Morning Joe’s Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle discuss the latest in the Southwest Airlines debacle as the company is expected to resume normal operations after canceling thousands of flights and leaving passengers stranded across the United States. “I’m thinking about Southwest Airlines and the money they’re going to have to pay out. I don’t know where they’re going to get it. They’ve been paying so much in dividends to their shareholders that they scrimped on coming up with a computer system that would allow them to operate in a crisis like they went through, and the crisis management situation at Southwest Airlines is one that business schools are going to be studying for quite some time,” says Barnicle about Southwest Airlines. Listen to more on the situation here.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation between veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius after the January 6 committee released a new batch of transcripts, including key interviews from members of former President Donald Trump’s family and staff, such as White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was said to regularly burn documents during the transition period and occasionally tell staffers to keep some Oval Office meetings “close hold” and potentially omitted from official records. “All I could think of was someone like Jim Baker, former White House chief of staff or other White House chiefs of staff, who were responsible—responsible to the person they worked for, the president of the United States, and the country that they represented, our country, America,” says Barnicle.
“Joyce, I’m going to ask you to put on your old prosecutor’s hat, which I suspect is never far from you, and to recall that the Department of Justice has received the House January 6th committee’s recommendations. From your look, from your knowledge, which is superficial at one sense, in terms of it’s just what we’ve been able to read, what do you think is the most promising avenue for a potential indictment of the former president,” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Alabama, during a Morning Joe conversation about the potential prosecution of former President Donald Trump after the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol concluded that Trump is ultimately responsible for the insurrection, producing a written report for the Justice Department that contains a trove of evidence for why Trump should be prosecuted for multiple crimes. Listen to Vance’s response here.
Watch this Morning Joe segment with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Claire McCaskill, Mike Barnicle and Michael Beschloss as they discuss that the investigation into the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol has concluded that former President Donald Trump is ultimately responsible for the insurrection, with the House Select Committee producing a written report made public that includes a mountain of evidence for why Trump should be prosecuted for multiple crimes. “One scene just jumped out at me early on, and it is a scene that took place in mid-December after the Supreme Court had rejected the state of Texas’s appeal to overturn the election, and it’s Donald Trump in the Oval Office, talking to his then-chief of staff, and he says, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know we lost.’ The level of delusion married to the level of danger that we just confronted and was thwarted by the wall of democracy: Is there any match in history to this?” asks Barnicle of Beschloss. Find out here.
“We live in an age of accelerated pace of events. Something happens, and it’s forgotten two or three days from now. Something horrific could be forgotten in two or three days, and that takes our attention span as a people, as a culture, as a nation, way, way down. People don’t have the attention span that we used to have. So, the events that we have been talking about this morning, the text messages from sitting members of Congress urging sedition, right up until the point of almost noontime on January 20th when Joe Biden was sworn in as president, the January 6th insurrection, Capitol police officers fearing for their lives and being attacked by supposedly law and order people. We have all of that and yet if someone mentions Harry and Meghan, we go right there, and talk about that instead of focusing on the real dangers that still exist because they injected a poison into our system. The asylum wing of the Republican Party injected that poison into our system, and it still flows through our circulatory system as a nation,” says Morning Joe’s veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about the unfortunate lack of interest toward events surrounding the January 6 Capitol attack, following new reporting that then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows exchanged text messages with at least 34 Republican members of Congress as they plotted to overturn President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. Watch the segment here.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Willie Geist, Mike Barnicle and Talking Points Memo investigative reporter Hunter Walker about new reporting that shows that then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows exchanged text messages with at least 34 Republican members of Congress as they plotted to overturn President Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. “Hunter, as you went through these text messages, from the asylum wing of the Republican Party, it struck me in looking through the first batch that you’ve put out there, as you just alluded to, many of the people involved are still members of Congress, sitting in the House of Representatives. In the rear-view mirror, as you look at what they did: They tiptoed up to sedition. They were right there at the gate of sedition. What do they do now? What do they have to say now?” asks Barnicle. Hear Walker’s response here.
“All he does each and every day is take the field to hurt the United States of America, to damage the United States of America,” says Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle during this conversation about the freedom being sought for US Marine Paul Whelan, who has been imprisoned in Russia for nearly four years. “Why? Because this is all about him. It’s not about the country. It’s not about Paul Whelan. It’s not about anything other than him and his own twisted ambitions.” Watch the segment here and hear what Whelan’s brother has to say about former President Donald Trump after Trump criticized the Biden Administration for the deal it struck to free WNBA star Brittney Griner.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation with NASA Administrator and former Florida Senator Bill Nelson following NASA having completed its first Artemis moon mission. “There’s no question that there are enormous benefits, as well as enormous mysteries being solved by the space program and by these incredible steps that we’re taking as a nation in outer space. But on the other hand, there are people in this country, I think, many people in this country, who wonder about the cost of these programs and the cost benefit to them when America can’t pass a child care tax credit. We’re spending literally billions in outer space. What do you say to those people who say ‘why are we doing this? It’s so expensive,’” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Nelson. Hear Nelson’s response and learn of the direct benefits of NASA exploration in our pockets as well as our health care solutions.
Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Mike Barnicle as they discuss the state of the Republican Party, particularly GOP lawmakers in the House of Representatives, who seem out of touch with what Americans really care about. “The lesson that has been unlearned by the Republican Party and it continues right through up until this very moment, is: You can’t win anything, really, if everything you do is based on two issues: Resentment and revenge. And that’s what they seem to be into at every level of the Republican Party,” says Barnicle.
“Take a look at the cover of the New York Post this morning, ‘Eyes on the Spies,” and it’s the Republican’s intention—Kevin McCarthy’s intention—to subpoena 51 former members of the American intelligence community to pursue the Hunter Biden story. So, if you’re out there sitting at home worried about your home heating oil bill, your grocery bill, the status of your kids in school—forget about that because we’ve got to get to the bottom of the Hunter Biden story. We got to get Clapper and Brennan in and find out why they lied,” says Morning Joe’s Mike Barnicle as he holds up the front-page of the New York Post newspaper that suggests Republican lawmakers are more interested in tackling President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, than tackling issues facing everyday Americans. Watch the conversation with Joe Scarborough, Brendan Buck and Barnicle as they question the agenda of House Republicans as Rep. Kevin McCarthy is the presumptive choice to become Speaker of the House when the GOP takes control of the House next month.
“The one thing about the President is he has been around this international track many, many, many times. And he is really aware of the fact that this war, is being played – this theater of war is being played – out on a stage that has been sadly too used to war. They’ve lived with war for over 100 years, since 1918. And now the President comes to this war knowing that the opponent Vladimir Putin, that he has troops who need two things: They need munitions, and they need the will to fight. They do not have the will to fight. But this president, President Biden, knows that while the Ukrainians need munitions they have the will to fight. Also – and this is another thing we talked about Congressman, earlier – people underestimate how tough Joe Biden is. They underestimate him, and that’s playing out now. Don’t you think?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-SC) during a Morning Joe conversation about President Joe Biden’s leadership, including throughout Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. Watch the conversation here.
Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation between Massachusetts-native Mike Barnicle and Karen Pierce, the British ambassador to the United States, about Prince William and Princess Catherine of Wales having attended and “enjoyed” an NBA basketball game between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics at TD Garden as the royal couple were expected to leave at halftime but remained for the full duration of the game because they “really enjoyed the Celtics game.” Find out more about the Royals’ Boston visit here.
“My question to you is: Within the House of Representatives, how do you go forward when the other side, clearly the majority side now, the Republicans, lead with rage and anger almost every day?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-SC), newly selected House assistant Democratic leader, during a Morning Joe panel conversation about the challenges of working alongside Republicans now that the GOP is set to control the House. Listen to Clyburn’s response here, following President Joe Biden’s first state dinner which both Clyburn and Barnicle attended, on how Clyburn hopes to find common ground, after two historic terms by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
“Kevin McCarthy thus far in order to become speaker of the House has clearly made more deals with more people on both sides of the ideological floor that it’s going to condemn his speakership if he does become speaker. It’s going to be like an anchor around his neck. He won’t be able to function. He won’t be able to legislate. The second thing it seems to a lot of people is more mysterious and hard to define and it lies in the fact that Donald Trump not for the first time at dinner at Mar-a-Lago but for the past few years has opened the door of the Republican Party to white nationalists and white nationalism. And it’s going to remain to be seen exactly what happens to the party going forward. Do they increase a new constituency—white nationalists? Do they try to reclaim another constituency—older Republicans who have voted for a Republican Party now totally disappeared. That’s going to be an interesting equation to watch,” says Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist and Mika Brzezinski about House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy struggling to secure votes to become House speaker and the future of the Republican Party.
“Federica, the loneliness of the elderly, people 65, 70 years of age and older is sad, but it’s kind of understandable. Their partners die, their friends die, and so loneliness sets in for many of them. But what do we do about the loneliness of the young—teenagers, people in their 20s whose best friend is an iPhone?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Financial Times statistics journalist Federica Cocco who joins Morning Joe to discuss the “loneliness epidemic.” Watch the conversation here.
“The idea that Herschel Walker is actually a candidate for the United States Senate is beyond horrifying, it’s beyond horrifying, and he’s just the latest gift to the Republican Party presented by Donald Trump—a gift that keeps on giving. The idea that we have a former president of the United States who has no idea who he’s having a dinner with, that’s just incredible in and of itself, given he had dinner with a 24-year-old who hates Jews, Blacks, gays, women—more than half the human race. And now we have on the ballot in Georgia a former Heisman Trophy winner, and that’s basically his credential to run for the United States Senate, other than the endorsement of Donald Trump. Thank you, Donald Trump,” says Barnicle of GOP candidate Herschel Walker, the challenger to Georgia’s Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, following former President Donald Trump revealing that he did not know the identity of a recent dining companion at Mar-a-Lago—a known white nationalist and anti-Semite Nick Fuentes.
“You have spent more time with Donald Trump than anybody, except perhaps Melania, and you’ve got him on tape. So, I’m wondering, what do you think about the theory that perhaps in an irony, complete political irony, his dominance in the media will end up defeating him because he appears now in front of the American public filled with bitterness and narcissism that anyone could recognize,” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Washington Post associate editor and author Bob Woodward during this Morning Joe discussion following the midterm elections. Watch the conversation here.
Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, Mika Brzezinski and Mike Barnicle as they discuss the art of graceful winning and losing in the aftermath of the midterm elections. “Never underestimate human nature, and one of the things about human nature—especially if you have a family and you have children, you teach your children, you try to teach your children from a very young age: Don’t be a sore loser. You know, just accept it and go on. Learn from it. Don’t be a sore loser. The clip that we played coming into this segment of the Republicans’ reaction to their winning is to denounce their opponent still,” says Barnicle about some GOP candidates who won the midterm elections. Join the conversation here.
“Never, ever underestimate the American people. By the millions, this pageant of democracy we have, this magical day where people of all castes, all incomes, all races, all genders come out and vote. They stand in line for hours sometimes to vote, and yesterday they voted. And they walked in, and a huge number of them looked at the ballot, forgot about the pollsters, forgot about what we talk about each and every morning, and they said, oh, ‘I could vote for crazy, or I could vote for normal,’ and they checked the normal box, and that’s why we are here today,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle as the Morning Joe panel weighs in on the midterm elections results as it appears the Democratic Party has staved off the Republican “red wave” that had been predicted by many pollsters and projections.
“You’ve been on the ballot many times in Ohio, all of it successful. So, this time around, as you go around the state of Ohio, can you compare the sense of community that existed when you first ran for Congress to the sense of community that’s out there today? And I’m talking specifically about towns and cities where you could belong to the other party and you could argue about politics, but you had a sense of the community that you belonged to. Is it still as strong? Is it weakened?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Ohio Democratic Senate nominee Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) during a Morning Joe conversation about whether the fraught political climate in America has impacted the cities and towns in Ohio. Listen to Ryan’s response here about the “exhaustion” that’s permeated Ohioan communities.
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.
