The Dictatorship
The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe: ‘This is the Epstein class ruling our country’
This is the Feb. 9, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance was a jolt of Latino pride coursing through a country whose greatest strength, as Ronald Reagan once said, is its immigrants.
At the start of his electrifying show, Bad Bunny quietly handed his Grammy to a young Hispanic boy. It was a small gesture that spoke volumes.
Then came the explosion of vivid colors and cultural references — a celebration of Latino American life. Families dancing together, generations working side by side, communities building their own American dream.
Unlike the hyperchoreographed spectacle of a J.Lo show, this was an authentic snapshot of people rejoicing in who they are — children and seniors alike filling the stage with joy, energy, and love.
The performance was a testament to the diverse spirit of the Americas, stretching from Canada’s Arctic Circle to the tip of Chile.
More than 130 million viewers saw the vastness and depth of Latino culture choreographed in a big, brilliant, romantic way.
Elsewhere, the contrast could not have been sharper.
An alternative Super Bowl halftime show featured performers like Kid Rock lip-synching trite, audience-specific lyrics for a preening crowd. The event was organized by self-righteous elites who chose a performer whose career has included songs glorifying the exploitation of girls and women — even lyrics celebrating his fondness for underage girls.
Lines that read as if they were torn straight from the pages of the Epstein files.
Back on the main stage, Bad Bunny offered something entirely different — a cultural marker in the age of Trump that transcended language and politics.
“The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
In his closing moments, Bad Bunny looked straight into the camera and said he reached this stage by never losing faith.
Believe. Believe. Believe.
And you can get here, too.
“This is the Epstein class ruling our country. They are the elites they pretend to hate.”
— Sen. Jon OssoffD-Ga., campaigning for re-election in Atlanta on Saturday
BAD DAY FOR THE PATRIOTS
It was a rough day at the office for the Patriots’ QB, Drake Maye. The 2nd year standout felt the crush of Seattle’s pass rush. The Seahawks won Super Bowl LX 29-13.
A CONVERSATION ABOUT BAD BUNNY
The Super Bowl halftime show drew more than 130 million viewers — and a predictable outcry from the MAGA right. David Drucker, John Heilemann, Jonathan Lemire, Katty Kay, and Al Sharpton joined us to discuss the performance, the backlash, and what the moment revealed about America on its biggest stage.
JS: A lot of the criticism of the halftime show was framed as moral outrage. Rev. Al, what do you make of the reaction we’re seeing?
AS: You have people who want to look the other way and turn the page on their own behavior while holding everyone else to a moral standard. That alone tells you a lot.
There was a prayer breakfast last week— traditionally bipartisan, meant to bring people together — and the president used it to attack his enemies. Then later that same day, there was a video depicting former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. And after all that, they wonder why people don’t take their pretensions of moral authority seriously. Look at how they behave.
JS: On the performance itself, David Drucker, what did you think?
DD: I don’t get offended very easily. I don’t own any of Bad Bunny’s music — I know I’m not the target demographic — but I watched it and thought it was a good show. It was entertaining.
JS: Critics said it wasn’t “American.” How did it look to you?
DD: I grew up in Los Angeles, and this felt very American to me. In major cities across the country, people speak all sorts of languages. That’s just how America works.
JS: From the NFL’s perspective, why did this choice make sense?
DD: The NFL has decided its growth market is international. Next year they’re scheduled to have nine regular-season games overseas — Australia, Brazil, Mexico City. The NFL is looking to grow its business, and this fits.
JS: John Heilemann, what did this moment signal to Hispanic Americans?
JH: For Hispanics, who’ve long been treated as the “other,” this had to be an extraordinary night — one of the most powerful institutions in America recognizing that we are Americans. And the NFL is so big that it simply doesn’t care what Donald Trump or the MAGA right tweets.
JS: Was Bad Bunny actually a risky choice for the league?
JH: No. The NFL followed the data. This is the most streamed artist in the world, on the biggest stage anywhere. That’s not bold — that’s smart.
JS: Jonathan Lemire, how political was this performance, and in what way?
JL: Only subtly — in its inclusiveness. It was a love letter to Puerto Rico and to all the Americas. And in this moment, that message of unity over division is something a lot of Americans wanted.
JS: Katty Kay, what stood out to you?
KK: The politics was the joy. People expected something confrontational, but instead it was a celebration of heritage and love. The final message — that the only thing more powerful than hate is love — made it very hard to be offended.
JS: John, what’s the takeaway?
JH: Whatever you think of the music, this was one of the most exquisitely produced halftime shows ever. And it shut up the critics in every possible way.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for brevity and clarity.
OLYMPIANS SPEAK OUT
American athletes have long carried domestic politics onto the international stage. From Tommie Smith and John Carlos Black Power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Games to the U.S. women’s soccer team kneeling in 2021, the Olympics have often reflected the country’s political tensions back to the world.
That tradition resurfaced almost immediately at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games. Asked about representing Team USA during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, freestyle skier Hunter Hess said he had “mixed emotions,” adding that there was “a lot going on” he wasn’t a fan of.
Donald Trump responded angrily on Truth Social, calling Hess “a real Loser” and saying he never should have made the team. Rep. Byron DonaldsMegyn Kellyand Jake Paul quickly joined the criticism.
Other American athletes echoed those concerns. Teammate Chris Lillis said he feels “heartbroken about what’s happened in the United States,” while figure skater Amber Glenn said the LGBTQ community has struggled during the Trump administration — a reminder that sports and politics have never been as separate as critics insist.
EXTRA HOT TEA
Prediction market companies Kalshi and Polymarket — platforms that allow you to bet on, oh, anything and everything — may have been banned from advertising at Super Bowl LX, but they got eyeballs and bets rolling anyway. Here’s how last night played out in wager world:
$500M (Kalshi) and $55M (Polymarket) on the outcome of the Super Bowl
$397M on which player would get the most fantasy points (Seattle Seahawks kicker Jason Myers surpassed Patriots quarterback Drake Maye for the final time just past 8:45 p.m. ET)
$1.5M on how long the halftime show would last.
$113.5M on Bad Bunny’s opener (“Titi Asked Me”)
One person with a Polymarket account created the day before the game got every single bet on celebrity appearances — even unannounced guests like Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin — on the halftime show, strengthening claims that prediction market companies encourage insider trading.
ONE MORE SHOT
While East Coast residents endured subzero temperatures, Canadians asked “What’s that aboot?” as they celebrated the Quebec Winter Carnival in Quebec City, Canada. Here, a hearty soul smiles after jumping into the snow for a “snow bath.”
ON THE RADAR
In the coming days, actorsHalle BerryandChris Hemsworthwill join us to discuss their new film “Crime 101.”
Stay tuned for more!
CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE
Mika Brzezinski is the co-host of MS NOW’s Morning Joe, founder of “Know Your Value” and author of four best-selling books, including “EARN IT!: Know Your Value and Grow Your Career, in Your 20s and Beyond” (Hachette Books; May 7, 2019) with co-author Daniela Pierre-Bravo. Prior to joining BLN in 2007, Mika was an anchor of CBS Evening News Weekend Edition and a CBS News correspondent who frequently contributed to CBS Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes.
California voters will consider a controversial proposal in November to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires after the labor union backing the measure announced Thursday it would forge ahead despite pressure from critics to withdraw it.
The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state’s Medicaid system after federal cuts.
“I am all in on this,” union President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are “totally out of touch.”
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and many traditional allies of the union oppose the measure. They argue it is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem and that it would push the ultrawealthy to leave the state, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. Newsom, who is considering a presidential run as he prepares to leave office in January, has generally opposed tax increases during his time as governor.
A coalition of healthcare, education and housing groups — including the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association — banded together last week to fight the tax.
“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the coalition said in a statement.
Brian Brokaw, a Newsom political adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said it would “make California’s biggest challenges worse.”
“Driving away the state’s sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag,” he said in a statement.
Under the proposal, the state would spend the money generated from the tax over multiple years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues would subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Many of the Silicon Valley tech moguls who oppose the measure have already moved their assets to other states or threatened to do so to avoid the possible tax. They have also spent millions to try to defeat it.
Since the proposal was announced in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs a variety of initiatives designed to blunt the billionaire tax proposal. It has raised more than $118 million, counting Brin’s contributions, from fewer than a dozen donors.
California relies on its top 1% of earnersfor nearly half of its personal income tax revenue.
The union offered to scale back its proposal last week, asking Newsom to back a 2% tax on billionaires instead. But the governor’s office said the lower rate didn’t change his stance.
The proposed tax may have piqued the interest of many Democrats because it comes at a time when they are particularly concerned about affordability, income inequality and federal cutbacks to government programs, said Martin Gilens, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“There’s kind of a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do,” he said.
But there’s a catch. Support for ballot initiatives often declines as the election nears, and if the measure passes, it’s likely to face legal challenges, Gilens said.
Since taking office one week ago, Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has busied himself on social media posting flattering photos of President Donald Trump, trivia about a former counterintelligence agent and praising his current staff.
What the Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience has not done is address the public about his plans, or calm the unease and confusion inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is being described by top officials as “chaotic” amid firings of senior personnel with threats of more to come.
One image posted to the official X account of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, apparently artificial intelligence-generated, features Trump raising a clenched fist in the air with two B-2 stealth bombers in the sky behind him. Another is an image of the president, his fist clenched, glowering as he stands behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.
In another post, Pulte, who was expected to gut the workforce of the National Counterterrorism Center, instead declared the staff there “true professionals and American patriots” after he said he spent time with them, adding “it is a privilege to work beside them.”
And in an apparent attempt at levity, Pulte reposted a message reminding Americans that Tuesday was “National Typewriter Day” and informing them of the role that a former Army counterintelligence agent played.
“Fun CI fact,” the post reads. “Former Army CI Special Agent Leroy Anderson composed ‘The Typewriter’ on October 9, 1950.”
But Pulte’s arrival has sparked anxiety and fear among the office’s workforce, three former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW, granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic.
They said that a half dozen political appointees were removed from their posts and several dozen staffers were sent back to their home intelligence agencies. Beyond that, little else is known about Pulte’s plans.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW that his requests for more information from the office, known by the acronym ODNI, have been rebuffed.
“I’ve been calling over there all day and can’t get my calls returned,” said Himes.
He later said, “I spoke directly to their office of congressional affairs. They said they had nothing for me.”
“It seems like it’s totally chaotic at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on a podcast Wednesday. “There was word that there was going to be firings and then he said he changed his mind. We don’t know.”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and now an MS NOW contributor, said that staff in the intelligence community do not know what to think.
“Everyone is in the same boat and unsure of what is going on,” he said. “That said, there is no love lost for the DNI, as many believe that there is redundancy that does need to be cut.”
The other former U.S. intelligence officials said they agree that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of reform. The agency was created after a lack of information sharing among U.S. intelligence agencies played a role in the failure to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ODNI’s mission is to ensure that the country’s now 18 different intelligence agencies share information with one another.
But the former intelligence officials said Pulte is patently unqualified to design or carry out those reforms.
“As with many things Trump alights upon, there is a sliver of truth here but he goes about addressing it in the worst possible way,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW, granted anonymity over concerns of retaliation. “But mass firings without any kind of sense of what you are trying to accomplish is addressing it in the most ham-handed way.”
That former official, as well as Warner and Himes, have said they fear that Pulte’s mission is to use his position as the nation’s top intelligence official to help Trump interfere in the midterm elections in November.
Pulte, who simultaneously serves as the Trump administration’s top federal housing official as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, used government mortgage information to file several criminal referrals against Democrats whom Trump considered enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. None of Pulte’s referrals have resulted in criminal convictions.
One fear expressed by Warner and some former intelligence officials is that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates.
One way he could do that, they say, is by falsely claiming foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats. And Pulte and FBI agents could seize voting machines, ballots and election records in November — as Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, last year at Trump’s behest — as part of voter fraud investigations that please the president.
“I have to tell you, I was extraordinarily concerned about the former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, interfering in our election,” Warner told NPR earlier this month. “The concerns I had with Tulsi Gabbard now, upon reflection, look small versus the concerns I have with Bill Pulte.”
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
Former President Barack Obama slammed President Donald Trump for obsessing over him while serving in the nation’s highest office.
“I obviously, you know, have a room in his head. A suite in his head,” Obama said an an episode of the podcast “All The Smoke,” posted Wednesday.
“Look, first of all, when I was president, the last thing I had time to do was worry about what somebody said, or what my predecessor did,” Obama told the two hosts, former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “They’re gone. I’ve got work to do.”
Trump has a long history of publicly insulting the former president, often invoking Obama’s middle name, Hussein.
Trump has also heavily promoted the false and racist “birther” conspiracy theory, which claimed that Obama was ineligible to serve as president because he was born in Kenya rather than the United States.
Earlier this year, Trump drew criticism after sharing a racist artificial intelligence-generated video on his Truth Social account depicting the former president and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The video was later deleted, and Trump did not apologize.
Before launching the war against Iran with Israel on Feb. 28, Trump repeatedly criticized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 diplomatic agreement primarily negotiated by Obama that also limited Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for sweeping economic sanctions relief.
More recently, Trump trashed the newly debuted Obama Presidential Center in Chicago as a “very unattractive building” and “total disaster,” adding that when his presidential library opens, it will be “on time, on budget, best location in Miami.”
Without mentioning Trump by name, Obama criticized leaders who fixate on their predecessors, characterizing their priorities as misplaced.
“If you’re doing the job right, everyday, you’ve got five, ten things that are real hard. And you have to be constantly focused,” Obama said.
“The idea that I’d be worrying about somebody who came before and me trying to measure, ‘What’s he done today?’ Constantly worrying about that is a strange thing to me. It shows me somebody who’s not focused on the American people and the job they’re supposed to do.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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