“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.
“That was a thoroughly humiliating performance by Secretary of State Tillerson,” said Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during the panel’s conversation about Tillerson’s public statement refuting an NBC News report that he had been on the verge of resigning from his Cabinet post over the summer. “If Rex Tillerson had the relationship with the President of the United States that you would hope that a secretary of state would have with the President of the United States, he wouldn’t be reading off a script to describe that relationship. He would know it, he would live it.” Listen in on the discussion here.
Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough and veteran columnist Mike Barnicle discuss President Donald Trump’s visit to Las Vegas, where he met with victims of the weekend’s shooting massacre and offered words of encouragement and empathy. “It’s pretty bizarre that we are heaving a sigh of relief that the President acted normally yesterday in front of the wounded, and hurt, and grief stricken in a situation that none of us are used to — or used to it on a smaller scale. The scale of what happened in Las Vegas is still overwhelming, and we should take the time perhaps to point out that in Las Vegas we’ve seen a model of communication, in an age where we get very little clear communication from Washington. We’ve seen a model of communication in Las Vegas from Sheriff Lombardo every day, multiple times a day, which has been quite amazing and clarifying.” See highlights from POTUS’ visit here.
As the Morning Joe panel discusses the ongoing Russia probe and how Facebook ads were used to target specific states in the 2016 election, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle explains: “Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have been dragged kicking and screaming to the edge of transparency over about two or three months. At first they were living in denial and public denial that ‘we had nothing to do with this. We didn’t know this was going on. We’re not sure this was going on.’ But, now, the reality has dawned on them. And there’s another reality that occurred yesterday….You saw Dick Burr, a Republican, and you saw Mark Warner, a Democrat, standing shoulder to shoulder talking about an issue that effects the entire nation, our country. It was encouraging to finally see some sense of bipartisanship in this polarized town.” Listen to more of the conversation about Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) and vice chair Mark Warner (D-VA) announcing that they still have a lot of work to do regarding the Russia probe, including learning more about the extent of Moscow’s impact on the 2016 election and whether any Trump campaign members colluded in the interference.
Veteran newsman and former “Face The Nation” moderator Bob Schieffer joins the Morning Joe panel to talk about his new book “Overload: Finding the Truth in Today’s Deluge of News.” Listen in on Schieffer’s conversation with Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle and his worry about the fate of our democracy.
“The CEO aspect of Rex Tillerson is becoming increasingly obvious to a lot of people. I’ve been told repeatedly by several people that the real split…at the top of the Trump presidency are those who serve the country, dedicated to moving the country forward as opposed to people who are there serving Donald Trump and his ego and his lack of ideology. That’s the split at the top of the house,” says Morning Joe veteran contributor Mike Barnicle during a conversation with NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell as the panel discusses the ongoing tensions between President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Listen in here on MSNBC.
“Most Americans realize a sad, depressing truth: These killings will continue. They will not stop. Somewhere out there today, in this country, there is someone who wants to top the number 59, and they have the weaponry to do it. We are in the midst of madness and we are represented by a group of people in Congress, not all of them, but enough of them, who have over the years repeatedly made a conscious decision not to do anything to tighten existing gun laws to prevent guns meant for war and killing to be purchased by average Americans,” explains Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle as the panel discusses this week’s Las Vegas massacre, during which a gunman opened fire on attendees of the Route 91 Harvest country music festival, killing at least 59 people and injured hundreds more. Listen to more on the tragic situation here.
“Josh, other than hypocrisy with a capital H on the part of the President of the United States talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails, do we know whether or not there are any classified elements in the personal emails sent out by Jared Kushner?” asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Politico White House reporter Josh Dawsey during a conversation about White House aide Jared Kushner having used a private email account for some White House business. Listen to Dawsey’s response here.
