Mike Barnicle on TV: 2025

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On this MLB Opening Day, the Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mike Barnicle and Willie Geist shifts to a memorable June 1986 column by the late Richard Ben Cramer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, titled “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?” which provided an inside look into the life of baseball legend Ted Williams. “The Richard Ben Cramer piece captures Ted Williams in the winter of his life down in Islamorada, Florida, where he would go bone fishing all day long…He was supposedly the most expert caster that professional fishermen had ever seen….It’s a spectacular profile,” says Barnicle. Join the conversation here.

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MLB Opening Day is here!

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"The reflections on your life contained in this book are kind of a gift to anyone who is interested in print and in writers and in great editors. We mentioned Bob McFadden, Bill Geist, Nora Ephron, Ben Bradlee, Maureen (Orth). It’s always what you have on the page….I won't ask you to name the four or five most memorable pieces in your career, but the daily push towards excellence. Where did that come from?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who joins Morning Joe to discuss his new memoir “When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines,” which revisits the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture. Listen to Carter’s response here.

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"When the Going Was Good"

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"You mentioned leadership. You’ve led troopers into battle. So, the signal flap that's going on right now in the front pages of every newspaper. We are still the tip of the spear around the world, the American military, from eastern Germany to Africa, troops on the ground, submariners in the arctic, South China Sea, all over the world. We are the force—still. So, what does it tell you in terms of leadership when we have the signal flap and not a single person involved, not one single person steps up and accepts responsibility?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) who joins Morning Joe to discuss President Donald Trump characterizing an extraordinary security breach as a minor transgression, insisting that top administration officials had not shared any classified information as they discussed secret military plans in a group chat that included the editor in chief of The Atlantic magazine. Watch Hertling’s response here: “Leadership is about trust,” he says.

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Leadership is about trust

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Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle as the Morning Joe panel discusses the uncertainty surrounding the future of social security as the Social Security Administration has been crippled by cuts to the agency pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. “I can guarantee you that Elon Musk has absolutely zero sense of what a social security check for $375 means to an elderly couple living largely off of social security—none, zero. This is an item that is going to hemorrhage in terms of Trump’s weakness,” says Barnicle about the Trump Administration's cuts to the Social Security Administration. Join the conversation here.

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Social Security cuts

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“About a month before he died, I called our old pal Al Simpson out in Wyoming, in Cody, Wyoming, just having a conversation with him about how things were going, and he raised the possibility that all of his neighbors—who he knew voted for Donald Trump twice; they voted for him in 2016, and they certainly voted for him last fall—that they would not know what to do when they went down to the local social security office and he said in the spring or early summer and the office was no longer there; he said, and then there's going to be hell to pay. Well, hell has already arrived I think,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, Ali Vitali and Mark McKinnon as they discuss the state of the Trump Administration and Republican Party after a GOP town hall descended into chaos when a military veteran interrupted proceedings with an expletive-laden rant against DOGE cuts.

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DOGE cuts protested in Wyoming

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“This play is spectacular….It moves miraculously fast…But most importantly, it makes you think about what is happening right now, today. And we cover it every morning. The news each and every day contains some new nugget posing a threat to free speech, or to the judiciary, or to the media. Every day we hear this and you wonder if America has been narcoticized to what's going on now because people just shrug their shoulders. ‘Oh well, just one more day.’ No, it's not one more day. It’s one more danger. George Clooney has done a public service with this play,” says Morning Joe veteran columnist Mike Barnicle in his review of “Good Night, and Good Luck,” now on Broadway, written by George Clooney, adapted from his 2005 film of the same name.

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Clooney’s new play is “spectacular"

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Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Jonathan Lemire, Jason Crow and Mike Barnicle as they discuss the Trump Administration’s efforts to erase diversity, equity and inclusion from the federal government, following a report that an article about baseball great Jackie Robinson’s military career in the Army has been removed from the Department of Defense's website. “Jackie Robinson, that's only one of many. There is an African American recipient of the Medal of Honor who has been removed from the records in the Pentagon, a recipient of the Medal of Honor. That's not DEI. That’s courage under fire. That's what it is,” says Barnicle about the Department of Defense removing acknowledgements of Black history under Trump’s DEI removal policy.

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Jackie Robinson’s military career erased

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"What is harder? The pursuit of a tennis goal is incredibly hard and incredibly competitive. The pursuit of writing comedy is both dangerous to your ego, very tough to crack, especially as a novice going into it. So, what's harder? Getting to Wimbledon or getting to the Daily Show?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of stand-up comedian Michael Kosta who joins Morning Joe to discuss his memoir “Lucky Loser: Adventures in Tennis and Comedy,” which provides insight into Kosta’s unlikely journey from professional tennis player (#864 in the world) to professional comedian. Watch their conversation here. Only on MSNBC.

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Lucky Loser: Tennis player turns comedian

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Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle and NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta about the possible consequences that could follow the abrupt cancellation of an FDA vaccine advisory committee meeting, which was scheduled for March to select the strains to be included in next season’s flu shot.

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FDA flu meeting cancelled

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Morning Joe's Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle remember the Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, who was found dead alongside his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, and their dog in their Santa Fe home. “He was quite a guy. He was a legitimately ordinary human being when you’d meet him. I had the good fortune of meeting him several times and went to see him in Santa Fe about 5 or 6 years ago, and he was the same then as he was when I first met him in 1973 on the set of “A Bridge Too Far” in Nijmegen, Holland, when he was the star of that cast. He had a lot of fun making that movie. We won’t go into it now. But he was really good guy,” says Barnicle about Hackman. Join the conversation here.

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Remembering Gene Hackman

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Tune in on this Morning Joe segment as Mika Brzezinski and Mike Barnicle discuss House Republicans becoming weary of in-person town hall meetings after multiple lawmakers have faced hometown crowds irritated about the Trump Administration’s push to slash government programs, services, funding and staffing. “This is a disaster in the making for the Republican Party; but, worse than that, Mika, it's a disaster for the United States of America,” says Barnicle after House Republicans approved a budget framework for President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda, which calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade.

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House Republicans Face Backlash at Town Halls Over Trump’s Budget Cuts

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In case you missed it: Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mike Barnicle and Alexander Vindman, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, about Vindman’s new book “The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine,” which provides an analysis of how Western indecision and apathy made possible the return of brutal Russian expansionism with potentially catastrophic consequences. “Putin is winning,” he says, but we need to focus on “what really matters”—our relationships and democracy.

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Alexander Vindman on Morning Joe: How the West Enabled Putin’s Rise

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"There’s a lot of people who are viewing this peripherally everyday. People are busy. They have their own jobs, their own lives, getting the kids ready for school. But one of the things that's going on is: They're confusing motion with achievement. So, this flooding the zone, people think, ‘oh, boy, he's really working hard at it. Trump is really working hard at it.’ But Mitch, what happens when inevitably the Medicare stuff doesn't show up for people, the Social Security checks are short, the cost of living index? And that is bound to happen, it seems,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle to Mitch Landrieu, co-chair of the liberal group American Bridge, as the Morning Joe panel discusses the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the federal cost-cutting initiative championed by Elon Musk, after a federal judge declined to stop DOGE from accessing data systems at seven federal agencies and firing or putting their employees on leave. Listen to Landrieu’s response here. Only on MSNBC.

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DOGE: Motion or Achievement?

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Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Pablo Torre and Mike Barnicle as they discuss the Philadelphia Eagles having dominated the Kansas City Chiefs with a masterful defensive effort to win Super Bowl LIX. “Patrick Mahomes’ offensive line could not protect him. They could not keep people away from him. He was getting crushed from two minutes into that game. He was running for his life….If you do a forensic autopsy on the Chiefs’ season, they had a very good record; but it was a hard-earned record. They won a lot of games in the last minute because of Patrick Mahomes, and the big difference again, we reflect back on it, we know what happened: They could not protect Patrick Mahomes yesterday, and they were going to lose, and they did,” says Barnicle about the Chiefs superstar quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. Join the conversation here.

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Monday morning quarterbacking

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Watch this Morning Joe panel conversation with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on a wide range of topics, one being illegal immigration. “Do you see anything wrong with sending people back to their country of origin who are here illegally?” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle. Watch the conversation here. Only on MSNBC.

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Gov. Whitmer joins Morning Joe

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“I’m talking about the President of the United States. All he wants is the attention. ‘Look at me, look at me. Don't – shiny object over there, no, no, back here.’ And he does it multiple times a day incredibly successfully,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle about President Trump during this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough about the state of immigrant crossings along the southern border of the United States. Watch the segment here.

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Barnicle on POTUS: “Look at me, look at me"

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“The fact that President Biden and his wife, Hillary Clinton and former President Clinton, former President Bush and his wife Laura, and former President Barack Obama all sat in the same row alongside each other and witnessed what everyone witnessed yesterday was perhaps the one true ring of democracy that we saw yesterday—the one true ring of civility,” said Morning Joe contributor and veteran journalist Mike Barnicle during this panel discussion about President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. "The other thing that was shocking to me – maybe I’m the only one – was the absolute lack of grace and graciousness in President Trump's speech, especially when he announced to the crowd about the hostages, three hostages being released. The crowd erupts in applause; he never even looks at President Biden, who invited Trump's representatives to join in the talks to free the hostages. Never, never once looked at him when he uttered that, never once thanked him for his cooperation, or thanked him for allowing the two sides, the Trump people and the Biden people, to pursue the release of the hostages. Not once. That was the most shocking part."

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Trump’s "lack of grace and graciousness"

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"Ed, I don't think anyone would quibble with what you wrote today in your assessment of the Biden presidency; but that's today. It's a snapshot. It's not history. Don't you think that history's view of Joe Biden is going to be a little bit different than your view of Joe Biden in today's piece that you've written, in the sense that it's going to take into account Joe Biden's role in keeping NATO together, in keeping Ukraine alive, in the day to day tug of war match that he's had with Bibi Netanyahu for a year and a half, and most importantly, the economic underpinnings of legislation that he passed on a bipartisan basis in the first 18 months of his presidency that are going to transform many middle class cities and towns in this country over a longer period of time? Not today, not yet, but within 2 or 3 years, AI and all of the chip manufacturing that's going to happen in this country is going to transform and help a lot of American families,” asks veteran columnist Mike Barnicle of Financial Times US national editor Edward Luce, who joins Morning Joe to discuss his latest piece titled “Joe Biden’s tragic curtain call,” which argues hubris kept Biden too long in the presidential race and he will be remembered chiefly for easing Donald Trump’s return. Hear Luce’s response here.

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President Biden’s legacy

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“Yesterday's hearing was one of the most depressing aspects of politics in Washington that I have witnessed in a long, long time,” said Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle about the tense confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, after a report that the FBI background check on Hegseth does not include interviews with Hegseth’s ex-wives or the woman who accused him of sexual assault in a California hotel room in 2017. "Sitting there watching Pete Hegseth take questions from both sides—all I could think of was that most of the panel, both Republicans and Democrats, apparently have never seen the full FBI report….I’m also thinking that the principal client of the FBI was the Trump transition committee, which is shocking because the principal client of the FBI ought to be and is the American taxpayers, you and me, all of us here; but no, not in this case."

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Pete Hegseth confirmation hearing: “depressing"

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Watch this Morning Joe conversation between Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle as they discuss Peter Baker’s New York Times article, “Trump Sees the U.S. as a ‘Disaster.’ The Numbers Tell a Different Story,” which examines how President Joe Biden is bequeathing President-elect Donald Trump a nation that by many metrics is in good shape, even if voters remain skeptical. "Facts do matter and they matter to everyone’s life in America,” says Barnicle. "Joe Biden can stand on his legislative record. The Republicans have that record now. They are standing on it in terms of the economy. The strongest economy in the world. If it slips, if it slips, it's on them,” says Barnicle about President-elect Trump and the GOP.

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Facts do matter

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Listen in on this Morning Joe conversation with Jonathan Lemire and Mike Barnicle as they discuss a New York Times op-ed that argues against Senate Republicans suggesting the terrorist attack in New Orleans has increased the urgency to approve Donald Trump’s choices for top national security positions. “Their proposed picks have nothing to do with solving what happened in New Orleans….It has to do with the mind of the killer….It has to do with tracking whatever incident set him off on the path that brought him to Bourbon Street the other night….This crime builds up in the mind, the human mind. What triggered it? What happened to this man? When did it happen? Did it have to do with ISIS? Did it have to do with his travels? Did it have to do with his family? All of those things are separate and apart from whoever is appointed to be the next attorney general or the next national intelligence person in the White House or the next FBI director. All of those things are separate and apart from it. It’s an age-old situation. It requires expertise. It requires time and it requires patience,” says Barnicle about the terror attack in New Orleans where at least fourteen people were killed and dozens injured when the man plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street in a pickup truck.

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The Mind of a Killer Requires Investigation

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Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation among host Jonathan Lemire, veteran columnist Mike Barnicle and film director Ibrahim Nash’at about his new documentary “Hollywoodgate,” which looks at the Taliban in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. "Do you think there is any hope for a civilized version of Afghanistan led by the Taliban?,” asks Barnicle. Hear Nash’at’s answer here.

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What’s next for Afghanistan

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"America is about the future. It’s not about the past. It’s about the future. (Democrats) have to address the future in solid, sensible ways that are meaningful—from the price of gas, to the price of eggs, to the price of a college education. Talk about the things that impact people’s lives—that’s it,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during a Morning Joe discussion about the future of the Democratic Party with Joe Scarborough, Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Democratic strategist James Carville and Jonathan Lemire. Watch the whole conversation here.

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Mike Barnicle on TV