This is the May 5, 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
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 Zelenskyy, after 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.
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