“Kristen, in the polling that you’ve done with regard to Donald Trump, the President of the United States, and his status with elderly people, with independents, with whomever, does the issue of incompetence ever come up? Because that would seem to be his true weakness in the long run. Incompetence: the fact that they can’t get anything done with him as president,” asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Washington Examiner columnist Kristen Soltis Anderson during a conversation about President Donald Trump, his base, and the Senators who fear him.
“Thank God for baseball. It rescues us once again from the reality of our every day headlines,” said Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during the panel’s discussion about the World Series. Listen in here for more talk about America’s favorite pastime.
“We in this business should pay much more attention to John McCain,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle as the panel talks about Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) military career and heroism. Listen to more of the discussion here.
“It’s hard to measure moments like this in terms of history, because history is such a long haul. But it’s not hard to measure this moment in terms of what is going on right now within the Republican Party. This is a slow slide of principle conservatism among Republicans that has been an honorable part of the party for many, many years. A slow slide of that principle conservatism into something that resembles a dumpster fire. What people like Bannon are doing within the Republican Party, the lack of cohesion, the lack of a voice within the Republican Party, other than people like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. It’s truly an astounding moment politically,” says Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle as the panel talks about the current state of the Republican Party following Republican Senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker publicly denouncing President Donald Trump. Listen to more of the discussion here.
Listen in on the conversation between Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and The New York Times Washington Bureau Chief Elisabeth Bumiller about Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford’s “pretty brutal and blunt assessment” of the investigation into the ambush in Niger that killed four American service members. “At the end of the his press availability yesterday, it seems that there are more answers that are still being sought than the questions he raised,” says Barnicle.
While the Morning Joe panel discusses how the majority of the Republican Party leadership is unwillingness to stand up to President Donald Trump, senior contributor Mike Barnicle compares their conduct to the time of President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. “It’s an astounding spectacle of cowardice and a continuing spectacle of cowardice on the behalf of most of the Republicans in the Senate and in the House. There’s no back and forth. There are no relationships the way they used to be.” Listen to more of the conversation here.
“He’s filled with fear. Filled with fear about Bob Mueller’s investigation,” says Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle as the panel talks about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and potential collusion between Russia and the President Donald Trump’s campaign. Listen in to the conversation and Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough’s thoughts the situation here.
“How aware is the Street of the fact that as the market just soars, the emphasis among people on income inequality also rises?” asks Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle of CNBC’s Brian Sullivan during a conversation about Wall Street and the global impact of the booming US stock market. Listen to the conversation here on the record-setting market and its ramifications, as the Dow Jone hits a high of 23,000.
While the Morning Joe panel talks about President Donald Trump’s “official statements of the White House” via his tweets, senior contributor Mike Barnicle explains: “That is a huge issue. The fact that we are talking about his tweets, and we do it every day. The fact that not just here, but every network, every newspaper covers his tweets. We had 300 people killed in a terrorist bombing in Mogadishu — we didn’t even mention it. We have the four Green Berets killed in Niger — we now talk about it because of the controversy that erupted around President Trump. We don’t talk about the fact that they died in a country that very few Americans knew we were participating in militarily — in a war that is going to be a generational war that’s going to go on for 10, 15, 20 years. We don’t talk about that. There’s all sorts of important issues that we don’t raise, talk about and cover because of our obsession with his tweets.” Listen to more of the discussion on President Trump here with Joe Scarborough, Jon Meacham and Katty Kay.
While the Morning Joe panel talks about former Vice President Joe Biden saying that foreign leaders have sought him out for insight into President Donald Trump, senior contributor Mike Barnicle explains: “I was with the Vice President (Biden) a couple of weeks ago for about an hour in the afternoon. Later that afternoon he was meeting with the head of a foreign nation and basically if you hear him explain it: There are many people in other countries, who are used to dealing with the United States, who are now operating without a GPS system. They don’t know where they are. And, so, what do they do? They call the old GPS system to say: ‘Where are we? Where is the United States?’ They know, globally, they cannot navigate without the United States in the lead.” Listen to more of the discussion here with Joe Scarborough, Katty Kay, Peggy Noonan and Willie Geist.
“Congressman, other than a few lobbyists in Washington, nobody I know likes the insurance companies. But without this occurring to prop up the insurance companies in terms of helping people with lower incomes get health care, what happens to those people? You just referenced the hurt, the poor. What happens to them?” asks Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle of Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) during a conversation about President Donald Trump’s executive order on health care, which will withhold the cost-sharing subsidies that the government currently pays insurance companies in order to reduce deductibles and co-pays for many low-income people. Listen to Walker’s response here.
“There are no words to convey what the President of the United States did yesterday by injecting John Kelly’s son into a political argument. You have to go to history to measure it. You have to go to June 9th, 1954, when…Joseph Welch looked at Joseph McCarthy with the TV cameras going and said: ‘Senator, up until now, I never gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Have you no sense of decency, sir?’ And Joe McCarthy had no sense of decency, and now that’s the question we’re saddled with, with regard to the sitting president of the United States,” said Morning Joe senior contributor Mike Barnicle during a panel discussion about President Donald Trump’s claim that President Barack Obama did not call the loved ones of fallen soldiers, suggesting to reporters to ask his chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, whether Obama called him after his son died in Afghanistan. Watch the conversation here.
“That’s all I said: They were a fun team to watch,” says Morning Joe senior contributor and devoted Boston Red Sox fan Mike Barnicle as the panel teases him for tweeting that “the (New York) Yankees are a fun team to watch.” Listen to more of the baseball banter here.
“We thought it was the best way to celebrate Mike Barnicle’s birthday,” said Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough during a lengthy segment of talk about baseball, one of Barnicle’s favorite topics.
Watch the conversation and join the Morning Joe panel is wishing the “legendary” Mike Barnicle a happy birthday here.
While the Morning Joe panel discusses the Trump Administration’s mixed messages to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle comments on the little press coverage Puerto Rico has received amid its recovery from Hurricane Maria. “I think we have to assume some part of the blame in the media. If this were Texas, or Florida, or some place in the continental United States, where 90 percent of the state was without electricity, where people were hungering for clean drinking water every single day, I think the coverage would be much more massive than it is now.” Listen to more of the discussion here with Barnicle, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Donny Deutsch.
“Therein lies the real problem,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle. “If you take Paris, if you take the Iran accord, if you take DACA, if you take TPP, if you take NAFTA to a certain extent, Donald Trump is trying to do the impossible. He’s trying to erase history. He’s trying to erase anything that mentions the name Barack Obama. He has an obsession with people like Barack Obama, who get more headlines, who get more appreciation in his mind than Donald Trump does.” Listen in as the Morning Joe panel discusses President Trump’s agenda.
While the Morning Joe panel talks about President Donald Trump signing an executive order on health care that lets insurance companies bypass guidelines in the Affordable Care Act, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle explains: “You also have to wonder about this and about a lot of other policies: How hard it is, how difficult it is, to measure what (Trump) does and what he says because it’s outside the norm. How much of this yesterday was aimed at (Republican Senator) Mitch McConnell? `You couldn’t get it done. Here I’m doing it.’ And then he can tell the public” `Mitch McConnell, loser. Me, winner.’” Listen to more of the discussion here.
While the Morning Joe panel talks about White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s surprise appearance at a White House press briefing, where he spoke to reporters, and the nature of his position within the Trump Administration, senior contributor Mike Barnicle explains: “I thought his appearance was pretty revealing. In one sense, it drew the curtain back a bit on the internals of the White House. You can see where he would be a calming, moderating influence — or at least attempting to be such — dealing with the President himself.” Listen to more of the discussion on Kelly and the role of the Chief of Staff here.
“This has been a great postseason. The Yankees, I have to tell you, they are fun to watch. They are an energetic team. Don’t underestimate the impact that a Todd Frazier – a veteran guy – has on the younger players on that team,” says Morning Joe veteran contributor Mike Barnicle about New York Yankees third baseman Todd Frazier, a leader on the team, as the panel talks about the MLB playoffs. Listen to more baseball talk here.
ICYMI: Listen in on the Morning Joe conversation between veteran contributor Mike Barnicle and NBC News’ national political reporter Carol Lee about an exclusive NBC News report that indicates President Donald Trump declared he wanted what amounts to a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a meeting with the nation’s highest-ranking national security leaders and POTUS’s inner circle.
