Mike Barnicle

“Tim Walz is clearly a leadoff hitter…and the campaign isn’t taking advantage of a good leadoff hitter. His job is to get on base, but in order to get on base, you have to…talk to people. That’s his greatest asset,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle in this Morning Joe segment with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Jen Psaki about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and his debate performance against Ohio Sen. JD Vance as the two faced off in their first and only scheduled vice presidential debate. “He’s a human being, he’s relatable. So, he gets off that plane in wherever it is, Paducah, Kentucky, wherever it is; you go right to the local media and you do a two or three minute interview with him, it’s on the news that night and people watch him and say, ‘hey, he seems like good guy.’

“I think he belongs in the Hall of Fame, but I think everything that he did, both positive and negative, ought to be put on the plaque. I mean, there are a few other people in the Hall of Fame, few other players who were not models of civilization or civility. Just recognize who Pete Rose was: he played 25 years, 25 years in the major leagues. He averaged 194 hits per season. He was a bad guy off the field. Let’s get that on the record; but he was a spectacular player, a spectacular player. And yeah, put him in the Hall of Fame, but put it on the plaque,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Willie Geist and Jonathan Lemire as they remember Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s hit king who then became an outcast for gambling on the game. Rose died at 83 years old, leaving behind a tainted legacy in baseball history.

Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance about a federal judge having granted a request from prosecutors to file an up-to-180-page legal brief this week arguing why former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election should not be immune from criminal prosecution, repudiating the former president’s claims that its timing was politically motivated with the election quickly nearing. “Joyce, in addition to a lot of the nuggets of information and evidence contained in this document, it will be sealed. So, we won’t be getting, probably, leaks on it; but, is there a timeline here on when this case might pop out and go public?” asks Barnicle. Hear Vance’s response here.

Listen in on this Morning Joe conversation with Jonathan Lemire, Richard Haass and Mike Barnicle as they weigh in on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky being set to reveal a “victory plan” to President Joe Biden, which will showcase how Ukraine intends to end the war with Russia, as Kyiv is looking to the U.S. leader for a strong show of support before Zelensky leaves the White House. “Ukraine, on the other hand, has fought nobly. They are the underdog still; but they’ve got to define in Washington, and in this feckless institution—the United Nations down the street—they’ve got to define what victory means,” says Barnicle.

Watch this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin about GOP Nebraska state Senator Mike McDonnell, who Republicans hoped would help ease former President Donald Trump’s path to the White House by agreeing to change how the state of Nebraska allocates its Electoral College votes, announcing he would not agree to change Nebraska’s 32-year tradition of awarding three of the state’s five electoral votes by congressional district to a winner-take-all system based on the statewide popular vote. “Making a decision as Mike McDonnell made this close to an election, it’s amazing that we’re living in a political culture where Mike McDonnell is now thought of as perhaps getting a Profile in Courage Award. A commonsense decision, Profiles in Courage,” says Barnicle. There’s more to the discussion here.

Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and NBC News investigations correspondent Tom Winter about the many dangers facing the United States, following the second apparent assassination attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump in as many months. “Where is the threat level today?” Barnicle asks of Winter. Watch the conversation here.

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig join Morning Joe to discuss their new book, “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success,” which provides the history of former President Trump’s wealth and reveals how one of the country’s biggest business failures lied his way into the White House. “Some of the tales in the book are so glaringly obvious as to Trump’s character or lack of character,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle. “One of them is he’s at the military academy, and it’s time for the class picture to be taken, and Donald has earned maybe one or two good conduct medals that would be flashed on his uniform when the photo was taken, but he has another idea for that day.” Watch this segment to find out how Trump attempted to alter and advance his own personal history in that telling moment.

“There’s another aspect to this that is on the minds of more than a few people. A couple of aspects: One is Merrick Garland’a running his tutelage over the Justice Department: Why did it take so long to get this case moving? We are coming up on four years passage of time from January 6th, 2021, and here we are, still in the weeds of legal back and forth, and the keyword, I think, out in the public, Lisa, when they think of this case is the word ‘again.’ Donald Trump indicted again. And you can feel the shoulders of the average voter just shrugging and moving on because of that word ‘again’ and the timeless factor of this investigation and indictment process,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle to MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin as the Morning Joe panel discusses prosecutors having filed a superseding indictment in the federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, after the Supreme Court granted the former president substantial immunity.

“Grocery prices I think are the biggest crippler for American families, and they haven’t come down a whole lot. They’ve come down a bit; but I can’t understand why the Justice Department that sues nearly every major corporation you can think of, to try and prevent them from buying other companies like that, why they haven’t gone after big food provision companies, who have to be fixing prices at some level, have to be, because of certain prices for certain things never, ever come down, and it’s a crippler for American families,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle in this conversation with Jonathan Lemire on Way Too Early to discuss the 2024 presidential race and the state of the America economy as inflation has dropped below three percent for the first time since 2021.

Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Willie Geist, Jonathan Lemire and Mike Barnicle as they discuss the 2024 presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump, who recently delivered remarks focused on his plans for the economy but diverted to numerous tangents about his political rivals and the country. “We saw a man standing there on the stage saying, ‘we are literally a third world country.’ I don’t know anyone who believes we are literally a third world country, and the thing about the Trump campaign now that makes me wonder a lot about it is: Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita running the campaign. (They) are extremely good at what they do; but they seem to have lost control of their candidate…(who) has a tired, 20-year-old act. We just saw it. He updates it with some figures from the past two or three years; but it’s a tired old act: The election was stolen, we’re a third world country, crime is up, immigrants are going to rape your daughter. All sorts of fear factors and a lot of it, a lot of it, with huge, huge ugly racial overtones, especially when it comes to the vice president. And you wonder how long will it be before he really goes out of control, and I think what’s going to happen is when that debate occurs, and he’s in the ring with the vice president of the United States, a woman, a very sophisticated, very intelligent woman, and she hammers him like a prosecutor and doesn’t let him off the hook, he will go – well I can’t say it, but something will snap in him and that will be it,” predicts Barnicle about the September 10 debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“The sea change in American politics over just the past few weeks has been astounding….President Biden was supposed to be on the ballot three or four weeks ago, and all the numbers in every state were going the wrong way. Now it’s completely flip-flopped, including North Carolina, which is now in contention, and I would submit there’s one other element to be added to this conversation: I think there’s going to be another sea change after the first debate that occurs between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. When a Black woman in the ring cuffs him around, which she will, I think he will go bananas in public, and that will change everything,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about the upcoming presidential debate between former President Trump and Vice President Harris during this conversation with Willie Geist, Jonathan Lemire and the Rev. Al Sharpton as they discuss the state of the 2024 presidential race between Trump and Harris, who according to new polling is ahead or tied with Trump in six of seven battleground states, erasing the leads the former Republican president enjoyed before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race last month.

Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Mike Barnicle as they discuss Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school teacher and football coach, having made their debut as the 2024 Democratic Presidential ticket at a rally in Philadelphia. “Watching the coach, and I’m going to call him the coach from now until election day. Watching the coach…and watching the vice president…it was mesmerizing in the sense that it’s been a while since I’ve seen a rally like that either on TV or in person. And watching it, you could just sense the power in the hall, and it was the power of joy, the power of laughter, the power of hope for the future, but especially the power of those who were in the hall and those who were thinking or considering voting for this ticket—the vice president, and the coach—giving them the power to think that they’re participating in something that will put a smile on your face. It’s been a long time since any aspect of American politics has put a smile on anyone’s face and these two people…managed to put a smile on the nation’s face,” says Barnicle.

“What kind of a message can we come up with to prevent more election poll workers from quitting their jobs because they fear for their own safety?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig who joins Morning Joe with former United States Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson to discuss the American Bar Association organizing a task force with the goal of protecting democracy. Watch the conversation here about why November’s election will be a test of America’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

Tune in for this Morning Joe segment as veteran columnist Mike Barnicle weighs in on President Joe Biden’s historic prisoner swap with Russia, marking a major diplomatic accomplishment and legacy-defining moment for President Biden less than six months before he leaves the White House. “You had a confident, knowledgeable president of the United States standing up, telling the American public exactly what happened, and then singing happy birthday with a young woman….A smile on the President’s face. The deep knowledge and relationships that he has with leaders around the world got this done. More than anything else, he got this done,” says Barnicle about President Biden’s success in bringing prisoners home.

ICYMI: “There was no bitterness, no resentment, no self-pity in his voice or in his presentation… Last night you saw a portrait of character in the president of the United States. Going forward, I think his place in history is well sealed by his presidency,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Mika Brzezinski about President Joe Biden’s remarks from the Oval Office on his decision to abandon his bid for re-election and support Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination for president. “You can only imagine how difficult it is for anyone to give up such power….And now, America has been given an object lesson in character and history by a man, ‘here I am, Joe Biden behind the Resolute desk ceding power’.” Watch the segment here.

“A sleeper issue in this campaign—guns, violence, street violence, young kids being shot and killed at the age of 12, 13, even younger. What role is that going to play in the campaign, according to your estimates, and how do you go at it if you are looked at as a progressive Democrat?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) during this Morning Joe conversation about the issue of gun control in the 2024 presidential race.

Washington to Wilmington for years, a guy who can look people in the eye, slap them on the shoulder, establish an instant rapport with them, a guy who has known world leaders, a guy who has sponsored legislation and sponsored a lot of legislation that passed and might change the country eventually down the road—the Chips Act, the Inflation Reduction Act. Sum up for us if you could, how all of those strengths are also part of his weakness,” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of The Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer, who joins Morning Joe to discuss his latest article entitled “Biden’s Greatest Strengths Proved His Undoing,” which explains how the personal qualities that enabled President Joe Biden’s successes in office helped doom his candidacy for reelection. Watch the conversation here. Only on MSNBC. ”

“The sadness of this is personal for me and I think for people who know Joe Biden,” said Morning Joe’s Mike Barnicle during this conversation with Jonathan Lemire about the ongoing pressure from high-ranking Democrats on President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race for the White House. “You don’t want to see him pushed out, you don’t want to see him hurt or humiliated. You want to see him thrive to be a success, whether he walks away from the nomination or sticks it out for the nomination. You want to see him succeed.” Tune into the segment here.

ICYMI: Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle address the ongoing speculation of whether President Joe Biden will step aside from the 2024 presidential election, following President Joe Biden having admitted to a Wisconsin radio station that he “screwed up” in last week’s debate against former President Donald Trump, but having vowed to fight on in the election race and move to reassure key allies. “He knows what’s going on. He knows the depth of trouble. He knows that the debate that people saw something they cannot unsee; but he also knows something that apparently the Biden administration hasn’t fully explained to the American public…The Biden Administration has passed the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act, two pieces of legislation that I’m told by people who know far more about economics than I do, will change and improve the progress of our economy, modernize it, make it more widely spread in terms of both the country, red states specifically will benefit from it more than blue states will; employment is on the rise. Now, the decision on what he does going forward is his and his alone, in concert with his family, clearly. He will make the right decision for the country and for himself,” says Barnicle about Biden amid the fallout from his debate performance, which has prompted calls for him to drop out of the 2024 race.

“Dr. Fauci, 40 years of helping and/or healing, sometimes both at once, in all of those 40 years, could you ever imagine—the impact that the latter years, dealing with COVID, dealing with the virus, helping cure people with the vaccine—that you and your family would come under such a sustained political assault?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who joins Morning Joe to reflect on his long career in public service , including his experience being the public face of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic —a position that was met with vast appreciation from many and denunciation from others. Listen to his response here.