‘Morning Joe’ panelist tells viewers not to believe all the footage showing riots, flames in LA

MSNBC senior contributor Mike Barnicle told his viewers on Wednesday to not believe the footage and photographs they are seeing coming from Los Angeles, California, and insisted everything is peaceful.

Barnicle said there are “no riots” in the streets of Los Angeles and that tensions in the city are “calming down,” even though rioters have set vehicles on fire, looted stores and assaulted law enforcement officers. He accused the media and President Donald Trump’s administration of misleading the public to believe there is chaos in the streets over the raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“This is literally a Tale of Two Cities. There’s the tale of one city being told by the administration by sending the National Guard and the United States Marine Corps onto the streets of an American city. Then there’s the other tale of a city, Los Angeles itself, when told by the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass and the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, you realize the facts of the tale of the two cities. And the facts are Los Angeles is calming down, that there are no riots in the streets, that the activities of the protesters is confined to about 4 or 5 square blocks in the city.”

“The impact of pictures that people see on there TV tells a story that’s not really accurate. I mean, the flames, the cars being burned, the concrete blocks being thrown at the police. That’s all been taken care of by the Los Angeles Police Department. They have restored order on their streets,” Barnicle continued.

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BBC News correspondent Katty Kay claimed that the riots have been “minor” and compared it to a “picnic.” She said it appears that the National Guard and Marine Corps’ presence at the riots may seem like “overkill” as long as the riots stop in the near future.

Footage has shown rioters in masks waving Mexican flags, setting fire to cars, looting local businesses and vandalizing public property with spray paint. More footage and photographs posted by Fox News’ Bill Melugin showed rioters throwing rocks at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents as they attempted to leave a riot in Paramount, California, causing an agent to suffer from a minor incarceration to his hand after a rock broke through the windshield.

Some shops were boarded up to avoid more looting that has taken place over the past several days. Some workers were seen rushing to cut wood before the new curfew for the rioters began on Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES: Some shops are boarding up now as it’s two hours till curfew. Massive group is still waking the streets of downtown @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/7lgBzIYtc5

— Hailey Grace Gomez (@haileyggomez) June 11, 2025

LOS ANGELES: Adidas is boarding up their store that already got looted. Shops next to it have workers cutting wood to finish up as we’re now about 40 minutes out from curfew @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/Pshx5lixbZ

— Hailey Grace Gomez (@haileyggomez) June 11, 2025

Rioters in Orange County set off fireworks and appeared to use a trash bin as a barricade on Monday night.

OC COUNTY NOW: Santa Ana PD is moving the line down south — rioters have been setting off fireworks and appeared to attempt to use a trash bin as a barricade @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/yebqIC7YAs

— Hailey Grace Gomez (@haileyggomez) June 10, 2025

Rioters in Little Tokyo tagged the walls with anti-Trump and anti-ICE rhetoric, writing things like “Fuck ICE, Trumps A Lame.”

LOS ANGELES: These signs on a local school in Little Tokyo were asking people not to tag the walls. Not sure when they went up, but clearly, they didn’t stop anyone @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/tEFublzbsY

— Hailey Grace Gomez (@haileyggomez) June 11, 2025

The state of California sued the Trump administration for deploying at least 2,000 National Guard troops and around 700 Marines to Los Angeles, though a judge temporarily rejected their bid on Tuesday to block the deployment.

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