it over, and we might pick one to ask on the show.