Joe diGenova, Will Sommer and Trevor Matich joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, October 26, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Smith

5am – A/B/C Trump: ‘I’m Being Divisive Right Now Because I Want to Win’ (Mediaite) — Donald Trump has no problem admitting he’s divisive, but is pretty confident that he would be a “great uniter” if he was president. On ABC’s This Week this morning, George Stephanopoulos brought up a recent focus group in which people called Trump divisive, brash, rude, etc. Trump dismissed it and said, “I’m being divisive right now because I want to win.”

5am – D/E     U.S. won’t prosecute former IRS official Lois Lerner. WASHINGTON—The Justice Department won’t charge Lois Lerner, a former Internal Revenue Service official, over Tea Party groups’ applications for tax-exempt status, closing a nearly 2 1/2-year investigation with a determination that IRS officials bungled the matter but committed no crimes. “Our investigation uncovered substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia, leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints,” Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik wrote to Congress on Friday. “But poor management is not a crime.” The announcement ends a major phase of the IRS controversy, angering Republicans and Tea Party activists who had pressed for prosecutions.

6am – A/B/C UWM says ‘politically correct’ is no longer politically correct. (Campus Reform) — The phrase ‘politically correct’ is now a microaggression according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The university’s ‘Just Words’ campaign aims to ‘raise awareness of microaggressions and their impact.’ These microaggressions include the words: ‘lame,’ ‘thug,’ ‘trash,’ and ‘third world.’ The phrase “politically correct” is now a microaggression according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The university’s “Just Words” campaign is the work of UWM’s “Inclusive Excellence Center” and aims to “raise awareness of microaggressions and their impact”—microaggressions like “politically correct” or “PC.” Merriam-Webster defines “politically correct” as “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated.” The university, however, claims that calling something “politically correct” “has become a way to deflect, [and say] that people are being too ‘sensitive’ and police language.” “Politically correct,” moreover, is just one of a whole host of words and phrases the university has denounced as microaggressions.

6am – D         Gov. Chris Christie apologizes after being kicked out of an Amtrak quiet car. (Daily Beast) — Chris Christie’s presidential campaign would like you to know that he is sorry—so very, very sorry—for disrupting the peace and serenity of Amtrak’s quiet car during his Sunday morning commute. “On a very full train this morning, the Governor accidentally took a seat in Amtrak’s notorious quiet car,” Samantha Smith, Christie’s spokeswoman, told The Daily Beast. Gawker reported that Christie arrived late on the 9:55 Acela from D.C. to New York, gulping a strawberry smoothie from McDonald’s, and proceeded to cause a scene. A passenger on the train, Alexander Mann, told Gawker, “He got on last minute yelling at his two secret service agents I think because of a seat mixup, sat down and immediately started making phone calls on the quiet car.”

6am – E         Kirk Cousins powers Redskins’ rally from down 24 to beat Bucs, 31-30. (Washington Post) — Having called this game a “Code Red” the previous week, Washington Redskins Coach Jay Gruden had no place to go in the lexicon of dire warnings Sunday at Fed Ex Field, where his team fell behind by 24 points in a miserable first half against Tampa Bay. So he went for volume, erupting in a closed-door tongue-lashing at halftime. And to the shock of a fast-forgiving crowd of 72,912 that had booed its own on homecoming day, the Redskins staged a furious rally when all seemed lost — reeling off 21 unanswered points, staging a goal-line defensive stand and orchestrating the game-winning drive for a touchdown with 24 seconds remaining for a 31-30 win that capped the biggest comeback in team history.

7am – A         INTERVIEW — JOE DIGENOVA – legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia

• U.S. won’t prosecute former IRS official Lois Lerner
• Joe shared his thoughts on Hillary’s Benghazi performance.

7am – B         Entertainment News:

• Reese Witherspoon: The world is “ready” for “Legally Blonde 3” (Variety) — Ready to bend and snap once again? Reese Witherspoon may be. In an appearance on “Fashionably Late with Rachel Zoe,” Witherspoon said she’d like to see the indomitable Elle Woods take on the Oval Office. “I think we’re ready to see Elle and see what she’s up to lately,” she said, responding to a fan question. “A lot of writers over the years have come up with different ideas for it,” Witherspoon went on. “I actually think it’s kind of great right now because we’re talking about women in politics and how important that is to get more women. And I think it’d be kind of a cool thing to have her be a Supreme Court justice or someone who runs for office.”
• Jeb Bush’s Latest Awkward Comment: Supergirl, ‘She Looked Pretty Hot.’ So far, Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign has had some interesting — if not downright awkward — moments, multiple instances in which Bush was close to something exciting, or funny, or powerful, but then it just didn’t work. During a Q&A with the LIBRE Inititaive, a national organization promoting economic empowerment for Hispanics, Bush was asked the following question: “Who is your favorite super hero, ‘Marvel’ they have in parentheses, and why?” In his answer, Bush said, “I don’t know; I’m kind of old school. I like the old-school guys, like Batman. A little dark these days.” That was fine. But then he said this: “I saw that Supergirl is on TV. I saw it when I was working out this morning, there was an ad promoting Supergirl. She looked pretty hot. I don’t know what channel it’s on, but I’m looking forward to that. …”
• New Movies, TV on Hulu in November: James Bond Classics, ‘Zoolander,’ ‘Chicago Med’ and More. Those who add Showtime to their Hulu subscription can also check out movies like ‘Out of Sight’; ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’; ‘Three Men and a Baby’ and ‘Bernie.’ Hulu subscribers can also prepare for the release of the latest James Bond film, Spectre, with a number of classic Bond films streaming starting Nov. 1, including For Your Eyes Only, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, Never Say Never Again, Octopussy, The Spy Who Loved Me and A View to a Kill.
• Maureen O’Hara, one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s golden age, died. Maureen O’Hara, the Irish actress who starred in a slew of American films including “Miracle on 34th Street,” “The Quiet Man” and “The Parent Trap” and one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s golden age, died on Saturday at home in Boise, Idaho. She was 95. With her faint Irish accent, bright red hair and air of independence, she was often described as “fiery,” but that implies she was a one-note personality; in truth, she was a real actress who displayed her versatility in such works as “How Green Was My Valley” and Carol Reed’s “Our Man in Havana.” She worked with directors ranging from Alfred Hitchcock to Chris Columbus, but is best remembered for her works with John Ford, particularly in her pairings with John Wayne, such as “Quiet Man.”

7am – C         Critter News:

• Virginia cat missing more than 2 years reunited with owner. VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — A Virginia Beach woman has her missing cat back more than two years after it disappeared on a trip to a veterinarian. Amy Lutz-Sexton was reunited with her 9-year-old cat Friday. That’s when Virginia Beach’s animal control office called to say it had the orange tabby. The Virginian-Pilot reports Cheddar had run away after Lutz-Sexton dropped her carrier and the cage broke as it hit the ground. Cheddar took up residence with a woman who lived near the veterinarian. But in recent days the woman’s caretaker took the cat to an animal shelter because the woman was about to move. Officials found an embedded microchip on the cat and that led them to Lutz-Sexton. She says Cheddar looks great and even appears to have lost some weight.
• Rat sightings are up in downtown Bethesda. (WTOP) – BETHESDA, Md. – Some people out for a nice meal have seen rats, a growing problem in downtown Bethesda the past few months. Montgomery County leaders started surveying the area after receiving complaints in June, said Kenny Welch, the county health department’s Environmental Health Manager. During the survey, Welch said, an inspector with the county’s rat control program “had even seen some things [that] in 36 years, he’s never seen before.” He saw a rat making a home in a potted plant. Another wedged itself under a Capital Bikeshare platform. Business owners tell WTOP the rats were all over Veteran’s Park, at the corner of Woodmont and Norfolk avenues, and still can be seen there at night.

7am – D         Trump: ‘I’m Being Divisive Right Now Because I Want to Win’ (Mediaite) — Donald Trump has no problem admitting he’s divisive, but is pretty confident that he would be a “great uniter” if he was president. On ABC’s This Week this morning, George Stephanopoulos brought up a recent focus group in which people called Trump divisive, brash, rude, etc. Trump dismissed it and said, “I’m being divisive right now because I want to win.”

7am – E         No Boots Were Supposed to Be on the Ground in ISIS Fight, But 70 Hostages Are Alive Because His Were. (IJ Review) — When military intelligence learned that terrorist group ISIS was holding dozens of hostages in a prison in Iraq, all of whom were facing “imminent mass execution,” NBC News reports that a daring rescue was planned involving allied American and Kurdish commandos for the pre-dawn hours of Thursday morning. The initial plan was for U.S. forces to solely provide helicopter transport and perimeter support, but the situation quickly changed when Kurdish soldiers found themselves pinned down by Islamic State gunfire. In response, two waves of Americans moved in to assist our Kurdish allies, including highly-decorated Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. With the timely assistance of U.S. troops, allied forces were able to free 70 hostages from the compound, which already reportedly contained four mass graves. Tragically, Master Sgt. Wheeler, 39, became the first American to die in a combat operation against ISIS when he succumbed to wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – WILL SOMMER – Loose Lips columnist at The Washington City Paper

• Pastors: 6th Street Bike Lanes A ‘Cancer’ That Will Destroy Church. (Washington City Paper/Will Sommer) — The United House of Prayer on 6th and M streets NW has survived the District’s changing demographics and criticism over its real estate empire. But now the church billed as “God’s White House” faces a dire threat: bike lanes. “We consider it a threat to our existence,” UHOP pastor A.D. Cunningham said, speaking at a District Department of Transportation-sponsored meeting about proposed bike lanes near the church. UHOP parishioners, along with opponents from other churches and bike lane supporters, crowded into the packed meeting room at the Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Neighborhood Library Thursday night to talk about the bike lane proposal. The audience was nearly all African American and nearly all opposed to the bike lanes. When one opponent asked her bike lane compatriots to stand up to show DDOT staff their opposition to the lanes, nearly the entire room joined her. “Are you getting this visual?” she said. The discussion was too heated, both rhetorically and literally, to last. With the room filled beyond capacity, library police shut the event down an hour early. While bike lanes were the ostensible point of the event, the meeting often became less about cycle tracks and sharrows and more about the city’s changing racial and economic demographics.

8am – B         Ted Cruz: U.S. Is One Liberal Justice Away from End of Gun Rights. (Breitbart) — On October 23, Senator and Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) observed that the U.S. is one liberal Supreme Court justice away from going after the individual right to keep and bear arms with the intent of hampering, if not abolishing, the exercise of that right. Cruz was speaking at a campaign event in Iowa when he addressed the precarious position in which our gun rights sit. According to the Des Moines Register, Cruz said, “One more liberal justice and our right to keep and bear arms [will be] taken away from us by an activist court.”

8am – C         International Elections:

• Jimmy Morales, comic and self-styled outsider, wins Guatemala presidency. (AP) — The anti-corruption candidate rode a wave of popular anger against the political class to take nearly 70% of the vote in Sunday’s. Television comic and self-styled outsider Jimmy Morales has been elected as Guatemala’s next president, riding a wave of popular anger against the political class after huge anti-corruption protests helped oust the last government. Morales claimed victory and his opponent, former first lady Sandra Torres, conceded defeat after official results showed him winning around 69% of the votes, with 94% of polling stations tallied. “We recognise Jimmy Morales’ triumph and we wish him success,” Torres said. “Guatemala has serious problems, but the people made their choice and we respect it.” The runoff was held a month and a half after president Otto Perez Molina resigned and was jailed in connection with a sprawling customs scandal. His former vice president has also been jailed in the multimillion-dollar graft and fraud scheme.
• Poland’s eurosceptics set to govern alone after big win in parliamentary polls. Right-Wing Party Roars Back in Polish Elections. Poland’s eurosceptic Law and Justice party (PiS) has claimed victory in a watershed election that risks putting the ex-communist state on a collision course with key European Union allies. Run by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the identical twin brother of Poland’s late president Lech who died in a plane crash in 2010, PiS secured 39.1 per cent of the vote on Sunday, enough to govern alone and well ahead of the incumbent, staunchly pro-EU Civic Platform (PO) at 23.4 per cent, said pollster Ipsos. If the exit poll is correct, the victory by PiS would be the biggest in terms of seats by a single party since Poland held free elections after shedding communism in 1989 – marking a decisive swing to its brand of social conservativism mixed with left-leaning economics in the country of 38 million people. It would also be the first time that the socialist grouping that grew out of the pre-1989 communist party failed to win seats in parliament

8am – D         INTERVIEW – TREVOR MATICH — Redskins elite long snapper and WMAL’s Redskins analyst – recapped the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30 vs Washington Redskins 31 game.

8am – E         Entertainment News:

• How Adele lost £2m – and her celeb pals – on her big comeback: Singer enlisted help of Phil Collins and Damon Albarn to write new album… but scrapped songs when they ‘weren’t good enough.’ (Daily Mail) — She has admitted that her latest album – the first for four years – very nearly didn’t happen because her newfound happiness caused her to write ‘boring’ songs. Music industry sources told The Mail on Sunday that Adele’s inability to write new trademark songs of pain and heartache meant the new album, 25, has cost as much as £4 million to make, with at least half of that wasted on material which didn’t make the final cut. She has also alienated some of the biggest names in music who collaborated with her only to be left furious when she tossed their work aside. ‘The average cost of an album by a star of her stature is around £2 million ,’ one music executive said. ‘This new album hasn’t just been blood, sweat and tears. It has been millions of pounds down various drains, deadlines missed and record company executives tearing their hair out wondering if anything was ever going to be finished.’
• Mitt Romney’s Son Shares Pics of Katy Perry in Sexy Barack Obama-Themed Dresses: ”Now I Know Why My Dad Lost” (E! Online) — Mitt Romney’s son Matt took to Twitter on Friday to re-post two side-by-side shots of Katy Perry literally wearing her support for Barack Obama, as she’s sporting two skin-tight dresses that applaud the current President of the United States. Perry wore the politically-themed dresses back in 2012 during a Las Vegas and then later a Milwaukee rally for POTUS, but it’s Matt’s caption that is raising some eyebrows. “Now I know why my dad lost,” the father of four wrote alongside the pics.
• Katy Perry Takes Over Hillary Clinton’s Instagram, Performs at Iowa Campaign Rally for Presidential Hopeful. Katy Perry rallied the youth vote today in Des Moines, Iowa, where she performed at a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton. She coordinated with her patriotically themed surroundings in a white strapless Michael Costello gown and handmade, crystal-studded American-flag cape, which she paired with a red and blue turban. Perry kicked off the exciting day by commandeering Hillary’s Instagram account before tonight’s “J-J” dinner for thousands of Iowa Democrats whom the presidential hopeful is trying to woo into her corner ahead of the ever-important Iowa caucus on Feb. 1. “Katy Perry here, taking over Hills’ IG today for the rally in Iowa. The stage is set, and the nails are pressed. T-minus 1.5 hours before we Roar together. #ImWithHer -Katy,” she captioned a pic of her patriotic, 2016-themed manicure.
• Kristen Wiig on ‘Ghostbusters’ Backlash: ‘It Just Bummed Me Out.’ In an interview with the LA Times to promote her new film “Nasty Baby,” Wiig revealed that she was “bummed” about the gender-focused controversy, and said this is the first film that she’s been a part of that’s garnered so much attention. “The fact there was so much controversy because we were women was surprising to me,” she said. “Some people said some really not nice things about the fact that there were women. It didn’t make me mad, it just really bummed me out. We’re really honoring those movies.”

TOMORROW: Larry Kudlow