This is the Jan. 29, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
First Pam Bondi in Minnesota. Now Tulsi Gabbard in Georgia.
John Heilemann likes to say that everything Donald Trump does is either confession or projection. If that’s true, it’s fair to ask why this administration is making such an effort to seize states’ voting rolls.
What we are seeing looks less like a legitimate investigation and more like a coordinated attempt to influence the 2026 election.
The sight of the national intelligence director in Atlanta yesterday — reportedly assisting the FBI in seizing voter rolls from Fulton County — raises troubling questions. This is especially true because Warner said his committee received no warning of any foreign intelligence threat that would justify such an extraordinary move.
So why are Trump’s attorney general and his DNI so fixated on voter data? And how far are they willing to go in their effort to access — or effort to seize — state election records?
This comes after a Department of Government Efficiency-related data breach last year exposed sensitive voter information, after which DOGE “coordinated with a third-party voter advocacy group,” bypassing guardrails to protect voters’ information to analyze election results. Taken together, the pattern is hard to ignore.
Trump has already warned Republicans repeatedly that Democrats will impeach him if they retake Congress. He’s even gone so far as to tell reporters he’s not sure if an election is necessary in 2026.
Every American should be deeply concerned that a White House that tried to overthrow the 2020 election may be laying the groundwork to do it again this November.
Be ready.
“Why is Tulsi Gabbard at an FBI raid on an election office in Fulton County?”
— Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner on President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence being at an FBI raid of a Georgia elections office
Source: The Conference Board, survey of over 36 million consumers, New York Times/Siena National Poll of 1,625 registered voters conducted from Jan. 12 to 17, 2026. Margin of error: +/- 2.8%
LATE NIGHT JOE: A CONVERSATION WITH JIMMY KIMMEL
Joe appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last night to join the late night show host in a discussion about the president, Minnesota, and shifting Republican sentiment.
Jimmy Kimmel: Joe, is Trump still watching your show?
JS: I think so. He would watch the show in his first term, would always get upset, and then start tweeting insults.
I often pleaded, “Please, Mr. President, for the good of your mental health and the good for America, stop watching my show!”
JK: And Joe Biden watched your show — because he would call in to the show sometimes.
JS: He would, and I would hear from his chiefs of staff that when I was tough on Biden during the show, that would make the entire day more difficult, because the president would come down complaining about changes they had to make.
JK: Does that affect how you approach doing your show?
JS: No, it doesn’t. Whether I’m talking about Joe Biden or Donald Trump, my goal is the same as most people’s: We want a better country. I just say what I believe. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don’t. But the goal is always to make the country better and bring it together.
JK: You’ve been especially blunt lately — including calling out Kristi Noem for lying. How come?
JS: I was a Republican congressman. I grew up in the Baptist church. Ninety percent of my friends probably voted for Donald Trump. But something happened this past week — even among Trump voters — where even they were offended by [Department of Homeland Security] lies and Kristi Noem’s slander of a 37-year-old man who got executed in the streets of America.
A 37-year-old mom — whose final words were “I’m not mad at you” — getting shot in the face at point-blank range, through her side window twice, killing her.
This has upset Americans and changed things.
JK: What will be the impact of this moment?
JS: Twenty years from now, our children and grandchildren will look back on this time and see those killings of Americans as a defining moment.
I hope and pray that the president and the people around him use this moment to understand they have pushed things too far. They need to start working on bringing this country together.
JK: Is the president fearful right now — scared that maybe he’s lost it?
JS: I’ve known Donald Trump for 20 years, and I don’t think that fear ever comes into it. Maggie Haberman, who reports for the [New York] Times, said Donald Trump lives to survive the next five minutes.
That’s how he spent most of his life, constantly fighting New York’s tabloid culture — doing war against the New York Post, The Daily News, and everybody else attacking him.
What’s been different this year has been how so many have bowed down to him.
You’ve had a Republican Congress that has forgotten that Article 1 powers are first in the Constitution for a reason. They were seen by our founders as the most important of the three equal branches.
They have been missing in action.
JK: What about the courts?
JS: If a president sends Marines to L.A. to perform domestic policing, that’s simply unconstitutional, and it’s illegal. The [Supreme Court] didn’t have to wait until the last day of the year to make their ruling and tell us what we already knew the law was.
So this has been the first year that Donald Trump hasn’t been fighting to survive the next five minutes — because he’s had politicians, media companies, and tech leaders capitulating to him.
My question is, when will Congress understand that they have a say in this government too?
The first branch of government is scared to check and balance the president, and the third branch of government is also scared to check and balance him. It’s no wonder things have become so dangerously unbalanced in a year.
JK: You’ve said that Americans are the ultimate check.
JS: They are. Look at the people of Minnesota. A Veterans Affairs hospital nurse dared to be a good Samaritan and was shot and killed for it. Renee Good, trying to calm an untrained, undisciplined [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officer, saying, “Dude, I’m not mad.”
That courage and love for country — it’s been really remarkable.
JK: When you talk to your Republican friends, does this feel like a broader shift in sentiment?
JS: This past week has genuinely changed the political landscape. There’s been a massive shift — and I think the president and people inside the White House understand that. They pushed too far, lied too much, and hurt too many people.
As a result, Trump’s poll numbers are lower than they’ve been — even on immigration, his strongest issue.
The people of Minnesota — and America — have pushed back hard. Now Trump will have to respond to that.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity and length.
SOCIAL MEDIA ON TRIAL
A landmark social media lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court is taking tech giants from trending to trial.
The suit alleges that Google’s YouTube, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Snap Inc.’s Snapchat, and ByteDance’s TikTok are designed to be addictive for children. Snapchat and TikTok, initially named in the case, have since settled under undisclosed terms, leaving Meta and YouTube to face a jury.
According to the complaint, the companies aimed to “maximize youth engagement,” relying on “behavioral techniques” that plaintiffs compare to those used by “slot machines and cigarette companies.” The suit claims that these practices fostered compulsive patterns of use among young people and downplayed potential risks.
The companies reject that framing. In a statement to MS NOW, Meta said, “We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
Google, YouTube’s parent company, echoed that defense, saying it had built services and policies designed to provide young people with age-appropriate experiences and calling the allegations in the complaints “simply not true.”
The case was selected by a judge to represent a cohort of roughly 1,600 plaintiffs and is expected to set a legal precedent.
For years, tech companies have been shielded by the Communications Decency Act, which protects platforms from liability for content posted by users.
That scrutiny comes amid growing concern about the mental health toll of screen time. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2021 to 2023 shows that roughly 1 in 4 teenagers who spent at least four hours a day on screens reported symptoms of anxiety or depression within a two-week period.
The trial is expected to last several weeks, with Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, slated to testify.
This case is likely only the beginning. Similar allegations are already advancing at the federal level, involving more than 230 plaintiffs, including individuals, school districts, and state attorneys general. Trials are scheduled to begin in June.
EXTRA HOT TEA
The U.S. is at risk of losing its measles elimination status, as an outbreak in South Carolina reached 789 cases on Tuesday, surpassing the outbreak in Texas last year. It’s now the largest outbreak in the U.S.
More than 700 of the 789 cases — primarily among children — were people who were unvaccinated or had not received the recommended two doses of the MMR vaccine.
“We have this amazing vaccine that would help protect us all from getting the measles, and we are just seeing that people aren’t as excited about getting that vaccine anymore,” Dr. Anna Kathryn Rye Burch, a pediatric infectious diseases physician with Prisma Health in South Carolina, told CNN.
MS NOW’s medical analyst Dr. Vin Gupta has more.
ONE MORE SHOT
A bomb cyclone moving up the East Coast in January 2017. Forecasters are expecting a similar weather event to blanket much of the Atlantic coast this weekend with heavy snow, winds, and flooding, including parts of North Carolina and Virginia.
SPILL IT!
Next week, actor Ian McKellan will join us to discuss his new play, “The Ark.”
Have a question? 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."