‘Damaged’ Trump too cowardly to make his Twitter attacks face to face: MSNBC contributor

MSNBC's Mike Barnicle hammered President Donald Trump for tweeting out "cruel" attacks against political enemies he would never confront face to face.

The president spent much of Memorial Day weekend tweeting insults and murder accusations at his perceived enemies, including "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough, and Barnicle called Trump out for cowardice.

"Is it really shocking that he did this?" Barnicle said. "This is a cruel, damaged human being, who goes out of his way to harm people. He goes out of his way without seeing these people. He would never utter a single negative response to any of the people that he attacked on Twitter over the weekend if it were eye-to-eye contact. He is afraid of that, he is afraid of the repudiation. But he is afraid of the physicality of it, he is afraid of looking at someone in the eye and saying what he says on Twitter to them. He would never, ever do that."

Barnicle said the president's words and actions dishonored the military service members memorialized by this national holiday, and also insulted the nearly 100,000 dead from the coronavirus.

"The front page of the New York Times was a reminder to him and to everyone in this nation that these people listed in the Times, in three full pages, actually, they were your friends, they were your neighbors -- they were us," he said. "We were told as a nation many, many times -- you've gone over it many, many times, Joe -- 'There is no threat here, it is one person from China, it is 15 people from China, we just sent them back to China.'"

"The level of threat has never been addressed, the level or responsibility will never be addressed," Barnicle added. "On Memorial Day 2020, a sacred day, especially where I'm from -- I grew up at a time when Memorial Day was Memorial Day. There were no sales at Home Depots, there were no large-scale picnics. It was to honor the dead. I grew up in a Gold Star household. My Uncle Jerry was killed at Midway. Like all of the people listed yesterday in the Times, and all of the people who will be memorialized at cemeteries around this country today, my Uncle Jerry, 2nd Lt. Gerald J.Barnicle, killed at Midway, June 4, 1942 -- he never died. His memory lived, he lives today through me. As will all those people who are listed in the Times yesterday. That's what Donald Trump fails to grasp."