This is the Nov. 12 edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
The New York Times’ lead story this morning reminded me of something the late Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois said as he was leaving his life of public service: “In politics, sometimes when you win, you lose. And sometimes when you lose, you win.”
What Simon said 30 years ago seems especially relevant today.
Arthur Sulzberger’s Times and Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post both prominently featured stories of Capitol Hill Democrats starting to realize that the government shutdown deal that commentators and comedians claimed they lost could eventually turn out to be a big winner — for both their party and Americans struggling with health care costs.
The shutdown turned the president’s focus from his strongest issue to his weakest. Instead of allowing Trump to rant on crime, the shutdown steered the national debate toward health care and affordability.
On those two issues, Democrats won big.
With another shutdown looming in January, Democrats are positioned for victory. Republicans, meanwhile, face an affordability crisis that they refuse to confront.
And it’s only getting worse. Premiums are climbing, families are feeling squeezed, and yet the president keeps insisting there’s no problem.
Let late-night comedians and preening presidential aspirants mock Democrats for caving, but this political fight is far from over.
When the next showdown hits Capitol Hill, voters will remember who tried to lower their bills — and who kept suggesting they were stupid for thinking anything was wrong.
It’s only teenage wasteland.
BRAIN ROT: NOW WITH SNAZZY AI FEATURES!
Smartphones are rotting your brain — and more people are beginning to notice. “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul is one of them. He told The Wall Street Journal that ditching his smartphone and computer has made him “feel healthier and happier.”
“There’s just too much information we’re drowning in constantly,” he said. “I don’t think we’re meant for that.”
Now the actor carries a stripped-down Light Phone, which only does the basics. The company behind it says it’s built to help people stay “intentional, mindful, and present for what matters most.”
However you do it, cutting back on screen time might be the smartest move a lot of Americans can make.
Plenty of recent research backs that up. Studies have found that heavy smartphone use can mess with memory, focus and attention — and even change how the brain works in areas tied to decision-making. Too much time on screens has also been linked to anxiety, depression, ADHD and obsessive-compulsive disorder in teens, plus sleep problems, stress and cognitive decline for just about everyone.
Even Silicon Valley knows it’s a problem. Most of the tech world’s biggest names don’t let their kids spend much time in front of screens.
Still, that new iPhone 17 camera is pretty sweet.
PETE TOWNSHEND CATCHES HIS SECOND WIND
The Who’s rock opera “Quadrophenia” is coming to New York City this week in the form of a ballet, decades after it became a cult film favorite and more than half a century after Pete Townshend’s masterpiece became a rock classic. I sat down with the music legend and asked about the enduring power of the album, the continued reach of his most defining riffs and catching his second wind at 80.
This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
JS: Talk about why “Quadrophenia” remains relevant 50 years later.
PT: It’s the story of growing up. It comes round and round. From Romeo and Juliet back to the Bible onwards, we know that growing up is hard, and it manifests itself in different ways. And in today’s generation, young people are ever more concerned with self-examination and making sure that their processes are right, whether it’s about gender issues, sexual issues or political issues. I grew up in the postwar era, when what we were really worried about was the nuclear bomb, and now even that is back in black.
JS: Do you look back 50 years and ask, “How did I write with such insight when I was so much younger?”
PT: My dad was a musician. He didn’t think much of my music [laughs]. He was a dance band musician, a brilliant saxophonist and clarinetist, and I grew up with that music. I loved it, you know, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, just wonderful music. When I got my first electric guitar, Woody Guthrie, skiffle, Bill Haley and Elvis came along, and I just switched sides and started to play the guitar. That was hard on my dad — because he could see that the end was coming for his music.
JS: But wasn’t it his music that laid the foundation for some of your best songs?
PT: Yes. I grew up with my dad’s classics. So even though I was young, I’d had a tremendous indoctrination into great music — particularly show music, Broadway musicals, show hall tunes. It fell in my lap.
JS: You had an explosive burst of creativity in those years.
PT: I did, and what surprises me looking back was how much I did in a short period of time — and then how little I did over a long period of time. After the 1980s, I slowed down as a composer. I kept writing, but I stopped releasing stuff. So I must have about 150 really quite good songs that have never been released.
JS: But the rock anthems still have a grip on our culture, don’t they?
PT: When I’m onstage now and “Baba O’ Riley” starts to tinkle away in the background with the Who, I think, “How did I do that?” It was such a miraculous kind of sound. It was an accident of sound. But how did I manage to grapple with it? It’s now up to 1.5 billion streams on Spotify. It’s still a huge hit. It gets used by a lot of sports teams during their games. I’m always impressed looking back at the advances that I made. But you know what happens is that you do run out of steam. You know, rock ’n’ roll is a bit like sport. You need to be high energy, you need the adrenaline, you’re running on empty most of the time, but then you get to a certain point, and it just stops. I think that’s what happened to me. And now I’m 80 — and I seem to be speeding up again!
EXTRA HOT TEA
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
During Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, the word around Buckingham Palace was that the monarch could be quite demanding with her children. Now her grandson William, Prince of Wales, is taking a firm hand in guiding his royal heirs away from smartphones. Good luck there, Wills!
“Our children don’t have phones … And to be honest, it’s getting to the point where it’s becoming a little bit of a like tense issue.”
Prince William
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.
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."