This is the Aug. 31, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.

Former White House chief of staff and U.S. ambassador to Japan — and could-be 2028 hopeful — Rahm Emanuel joined “Morning Joe” today to talk about the U.S.’ latest trade war with Canada, the war with Iran, and how Democrats should navigate the road to the midterms.

Jonathan Lemire: Mr. Ambassador, let’s start with Canada. This is something where you feel like we’re playing Risk.

RE: Our objective in the Obama and Clinton White House was to take problems off the sheet, to solve them, and move on to other bigger things. This White House constantly is putting problems on the table. There is no adult supervision, and it has a real economic impact on people’s lives beyond the electoral map.

JL: Let’s talk about the war as well — there’s no sense from these Republicans that they feel Americans’ pain here. 

RE: One part gets lost in this constantly: wages and income, not just costs. We haven’t raised the minimum wage since 2007. I’m for $20 by 2030. On the other hand, here’s what President Trump offers you: He gets a $450 million Qatari plane, and you get $4.50 a gallon. Everywhere you go, this corruption is hitting your wallet.

So my view: raise incomes, raise wages, raise the minimum wage, and you’ll start to see other types of things that should be very clear.

Molly Jong-Fast: Let’s talk about the speech you gave about Israel and what’s happening right now in the Israeli government.

RE: In 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly accused me of being a self-loathing Jew for opposing what he was doing on the West Bank and in the settlements. I called early for ending all U.S. taxpayer support for military assistance. Israel should buy it like any other ally: same rules, same requirements, same restrictions. Second, we should be going from a two-state to a 23-state solution — it will be Iran’s worst day if all 21 members of the Arab League recognize Israel diplomatically.

Third, what’s happening on the West Bank has got a permission slip from this government. We’ve done Israel no favor by turning a blind eye to it.

David Drucker: Mr. Ambassador, talk about the direction of the Democratic Party and the influence of a left-wing base fueled by the rise of self-described socialist candidates and the Democratic Socialists of America.

RE: There’s a pragmatic and a progressive wing of the party. We both believe that the system is rigged against families that live paycheck to paycheck.

Some believe in Medicare for All. That’s a healthy debate we should have. Defunding the police, open borders, opening up the prison doors? I’ll see you in November. 

Next, the way you win is turning red to blue, not blue to midnight blue or cobalt blue. Forty-eight percent of the country identifies as independents, and 500,000 voters in swing states decide who’s president. We have to find an identity with them.

And anything that distracts from this election being a referendum on Donald Trump’s corruption and the Republicans’ rubber-stamping of that corruption is political malpractice.

CHARTS OF THE DAY

Source: Economist/YouGov poll of 1,536 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 21-24, 2026. Margin of error: ± 3.5%

WHAT THEY SAID

David French on U.S. standing 

“We have fewer friends and fewer munitions. We have not accomplished the mission in the Middle East, and we have two enormous threats in Russia and China looming. It seems as if we’re entering a period of extraordinary vulnerability that is self-inflicted by this administration.”

David Drucker on Trump taking Venezuelan oil 

“We now look like we’re using the country for our own benefit. How are Venezuelans going to feel now about their day-to-day lives when we’ve snatched their dictator and are the ones in charge, and instead of helping Venezuela transition to a democracy, we’re turning them into a vassal state?”

Dasha Burns on midterm messaging

“There are a lot of storylines percolating around Democrats gaining traction in places where the left hasn’t seen a victory in a very long time, and that is sounding the alarm bells for the Republicans that I talked to. They’re watching the infighting between Democrats, and not hammering Trump as much as they could on affordability, and still trying to figure out their own messaging lane.”

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