“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.
“There is no plan B for Donald Trump and this administration now that he scrapped the Iran accord. There was no plan B on the night of the election when he assumed the presidency. They were shocked, stunned that they won. They had no plan. So, they didn’t know what to do because they never expected to be there. And that’s where we are today with Iran, with North Korea perhaps. They have no idea because it’s spur of the moment governing,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle as the Morning Joe panel talks about President Donald Trump and the problems in his Administration, following news that several companies paid President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen for White House insights. Listen to more of the discussion here.
During the Morning Joe conversation about several American companies, including Novartis and AT&T, having paid President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for promises of White House insights, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle says: “How dumb are these corporations? Novartis paid this guy $1.2 million. AT&T pays $600,000. What do their boards think about this?” Hear more of the discussion with Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist and BBC World News America Washington anchor Katty Kay.
During the Morning Joe discussion about whether President Donald Trump will fire Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer, following reports that indicate Trump is growing increasingly annoyed with Giuliani’s frequently off-message media blitz, veteran columnist asks: “Joe, the more this continues — the presidency as theater — you have to ask the question: Are we being played by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani? Because every day Giuliani says something that is so odd and so at odds with the law as we know it that you wonder: Are they just continuing this thing to keep us preoccupied? Look what we’re not talking about….This is just a classic shell game that they’re playing, perhaps unwittingly.” Hear more of the conversation with Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski now.
During a Morning Joe conversation with Amanda Carpenter, author of the new book “Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us,” veteran columnist Mike Barnicle asks her: “You can call it gaslighting, you can call it lying; but you have to have intent to do it effectively, and the intent here is not in terms of sitting down prior to lying or gaslighting and planning something. It’s momentary; it just flows out in a particular moment, and it’s like secondary gaslighting. There’s no planning to it.” Listen to more of the conversation about the “phenomenon” of President Donald Trump’s lies.
“Why would (President Donald Trump) be unafraid to take the Fifth Amendment? Look at where he is today and look what he’s done. Look what he’s been publicly accused of doing. Why would taking the Fifth Amendment, do you think, hurt him among his core constituency,” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough as the panel speculates whether Trump would exercise his Fifth Amendment right if subpoenaed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Listen to Scarborough’s response here.
Listen in on the conversation among Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, author Jon Meacham and veteran columnist Mike Barnicle on this 73rd anniversary of V-E Day. “I grew up later on, on a street where there were seven Gold Star families. Seven families on one street. Families originally from Russia, Greece, Finland, Italy, Ireland. America, the idea of America, and I don’t think there has ever been…a greater juxtaposition in proof of the strength of the American idea than Franklin Delano Roosevelt being followed by Harry S. Truman, a haberdasher from Missouri….Look at the gift that he was to America: Taking the first steps to integrate the United States military, taking the initial steps to protect and defend Berlin, and to take the advance against the creeping power of the Soviet Union – Harry S. Truman.” Hear more of the conversation.
While the Morning Joe panel talks about President Donald Trump’s legal strategy following contradictory remarks made publicly by his new lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, on the Stormy Daniels payment and the James Comey firing, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle explains: “I’m told just yesterday, last night that the legal strategy that the president and Rudy Giuliani are employing, the legal strategy is: fear. They are desperately afraid that Michael Cohen is cooperating with the special prosecutor, and they are also convinced that the special prosecutor might have Donald Trump’s tax returns, which would be a lethal weapon in terms of matching the president’s rhetoric, against actual fact-based stuff….So, they are in a world of hurt, and they’re waiting for (attorney) Emmet Flood to come through the door to stop the flood.” Listen to more of the discussion here with Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Axios’ Jim Vandehei.
“If there is a subpoena issued, it will be fought in court. What’s your expectancy in term of coverage of this story? This could go on for another year, year and a half,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle to Washington Post investigative reporter Carol Leonnig during a conversation about the possibility that special counsel Robert Mueller III will subpoena President Donald Trump as part of his Russia investigation. Listen to Leonnig’s response here.
ICYMI: Listen in on the Morning Joe conversation with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle and Elise Jordan, the New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, and Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle about President Donald Trump and his ongoing troubles, including most recently with Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly and the eroding West Wing morale. “The offenses against common sense, justice and whatever come at us every day like a fire hydrant. And it’s exhausting even trying to keep up with them.”
