Republicans should not be lecturing Democrats on Graham Platner
This is the July 9, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
— Matthew 7:3
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sat down on a hillside in Galilee and told his followers to stop judging their neighbors before they looked at themselves. Take the plank out of your own eye first, he said, before you go searching for sawdust in someone else’s.
Two thousand years later, Republicans still haven’t gotten the message.
Graham Platner has denied the allegation of rape as forcefully as any person can. Whatever happens next, he is still entitled in this country to the presumption of innocence.
But that’s not what this is about for Republicans. They have been bowing and scraping before morally challenged candidates for a decade. And now they want to lecture Democrats?
It’s hypocrisy. It’s farce.
If you want proof, you don’t have to look at the White House. Just turn to Texas, where Republicans are rallying behind Ken Paxton while running a smear campaign against James Talarico.
Republicans need to spare the rest of us the sermon and tend to the plank in their own eye.
CHART OF THE DAY
Source: YouGov poll of 1,603 U.S. adults, July 3-6; margin of error: +/-3.3%
THE DECLINE OF READING
Thirty percent of Americans cannot “paraphrase or make inferences” from multi-page text, according to a striking new piece in The Atlantic.
“It’s not that we’re illiterate so much as that we’re postliterate,” author Rose Horowitch told “Morning Joe.” “We might be reading more than ever with texts and emails and social media, but you know, people can’t focus on a book.”
The numbers are sobering across the board. Reading scores have dropped among fourth and eighth graders. The share of Americans who pick up a book or read an article on a given day has declined by 40% over the past two decades.
Read the full piece here.
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WHAT THEY SAID
Jonathan Lemire on the Red Sox
“The Sox swept the Yankees two weekends ago, then swept the Angels over the weekend — yeah, they’re playing better. We are still in the mix, and it’s nice to see them finally play some good baseball.”
Jackie Alemany on Graham Platner
“This has been one infraction too many. The Nazi tattoo. The Reddit posts. The infidelity. The sexting. And now a sexual assault allegation. There is a trust deficit among voters. He’s making Democrats across the board even angrier because he’s poisoning the well and not necessarily setting up his replacement for success.”
Retired Gen. Mark Hertling on Iran
“When the president says, ‘Hey, these people are scum, and we don’t want to deal with them,’ he’s only digging the hole deeper. All wars end in some diplomatic measure, and if you don’t have the capability to talk and get something accomplished, military force is not going to provide any kind of relief.”
Franklin Foer on Benjamin Netanyahu
“He’s failed not only by staking out a partisan position within the Republican Party — a catastrophic strategic mistake that has injured his country’s national security — but at every stage in this conflict, he’s done the thing that is most likely to leave Israel in the worst possible condition.”
CALLS GROW FOR INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION INTO LATEST DEADLY ICE SHOOTING
The family of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo is demanding that federal officials release all evidence from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement shooting in Houston that left him dead.
The family said Salgado Araujo was a Mexican national who lived in the United States for 35 years, was obtaining his work permit, and was on his way to a construction site when he was killed.
The Department of Homeland Security says Salgado Araujo, a father of three, weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over an agent during a targeted operation. They claim the agent fired in self-defense. No evidence supporting that claim has been released.
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