“A malignancy occupied the Oval Office; a twisted, corrupt individual was president of the United States, (and) instead of doing his duty became a political arsonist and tried to burn us down—tried to burn down democracy,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about former President Trump during this Morning Joe segment that followed the seventh public hearing from the January 6th Committee which showed how violent right-wing extremist groups were spurred toward Washington as part of former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden.
Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation between veteran journalist Mike Barnicle and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution politics and government Journalist Greg Bluestein during which they discuss a Fulton County special grand jury investigation into whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.
Watch this Morning Joe segment with Willie Geist, Jonathan Lemire and Mike Barnicle as they recap and assess the first prime-time hearing from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack, which detailed the findings of the panel’s investigation and unveiled new video from closed-door depositions of members of former President Donald Trump’s team and the violence at the Capitol. Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, who is serving as the panel’s vice chair, stated that former President Trump had a “sophisticated, seven-point plan” to overturn the 2020 presidential election over the course of several months while she explained how the panel plans to use its future hearings to tackle each part of the scheme. “For anyone to view what we saw last night – and, you’re right, it was hard to view—and then to have these same, specific members of Congress who get up and talk publicly, as you just referenced, ‘we have to support the police’ in the midst of that chaos. I mean, this was a planned attack on the foundations of our democracy,” says Barnicle about the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation among Jonathan Lemire, Eugene Robinson and Mike Barnicle about President Joe Biden’s prime-time “Enough” speech regarding gun control, during which he demanded lawmakers respond to communities that are being turned into “killing fields” by passing gun reform legislation after the massacres in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York. “In terms of content and delivery, I think it was about the best he’s had as President of the United States,” said Barnicle of the speech.
Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle continue the Morning Joe conversation about the details leading up to this week’s mass elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 21 people dead, including 19 children and two teachers. “There’s only two things that are vividly clear at this point: One is that the autopsy, the report of what happened that day, minute-by-minute, in terms of law enforcement people and the shooter himself, is going to be brutal. It’s going to be brutal. Just given the fact that there was…either half an hour or a 40-minute lapse between the time that he entered the classroom and the time that he was shot dead. The other aspect of this that’s going to come to fore is the idea that several people have mentioned, I think preposterously, since the shooting occurred: Is that things would have been different if teachers were armed, including from Governor Abbott’s press conference…one of the people on the stage, ‘it would have been different if teachers had been armed.’ So, we see what happens in terms of just a school police officer being confronted by someone with an assault weapon, with an AR-15, you know you’re out gunned. We don’t want to attribute motives until we find out all the facts; but a schoolteacher armed in a classroom certainly would have been more than outmatched,” says Barnicle following Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s press conference about the massacre.
ICYMI: Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Mike Barnicle about why lawmakers will not take action on gun reform legislation even after the latest U.S. school mass shooting during which an 18-year-old gunman wielding an AR-15 fatally shot 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. “We have an issue involving a specific weapon, an assault rifle. It’s killing children. It’s killing grandmothers. It’s extraordinarily easy to use. It’s even easier to purchase. It’s a danger to democracy. It’s a danger to your family, to your children, and your grandchildren. But, we have a way to stop it. We have a way to slow down the murders of children, and here’s how we do it: We establish, again, a ban on the sale of assault weapons. We establish, again, universal pre-checks, so they can’t purchase weapons, and your elected officials, knowing this, seeing the evidence, seeing their own futures politically perhaps at stake, they rise up in a majority and they say, ‘no, no, we won’t do it.’ That’s where we are. You can feel the nuts and bolts of our democracy popping loose when they vote to continue insanity,” says Barnicle about the inaction from lawmakers on gun control. Join the conversation here.
Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, Mika Brzezinski, Jonathan Lemire and Mike Barnicle as they contrast two recent occurrences in Major League Baseball: New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge having an emotional meeting with the 9-year-old fan whose story went viral after he had his wish come true when a Toronto Blue Jays fan gifted him with a Aaron Judge home run ball he caught and Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Madison Bumgarner being ejected after the first inning of his start against the Miami Marlins after a confrontation with first-base umpire Dan Bellin. “I prefer to focus on the New York Yankees and Aaron Judge and that little boy because, as Joe just indicated, that capsulizes the romance of baseball. You pass it on to your sons, your daughters, and they carry it through. That was just a wonderful moment, wonderful moment,” says Barnicle about Judge’s meeting with the young fan. Watch the segment here.
Congratulations, Mike Barnicle! Tune in for this Morning Joe segment as Willie Geist, Mika Brzezinski and Jonathan Lemire celebrate Barnicle for having received the Pete Hamill Award for Journalistic Excellence from the Glucksman Ireland House NYU during the organization’s 10th annual gala last night. “It was a humbling evening…because Pete Hamill was a hero not only to me but to many people in our business…So, just to have received recognition in the name of Pete Hamill – my hero – it was rewarding,” says Barnicle about having been recognized for his political and social commentary and bestowed with the award named after legendary journalist Pete Hamill. Join the celebration here as Maureen Dowd, Phil Griffin, Mike’s family and many others did last night at the Rainbow Room in New York City.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation among Joe Scarborough, Richard N. Haass and Mike Barnicle as they discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine having “backfired” on Russian President, following UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson having paid an in-person visit to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Over the weekend Boris Johnson walking with the president of Ukraine—clearly, openly, bravely—was a significant sign that this is, in addition to the horrors of the war, one of the great human dimension stories that we’ve seen in years. You have a nation here under siege…and yet Ukraine stands firmly, boldly, proudly up against this,” says Barnicle. See more of the segment here.
“President Biden has said publicly that he – meeting with Putin – told him that he thought he had no soul and that Putin replied to him, ‘well, at least we understand each other.’ He clearly does not have a soul,” said Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle during this conversation with Joe Scarborough about Russian President Vladimir Putin amid reports that Russian forces were leaving brutalized bodies and widespread destruction in their wake in Ukraine.
“The President of the United States was absolutely correct when he described Vladimir Putin as a war criminal and a butcher, and he was absolutely correct when he stated early on that he thought that Russia would invade Ukraine….My question to you, Richard Haass, given what we have seen, given the evidence that’s been right there in front of the world’s face, how is it that Russia is allowed to remain as one of 15 members of the United Nations Security Council?” veteran columnist Mike Barnicle asks of Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, during a Morning Joe conversation about why Russia still has a membership to the UNSC amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation between Mike Barnicle and Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby about the careful, ever-shifting complexity of delivering aid to Ukrainians amid Russia’s invasion.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation between Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle as they unpack President Joe Biden’s seemingly improvised comment about Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of a capstone address in Warsaw, where he stated “for God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” to close out his speech amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Joe Biden has been at this for a long time, and he’s been thinking about Vladimir Putin for a long time….There was a lot going on here in that speech, but it was a speech given by a strong president of the United States with a very strong message that Western Europe, NATO and the United States is determined, determined to win this war on behalf of Ukraine and on behalf of liberty and freedom throughout the world,” says Barnicle about President Biden’s speech in Warsaw. See more of the discussion here.
Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle discuss Russian tennis star Daniil Medvedev potentially being banned from Wimbledon unless he publicly denounces Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “It’s inevitable that common sense also becomes a casualty of wars like this, and this is a war. That’s the reality of it: We are at war. The United States is at war. Putin is a bad guy. Putin’s not going to quit, and so this guy is a casualty of the lack of common sense that has been affected by what’s happening in Ukraine,” says Barnicle about the situation. Watch the segment here.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Kori Schake, director of Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, about what might be the long-term impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, especially if Ukraine through its “courage and resistance” succeeds in ejecting Russian forces.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation between Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle about the “clarifying moment” we are in now since Russia invaded Ukraine two weeks ago, which has inspired a reunited spirit of democracy in America and elsewhere and has seen the Ukrainian President Zelensky meet this moment. “History is littered with the ghosts of those who have underestimated America at every turn—politically, economically, governmentally. America is strongest when America stands together,” says Barnicle.
Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle discuss President Joe Biden’s “extraordinary” response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how history may remember the Presidents efforts in handling the international relations. “I don’t think we can – any of us – imagine the work that Joe Biden has done over the past couple of months…assembling a coalition that is going to be changing the face of Europe for perhaps a decade and confronting a two-point attack from China and Moscow,” says Barnicle. Watch the conversation now.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and former California Congresswoman Jane Harman about whether the hierarchy among nations is being reshaped amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this following reports that Russia has asked China to give it military equipment and support for the war in Ukraine. Hear more about how the “world realigned under our noses” here.
ICYMI: “Mr. President, with the exception of the no-fly zone, what is your greatest military need right now today with the Russians at the edge of the city?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during a Morning Joe conversation about the immediate needs of the Ukraine military 14 days in and after the U.S. and NATO insisted they can’t provide Ukraine with a no-fly zone to protect it from the Russian invasion. Hear Poroshenko’s response here.
The Morning Joe panel reflects on the dwindling demographic of people here in the United States who remember the sacrifices that Americans made during World War II and whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine will give pause to Americans to understand in the long term the fickle nature of freedom. Watch the conversation in the wake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky having delivered a standing-ovation worthy address to the British Parliament via video.
Mike Barnicle is a veteran print and broadcast journalist recognized for his street-smart, straightforward style honed over nearly four decades in the field. The Massachusetts native has written 4,000-plus columns collectively for The Boston Globe, Boston Herald and the New York Daily News, and continues to champion the struggles and triumphs of the every man by giving voice to the essential stories of today on television, radio, and in print.
