This is the May 5, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.

JOE’S NOTE

A revolution in warfare is happening right now — and not in Iran.

The historic shift is occurring instead on the front lines of Ukraine’s war to push back its Russian invaders.

Fifteen months ago, President Donald Trump did his best to humiliate Volodymyr Zelenskyy inside the Oval Office, pressing the freedom fighter to make a bad deal with Trump‘s ally, Vladimir Putin.

“You have no cards left to play,” Trump bellowed to Ukraine’s president.

The American president promptly slashed U.S. military aid to the Ukrainians. His vice president — who yelled at Zelenskyy in the same White House meeting — later said his proudest achievement was abandoning the Ukrainians to Putin’s evil designs. And both Trump and JD Vance worked feverishly to pressure the Ukrainians to surrender land at the negotiating table the Russians could never win on the battlefield.

A year later, Ukraine is holding all the cards, striking down waves of Russian invaders with drone technology that is rewriting the rules of modern warfare.

Retired Gen. David Petraeus said recently, “The future of warfare is happening right now in Ukraine.”

As Russia’s economy teeters on the brink of collapse, it is now the former KGB agent who has holed himself up in secure bunkers — afraid of being assassinated by Russian oligarchs or Ukrainian drones.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy strolls freely through the streets of European capitals once aligned with Russia — not as a refugee, but as a conquering hero.

European and Canadian leaders now line up to provide his warriors with more than $100 billion in military help in their war of liberation to permanently push Putin’s Russian invaders out of his sovereign land.

And in perhaps the most surreal twist of this still-unfolding historical drama, it was Zelenskyy on social media yesterday who assured the frightened Russian defense minister that Kyiv would not attack Moscow during its annual World War II victory parades held today and tomorrow in the Russian capital.

Zelenskyy does, in fact, have many cards left to play against Putin.

And recently, through true grit and technological superiority, Ukrainians have drawn an inside straight while Trump is left dealing with a strait of another kind — one keeping U.S. troops in Iran far longer than the commander in chief anticipated.

Putin and Trump thought they would easily prevail in quick wars against overmatched opponents. What they didn’t count on was a technological revolution in asymmetric warfare that has radically shifted power dynamics on the global stage — and left Putin’s dream of military success on the ash heap of history.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“It is time for Russian leaders to take real steps to end their war, especially since Russia’s Defense Ministry believes it cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine’s goodwill.”

— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyyafter the Kremlin scaled back its Victory Day celebrations amid intensifying Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia

CHART OF THE DAY

ON THIS DATE

In 1973, Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, the first of his Triple Crown victories, in a time of 1:59.4 — a record that still stands.

A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE TECH RIGHT

Silicon Valley’s libertarian billionaires helped put Donald Trump back in the White House. Now, according to a sweeping new piece in The Atlantic, George Packer argues they’re running it — and selling out the president’s populist base to do it. He joined “Morning Joe” today to discuss “The Venture-Capital Populist” and whether the MAGA coalition can survive its own oligarchs.

JS: Talk about David Sacks, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel — what do they actually believe?

GP: These men have been hardcore libertarians all their lives. Thiel famously said freedom and democracy are incompatible. But now they’ve come around to the view that government can actually be useful — as long as it serves them. As Trump’s AI and crypto adviser, Sacks worked to align government policy with the wishes of those industries, not the public interest.

JS: And what are they ultimately after?

GP: They are wielding this power to fit their financial interests and their sense that the world should be ruled by a small number of very smart, wealthy men — an oligarchy.

JS: Sacks has aligned himself with Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán and against liberal democracy. What’s driving that?

GP: Sacks is pretty ignorant about the history and politics of that region. But his view mimics his approach to business: There’s no moral calculation. Ukraine is a risky bet, so naturally you end up sympathizing with Putin — because morality has been replaced by a cold calculation of where your interests lie.

Claire McCaskill: A lot of powerful, wealthy people bent the knee to Donald Trump out of fear. These guys did it out of opportunity. Talk about how this romance is hurting the president with his base.

GP: Here’s an example: Just yesterday, the White House — after dismissing AI safety concerns as Biden-era wokeness — announced that AI models would have to report their safety tests to the government. Why? Because their working-class populist base is afraid of AI. The numbers make that clear: They don’t see it the way David Sacks and Peter Thiel do.

JS: These guys reject the idea of Western civilization as Winston Churchill and World War II leaders thought of it — and blame everybody in the fight for Western democracy except Vladimir Putin. Why?

GP: They use the phrase “Western civilization” as a kind of flag that they’re waving when they criticize European democracies. But what do they mean by it? That’s the real puzzle.

Because if Donald Trump — who tried to overthrow an elected government — is the embodiment of Western civilization, it doesn’t mean to them what it means to you and me.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for brevity and clarity.

0.1%

— The share of accounts on Polymarket making more than two-thirds of the platform’s profits.

ONE MORE SHOT

Madonna poses at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the 2026 Met Gala, celebrating “Costume Art” on Monday.

CATCH UP ON MORNING JOE

Exactly two months ago, on the sixth day of the war in Iran, Donald Trump hosted a White House event intended to honor a championship soccer team, though the president took some time to comment on an issue on the minds of many.

“Yesterday, my administration announced decisive action to help keep down the oil prices,” the Republican declared. Moments later, he went on to say oil prices “have pretty much stabilized.”

It was never altogether clear what “decisive” actions the president was referring to, but two months later, it’s painfully clear that those mysterious moves failed to “pretty much stabilize” prices. MS NOW reported:

The average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. reached $4.46 [on Monday] as the standstill in the Strait of Hormuz continues to strain global energy markets. The average price for one gallon of diesel fuel topped $5.64, according to national averages tracked by AAA.

A day later, that national average inched higher, reaching $4.48 per gallon, while the average for diesel climbed to $5.66.

Chart: Carson Elm-Picard / MS NOW; Source: AAA

An analysis published by Bloomberg News described the recent trend as the sharpest spike in pump prices in at least three decadesand while the president has continued to insist that prices will plummet after the war, the fact remains that (a) it’s far from clear when the conflict will be over; and (b) dozens of energy sites throughout the Middle East have been struck as part of the war; wells have to be reopened; and some infrastructure will have to be rebuilt, all of which will take time.

As for the politics, the White House and its allies appear to have no idea what to tell the public about this. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise appeared on CNBC last week, for example, and tried to argue that gas prices are lower now than they were in 2024.

“People will remember that two years ago, we were paying almost $6 a gallon for gas,” the Louisiana Republican said. “Right now, it’s $3.”

He was spectacularly wrong on both points.

Around the same time, Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina appeared on Fox Business and told viewers“Gas prices continue to come down,” even as gas prices continued to go up.

As for Trump, in March, he tried to pitch the public on the idea that higher prices were a good thing — a line that proves so foolish that even he didn’t repeat it — which gave way to the president saying in April that gas prices were “not very high.”

His latest line, offered on Tuesday morning, argued that higher prices at the pump are “a very small price to pay,” which is easy for him to say given he doesn’t have to worry about paying those prices.

As for the “decisive” actions he claims to have taken two months ago, that he said “pretty much stabilized” prices, Trump still hasn’t explained what in the world he was talking about, or why those undefined moves failed so badly.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”