This is the Dec. 30 edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
As we move closer to the new year, here’s hoping 2025 is ending in a way that brings you happiness and peace.
I’ve been blessed to have my children home for the holidays. That becomes more rare as they grow up, start their own jobs, raise their families and build their lives.
This year, Thanksgiving and Christmas gave our family the chance to take long walks, laugh over card games, watch too much football, make Christmas ornaments and thank God for our time together.
The break has brought perspective.
I may not be numb to the daily chaos coming out of the White House, but the shortsightedness and stupidity behind the Republican Party’s cruelest insults and policies no longer surprise me.
From bloody deportations to the detention of Americans who don’t look white; from war crimes in the Caribbean to the exploitation of public service to rake in billions; from tax cuts for billionaires to health care cuts for the middle class; from threats to hang a U.S. senator to Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi issuing similar warnings that troops not follow illegal orders.
In Donald Trump’s Republican Party, the madness is the message. And the message is meant to make you mad.
The president’s goal has always been to shock the political world, trigger a reaction to his radical acts and then accuse rational actors of being deranged enemies.
Rob Reiner’s murder?
Trump says it’s Reiner’s own fault — brought on by “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Never mind that Rob mourned the death of Charlie Kirk and criticized liberals for attacking Cheryl Hines’ marriage to RFK Jr. That derangement psychosis now seems to be primarily infecting its own namesake.
Expect 2026 to be worse.
This year, Trump’s lawfare campaigns landed with a thud. James Comey and Letitia James prevailed in court in 2025, while Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan were booted from their jobs as prosecutors.
And next year? Jack Smith? Really?
Even Trump must know that’s a stupid move.
The fear of Smith testifying publicly about the president’s past acts scared Republican House members so much earlier this month that they cowered behind closed doors, refusing to let the prosecutor answer questions in public. Smith has receipts, and Aileen Cannon won’t be around this time to protect Trump’s interests on Capitol Hill. Still, don’t expect Trump’s apparatchiks to change their tune. After all, they aped the president’s “Russia hoax” refrain for a decade, despite Marco Rubio’s Senate Intelligence Committee warning that the Republican nominee’s 2016 campaign posed a “grave counterintelligence threat” to the United States and that it was susceptible to “malign Russian influence.” In 2019, Trump’s foot soldiers blindly defended his blackmailing of Ukraine’s leader after the commander in chief refused to ship military weapons to the beleaguered country unless Volodymyr Zelenskyy dug up dirt on Joe Biden. The president’s henchmen once again mindlessly parroted Trump’s false claims of a “perfect call.” And after the horrors of Jan. 6, Republicans hid their shame by churning out a flurry of conspiracy theories that even Trump‘s own FBI discredited. Maybe that’s why the president’s approval numbers keep dropping in 2025. His act is getting old. And it will be Republicans who will pay for it at the polls in 2026. Remembering English primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall, whose study of primates over six decades was groundbreaking and greatly influential. As we get ready to ring in the new year, the “Morning Joe” family would like to know: Do you have a 2026 resolution?
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." Recommended
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