This is the Nov. 17 edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
The patience of God in extending grace to us all has always moved me, and it’s a model we should carry more often into our political lives.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has said some terrible things. If you’d like me to make a long list here, I could. I’d rather focus on what she said this weekend on CNN:
“I would like to say, humbly, that I’m sorry for taking part in toxic politics. It’s very bad for our country. I am committed to working on this and want to see people be kind to one another. We need to figure out a new path forward because as Americans, no matter what side of the aisle we’re on, we have far more in common than we have differences. We need to be able to respect each other even with our disagreements.”
The morning after the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt in July 2024, I called Donald Trump for the first time in seven years to tell him that I was praying for his safety. The former — and future — president said that the trauma of that day was making him reconsider his rough-and-tumble approach to politics.
Trump’s change of heart lasted about a week.
For the sake of America, I’m hoping MTG’s turn toward civility and understanding lasts a little longer — and that others who have been sowing division and preaching hate will find the courage to follow her lead.
SPEAKING WORDS OF WISDOM
Someone who says I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life.
— Pope Leo XIV, Sept. 30, 2025
AMAZING GRACE FOR MTG?
After years of flame-throwing, Marjorie Taylor Greene is suddenly sounding like a champion of compassion. Over the weekend, she posted a video calling for “understanding, not outrage.”
Her about-face caught the political world off guard. And for good reason.
Here’s a brief list of some of MTG’s worst moments:
- Calling Democrats “enemies of America”
- Suggesting Nancy Pelosi should be executed for “treason”
- Spouting conspiracies about Jewish “space lasers”
- Mocking school shooting survivors as “actors”
“I’ve been working on this a lot lately — to put down the knives in politics,” she said. “I really just want to see people be kind to one another.”
Only time will tell whether the Georgia Republican is experiencing her own road-to-Damascus moment or angling for a future White House bid — or both.
As my legal mentor Ed Moore likes to remind me, “The proof is in the pudding.”
A PRAYER FOR DESMOND —
AND FOR AMERICA
A guest esssay by Mike Barnicle
At 1:42 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 14, the wonderment — and the worry — arrived. The darkness in the distance had been swept aside by the arrival of a child, an infant born into a world that now seems increasingly filled with fear.
His father and mother named him Desmond — Desmond James Barnicle. He is our 11th grandchild, all of them under age 8. All of them innocent, loved and unaware of the foundations of our democracy being shaken, disturbed and threatened seemingly every day.
Each morning begins with a headline. Many are disturbing. Many make you wonder what kind of lives the young will lead in this land that has offered so many miracles to so many citizens for almost 250 years — but now seems stalked, endangered even, by the approaching shadows of uncertainty.
America has never been perfect, not in its past and not today. But it has always been the one country where the dream of building a better life was alive, where optimism about the future wasn’t a fantasy.
As we left the hospital where a new life had just arrived, I thought about all of his ancestors — my parents and grandparents — and their path through history: the trek from Ireland to America, the Depression, wars, the climb up the economic ladder, sadness, and success. I wondered if young Desmond, his cousins and so many others would be able to take advantage of the same promise that is, and always has been, the great gift that is America.
And then I prayed.
TRUMP IN RETREAT
Truman Capote opened his unfinished novel “Answered Prayers” with a warning borrowed from St. Teresa of Ávila: “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”
Add Donald Trump to the list of the disappointed, as his wish to be America’s Napoleon appears to be coming true.
Winter is coming, and Trump is in retreat. As with the French emperor’s disastrous November withdrawal from Russia, Trump’s November is starting to look less like a coronation and more like a humiliating backtrack. The setbacks are stacking up: This White House is not marching forward. It’s in full-blown retreat — and the snow is starting to fall. The self-styled strongman is suddenly the one bending the knee to his base — on the Epstein files and tariffs. MAGA lawmakers are ready to unseal sex abuser records and more than willing to roll right over their leader. Meanwhile, the White House is finally acknowledging what it has long denied: that tariffs are a tax that American shoppers pay. On both fronts, the president seems to be waving a white flag. Never underestimate the former reality TV host’s knack for survival. He may be on the back foot today, but no one in modern American politics has mounted a more shocking comeback than Donald J. Trump. As Winston Churchill once reportedly said of the Russians, they are never as strong as they look, and they are never as weak as they look. But at the moment, the White House’s swaggering first-year blitz is devolving into something closer to a Napoleonic run-for-your-life scramble. The Little Corporal famously lamented that fortune stopped smiling on him after Moscow. Will Trump share a similar fate? America is about to find out. San Francisco never elected him, but the local legend known as the Mayor of 16th Street ruled his block with a soft paw and a steady purr — until a Waymo cut short his administration. KitKat — a brown tabby who’d long served as the Mission District’s unofficial mascot — wasn’t just any cat. He was the neighborhood’s greeter, a fixture outside the corner market and the rare public figure everyone actually liked. His death under the wheels of a driverless car felt less like an accident and more like a jolt, a reminder that autonomous vehicles are moving through the city faster than residents can decide how they feel about them. In the days that followed, the sidewalk memorial swelled — marigolds, candles, handwritten notes, jugs of milk, a stuffed mouse — and so did the questions. Locals wondered why robotaxis get to navigate crowded streets with so little community input and why responsibility takes a back seat whenever there’s no human behind the wheel. KitKat may have been the victim, but the debate sparked by this furry fixture goes far beyond one city block: As autonomous fleets expand, who — or what — is really steering the future of American roads? If the nine-lived mayor of the Mission District couldn’t keep his footing, the rest of us might want to watch our step. This week, comedian Patton Oswalt joins us to discuss “Black Coffee and Ice Water,” his new Audible Original stand-up special. Want to ask a question? Send it over, and we will pick our favorite to ask on the show!
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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