“What’s the larger bottom line issue for the Republican Party? To address the ideology of true conservatism? Or is it to define themselves with character and courage, which seems to be missing in that party?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough about the Republican Party and the state of conservatism in the era of President Donald Trump. Listen in to the conversation about leadership.
“We have a president who seems intent on fueling nearly every day and every issue with a campaign element—called fear. Nearly everything he says or does, he injects a little fear into it: Fear of the other, fear of immigration, fear of past failures haunting us—that he’s the guy who has to turn everything around. So, let me ask you, when you think about what the president says and when you think about the environment that you live in, not the Senate, but Wilmington, Delaware: Do you at all fear that the president is heading down a path toward running for re-election of a white America?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) during a wide-ranging conversation about President Donald Trump’s impact on the country and what’s next for the Democrats. Listen to Coons’ response here.
While the Morning Joe panel discusses former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney winning the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in his adopted state of Utah, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle comments: “Knowing him pretty well, there’s one added factor I would put into the mix here: At this stage of his life, having experienced everything he’s experienced—success, financial success, political success, as well as defeat—he’s a free man, and as a free man, he will be a truthful man.” Listen to more of the discussion here with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist and Jon Meacham.
On Morning Joe, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle asks Axios national political reporter Jonathan Swan about news just breaking that President Donald Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton will meet in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “John Bolton’s past attitudes toward Russia are somewhat different than Donald Trump’s careening and constantly changing attitudes toward Russia. What is going to go on…at the Kremlin, according to your sources? What do you think is going to happen here?” asks Barnicle. Listen to Swan’s response here.
Listen in while Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Mike Barnicle talk about President Donald Trump’s latest business threat — this time to Harley-Davidson, which he says will be “taxed like never before” if the motorcycle maker moves production overseas. Barnicle asks: “Is this president so emboldened, so free of any restraints in his own mind, as well as his own behavior? Does he think that he can do whatever it is he wants to do — to go after individual corporations and now with the Supreme Court decision he has successfully, probably, in his own mind, gone after a specific religion in this world: The Muslim faith. I mean, what is going on here? We know it’s an era of broken norms; but, this is really nearly now approaching beyond belief.” Hear more of the conversation here.
Listen in to the conversation between Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle about President Donald Trump’s bashing of German automakers in South Carolina, where BMW and other car makers manufacture and employ thousands of people, during a rally in West Columbia, S.C.
“The president clearly tries every day, multiple times a day, to sell ‘MS-13 is around us. MS-13 is coming to Long Island,’ and they are in Long Island. They are everywhere. They’re in Lawrence, Massachusetts. MS-13, its origins are in Los Angeles. Its orientation is in Los Angeles. It was in the United States of America that MS-13 was actually assembled years ago. But, the larger issue here is…unfortunately for us, part of our history that we have to address is: It’s always been easy to sell fear in this country….Donald Trump is a master of two things: capitalizing on resentment and selling fear—always has been,” said veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough about illegal immigration and the dwindling percentage of gang members illegally coming to America in light of former Arkansas Republican Governor Mike Huckabee’s tweet of photo of five men who appear to be using hand signs associated with the MS-13 gang with the caption, “Nancy Pelosi introduces her campaign committee for the take back of the House.” Listen to more of the discussion here.
“The striking thing is when you talk to people, average Americans, there are no more political parties. There’s only Trump. It’s amazing he has blocked so much out…It’s not daily, it’s repeatedly during the course of a day—multiple times during the course of almost any day—that he says or does something that used to be outrageous, used to be shocking and now it’s become kind of a norm, which is very dangerous,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle as the Morning Joe panel talks about President Donald Trump, amid the controversy regarding the Trump Administration’s decision to separate migrant families at the border. Listen to more of the discussion here.
“Sadly, realistically, this is the American story now…This is our story. The story of children being taken hostage on a hot Texas landscape, held in cages, away from their parents, being used as pawns to get money to build a wall, by a Republican Party whose policy is to separate them from their families, from their mothers and their fathers. That’s our story in America today. And it’s up to the people of America and the people who represent them in Congress to decide whether that’s the story they want to go with,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele about the Trump Administration’s decision to separate migrant families at the border. Listen in here.
Listen in on the conversation between Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and The New York Times investigative and political reporter Nicholas Confessore about the media’s coverage of the Trump Administration’s decision to separate migrant children from their parents at the border.
“They’ve effectively orphaned thousands of children taking them from their parents…It’s just another unraveling of what America has stood for, for over 200 years. And I don’t know how anyone in the Republican Party, no matter which wing of the Republican Party you’re on–and I’m not asking you to explain all of it or all of them–but how can they sit there so silently while this is going on?” asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with host Mika Brzezinski and MSNBC political contributor Rick Tyler about the Trump administration’s decision to separate migrant families at the border. Listen to the discussion here.
“Jeremy Bash, does it seem to you that the accusations leveled yesterday in federal court against Paul Manafort — and the way they were dropped at the end of the day, toward the end of the day, with not a hint that they were coming, not a word leaking out of Bob Mueller’s operation — that this is one of the contributing factors to the president and his team’s increasing anxiety and nervousness about the president’s legal position?” asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of NBC News national security analyst Jeremy Bash during a conversation about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, following news that the Special Counsel’s Office has accused former Trump campaign chairman Manafort of attempting to get witnesses to lie for him in court and has asked the judge to send Manafort to jail as he awaits his trial. Listen to Bash’s response here. Only on MSNBC.
