Donald Trump wants to hold working families hostage

This is the June 25, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“No one gives a shit about housing.” 

— President Donald Trump, March 2026

JOE’S NOTE

The stage was set yesterday in Statuary Hall. A desk, the presidential seal, a dozen flags were perfectly placed for the signing of the most significant housing bill in a generation.

Then the president backed out. 

He wrote on Truth Social that the event was cancelled “until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.” 

Republicans in Congress were deeply disturbed. John Cornyn called the president’s actions “inexplicable.”

“I don’t know why you’re holding a bill that’s ready for signature hostage over a bill that will never pass this Congress,” Thom Tillis said. 

I support voter ID. So do 80% of Americans. But the SAVE Act is about voter suppression, not fair elections. In 44 states, a driver’s license wouldn’t even be enough to comply. And the Republican bill creates real problems for women who dated to get married and changed their name. 

And now it’s the ransom Donald Trump is demanding for supporting a bipartisan housing bill that would help working families who need it most.

STEVE RATTNER’S CHARTS

As the United States and Iran slouch toward an agreement to end the war, the White House’s suggested outcome would deliver a massive financial windfall to Iran. And the payoff would come far more quickly than it did for Barack Obama’s JCPOA.

Iran has already had sanctions lifted on its oil sales, a move that is expected to provide the Persian Gulf country with an additional $6 billion of revenue during the proposed 60-day negotiating period.

Iran will then have $12 billion of its frozen assets released before a final deal is agreed to. (Neither of these gifts to Iran happened before the JCPOA was signed.)

A side-by-side comparison of the two deals shows stark differences.

Obama did not give Iran sanctions relief until the entire agreement was signed. The Trump plan gives the terror state billions before the first item is agreed to.

By the end of his negotiations, Obama unfroze about $50 billion of “usable” Iranian funds.

Trump will likely unfreeze nearly $80 billion.

Two important collateral effects of Trump’s war with Iran: In order to maximize oil supplies, the president relieved Russia of the price cap that had been imposed on that country’s exports as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine. That has provided Russia with an estimated $22 billion in oil revenue just during the 98-day period the price cap was suspended.

ON THIS DATE

In 1973, recently fired White House counsel John Dean began testifying before the Senate Watergate Committee, tying Richard Nixon directly to the cover-up for the first time. Months earlier, Dean had warned the president of “a cancer growing on the presidency.”

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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.”