This is the Feb. 24, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
“Putin has not achieved his goals. He has not broken the Ukrainian people. He has not won this war.”
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
ON THIS DATE
Ukrainian service members fire an anti-aircraft weapon toward a Russian drone from a sunflower field, July 2025. Roman PILIPEY / AFP via Getty Images
Today marks the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s war has caused millions of casualties, thousands of civilian deaths, and the mass kidnappings of Ukrainian children.
Russian attacks against civilians have skyrocketed since Trump re-entered the White House last January. The war remains a bloody stalemate.
Source: The Associated Press
A CONVERSATION WITH REP. RITCHIE TORRES AND THE REV. JOHN UDO-UKON
President Donald Trump is expected to tout his economic record in his State of the Union address tonight — but not everyone in the chamber will be applauding. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York is bringing the Rev. John Udo-Okon, a South Bronx pastor who runs a food pantry where people line up as early as 3 or 4 in the morning, as his guest — a pointed reminder, Torres says, of a very different reality. Both men joined “Morning Joe” to talk about what the affordability crisis actually looks like on the ground.
WG: Congressman, who is Rev. Udo-Okon, and what do you hope Americans will take away from his presence in the chamber tonight?
RT: Pastor John is a faith leader in the South Bronx. He runs one of the largest pantries in one of the poorest congressional districts in America. Donald Trump ran on a promise to lower prices, but he’s done the exact opposite. Under Trump, the cost of food, health care, housing, utilities have all been rising. The president is more concerned with oil in Venezuela and minerals in Greenland than with lowering prices here at home. He promised to put America first — instead, he’s putting working families last.
WG: Pastor, what are you seeing on the ground right now?
JU: One of the first things this administration did when they came into office was pull funding for most of the programs supporting our community. We lost funding for food programs, for health outreach activities — and from Day 1, it has been chaos. So much pain, suffering, and uncertainty.
Many people cannot go to the grocery store because of high prices, and some of the safety nets they depend on, like SNAP benefits, have been under attack.
JL: Tonight, President Trump will likely claim that his economy is working — that he’s even solved the affordability crisis. How do Democrats convince people otherwise?
RT: The notion that Donald Trump has solved the affordability crisis is dangerously delusional. America is the wealthiest country on earth, yet 47 million Americans are struggling to put food on the table. In a country this wealthy, hunger is not an inevitability — it’s a choice. And Donald Trump has chosen to cut Medicaid by $1 trillion, cut SNAP by $200 billion, and to impose tariffs that are effectively regressive taxes on working people.
MB: Pastor, what is your message for the president and Republicans tonight?
JU: As a pastor, I believe that everyone who calls themselves Christian should live by the teachings of the Bible. And the cardinal teaching of the Christian faith is love. Love God, love your neighbor as you love yourself. There is no love in taking food away from children. There is no love in putting seniors on fixed incomes at risk. There is no love in taking health care from the poor.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for brevity and clarity.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS WALTZES TO THE TOP OF THE BOX OFFICE
Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie have reason to smile: “Wuthering Heights” is now the top movie in the world, with ticket sales surpassing $150 million.
Variety reports that the gothic romantic drama was the No. 1 international box office draw this past weekend, and it has surprised studio execs by becoming a massive hit overseas, with foreign ticket sales climbing to $91.7 million to date.
ICE’S DETENTION EXPANSION: NOT IN MY BACKYARD
A protest against ICE detention facilities held last week in Melrose Park, Ill.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is converting warehouses across the country into immigrant detention centers — and the backlash is arriving from places the administration likely did not expect.
ICE tells MS NOW it has already purchased 10 facilities, which it says will meet regular detention standards and bring hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue to each surrounding community.
But resistance is growing on multiple fronts. In towns from Surprise, Arizona, to Social Circle, Georgia, Trump voters are joining Democrats in pushing back, with concerns ranging from strained local infrastructure to the humanitarian implications of holding people in industrial warehouses for an average of 60 days.
Mississippi Republican senator Roger Wicker said a proposed ICE facility in his state was scrapped after he sent a letter of opposition to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Late last week, Bishop Brendan Cahill, the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, called the plans “deeply troubling.”
“The thought of holding thousands of families in massive warehouses,” he said, “should challenge the conscience of every American.”
EXTRA HOT TEA
LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES
You never know what you’re going to get — and apparently, neither does the grandson of the man who invented Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Brad Reese, whose grandfather H.B. Reese founded the Reese candy empire, is calling out parent company Hershey after discovering the company has quietly swapped real milk chocolate for “chocolate-flavored coating” in a recent Valentine’s Day edition of the beloved treat.
“For most of my life I ate at least one Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup per day, and sometimes something seasonal like a Reese’s heart or a Reese’s Christmas tree,” Reese told NBC News. “But this was inedible. I threw it in the garbage.”
In a letter that went viral, Reese accused Hershey of abandoning the ingredients that built “Reese’s trust” — i.e., real peanut butter and milk chocolate. In a statement, Reese’s said it had made recipe adjustments to a few of its products, but not its Peanut Butter Cups.
It’s part of a broader trend: Candy companies have spent recent years quietly raising prices and swapping out ingredients in response to higher cocoa costs, labor shortages, and drought.
Forrest Gump tried to warn us.
ONE MORE SHOT
Boston Red Sox third baseman Marcelo Mayer and manager Alex Cora share a laugh in Fort Myers as spring training kicks into full swing. With all the money the New York Yankees are spending on their payroll, Boston insider Jon Lemire says the Sox will be lucky to win 50 games this year.
CATCH UP WITH 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."