During the Morning Joe discussion about Dina Powell, President Trump’s senior counselor for economic initiatives, being named a deputy national security adviser for strategy, senior contributor Mike Barnicle says: “Her selection will make you a lot less nervous about what goes on in the National Security Council.” Listen here for more from hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist about their knowledge of Powell.
While the Morning Joe panel discusses President Donald Trump now backpedaling on his wiretap accusations against President Barack Obama, senior contributor Mike Barnicle explains: “We have got to stop acting so surprised at (Trump’s) behavior. This is his pattern for his entire professional life since he began as a developer in New York with the phrases, the spin, the misdirection….What he is doing is damage to his own presidency because the main ball game here is healthcare, and by keeping the light on this problem he is taking it off of healthcare.” Listen to more of the discussion on Trump here with host Mika Brzezinski, NBC’s Willie Geist and the BBC World News America’s Katty Kay.
While the Morning Joe panel analyzes a drop in President Donald Trump’s approval ratings and the issues front and center for his Administration, senior contributor Mike Barnicle comments: “The bottom line is kind of instructive for people in the news business because the President of the United States, no matter what those numbers show, when he goes to his base in Nashville, Tennessee – he’s not losing much support in the people who put him in office.” Listen to more of the conversation with NBC senior political analyst Mark Halperin, who attended the President’s rally in Nashville.
Final thoughts on Morning Joe ranged from President Donald Trump temporarily coming out ahead on his tax return issue, the potential of a serious investigation into the Trump campaigns alleged ties to Russia and the health care issue of repeal and replace. Says senior contributor Mike Barnicle: “I just cannot get over the fact that the drafters of the House bill seemingly just ignore or can’t hear the numbers of people who have health insurance for the first time who might be losing health insurance.” Listen in on the conversation here.
“Senator…You can go home a lot to a state filled with hard-working people, veterans, miners who have seen their companies close and leave the state, and it’s a state that went overwhelmingly for Donald J. Trump for president. So, when you go home, how do you speak to people who voted for Trump, who under this proposed healthcare bill will have very little access to opioid clinics, rehab facilities. What do you tell them other than `You’re probably going to die if you get sick’?” asks Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) during a conversation about the House Republicans’ proposed healthcare bill, which has been widely criticized. Listen to Manchin’s response here and his advice for President Donald Trump: “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
“David Ignatius, I am wondering in the course of you talking to your many, many sources in Washington, D.C., if you have run across the following possibility for Director Comey’s hesitancy, his reluctance, his stringing out when he is going to say whatever it is he says, and it is this: That in the course of an investigation that began with one thing, Russia, they might be now a couple of investigations going on, and that Director Comey is reluctant to really come out in full public view for fear of giving up sources and methods involved in a multiple investigation,” asks Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle of The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius during a conversation about why FBI Director James Comey has not answered ongoing questions about the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia. Listen to Ignatius’ response here.
“Why don’t you just hit them with a subpoena?” asks Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, during a conversation about why the Justice Department has delayed its rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s unsupported claims that his predecessor, President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of phones in Trump Tower before the election. Listen to Schiff’s response and what he believes will happen next in this ongoing saga.
“Senator….Take me to Greenville, South Carolina. We are talking about someone 65, 66 years of age looking at potentially losing a lot of health benefits; and we’re looking at a maybe 27, 28-year-old single mom with a couple of young kids living on the margin. What specifically would you propose to do to the House bill when it comes to the Senate to take care of the problems of people like that?” asks Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during a conversation about the House Republicans’ proposed healthcare bill, which intends to replace the Affordable Care Act. Listen to Graham’s response and advice for President Donald Trump on how to handle the health care crisis in this country.
While the Morning Joe panel looks ahead to FBI Director James Comey’s closed-door briefing about President Donald Trump’s alleged campaign ties to Russia with the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, senior contributor Mike Barnicle asks the questions: “What is going on within the FBI and specifically with Director Comey? I know no one who knows Jim Comey who doesn’t give him the highest of marks for integrity and character, but he had this conversation with Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on March 2nd. It’s March 15th today. What is going on here? If he has the answers, why don’t we have the answers sooner? Why does he have these press conferences as he had last October, 10 days before the election? Why do we have this tease, this build up? I don’t comprehend this.” Listen in to more on the situation here.
While the Morning Joe panel discusses a new Wall Street Journal article about the motivations and vast influence of White House Chief Strategist Steven Bannon in the Trump Administration, senior contributor Mike Barnicle says: “A huge portion of what he stands for, what he articulates, is driven by resentment, which is sort of an admirable thing on the one hand when you consider he feels very strongly about what happened to his dad and his dad’s life savings. On the other hand, what he now articulates nearly every day and the President helps him articulate this: ’Restoring the coal mines, restoring the factories in New England, the manufacturing base in this country throughout the middle West. If you talk to ordinary people who live in those regions, they know that’s not going to happen.” Listen to more of the discussion with host Mika Brzezinski.
Morning Joe’s Mike Barnicle and Mark Halperin discuss the gulf – “so wide it’s unbridgeable,” says Halperin, between the Senate and House on the proposed “confusing and expensive” health care bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. Hear their conversation here. Only on MSNBC.
“Mark, this quote uttered months ago by Steve Bannon that the mission is to ‘deconstruct the administrative state.’ That’s the mission of the Trump administration. If you walk around and do your own grocery shopping and stuff like that, part of it seems to be taking hold. In terms of trying to delegitimatize things, they have basically gone after the Congress, the courts, the regulatory agencies, a large part of the federal bureaucracy, (and) the State Department — has no one working there practically. Is this a plan that is constantly being implemented within the White House? Is it something that they viscerally feel each and every day? ‘Yeah, let’s do this and let’s go after this aspect and we’ll further weaken things,’” asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of NBC News Senior Political Analyst Mark Halperin during a conversation about the White House’s immediate goals and how, according to Halperin, the pending health care legislation leaves the Administration’s fate hanging in the balance.
“The Speaker of the House — in some people’s views — is slowly becoming unclothed in public,” said Morning Joe’s veteran columnist Mike Barnicle in response to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, during which he said he had no knowledge of any proof to support President Donald Trump’s accusations that former President Barack Obama ordered wiretapping of Trump’s phones. “(Ryan is) supposed to be a very smart guy. He comes out with this health plan — can’t tell you how much it costs. He is asked about the wiretapping tweet issued by the President of the United States a week ago, and he says: ‘Well, we have an unconventional presidency.’ Yeah, I would say so. You’re accusing a former president of being a felon.” Watch highlights from Speaker Ryan’s interview here with John Dickerson.
“Robert Costa – is there any sense within the White House that we in the media are literally operating on a different calendar, a different clock than the average American. They have lives, they have kids getting ready to go to school, get breakfast, move through the work day and we articulate a daily crisis in the Trump presidency, which I think probably exists at some level. But (is the Administration) banking on the fact that most people out there assume that (Trump) just finished being inaugurated yesterday? It’s Day 48 of his presidency?” asks Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle of The Washington Post reporter Robert Costa during a conversation about President Trump’s “confrontational politics.” Hear Costa’s take here.
On Morning Joe, senior contributor Mike Barnicle talks with Congressman Charlie Dent (R-PA) about the House Republicans’ replacement for the Affordable Care Act. “Congressman…let’s stick with your district. Let’s talk about a single mom with two kid, Medicaid cuts in the offing, block grants going back to the states. What are you going to tell her when you go home? When she asks you: `What is going to happen to my health care and my children’s health care? What are you going to do about it’?” Listen to Dent’s response, his questions and concerns here.
On Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough puts into cultural context the problem with the House Republicans’ proposed health care bill by invoking a much-beloved episode of The Simpsons in which Bart Simpson prays for a snow day to get out of a test he has not studied for. “Prayer: the last refuge of the truly desperate.” Adds senior contributor Mike Barnicle: “If I were a member of Congress, I would be furious at the Republican leadership. ’How much is this going to be cost?’ They have no answer. If they oppose the leadership, if they oppose the bill, there is a high chance that a lot of them will get primaried, which is their worst fear. This is the position they’ve been put in.” Hear more of the conversation here among Scarborough, Barnicle and The New York Times’ Nick Confessore.
“Senator. Yesterday, the House, Speaker (Paul) Ryan, the healthcare bill: Does it trouble you at all that this is thrown out and it’s going to be marked up starting today without any estimate of cost? Does that bother you at all?” asks Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) during a conversation about the House Republicans’ proposed healthcare bill, which intends to replace the Affordable Care Act. Listen to the conversation and Cotton’s comment that he would like to see the process slowed down to “get it right, instead of get it fast.”
As the Morning Joe panel discusses how President Donald Trump’s degrading remarks toward the media have actually helped increase ratings and readership throughout the world of journalism, senior contributor Mike Barnicle explains: “The irony is what has happened — The Times and The Washington Post have returned print journalism to its glory days, glory days.” Hear more of the conversation here and host Joe Scarborough’s observation: “Everybody doesn’t hate the media. They love the fight.”
“If you were going to pick an enemy to pummel, if you were Donald Trump — the media would be your number one enemy out in the country. People love this. People love what he’s doing to the media,” says Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle during a panel conversation about POTUS supporters. Adds host Joe Scarborough: “They don’t care that he’s lying every day. They want to know: Are we going to get our Supreme Court Justice and especially with business people, they are all lined up behind him. They want the tax breaks, they want the regulatory reform. And here’s a note to Washington: They really don’t care right now about Obamacare.” Listen to more here.
As the Morning Joe conversation continues about President Donald Trump’s accusation that former President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap of his phones in Trump Tower before the election, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle explains: “They are hoping to bury it with time. ‘We are going to have congressional investigations and we will get back to you in September’,” he explains of the Trump Administration’s hope that the issue will disappear. “You’re on to the solution here. There are three phone calls, all he has to make – or all the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees have to make. You call Mike Pompeo, out in Langley, head of the CIA; you call Mike Rogers, head of the NSA; you call Jim Comey, head of the FBI. You bring them in and ask them in public: ‘Did this happen?’ They say, no, no, and no.” Listen to the rest of the discussion and Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough’s suggestion to POTUS: “He shouldn’t lie every day.”
