Mike Barnicle on TV

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Tune in on this Morning Joe conversation with Mika Brzezinski, Jonathan Lemire, John Heilemann and Mike Barnicle as they weigh in on President Donald Trump’s standing after a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll revealed only 35 percent of Americans approve of POTUS’s handling of the economy. “There's nothing more glaring than to be putting gas in your car alongside someone you know across from you in another bay—a guy driving a pickup truck who works hard for a living and is putting gas in his pickup truck—and he's looking at those numbers roll up and he's furious about the cost of gas. And he has a Trump bumper sticker on the back of his pickup truck. The irony—the irony—of being deceived by people they voted for is really impactful,” says Barnicle about Trump supporters amid surging gas prices.

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The Trump Economy

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“Let's separate law enforcement—legitimate law enforcement, city police departments—from what we're talking about here and what we're seeing on your screen. It's basically a poorly trained paramilitary outfit. That's what it is. And the absurdity of DHS is just in their pronouncements that DHS does not target children. Look at these scenes. Look at how tear gas—no matter what you fire from a tear gas gun—envelops a whole neighborhood, drifts down a street. A kid could be going to school half a block or a block away from all of this tear gas, and he or she is going to inhale that,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Mika Brzezinski, Jonathan Lemire and ProPublica reporter Lisa Song about her independent news organization's investigation which revealed that ICE officers have escalated the use of the chemicals—tear gas and pepper spray—throughout recent immigration crackdowns under the Trump Administration, causing harm to at least 79 children across the country in the process.

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ICE Crackdown Fallout

[postlink]https://www.mikebarnicle.tv/2026/05/hope-and-uncertainty-in-america.html[/postlink][starttext]
“Dritan, when you pull the tabs internally on these polls, do you get any sense of the feeling of confidence that young Americans with young children starting up families that they have less confidence in the future than other people?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of HarrisX founder and CEO Dritan Nesho who joins Morning Joe to discuss polling data from the American Confidence Tracker, a new survey that picks up where Gallup's monthly presidential tracking poll left off. Hear Nesho breakdown that despite the fact that "Americans are very frustrated” with the current economic situation, “two-thirds still say that the American dream is attainable to them."

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Hope and Uncertainty in America

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Mike Barnicle and Fab Five Freddy joined "The Beat with Ari Melber" for an edition of “Fallback,” during which they highlighted what they see as signs of a culture that’s gotten out of balance: the Met Gala’s display of wealth and celebrity excess, the normalization of a $9 Starbucks coffee, and the way smartphones have reduced eye contact, curiosity, and real-world connection. "America should never again confuse wealth with wisdom,” says Barnicle. Catch the conversation here.

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Too Much, Too Disconnected

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"We've made enormous progress in race relations in this country, but the historical weight of discrimination based on color still is with us. It still burdens the United States of America, still prevents the United States of America from grasping the claim to being a truly great universally together nation…It’s been 61 years since Bull Connor and Selma, Alabama…this decision...opens the door, gives license to too many state legislatures to turn back the clock,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with National Action Network President the Rev. Al Sharpton about the Supreme Court having struck down Louisiana’s existing congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in a ruling that dealt another blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Hear Sharpton’s assessment that “you can turn back the clock, but you can’t turn back time” when it comes to civil rights, explaining that he is “confident that we can take this bad and hugely impactful decision and use it to energize.”

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Civil Rights at a Crossroads

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Tune in as Mike Barnicle joins Way Too Early with Ali Vitali to examine two major developments reshaping the political landscape: Florida lawmakers approving a new congressional map expected to boost Republican seats in the House ahead of the midterms, and the Supreme Court striking down Louisiana’s map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander—another setback for the Voting Rights Act. Reflecting on the ruling, Barnicle draws a stark historical parallel: “I remember 1964. I remember Bull Connor. I remember Selma, Alabama. I remember 1965—the Voting Rights Act passed, and it was a tremendously progressive measure, and it allowed a lot of people who could not vote because of the color of their skin to vote without threat of death or disturbance. And now all of these years, a half a century later, they're trying to roll back—the Supreme Court is trying to roll back—what happened in terms of progress from 1965. That's not what America is all about,” says Barnicle after the SCOTUS ruling that hollowed out a landmark civil rights-era law.

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A Half-Century of Progress at Risk

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"One of the interesting things about what's happened in the last decade or so, especially the last couple of years, is the language of politics. And as we play clips every day of public people from the president—both Democrats and Republicans, but specifically this administration, the language of politics—each and every day it seems it removes itself measurably from the lives of ordinary people. People who are sitting around a kitchen table in the morning getting their kids ready for school. They listen to some of these public people. We hear them—the clips that we play—and they've got to be thinking, ‘what does he mean?’ ‘What does she mean?’ ‘They don't understand how I'm living. They don't they don't understand the cost of cereal that I'm providing my kids.’ And Joe, they don't understand the fact that health care, health care policies; the gasoline prices rising, that's nothing compared to the cost of health care in this country. And if it's available—even if it's available, if they can get it—they're lucky,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough and Pablo Torre as they discuss the “massive affordability crisis” and its impact on everyday Americans as President Donald Trump has neglected the issue.

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Lost in Translation

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Tune in on this Morning Joe conversation with Mika Brzezinski, Jonathan Lemire and Mike Barnicle as they discuss Vice President JD Vance at an event in Georgia having characterized the Trump Administration's decision to halt direct military aid to Ukraine as one it’s “proudest” successes. “If you talk to specific people in the Pentagon and the Defense Department, not the secretary of defense, certainly, but people who are annoyed by his behavior and what's happening with Ukraine via the Pentagon. If Ukraine had been given the munitions that they are owed because of what they're doing, Russia, the Russian troops would be back in Moscow today. That's how superior the Ukraine fighting forces are when faced against the Russians, and they're getting zero help now from us,” says Barnicle about the strength of the Ukrainian military amid its ongoing war with Russia.

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Vance Proud of Denying Aid to Ukraine

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Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle and MS NOW justice and intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian about the Department of Justice having filed motions with a federal appeals court to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of 12 prominent January 6 defendants, which marks the Trump Administration’s latest effort to rewrite the history of the violent January 6 attack on the Capitol. “Ken, do we have a specific number or a range of numbers of the numbers of people—professionals—who have left the Department of Justice because of what's happening to the Department of Justice?” asks Barnicle. Hear Dilanian’s summation of the “thousands” of DOJ employees who have exited because they couldn’t “tolerate the working environment” under the Trump Administration.

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DOJ's Jan. 6 Reversal

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“We don't know our own history. The roots of NATO were born in the years after World War II. It's been the most effective alliance ever created in any country—an alliance between the United States and much of Europe. And Ambassador Stoltenberg, I was wondering if you could speak to the importance of that alliance, the roots of that alliance, and the dangers in ripping up those roots without any explanation from Washington, DC, other than, ‘oh, we…wanted Greenland, and they don't want us to have Greenland, so we're done.’ It's ridiculous,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this conversation with former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg who joins Morning Joe to discuss the state of NATO as President Donald Trump has escalated threats to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, primarily citing European resistance to his ambition to acquire Greenland and a lack of support from European allies in the ongoing U.S. war against Iran. Hear Stoltenberg’s assessment on Europe’s efforts “to preserve NATO” amid the threats from POTUS, explaining “we are stronger together; we preserve peace when its time together.” "

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Why NATO Still Matters

[postlink]https://www.mikebarnicle.tv/2026/04/trumps-unilateral-style.html[/postlink][starttext]
"Ben, what are we to think as Americans when we hear the energy secretary…basically saying, it's wonderful that we have a president with the courage to allow gas prices to go up?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith during a Morning Joe conversation about U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright at the Semafor World Economy Summit having defended the Trump Administration's decision to engage in the ongoing conflict with Iran, despite it causing a spike in domestic gas prices. Hear Smith’s assessment of how President Donald Trump’s “unilateral” decision-making style has led to a situation where he “makes the decisions and everybody else scrambles to react,” according to Smith.

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Trump’s “unilateral” style

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Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle as they discuss the backlash to a now-deleted AI-generated image shared by President Donald Trump. The image, which depicted POTUS in a Christ-like pose, drew criticism from Christian commentators who called it “blasphemous,” including some longtime allies. The president later said the image showed him as a doctor or Red Cross worker. “The word that has not been dropped here today…is stability. What is the president of the United States' sense of stability because we're talking about someone who has done some crazy things and likening himself to Christ in that post that he put up and then withdrew and claiming, ‘well, it's a doctor. I'm supposed to be a doctor in that.’ That's just so—it's beyond absurd. And we have a war going on that we don't know where it's going to end. And the word stability, I think, ought to be underlined each and every hour of the day in this presidency,” says Barnicle.

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"Blasphemous"

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“You've got a lot of European leaders, both economic and political there, and Europe, of course, is combined of a group of nations that were ill informed or uninformed about Donald Trump's plan to go to war with Iran, and there's contentiousness on both sides now. I’m wondering what your view is going to be in terms of trying to extract from them their anger over how the United States has behaved,” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith who joins Morning Joe to talk about the upcoming Semafor World Economy 2026 forum in Washington, D.C. that will feature hundreds of top global leaders from business and government. Hear Smith’s assessment on the emotional “balance” European leaders are seeking amid the war with Iran, suggesting they are “infuriated by American government policy and obsessed with the U.S. economy.”

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Europe vs. America: Economic Friction

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“When you're born Catholic, raised Catholic—especially by my mother, we used to call her ‘my mother, the nun'—the one thing you retain, I would think, is that the theory of the Catholic Church is rooted in a simple phrase—the least among us. So, if you look at the Trump Administration's behavior toward the least among us, it is almost criminal. It is certainly a sin because they don't care for the least among us, and we should all care for the least among us because when we care for them we care for ourselves,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist about an article in The Free Press that details the strained relationship between the Trump Administration and Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope.

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Trump v. Pope Leo XIV

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"You just mentioned tectonic plates of the economy. When the tectonic plates move, when gas prices go up, things like that—that's not the only thing that happens. The residual effect, the shipping, the airline prices going up, everything going up. And it sometimes seems that the tectonic plates that move quickly, move very slowly in terms of prices coming back down. What happens then?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett who joins Morning Joe to discuss the economic impact the war in Iran could have on the world. Hear Tett’s assessment on why the “big level of disruption in the system in the last few weeks” caused by the war will cause shock waves, pointing out that “you can’t just magically switch the system back on again.”

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The Ripple Effects of War

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"Did not Iran, though, just play rope a dope with the United States? They won. Iran won,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle to Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, during his Morning Joe panel conversation about the United States and Iran having agreed to a two-week provisional ceasefire, which came less than two hours before a deadline set by President Donald Trump for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face "total destruction." Hear Haass’s assessment about how Iran is “stronger” now since the start of the war, explaining “we hurt them in the classic sense but in the strategic sense they are much better off.”

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Did Iran win

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"Palm Sunday….My wife and I went to the 5 o'clock mass at Saint Ignatius in Boston. It's on the Boston College campus, so you'd expect a few college students at 5 o'clock mass. It was packed, standing room only. People outside the church. The demographic, I thought in my mind's eye, would look 25ish to 30ish—youngish. Most of them reciting the prayers by knowledge, just by rote. They knew the prayers. It was stunning to me, absolutely stunning. And I give credit to a couple of things: One, the times we're living in, and Pope Leo,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Jonathan Lemire, Mika Brzezinski, and Donny Deutsch as they weigh in on the Catholic Church seeing an increase in attendance during this “dark time” in America, particularly with younger men in America. "There's a phrase that was used repeatedly on Palm Sunday that I think has struck a chord among younger people as well as people my age or your age—'the least among us,'” Barnicle says of the phrase drawn from Gospel of Matthew 25:40, referring to the marginalized, vulnerable, and overlooked in society, emphasizing a call to compassion by teaching that serving them is equivalent to serving Christ.

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Young Faith Rising

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Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Jonathan Lemire, Katty Kay, Donny Deutsch, MS NOW National Security Analyst John Kirby, and Mike Barnicle as they discuss President Donald Trump now threatening to launch massive military strikes against Iran's civilian infrastructure if the country does not agree to a deal and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz on the 39th day of the war. “This is a country of 93 million people, and everyone who has ever had any experience dealing with the Iranian people will tell you they are more culturally inclined to the West than any other groups of people in that region. And so what you're going to do by wiping out, by making the country go dark, by taking out their water supplies, all sorts of things, all sorts of damage to the civilian population—you're going to risk malnutrition, you're going to risk a refugee crisis coming out of out of Iran. You've got to think that the military, more than anyone else, is thinking about these things, much more so than the political leadership of this country,” says Barnicle amid the stark threats from POTUS toward Iran.

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Iran Crisis Deepens

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Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Jonathan Lemire, The New York Times Opinion writer Mara Gay, and Mike Barnicle as they discuss news of President Donald Trump reversing course on his administration’s effective oil blockade of Cuba, allowing a Russian-flagged tanker to deliver a shipment of crude oil to the island. "The elastic concept of the presidency, building his own universe, saying whatever he wants, whenever he wants, is extraordinary.…Why are so many people so afraid of him?” asks Barnicle as the trio discuss the deeply unpredictable nature of POTUS.

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Trump’s Cuba Shift Raises Bigger Questions

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“The people around the mayor and the mayor himself—he's young, he's energetic, he's full of energy, full of ideas and everything like that. What are his prospects if he runs afoul with the New York Police Department?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of The New York Times Opinion writer Mara Gay who joins Morning Joe to discuss the generational change in New York City politics under Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Hear Gay’s assessment of the Mayor’s “secret to success,” the work ethic of the Mayor and his team, and the “open question” surrounding his relationship with the NYPD.

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