Entries from Aug 2020
Unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin

Tune in to this Morning Joe discussion between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and WTMJ Milwaukee reporter Tony Atkins about the circumstances surrounding the violence and unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during which 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse is accused of killing two protesters and injuring another with an AR-15-style rifle. The shootings happened amid the third night of demonstrations over the police shooting and wounding of 29-year-old Jacob Blake.

Mike Barnicle for The Daily Beast

Check out veteran columnist Mike Barnicle’s latest commentary for The Daily Beast in which he dissects and explains President Donald Trump’s “attempt to scare the country” into voting for him during the 2020 Republican National Convention, which was “built around demonization, defining danger in almost clear racial terms, denying and talking around nearly 180,000 virus deaths that Trump could not combat with only passing references to the millions of unemployed. As Trump spoke and midnight approached, you had a right to be scared,” writes Barnicle. Read the entire column here: https://bit.ly/32DaCv1

What is the Republican Platform?

Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and conservative commentator Charlie Sykes about President Donald J. Trump’s acceptance of the GOP nomination and a message from Mark and Patricia McCloskey – the St. Louis homeowners who pointed guns at protesters earlier this summer – this week at the Republican National Convention. “We saw a social arsonist—the President of the United States—who sets these little bonfires, stands back and watches them grow. And we also heard during the week that there is really no Republican platform this week announced at their convention; but, my sense of it is, and I’ll ask if you agree with it: There was a Republican platform and it was articulated by the McCloskeys—the two McCloskeys who stood there, looked into the TV camera and said, ‘Black people are coming to destroy the suburbs, to take your house and ruin your incomes and they’re doing it because the Democrats are going to let them do it’,” asks Barnicle. Hear Sykes response here.

Republicans’ counter convention

Tune into this Morning Joe discussion between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Stand Up Republic Executive Director Mindy Finn, whose organization is hosting a “Convention on Founding Principles” as counter-programming to this week’s Republican National Convention. “Fear is the motivating factor to vote for this one person, Donald Trump. How do you combat that?” asks Barnicle. Hear what Finn has to say about her group’s efforts to reach a national audience of Republicans and conservatives dissatisfied with President Donald Trump.

How to safely reopen schools

Morning Joe’s veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a former White House advisor for health policy and current advisor to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, discuss the criteria and national plan necessary to safely reopen schools amid the coronavirus outbreak in America. “You just can’t do this on a wing and a prayer,” says Emanuel.

Trump’s campaign of fear

Watch this Morning Joe conversation between host Joe Scarborough and veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about the most recent polls that show the tightening presidential race between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden during the week of the Republican National Convention. “The closer we get to Election Day we’re going to see an hourly reprise of what we’re listening to on television at the Republican convention. We’re going to see a campaign based on fear…and the ability to use that fear to manipulate votes: It’s going to be immigration, it’s going to be the wall, it’s going to be Black people coming to your neighborhood, it’s going to be violence, it’s going to be law and order, it’s going to be, ‘be very afraid people because Donald Trump is the only one who can protect your white America against what is going to happen if Joe Biden is elected president’,” says Barnicle about the 2020 race for the White House. More of the discussion here.

U.S. need for global diplomacy

In this Morning Joe segment, host Mika Brzezinski, former Secretary of State John Kerry and veteran columnist Mike Barnicle discuss the Trump Administration’s foreign policy record, lack of diplomacy and former President Barack Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech in which he cast President Donald Trump as a threat to democracy. “It was just Barack Obama talking directly to you—the citizen out there—and he was talking about the need to defend this country; that this country, the United States of America, is literally on the line this election day,” says Barnicle about Obama’s DNC speech. Watch more of the conversation here.

What does America look like?

Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Valerie Jarrett, former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, discuss how the upcoming virtual Republican National Convention might respond to the “face and feelings of America” that were on display at this week’s virtual Democratic National Convention. Watch the segment here.

NJ Governor talks school reopening

Watch this Morning Joe conversation with veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on when and how the state’s public schools may open safely amid the deadly and destructive coronavirus outbreak.

Words as weapons against women

In this Morning Joe segment, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and All In Together CEO and Co-Founder Lauren Leader discuss how the ongoing fight for equality for women and girls must supersede the words and actions of President Donald J. Trump, who disbanded the White House Council on Women and Girls and who continually uses “demeaning words” to describe public women. “This is way beyond the president. This is about who we are as a society,” says Leader. Watch the conversation here.

Rational” fear of school reopening

Check out this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and New York Times op-ed columnist David Leonhardt about the “rational” fear of reopening schools amid the coronavirus outbreak in America because children can transmit the deadly disease to parents, grandparent and the community.

Decline of the U.S.

Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle and Washington Post associate editor Eugene Robinson about the years-long series of events that contributed to our national decline and led us to the era of President Donald Trump.

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro makes erroneous prediction

“We have incompetence in this Administration. We have corruption in this Administration. We have criminality in this Administration, and we have these virtual clowns on television like Jeanine Pirro making absurd predictions and pronouncements,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a discussion with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski about Fox News host Jeanine Pirro’s erroneous on-air suggestion that “something’s going to happen” so that Joe Biden will not be on the Democratic presidential ticket in November. Watch the rest of the conversation here.

When will Americans get financial relief?

Morning Joe veteran columnist and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discuss the latest report that over 1 million Americans will file for state unemployment benefits for the 21st consecutive week due to the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing negotiations between the Trump Administration and Democratic leaders over the next economic relief package for Americans.
Asks Barnicle: “During your discussions—you and Senator Schumer, your discussions with Mr. Meadows and Mr. Mnuchin—is it ever raised the fact that millions of Americans who have lost their jobs will take months and years to recover economically? Some will never recover economically. Some of the jobs they’ve lost will never come back. Do you talk about these things?” Hear Speaker Pelosi’s response now.

National Urban League’s annual report “Unmasked”

Watch this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial about the release of “Unmasked,” the organization’s annual State of Black America report that addresses the various ways that that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed long-standing disparities for Black Americans when it comes to the economy, access to health care institutions and the criminal justice system. “Black people have caught hell this year,” says Morial, explaining they are more likely to be infected with coronavirus, more likely to die from it, more likely to be unemployed and less likely to have the ability to work from home. Hear more of the discussion here.

No help from POTUS on coronavirus relief bill

Is President Donald J. Trump personally involved in the current White House negotiations with Democrats over the next economic relief package that will help millions Americans on the verge of economic collapse amid the coronavirus pandemic? Find out in this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Getting poor and low-income voters to the polls

Watch this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and the Rev. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, about what has to happen to lift up and politically engage this country’s 34 million poor and low income people to cast their vote toward combatting the systemic racism and systemic poverty that plague our nation.

Republicans need to stand up

“People forget a lot of things—we are in a sense, a country of amnesiacs with the culture moving so rapidly….But people don’t forget things like not getting a paycheck, not having someone come for them to help them. Government is there to help people in trouble. This time people are in real trouble and nobody is coming, and nobody is coming largely because of the Republican Party led by Donald J. Trump,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough about the Republican Party as the coronavirus outbreak and its handling has ravaged the country. Join the conversation here.

Americans waiting for relief package

“We live now in a country where people walk around with just a few thoughts on their minds: School, jobs, work, pay. And they wonder: Why, in this situation with evictions already beginning, with mortgages right on the edge of teetering, with incomes having disappeared, with furlough being a word not restricted to the military but to your company and your office in a building where you might never go back to…why is the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives home? Why are they not working? They’re still getting paid. They have a job. Their job is us, and they’re not doing it,’” says Morning Joe contributor and veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about the federal government’s ongoing failure in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic as Republicans and Democrats in Congress have not been able to reach an agreement on the next relief package for America.

Legendary Pete Hamill Dies

“Pete was a giant of American journalism….He was a true tribune of the city, New York City, and he wrote about people whose lives matter—ordinary people—who don’t often find their names in the paper unless it’s surrounded by some calamity. He wrote about how people live….He was decent, kind, generous. He was everything you would want in a human being, never mind a city columnist, a great journalist. Pete Hamill will be missed by me and many, many others whose lives he touched across the years,” says Morning Joe contributor and veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about Pete Hamill, who died this week at age 85, and who in addition to being a legendary columnist served as editor for the New York Daily News and the New York Post.