This is the April 28, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.
JOE’S NOTE
Let’s be honest about what’s happening here.
Republicans are pushing to spend $400 million in taxpayer money on Donald Trump’s 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom — calling it a national security necessity after Saturday’s shooting at the Washington Hilton.
This is preposterous for two reasons.
First, a federal judge has stopped construction of the ballroom but allowed the White House to move forward with the underground secure facility.
“National security is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity,” he wrote.
So, to be clear: The Marie Antoinette Memorial Ballroom has nothing to do with national security.
Second, how do you sit back and talk about security when The Washington Post is reporting that the White House actually chose to have less security at this dinner than they should have had? Less. By choice.
The stakes are so much higher now — especially after all of the blunders in Butler, Pennsylvania.
With drone warfare and all the other capabilities we’ve seen come out of the Russia-Ukraine war, we’re going to have to take a second look not only at what events we do, but at how we secure presidential candidates and audiences. The whole world has changed.
But that said, all of these Republicans blindly following the talking points the White House put out right after the shooting is insulting to voters. Even some Republicans, like Rick Scott, are calling that out.
America must keep its presidents safe. But blowing $400 million of taxpayer dollars on a grand ballroom does not make anyone safer.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We have a $39 trillion debt. Maybe we ought to stop spending money.”
— Republican Sen. Rick Scott, on why taxpayers shouldn’t pay $400 million for President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom
CHART OF THE DAY
Source: Gallup poll of 1,001 adults, age 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
ON THIS DATE
On April 28, 2004, CBS News broadcast photographs showing American soldiers torturing and sexually humiliating Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, igniting a global firestorm over U.S. conduct in the Iraq War. The George W. Bush administration insisted that the perpetrators were “a few bad apples” — a defense undercut by a secret Army investigation that concluded the mistreatment was “systematic and illegal.”
An Iraqi boy looks at a newspaper featuring photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners inside Abu Ghraib, May 2004.
A CONVERSATION ABOUT REDISTRICTING
President Donald Trump ordered Texas to find him more congressional seats — and yesterday the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s power grab was legal. Now Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis,has unveiled a map that could hand the GOP four more House seats.
Democratic strategists Rufus Gifford and Adrienne Elrod joined “Morning Joe” to discuss the nationwide redistricting battle — and whether Republicans are actually drawing themselves into a corner.
JL: Rufus, is the GOP getting everything it wants here?
RG: Republicans think so — but I think this is going to backfire. Florida is already a significant Republican gerrymander: 20 Republicans to 8 Democrats right now. And when you look at the new DeSantis map, you see a lot of light red. That means we are going to be fighting for every single one of those seats.
JL: What does “light red” actually mean in a midterm environment like this one?
RG: Democrats have overperformed our 2024 margins by around 15 points. A lot of those new DeSantis districts are in the 10-12-point Republican range. Even if the map goes into effect, we will be competing in all of them.
Do I want to see gerrymandering? No. I hate gerrymandering. But for the first time in a long time, Democrats are showing up to a gunfight with a gun — not a knife.
JL: Adrienne, you were at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2006 wave. Does this feel familiar?
AE: Absolutely. In 2006, which was a wave election, we flipped the House and the Senate by large margins. I remember Rahm Emanuel recruiting candidates in [lower tier] races early on — because when the wave comes, you need bodies on the field. We’re seeing the same thing now.
JL: And Republicans didn’t see it coming?
AE: When Republicans started this aggressive midcycle gerrymandering push, they saw Democrats as weakened. We came off a hard 2024 campaign. The DNC is in the red on finances. They thought we couldn’t fight back. We’re proving that we can — and it is going to backfire on them.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for brevity and clarity.
EXTRA HOT TEA
805,000
— The record number of fans at Pittsburgh’s North Shore for the three-day NFL draft last weekend
ONE MORE SHOT
Helpers use straps to pull a stranded humpback whale off Poel Island to a transport ship. The whale, called Timmy by locals, has been stuck near Wismar, Germany, for more than three weeks, as a private group continues its efforts to free him.
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