The Official Mike Barnicle Website

DOJ’s Jan. 6 Reversal

Mike Barnicle — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:12:18 +0000

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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Why NATO Still Matters

Mike Barnicle — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:09:28 +0000

“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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Trump’s “unilateral” style

Mike Barnicle — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:48:44 +0000

“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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“Blasphemous”

Mike Barnicle — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:43:38 +0000

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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Europe vs. America: Economic Friction

Mike Barnicle — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 14:02:35 +0000

“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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Trump v. Pope Leo XIV

Mike Barnicle — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:52:14 +0000

“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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Did Iran win

Mike Barnicle — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 14:07:33 +0000

“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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The Ripple Effects of War

Mike Barnicle — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:32:04 +0000

“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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Young Faith Rising

Mike Barnicle — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 18:07:30 +0000

“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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Iran Crisis Deepens

Mike Barnicle — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:50:55 +0000

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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