“Memorial Day 2020, a sacred day, especially where I’m from. I grew up at a time when Memorial Day was Memorial Day. There were no sales at Home Depots; there were no large-scale picnics. It was to honor the dead. I grew up in a Gold Star household. My uncle Gerry was killed at Midway, and like all of the people listed yesterday in the Times and all of the people who will be memorialized at cemeteries around this country today, my uncle Gerry, Second Lieutenant Gerald J. Barnicle, killed at Midway on June 4th, 1942, he never died. His memory lived, and he lives today through me—as will all those people who were listed in the Times yesterday. And that’s what Donald Trump fails to grasp,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski about President Donald Trump having spent his Memorial Day weekend golfing in Virginia and attacking his opponents via Twitter, juxtaposed with The New York Times honoring the lives lost to the novel coronavirus with a powerful tribute across the front page of the Sunday paper, filled with the names of the victims and portions of their obituaries.
Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle weigh in with final thoughts from today’s show and share their views on President Donald Trump claiming it is “a badge of honor” that the U.S. has the world’s highest number of confirmed COVID-19 infection cases. “Americans used to look to the White House for leadership, for direction, for morality, for support, for emotional support. We no longer can do that,” says Barnicle about the U.S. in the era of President Trump.
Watch this exchange between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Anja Manuel, a former official at the U.S. Department of State, responsible for South Asia Policy, about whether China is economically vulnerable due to the coronavirus pandemic. Asks Barnicle: “They’ve contributed enormous sums of money, billions around the world for ports, harbors in Africa and other countries. Is it possible that they are perhaps sitting on their own dangerous economic bubble?” Hear Manuel’s response here.
“Is it not the toughest component of opening up the ability to get people back to work in some function? I mean, the dignity of work, the value of work, what it means to a family, obviously the income. How hard is it to differentiate between opening up school systems, athletic facilities or just getting people back to work?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, during a Morning Joe conversation about the process of reopening American after the coronavirus-related lockdowns across the country. Listen to Besser’s response here about how the way forward is slow, methodical and requiring good, comprehensive data systems to understand what’s working and what isn’t.
Watch the reactions from Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle when NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Kasie Hunt asks them what would happen if they told their wives that washing the dishes was solely expected of them, following President Donald Trump wading into the age old debate about the burden of household chores by saying that he would prefer government employees to wash Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s dishes if his wife or son was not there to do so.
Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle discuss the “bad politics” of President Donald Trump going into the 2020 presidential election against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. “Would anyone be surprised if, on January 20th, 2021, Joe Biden has beaten Donald Trump, and Donald Trump refuses to go to the inauguration of the incoming president? I would not be surprised at that,” says Barnicle. Watch more of the segment here.
Listen in on this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Dr. Vin Gupta and Mike Barnicle as they discuss whether or not President Donald Trump is taking daily doses of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and the potential dangers especially for someone of Trump’s age and weight doing so, added to the fact that medical experts and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have warned of its lack of efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 and of its potentially harmful side effects. “We don’t know whether the President just said this to further distort and divide the debate over what’s going on with the virus,” says Barnicle. Join the conversation here.
Watch the conversation between Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Pete Buttigieg, the former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who has endorsed Joe Biden’s run for the presidency against Donald Trump, about the kinds of qualities we should be looking for in our leaders at the presidential, gubernatorial and mayoral levels so we can restore the trust in government and in the leadership of the government.
“Donald Trump, who fancies himself a commander in chief…seems to have forgotten the principle objective of any commander in chief: the safety of his troops or, in this case, the people of this country,” says Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle about President Donald Trump during a conversation with Joe Scarborough about Trump’s criticism of comments Dr. Anthony Fauci made during a congressional hearing about the risks of reopening the country too soon. Watch more of the conversation here. #mikesdailyfruitbowl
Tune in to this Morning Joe conversation between contributor Mike Barnicle and Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, as they discuss what it would take to reopen schools this fall for preschool and grade-school age children, which would enable their parents to go back to work in many cases.
“The thing that I wonder about, and perhaps you can enlighten us, is that the stories, the increasing tonnage of stories, that we get about the President’s behavior—about his conduct, about his verbal conduct, denying everything that we can see with our own eyes—the source of many of these stories are repeated leaks from within the White House….What kind of support does he have among the White House staff?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Associated Press White House reporter Jonathan Lemire as the Morning Joe panel discusses President Donald Trump and his administration’s handling of the deadly and devastating coronavirus outbreak in America. Listen to Lemire’s response here. Only on MSNBC.
Join this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and writer Anand Giridharadas about the growth of tribalism in America, further impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, and the possibility that among the outcomes or silver linings could be a political reset that leads to systemic change. “I also have hope now,” Giridharadas said. Watch more of the discussion now.
“The President is afraid of facts. He doesn’t like facts because the facts are really scary and threatening to him,” said Morning Joe contributor and veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with Willie Geist about the disturbing facts President Donald J. Trump does not want to face about the number of people who have died and continue to die, are sick, and have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus outbreak in America. Watch more of their conversation now.
Listen in on this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist and contributor Mike Barnicle and former Baltimore city health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen about the why, how, when of contact tracing of infectious diseases, “the bread and butter of public health,” and how it applies to can help fight the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“A couple of weeks ago, the superintendent at West Point ordered all of the West Point cadets home for safety reasons, in order to care for them, to make sure that they were out of a petri dish at West Point and the coronavirus threat. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has just ordered all of these troops from disparate parts of this country to return to West Point so he can have an audience for a commencement address he’s scheduled to deliver. What are your thoughts on that?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA). Listen to Kaine’s response and why he believes: “This president is: This is about me and who cares about you.”
“All I can think of when I hear Donald Trump on the clips that we play, and we talk about him, obviously, a lot, is the Jack Nicholson character in ‘A Few Good Men,’ when he looks into the camera and he’s in the courtroom and says, ‘you can’t handle the truth.’ And I think that’s where we are with Donald Trump,” says Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle. “He can’t handle the truth. He has created his own lost empire, and he just rambles around from one press conference to another.” Watch more of the conversation here between Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough and Barnicle about President Donald Trump’s continued “mistakes” of downplaying the longevity of the novel coronavirus, following Trump’s most recent statement that the coronavirus would eventually be “eradicated” with or without a vaccine so that Americans and businesses could return to normal life and operations.
Listen in on this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Claire McCaskill and Mike Barnicle as they weigh in on the pros and cons of news that Major League Baseball is contemplating a plan to start its season in late June, playing in home stadiums with a realigned league and no fans in the seats. Watch the discussion here about the tremendous logistics, costs and health risks involved in resuming baseball season in June for fans to watch on television.
“Donald Trump’s larger problems might be the fact that he has an empathy absence. He has none. He doesn’t understand what’s going on to real people’s lives out in the country…..He doesn’t understand what it means to have the economic gun at your head. He just doesn’t. He has lived a life of lies,” said veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a Morning Joe segment with Joe Scarborough about how President Donald Trump is now being “exposed” for his lack of leadership, his lies and divisive rhetoric in his response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I pose this question to the country: How would you feel if Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci both resigned under protest, that the President is acting like someone who is mad, someone who has gone temporarily insane—who is deranged, who feels cornered, who will say anything to get out of anything at a particular moment in time? Not long-term, not leadership, not looking down the road, but get out of something like right now. How would you feel if they resigned?” asks Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle of the American people during a conversation with Joe Scarborough about President Donald Trump having suggested that injecting disinfectant or beaming people with ultraviolet rays might cure the coronavirus.
National Urban League President Marc Morial joins Morning Joe to talk about what can be quickly done to assist minority communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. “Given the catastrophic attack the virus has made on minority communities in the United States, what has to be done? What can realistically be done in the immediate future – not long term, buy immediate future – about access to health care, access to health insurance in these minority communities?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Morial. Find out more here.
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.
