This is the Nov. 4 edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
An odd confluence of colliding events will put President Donald Trump’s unitary power grab through three stress tests this week — one coming from the Supreme Court, one from Congress and one from the voters.
The Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial this morning dares the John Roberts Supreme Court to do the right thing after it hears arguments in Trump’s tariffs cases. The Journal’s editorial calls out the president’s abuse of emergency declarations that he’s used to seize Congress’s Article I powers.
The editorial could have been headlined “NO KINGS!”
Rupert Murdoch’s conservative paper of record warned that continuing to allow Trump’s power grab on specious emergency grounds, like World Series commercials he found offensive, would be a “real calamity for the country and its constitutional system.” The Journal urges the Roberts Court to rule against the notion that Trump and every future president could govern like a king.
The New York Times is writing about how today’s elections, tomorrow’s court hearing and the ongoing government shutdown could place the first significant restraint on Trump’s attacks against constitutional powers that Madisonian democracy reserves for Congress and the courts.
“All these things are systemic challenges to unilateral power,” Reagan Institute senior fellow Tevi Troy said of this week’s developments.
Democratic wins tonight from New York to California, followed by a rational ruling from the Roberts Court and continued political pain from the government shutdown, may put the president politically on his back foot for the first time since his victory over Kamala Harris one year ago tomorrow.
The noise and the blare, the bands and the screaming, the pageantry and oratory of the long fall campaign, fade on election day. All the planning is over, all effort spent. Now the candidates must wait.
MAMDANI’S CLOSING ARGUMENTS
Zohran Mamdani joined the set of Morning Joe to deliver his closing argument as voters head to the polls today across New York City’s five boroughs.
Here’s what he said:
“If you are happy with the Donald Trump agenda, if you want to see more of Stephen Miller’s immigration agenda, if you think that it’s right that the richest man in the world is dominating our democracy to the benefit of himself, then by all means, vote for Andrew Cuomo. Because those are the men who have endorsed Andrew Cuomo. If you are tired of rent hikes, tired of waiting for buses that never come, tired of thinking of democracy only as an ideal and not something that can deliver on the needs of working people, then this is the campaign for you.”
CHENEY’S CONFLICTED LEGACY
Dick Cheney began his career in Washington in 1969 as a political intern. He would soon become the youngest White House chief of staff in American history. He would also become the House Republican whip, secretary of defense during the first Gulf War, George W. Bush’s vice president and one of only two Republicans who dared to show up on the floor of Congress to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The only other was his daughter Liz.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham told “Morning Joe” that despite Cheney’s role in the Iraq War, “a theme of patriotism ran through his life.”
“Dick Cheney called it like he saw it, and when he was wrong, even those mistakes were made doing what he thought was in the service of America.”
Of the former Republican vice president standing alone with his daughter on the U.S. House floor, Meacham said that Cheney did something no one else in his party dared to do. “This is the kind of thing that changes your obituary,” Meacham said.
Unlike the president he served with, Cheney told Americans he would be voting for Kamala Harris.
“Donald Trump should never be trusted with power again,” he said.
TRUMP WALKING INTO JACK’S TRAP
A guest essay from Dave Aronberg, former Fla. state attorney
President Donald Trump’s retribution tour has enjoyed temporary success as his perceived enemies have felt the brunt of raw prosecutorial power. The cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James are likely to be thrown out before trial, but that isn’t stopping Trump from getting revenge.
There’s an old saying in law enforcement: You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride.
The biggest trophy for Trump’s wall could be former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought the Jan. 6 and classified documents cases against him. The president wants Smith indicted for phantom crimes, while his allies in Congress are trying to compel Smith’s sworn testimony.
Either move would be a strategic mistake for Trump and his cronies.
Smith is the quiet kid at school who always knew when to unleash that well-timed punch whenever a bully grabbed at his lunch money.
Smith has lured his critics, including Trump, into a false sense of complacency. A former chief prosecutor of war crimes for the International Court of Justice at The Hague, the Washington lawyer has a steel backbone that will not bend under Trump’s prosecution. And now, with his name being dragged through the mud, Smith is hitting back with speaking events and a plea to Congress to let him testify in public, rather than behind closed doors.
Smith is ready for a fight, whether in a courtroom or a congressional committee. Will Trump really hand the microphone over to a career prosecutor who wants nothing more than to tell Americans why the president should be sitting in a jail cell instead of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.?
The trap Trump’s minions are setting is not for Smith but for themselves.
EXTRA HOT TEA
CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE
DNC Chair reveals the New Jersey areas he’s watching in today’s governor’s race
‘It reminds me of Trump’: Mamdani has made people feel seen and heard, says NYT managing editor
‘A remarkable American figure’: Jon Meacham on Dick Cheney’s life and legacy
Tomorrow, we’ll have media personality Piers Morgan join us to discuss his new book. 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."