After watching a new TV ad for Rep. Ron DeSantis’ (R-FL) that shows his unadulterated support for President Donald Trump in the congressman’s push for the governorship in Florida and discussion of a new CBS poll about trust for accurate information, Morning Joe’s Mike Barnicle comments: “This poll: ‘Who would you trust for accurate information?’ Among Trump supporters the result: Trump 91 percent, friends and family 63 percent, mainstream media no surprise, 11 percent. So, if you’re running for governor of Florida, if you’re Ron DeSantis, you clearly seek his favor. That’s understandable. You want a favorable tweet from the president of the United States. It rockets him ahead in the primary, but among the base that we continually talk about, how deep and lasting is the fear, the clear fear that many of elected Republicans have about the president of the United States?” Hear more of the conversation.
While the Morning Joe panel reacts to clips of President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, going through a strange and confusing cable news blitz, where Giuliani first startled viewers with a public claim of a previously unknown meeting involving top Trump associates and Kremlin-linked Russians—then stated that it was “highly unlikely” the meeting took place, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle comments: “This is both incredibly taxing and incredibly tedious to have this put upon us, this early in the day. I mean, he begins one of those segments by talking about a meeting that took place, and in the very same segment, in the very same 30-second clip we played, he goes from ‘there was a meeting, there was a meeting that occurred that we wanted to get out to get ahead of the news on it;’ and 10 seconds later he’s calling it an ‘alleged meeting,’ as if the meeting that he just referred to didn’t take place. I mean, what time of night was he interviewed for that? That’s my question.” Listen to more of the discussion here on MSNBC.
As the Morning Joe panel talks about the upcoming confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump’s controversial Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle says: “To be realistic about it….Judge Kavanaugh is going to be confirmed. He is going to sit on the Supreme Court, which raises the larger question – what are the Democrats going to do in pursuit of re-winning the House, winning the House in 2018, and winning the presidency in 2020? Where are they going? What direction is the Democratic party headed in?” Hear more from Joe Scarborough and Axios’ Jim Vandehei here.
“The removal, a threatened removal, of security clearances from people like Michael Hayden, John Brennan and others is so small, so petty and so predictable. And it is the behavior of a man, Mr. Trump, who knows that the cops are at the door, and he continues—and he did it within the past few days—to stick his thumb in the eye of the American intelligence community, preferring to go with the Russian theory rather than what the American intelligence community has told him and has warned him repeatedly,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle as he along with Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist discuss President Donald Trump threatening to strip his critics—including former NSA Director Michael Hayden and former CIA Director John Brennan—of their security clearances. Listen to more of the discussion here.
“Everything we’ve spoken about here this morning in the first 20 minutes is of critical, national importance. There’s no doubt about it: The Iran tweet, Carter Page, the FISA warrants. But right up there is the corruption of the process that has taken place in the House of Representatives over the past 18 months with Paul Ryan, Republican Speaker of the House, allowing–and in some cases encouraging–Devin Nunes to carry on a concerted and consistent effort to obstruct justice using a House committee,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with host Joe Scarborough in reference to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and other House Republicans’ continued attempt to undermine the Trump-Russia probe, following the Justice Department releasing the FISA documents of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, and the president threatening Iran on Twitter.
“He had a tough week: It was a week of double negatives and retractions, and apologies, and not apologies, but then coming back with other explanations….Unfortunately, I think it kind of works for him with his constituents. It’s a great deflection, but I think it kind of works out there,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with host Joe Scarborough about President Donald Trump. Listen to more of the discussion here.
Morning Joe Mike Barnicle—after rebuking the repeated tweets of President Donald Trump—talks with James Fallows, co-author with his wife of the new book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America, about what they found during their five years of travels around the country and how what’s happening in cities and town differs from what’s happening in Washington D.C. Listen in on the conversation.
Listen in to the conversation on Morning Joe with Willie Geist, Eddie Gaude Jr., Mike Barnicle and Heidi Przybyla about the potential lasting impact President Donald J. Trump may have on American values. “My wife and I have a five-month-old grandson, Emmet James Barnicle, and I lately, constantly worry that the country I grew up in, the values of the country that I grew up in, are slowly deteriorating, being diminished by—even sadly, really sadly—the president of the United States. This country has been filled with people with all sorts of sins and all sorts of virtues; but the value that we’ve always held together, the collective value, is we are Americans, and we aspire to be Americans. America means so much to the world—always has and always will, and my worry for my grandson and others of that age, younger people today, is that that country is going to slowly disappear because this man is so interested in destroying the norms that we lived with.” Hear more of the discussion here.
The Washington Post’s political reporter Robert Costa and Morning Joe’s veteran columnist Mike Barnicle discuss the current mood among White House cabinet members. “How long do they fear it will take for this president to become angry and resentful at those who have just criticized him?” asks Barnicle. Hear Costa’s response in the wake of President Donald Trump walking back his controversial comments on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election made during the much-criticized, private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Baseball fans: Listen in as Morning Joe’s Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle talk about America’s favorite pastime. “We have never needed baseball more,” says Barnicle. “We need it to take our minds off the daily developments in Washington, the scandalous developments in Washington, from the Oval Office.” Hear more about the 2018 MLB All-Star Game and what might be to come for the second half of the baseball season.
“It’s a bad day for the American presidency,” said Adm. James Stavridis (Ret.) during a conversation with Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about President Donald Trump walking back his controversial comments on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, made at his much-criticized news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “(They) sat behind closed doors for two hours and discussed things that are potentially lethal to the future not only of the European Alliance and United States’ Soviet relationship, but that whole region,” said Barnicle.
Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and former CIA Director John Brennan discuss the inherent dangers in President Donald Trump’s private two-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. “We know very little about (that) two-hour, closed-door meeting between the President Putin, a KGB agent, KGB director, and the president of the United States. What could happen—the most dangerous thing in your mind—in that meeting when you have President Putin, a skilled interrogator, questioning, talking with, conversationally with, the president of the United States, who is so limited in his knowledge of the world and his knowledge of what intelligence truly means?” asks Barnicle. Hear Brennan’s assessment of Trump being “out of his depth” here on MSNBC.
Hear the exchange between Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about Congress’ role in international affairs in the wake of President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, where Trump sided with Putin over US intelligence on the topic of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. “Are you surprised—given what has happened, not just yesterday, but repeatedly in lesser volume over the past several months of the Trump presidency—that there has been such muted response, or reaction, or criticism of what this man, Mr. Trump, is doing to this country’s image abroad?” Listen to Albright’s response here and her call to Congress.
Listen in on the Morning Joe conversation with host Joe Scarborough, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Associated Press’ Jonathan Lemire about the last few days in the life of President Donald Trump, topped off by his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, who admitted that he wanted Trump to win the US presidential election. Hear what happens when Lemire asked Putin whether Russia has “compromising material on President Trump or his family” during a joint press conference between the two leaders.
“To use a phrase: Yesterday really was a day to cry for the country. This great republic that means so much to so many around the world. To see the president of the United States, Mr. Trump, shrink – shrink – next to Vladimir Putin, to drop his oath of office, to drop his duty on a world stage — to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And then to have so many here in this country, on TV programs like this one say, ‘what a surprise.’ No, this was not a surprise. This was Mr. Trump in full view of the world. This is who he is: ignorant, narcissistic, all involved with himself. His priority is himself, not the country, not the presidency. He is unaware of history. He was unaware certainly yesterday of anything that this republic has stood for through the ages. The only thing he was aware of, clearly, was that he was in Putin’s pocket,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle as the Morning Joe panel talks about the fallout from President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, the day after the gathering between the two leaders, where President Trump sided with President Putin over US intelligence on the topic of Russian interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Listen to more of the discussion here.
Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle speaks with Clint Watts and Elise Jordan about President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, following the Justice Department announcing indictments against 12 Russian nationals as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “(It) has got to be common knowledge now to Vladimir Putin that the Americans were inside his intelligence agencies. And now, clearly, they must be inside Putin’s head right here at this meeting,” Barnicle says. Hear more about the situation only on MSNBC.
As the Morning Joe comments on the arrivals of President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their much anticipated one-on-one meeting in Helsinki, Finland, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle observes: “As we get ready to see President Putin emerge from his plane, it occurs to a lot of people that he has already achieved success. He’s gotten a free pass from the president of the United States in his invasion of Ukraine, the fourth anniversary tomorrow of shooting down the Malaysian Airliner, disrupting and declaring war on the American political system, and here he is on board with the president of the United States side by side.” Listen in on the conversation here.
Listen in on the conversation between former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns and Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about video footage that shows President Donald Trump antagonizing U.S. allies at the start of the NATO summit. Barnicle asks Burns what he thinks about “the public humiliation of the NATO secretary general by the president of the United States. “ Listen to Burns’ response about what he terms as the president’s “diplomatic malpractice.” Only on MSNBC.
“I don’t think the White House could ever have hoped for better optics. This man and his family— a tremendously appealing group of people. The judge himself was certainly not threatening at all in his appearance, in his brief speech last night. A tremendously appealing pick,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele as the panel talks about President Donald Trump having nominated Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Hear more of the conversation now.
During a Morning Joe conversation with Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist about the correlation between President Donald Trump’s sliding approval ratings and his Administration’s separating of migrant families at the border, veteran columnist says: “The numbers are proof of the fact that while he can find a potential Supreme Court justice, he has found a Supreme Court nominee, he has lost his Administration and the Republican Party has lost hundreds of children, literally. They don’t know where these children are. They can’t reunite these children, these infants in some cases, with their parents.” Listen to more of the discussion here.
