Mike Barnicle

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.”

While the Morning Joe panel talks with Carol Leonnig, investigator reporter for The Washington Post, about her reporting that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III said he could subpoena President Donald Trump in his Russia probe, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle weighs in on Trump’s lawyers’ role in the situation: “One thing becomes more clear with each passing day, that Rudy Giuliani, Ty Cobb, John Dowd — none of them know as much as Bob Mueller knows because their client has not fully told them.” Hear more of the story now.

While the Morning Joe panel discusses the leak of the 49 questions that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III would like to ask President Donald Trump and provided to his attorneys, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle comments: “One thing seems to be for certain now: This investigation is going to drag out for months, and months, and months because the president is not going to sit for this interview. He’d be crazy to sit for this interview.” Listen to more of the conversation here.

As the Morning Joe panel discusses Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s comments during an event at the Newseum in Washington that the “Department of Justice will not be extorted” amid news that U.S. representatives Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), allies of President Donald Trump, have drafted articles of impeachment against him, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle explains: “It’s clear from listening to Deputy Rosenstein during the interview (that) the roots of this investigation have to do with a foreign state – Russia – attacking the American political process, inflicting damage in our democracy. What Meadows and Jordan are doing with their antics is nothing less than trying to obstruct or impede an ongoing investigation – that’s it.” Listen to more of the discussion here.

“Your story is a couple of things: One, it’s about your physical escape from Yemen, but, from just hearing you speak right now, it’s also about your intellectual escape from how you were raised. The four people who helped you, were they of your faith? Were they Muslim?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of peace activist Mohammed Al Samawi, who joins Morning Joe to talk about his book “The Fox Hunt: A Refugee’s Memoir of Coming to America.” Listen to Al Samawi’s response here and more of the conversation with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

Congratulations are in order for Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, also founder of Know Your Value, an organization devoted to helping women from all career and life stages reach their maximum potential, who received a 2018 Matrix Award this week from New York Women in Communications for her “accomplishments and contributions” to the industry. Veteran columnist Mike Barnicle, whose wife Anne Finucane is a past recipient of the honor, said of the awards ceremony: “The highlight, Joe, I think, was you presenting Mika with a portion of the award from bended knee.” Watch part of the awards presentation and listen to more of the conversation here.

“We’ve heard that Mike Pompeo has enormous influence with President Trump. He gets along quite well with him. Now is he going to be secretary of state, plus secretary of defense? Is he going to have his biggest say in the troop movements and troop placements as Secretary Mattis? I think that’s going to be a potential collision that we’re going to be watching,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle to Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough as the panel talks about President Donald Trump’s nomination as Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, following the Senate Foreign Relations Committee having approved the confirmation of Pompeo. Listen to more of the discussion here.

As Comcast celebrates 17 years of a company-wide public service day, “Comcast Cares Day,” Morning Joe’s Nicolle Wallace and Mike Barnicle talk with senior executive VP & chief diversity officer of Comcast Corp. David Cohen and Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans about their combined efforts to end extreme poverty, a campaign that honors the life of legendary human rights activist Nelson Mandela and his mandate. Hear more about the program now.

Pat Cunnane, former deputy director of messaging in the Barack Obama White House, stops by the Morning Joe set to talk about his new book, West Winging It: An Un-presidential Memoir, published this week. Asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle: “I have seven kids. You just said that this was your first job out of college. How does that happen? How do you get there?” Listen to Cunnane’s response here.

Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle speaks with Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) about her experience thus far as a new senator from Minnesota amid the chaos in Washington. “I understand you’ve only been there three and a half months, but what’s your sense of the operation of the Senate because of what’s going on in the White House?” asks Barnicle. Hear Smith’s response and how the “sense of chaos and recklessness and instability—it bothers people in my home state. We don’t think it should be that way.”

During the Morning Joe panel discussion about the possibility of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and close friend, turning against the president and cooperating with federal prosecutors if faced with criminal charges, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle talks about the “human nature aspect” of what Cohen is going through after the federal raid of his offices. “We talk about it in terms of indictments….But the stress of this, the financial stress, the personal stress around the kitchen table in the morning with your wife and your children is enormous.”

“With Trump, if you’re an investigator, and you’re looking at this thing, and you’re looking at these Comey memos, there’s a ‘tell’ in there. And the ‘tell’ is that Trump is upset with Flynn because Flynn did not tell him on time that Putin (had called),” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during the panel discussion about the release of former FBI Director James Comey’s memos recounting his conversations with President Donald Trump, in particularly Comey acknowledging Trump was partly irked with his then-national security adviser Michael Flynn due to the White House’s delay in responding to an election victory congratulatory phone call from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Listen to more insights on the Trump/Putin dynamic here.

While the Morning Joe panel talks about the Justice Department releasing to congressional committees a closely guarded set of memos that former FBI Director James Comey wrote recounting his conversations with President Donald Trump, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle explains: “I would submit that the most important aspect of the memos is not their release and it’s not the content of the memos because Comey has basically said everything on the public record that is in the release of those memos. It is the fact that they were released under pressure by a political party in the House of Representatives about an ongoing federal investigation. That’s the critical point.” Listen to more of the discussion here and how these memos “are not good” for President Donald Trump.

“Robert, we have one player in here who has yet been unnamed this morning in this drama that we’re talking about, and that is the retiring Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, who is leading, clearly, an undisciplined group of people out on their own, apparently, unless he’s involved in it. Devin Nunez doing things with his committee that are just incredibly outrageous in a sense, and now you have two members of Congress, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, going down, and as you just put it, confronting the Justice Department, basically saying: ‘Hand over stuff that we want to use for political ends.’ Where is Paul Ryan and what happens to his reputation?” asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Washington Post political reporter Robert Costa during a conversation about a meeting Meadows (R-NC) and Jordan (R-OH) had with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to express concerns over the slow pace of Department of Justice documents being turned over to Congress, which is the latest example of friction between congressional Republicans and senior Justice Department officials. Listen to Costa’s response here.

“Chuck, the assault on former FBI Director Comey, is fairly predictable. We knew it was coming. But the assault on the Justice Department itself and on elements of the FBI, in particular, are not only fairly unpredictable but seem to be growing and are deeply, deeply political. What damage has it done to the institution – never mind the morale – but to the institution itself of the Justice Department and the FBI?” asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Chuck Rosenberg, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, during a panel conversation about the attacks against the Justice Department under the Trump Administration. Hear what Rosenberg has to say about how Trump could impact the agencies’ effectiveness in the field.

“Michael Cohen is certainly smart enough to know that given the pending charges that might be lodged against him by the federal government that he could be buried beneath a jail for 20, 25 years,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle on this morning’s show. “And with young children, that is a huge factor in you making up your mind whether you cooperate or non-cooperate” with the federal government in an investigation. Listen to more of the conversation with Josh Earnest, White House press secretary under President Barack Obama, about whether or not Cohen would turn against the president and cooperate with federal prosecutors if faced with criminal charges.

“At some point, someday this is going to end. This investigation is going to be over. There’s going to be a conclusion. Yes, at some point, someday it will happen,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during the panel discussion of the ongoing and ever-expanding Russia investigation. “But,” he continues, “the largest danger is not existent in Washington today. It’s existent out in the country where all of this coming at people every day, like a fire hose –of events, scandals, and shocking statements (has) many, many people anesthetized to the shock of what is happening to our constitutional system of government on a daily basis.” The conversation can be heard here.

“Richard…what’s the level of concern in the world of diplomats around the world about the potential meeting between the president and the leader of North Korea in that he would glibly agree to something during the course of the negotiation that we would have no intention of carrying out?” asks Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, during a panel conversation about President Donald Trump’s expected meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Listen to Haass’ response and the discussion here.