Mike Barnicle

Listen in on the conversation between Morning Joe’s Mike Barnicle and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius about the need for the U.S. to demand a credible, transparent investigation—and not contribute in any way to a cover up—into the presumed murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi during an interrogation that went wrong at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

While the Morning Joe panel talks about President Donald Trump being unwilling to hold Saudi Arabia responsible for the disappearance of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, following reports that indicate Saudi Arabia is prepared to admit that Khashoggi was killed during an interrogation that went wrong, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle explains: “This story also has to do with the $110 billion arms sales to Saudi Arabia—clearly more of a priority to the president of the United States than the national integrity of the United States’ foreign policy. Mike Pompeo, he’s in Saudi Arabia today. He’s going to meet with King Salman and with his son, the crown prince, MBS. And here’s what he’s going to do, this is an age-old story: He’s there to make their story a bit better for when it finally comes out. And it will be a rendition gone awry. That they ended up killing the guy, and they’re going to get away with it, too. They are going to get away with it.” Listen to more here.

“Rod Rosenstein is a very smart guy, he’s an accomplished guy, he’s been around a while. The 25th Amendment is such a huge hurdle in terms of proof (and) evidentiary material—even if he tapes the President of the United States in the Oval Office. It had to occur to him that this was nearly an impossible feat,” says Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle during a conversation with New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt about his reporting that indicates that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested last year that he secretly recorded President Donald Trump in the White House to expose the chaos overwhelming the Administration and posed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office for being unfit. Listen to Schmidt’s response here.

While the Morning Joe panel talks about a new allegation of sexual misconduct against President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, published by the New Yorker, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle shines a light on another issue this Kavanaugh situation presents: “The other aspect of it that is truly dangerous, truly threatening is the incredible hyper-partisanship now surrounding the Supreme Court of the United States. These are lifetime appointments—you’re supposed to look at the law as a neutral observer and decide on the basis of the law, not partisanship. And yet partisanship has always been there in the Supreme Court, but the hyper-partisanship today is truly, truly dangerous.” Hear more of the conversation with Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.

Listen in on the conversation between Morning Joe’s Mike Barnicle and The New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane about the root intent and timeline of the Russian meddling attack on the 2016 U.S. presidential election. What were the contributing factors? Hear the answers on MSNBC.

“’The Americans’ is such a great series…and Matthew Rhys winning the Emmy for just an incredible series. I mean, every episode…and a lot of the strings within the episodes would remind you somewhat of events taking place in our country today,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle with Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski about Matthew Rhys winning the Emmy for Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his work on “The Americans” during a recap of the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards. Listen to more here.

Hear more from “Fear: Trump in the White House” author and Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward about the reporting he did for his new book. Asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Woodward: “Explain to people watching, in the course of your work and in others’ work in our business, the difference between off the record conversations, background conversations for reportage.” Listen to Woodward’s response here about his reporting for “Fear.”

Listen in on the conversation between “Fear: Trump in the White House” author Bob Woodward and Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about Woodward’s new book. “Bob, you’ve covered nine presidents. You’ve written about all nine presidents, some of them in books, most of them in the daily newspaper—The Washington Post. Have you ever heard of, been around, according to your reporting, someone so ill equipped to hold the job of president as Donald Trump?” Hear Woodward’s response to this and other questions here—on MSNBC.

Listen in on the Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and former Secretary of State John Kerry about what happens when a high-ranking presidential administration official disagrees with a president on a particular issue or decision, such as Kerry did with former President Barack Obama on the president’s handling of the situation in Syria.

“Senator….You’re worried about the long-term future of the country. You’re worried about the short-term future of the country. Change is sweeping this country right now. It’s obvious in the headlines that we read each and every day. Yesterday, In Massachusetts in a Democratic primary, Mike Capuano—20-year-veteran of the House—lost to a young city councilwoman from Boston, Ayanna Pressley. One of her themes was: ‘Change can’t wait.’ And as voters look at you and every other candidate on the ballot, I’m wondering about the issue of term limits. Do you believe in term limits?” asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Sen. Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) during a conversation about term limits. Sasse’s response: “If I could pull a lever that fired all five-hundred-and-thirty-five people, including myself, I’d do it in a heartbeat. We need change. But the real question is: Change toward what?’ Hear the rest of the conversation here on MSNBC.

While the Morning Joe panel discusses the New York Times op-ed that was written by an unnamed senior Trump Administration official, who slammed President Donald Trump’s “amorality” and reckless decision-making and said he or she is part of a “resistance” working to thwart President Trump’s worst impulses, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle shares: “I would prefer that the author be named, he or she, obviously. But the larger context is: Finally, people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell reading this, knowing what they know, knowing what so many around this presidency do know, is their larger obligation not to the country rather than to the party?” Listen to more here with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist. Only on MSNBC.

“His history is one of continued survival in the face of unbelievable obstacles. Five and a half years; I’ve stood in the cell where he spent most of those five and a half years in Hanoi, and it’s not a comfortable feeling, all the years later when I stood in it. And it’s abhorrent to think of any human being, being treated the way he was treated. He once told me when I asked him, that he once went three months without seeing the sun because he was held in solitary confinement, and he once went nearly five months without seeing the moon. Think about that, and think about his resilience. That’s the United States of America: Our resilience as a republic in overcoming all sorts of historical obstacles – that’s John McCain,” says veteran columnist and Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle as the Morning Joe panel remembers the late Sen. John McCain, who died Saturday at the age of 81. Listen to more here.

“At the core of this is the president of the United States clearly fearful because he knows what he did. And he knows that Bob Mueller and the investigation that they are conducting is on to what he did. And that’s the result of the tweets. But there’s something else here that is truly dangerous, and that is the venom that he has begun to feed on almost a daily basis out into the public. We saw it at the rally the other night, and It’s no longer fun, none of it is funny, it’s truly dangerous. And we keep referring to his base. Well, I’m sorry, but the people we saw the other evening at that rally, if that’s his base, it’s deranged,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle as the Morning Joe panel talks about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and President Donald Trump’s rally in Tampa Bay, Florida, where attendees, who support the president, berated reporters. Listen to more of the discussion here with Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough.

“The bottom line here is we are confronted by an act of war, committed by Russia against the United States. They’re into banking institutions, electrical grids, all sorts of things on a daily basis, and the lack of patriotism in the United States Senate, in the United States House of Representatives speaking as one against an aggressor is just astounding to many people,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a conversation with WinView Executive Chairman Tom Rogers about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and social media sites being targeted by foreign adversaries to sway U.S. elections. Hear what Rogers, who has worked at the nexus of media, tech, advertising and public policy for more than two decades, has to say about how the country’s problems may just get a whole lot larger.

Join the conversation between Morning Joe’s veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security advisor for strategic communications for President Barack Obama, about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “What was the objective of the trade pact? What difference would the trade pact have made if it hadn’t been thrown out the window by the Trump Administration right now on this dangerously burgeoning trade war?” asks Barnicle. Hear Rhodes assessment only on MSNBC.

ICYMI: Listen in on the Morning Joe conversation with Willie Geist, Mike Barnicle and MSNBC justice and security analyst Matthew Miller about President Donald J. Trump’s ongoing and very public attempts to shut down special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, including his most recent tweet to US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking Sessions to stop “this Rigged Witch Hunt” (sic).

“Why are we doing this?” wonders veteran columnist and diehard Boston Red Sox fan Mike Barnicle as Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough recounts the Red Sox’s history of blowing AL East division leads while the panel looks ahead to the four-game series between the Red Sox and New York Yankees. Listen to more of the baseball discussion here on MSNBC.

Listen in on the conversation with Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle and the New York Times’ Nicholas Confessore about whether the private forum of Facebook is a platform or a publisher and what rules should apply. “There are so many offensive elements of Facebook—people who are on Facebook with just offensive messaging. How much is Facebook bound by the First Amendment in terms of removing elements like that?” asks Barnicle. Listen to Confessore’s response here on MSNBC.

“Russia, Iran, North Korea, all certainly pivot points that are right there in our face. What is the relationship in dealing with this between Pompeo, Jim Mattis, and John Bolton?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, who has reported on seven U.S. presidents, during a conversation about the relationships among Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, national security adviser John Bolton when it comes to foreign policy in the unprecedented era helmed by President Donald J. Trump. Listen to Mitchell’s response here.

Veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and the Morning Joe crew talks about President Donald Trump’s campaign-style rally in Tampa Bay, Florida, this week, where attendees, who support the president, berated reporters at the rally. “(Trump) has effectively changed the culture around coverage of his presidency, and you saw it again vividly last night on display in Florida. We’ve seen it every time, and it has worked for him. The ultimate mystery…and it includes most of the members of the Republican Party, both the House and the Senate: How is it that we have had effectively war declared in the United States of America by Russia, war declared on us, carried out, an act of war carried out on us—and they seem not to care about that? That is a huge mystery.”