This is the Jan. 14, 2026 edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
A guest introduction by Mike Barnicle.
I spoke recently with an old friend — my oldest friend — who came back from Vietnam at the end of 1969 with a Silver Star and memories that still return to him each morning.
My friend told me he never signed up for any of this — an America that, over the past two weeks, has vanished before his eyes.
The Minneapolis Police Department has about 600 sworn officers. More than 2,000 ICE agents are now operating with impunity across the city.
Border Patrol agents sprayed chemical agents at a group that included students, while detaining a special education assistant at a high school.
A woman on her way to a doctor appointment was yanked from her car, thrown to the pavement, and taken away.
A man at a suburban gas station was ripped out of his car, thrown to the ground, and beaten by a gang of masked agents.
But ICE hasn’t just taken people from the streets of Minneapolis. It has taken the reality of what America used to be and thrown it away.
This isn’t going to fade with the next news cycle — or with the distraction of spring breaks or summer vacations.
This is the America the Trump administration has brought to our world. And sadly, it’s an image stamped on the minds of many Americans now asking:
What have we done?
What are we doing?
What have we become?
This machinery of fear — this grinding obscenity of Stephen Miller’s design — is now being operationalized daily by the government of the United States of America.
“Are we really going to be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”
— Influential podcaster Joe Rogan on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s tactics in Minnesota
TRUMP ATTACKS PRESS FREEDOMS WITH EARLY-MORNING FBI RAID
In yet another move aligning the Trump administration more closely with autocratic regimes like Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, FBI agents raided the home of a Washington Post reporter early this morning.
Hannah Natanson, an investigative journalist, had spent the past year documenting the stories of fired federal employees.
Known as the “federal government whisperer,” Natanson fielded calls from anxious workers across agencies ranging from USAID to the Department of Veterans Affairs to the IRS. Her reporting has cast light on the opaque and far-reaching cuts to the federal workforce overseen by Elon Musk and the Trump administration.
The New York Times’ Ben Mullins and Devlin Barrett broke the story of this morning’s raid on Natanson’s home.
A story Natanson published on Christmas Eve appears to have provoked the Trump administration to breach yet another constitutional norm — an episode that underscores, in an already dizzying week of autocratic flexing, how far the former reality-TV host is willing to go to intimidate the press.
AFFORDABILITY AGENDA?
Joe: The president’s speech in Detroit yesterday was filled with false statements regarding the strength of America’s economy.
The president claimed that prices are falling — especially food prices — but that’s not true.
In December, food prices rose at the fastest pace in three years.
The president also said that inflation is “gone.” That is not true, either.
Inflation averaged about 2.7% in 2025. Donald Trump keeps claiming that prices are falling, but data from his own government reveals that’s not true.
The president also repeated his well-worn line that inflation was “higher than ever” under Joe Biden — again, false.
Historically, inflation hit 19% during World War I, nearly 14% in the 1970s, and 13.5% in the early 1980s.
When Biden left office in 2024, inflation was 2.9%.
In Trump’s first year back, it’s 2.7%.
You don’t need a calculator to understand that the inflation rate over Biden‘s last year in office and Trump‘s first year back were about the same.
President Trump inherited the same inflation rate he is taking into 2026. That’s why affordability remains a real crisis: Home heating bills, groceries, and housing costs keep climbing. And now health care is becoming unaffordable for many middle-class families.
Life is getting tougher for working Americans. And that December grocery spike — the worst since 2022 — is exactly where middle-class families will feel pain the most.
Willie Geist: The president’s Detroit speech yesterday was Exhibit A of Trump’s struggle with both the facts and the message surrounding our economy. The data just doesn’t match his claims.
The president said gas was under $2 a gallon, but the national average is about $2.80 — and higher in Michigan, where he spoke. He’s trying to will those fake numbers into existence.
He announced an “affordability agenda” while insisting affordability isn’t a real problem. That contradiction says it all.
To get the real facts, Willie and I asked Steve Rattner to provide charts to the “Morning Joe” family. They are below
.
Watch the full segment below:
EXTRA HOT TEA
ON THIN ICE
ONE MORE SHOT
Harry Styles has hinted that his four-year musical drought is ending, with cryptic billboards appearing in cities around the world, including New York, Palermo, São Paulo, and this one in Soho today, in London.
SPILL IT!
In the coming weeks, actor and comedian Sean Hayes will join us to discuss his new off-Broadway show, “The Unknown,” and actress and writer Jeanette McCurdy will join us to talk about her new novel, “Half His Age.”
Have a question for them? Ask here, and we may feature your question on the show.
CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE
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."