Bill Press, KT McFarland, Robert Costa and Sen. David Vitter joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C Outgoing California Sen. Boxer introduces bill to scrap Electoral College. (Fox News) — Retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., introduced long-shot legislation Tuesday to scrap the Electoral College, in the latest protest from Democrats following last week’s election where Hillary Clinton appeared to win the popular vote despite losing to Donald Trump.  Trump, as with all presidential election victors, won the election because he garnered the most Electoral College votes.   But he likely will be the fifth president in American history to do so while losing the popular vote. The last president to win the presidency in such a manner was President George W. Bush, who beat Democrat Al Gore in 2000 despite Gore gaining more overall votes. “This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presidency. The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately,” Boxer said in a statement. The legislation is almost certainly doomed in a Republican-dominated Congress. In the unlikely event it passed, the measure would still require ratification by three-fourths of the states within seven years of passage, as it would seek to amend the Constitution.

5am – D         INTERVIEW — BILL PRESS – Nationally syndicated radio host, author of “Buyer’s Remorse”, CNN contributor and former WMAL host

• DEMS IN DISARRAY: Dems Trying To Figure Out New Leadership

5am – E         Fight Over Sanctuary Cities:

• Mayors of Sanctuary Cities Say They’ll Fight Trump’s Plans
• DC Mayor: Nation’s Capital Will Remain a ‘Sanctuary City’

6am – A/B/C United Airlines to offer ‘basic economy’: seats with even fewer perks.United Airlines is trying to woo budget airline passengers with new “basic economy” fares that will go on sale early next year. The fare strategy, which United has worked on for months and detailed Tuesday, offers the cheapest seats on a plane in exchange for giving up the few perks that come with standard economy tickets. The Chicago-based airline isn’t alone in its quest to snare price price-conscious travelers who might otherwise choose low-cost carriers such as Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines. Delta Air Lines already offers basic economy fares in some markets, and American Airlines has announced plans for a similar program.

6am – C         Flight attendant disciplined for ‘Black Lives Matter’ pin after angering passenger. LARGO (FOX 13) – Spirit Airlines has disciplined a flight attendant after a passenger was angered about a button she wore on her uniform that said, “Black Lives Matter, White Supremacy Kills.” “I said to her, ‘All lives matter,'” recalled Robert Coyle, who was visiting relatives in Largo from Houston.  “And she said, ‘I disagree with you, I disagree with you on so many levels.’ And then she went into some sort of memorized, ‘I really can’t speak politically while I am in uniform.'” After she spotted him taking a picture of her button, she asked to see it, insisting that the photograph violated airline rules. Though he agreed to delete it, he still says she stopped her safety demonstration to ask the pilot to take the plane back to the gate to kick him off.  He was able to recover the picture later and shared it with FOX 13 News.

6am – D         Obama on Election: ‘I Think I Did a Pretty Good Job’ as President; People Wanted to ‘Shake Things Up.’ – In a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsiparas, President Barack Obama disputed the notion that the presidential election results were a referendum on his job as president, saying Tuesday that people think he “did a pretty good job” as president and the election of Donald Trump was because the American people wanted to “shake things up.” “People seem to think I did a pretty good job, and so there is this mismatch I think between frustration and anger. Perhaps the view of the American people was, is that you just need to shake things up. Time will now tell whether the prescriptions that are being offered – whether Brexit or with respect to the U.S. election – ends up actually satisfying those people who’ve been fearful or angry or concerned,” Obama said. The president said the U.S. “is indisputably better off” because of him, and those who voted for Trump “are better off than they were when I came into office for the most part.”

Obama’s job approval hits four-year high. President Obama’s approval rating is now at 57 percent, the highest it’s been in his second term, according to a new Gallup survey. The previous poll, conducted in the first week of November, found his approval rating at 53 percent. The bump is consistent with how lame-duck presidents are viewed in the days after their successor is elected. Former President George W. Bush’s approval rating was 28 percent after then-Sen. Obama was elected in 2008 — a 3-point uptick from the last poll before the election.

6am – E         DC Council passes ‘death with dignity’ bill. (WTOP) – WASHINGTON — D.C. Council passed the “death with dignity” bill Tuesday, sending it to the mayor for final approval. The bill would allow terminally ill patients over 18 years old, with six months or fewer to live to request lethal medication from their doctors. The council voted 11-2 to pass the measure with council members Brianne Nadeau, Ward 1, and Yvette Alexander, Ward 7, voting against it. In it’s first reading Nov. 1, some council members expressed the difficulty they were having personally in supporting the legislation. Council member Kenyan McDuffie, Ward 5, was brought to tears recounting his father’s final days and remarked that it was “by far my toughest vote in the four- and-a-half years on this body,” he said.

7am – A         Trump Transition News:

• RAND PAUL: John Bolton is ‘totally unfit’ for secretary of state, and Rudy Giuliani is ‘very similar.’ Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky on Tuesday condemned two of President-elect Donald Trump’s rumored candidates for secretary of state. Paul, a Republican who made a failed bid for the White House in 2016, lambasted former UN Ambassador John Bolton and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — both of whom have been reported to be top contenders for secretary of state. After calling Bolton a “menace” in an op-ed earlier Tuesday, Paul told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Bolton was “totally unfit” to be secretary of state. “I couldn’t vote for Bolton unless he repudiated his support for the Iraq War and repudiated his support for regime change throughout the Middle East, repudiated his call for immediately bombing Iran,” Paul said. “I mean really, you want a diplomat in charge of diplomacy. You don’t want a bomb-thrower. “So no, John Bolton is totally unfit to be secretary of state, and I hope that the Trump administration will say, ‘You know what, he does not represent what Donald Trump represents.'”
• Ex-Intelligence Chairman Rogers Leaves Trump Transition Team. Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers left President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, days after Trump’s surprise victory and a shakeup at the top of the team’s organizational chart. Rogers’ abrupt departure came at the request of team officials, said two people familiar with the matter. The Michigan Republican, who’d also worked for the FBI, had been tapped to help guide the new administration on national security issues.
• Firings and Discord Put Trump Transition Team in a State of Disarray. WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition was in disarray on Tuesday, marked by firings, infighting and revelations that American allies were blindly dialing in to Trump Tower to try to reach the soon-to-be-leader of the free world. One week after Mr. Trump scored an upset victory that took him by surprise, his team was improvising the most basic traditions of assuming power. That included working without official State Department briefing materials in his first conversations with foreign leaders. Two officials who had been handling national security for the transition, former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist who consults with corporations and foreign governments, were fired.  Both were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser. The dismissals followed the abrupt firing on Friday of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was replaced as chief of the transition by Vice President-elect Mike Pence.  Mr. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Mr. Rogers who had ties with Mr. Christie. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Christie had sent Mr. Kushner’s father to jail.
• Mnuchin Said to Be Top Treasury Pick Among Trump’s Advisers. Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner Steven Mnuchin has been recommended by Donald Trump’s transition team to serve as Treasury secretary, according to two people familiar with the process, and the choice is awaiting the president-elect’s final decision. Mnuchin, the campaign’s national finance chairman, has been considered the leading candidate for the job. Trump has displayed a pattern of loyalty to his closest campaign allies in early administration selections, and Mnuchin, 53, had signed on at a time when many from Wall Street stayed away.
• Ted Cruz Considered by Trump for Attorney General. President-elect Donald Trump is considering nominating Texas Senator Ted Cruz to serve as U.S. attorney general, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cruz, 45, was at Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday. When approached by reporters on his way out, Cruz said the election was a mandate for change but didn’t say he was under consideration for a job. Cruz unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination. He and Trump were at odds during the primary, viciously attacking one another. Trump nicknamed Cruz “Lyin’ Ted.” Cruz didn’t endorse Trump during a speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. In September, relations between the two men seemed to improve when Cruz said he would vote for Trump.
• Ben Carson says no to serving in Trump administration. WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 (UPI) — Former presidential candidate Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, said he will not likely join Donald Trump’s upcoming administration. Carson has served as an adviser to Trump since the end of the Republican primaries. On Tuesday, he suggested he would rather work on issues independently than under a Trump administration. “The way I’m leaning is to work from the outside and not from the inside,” Carson told The Washington Post. “I want to have the freedom to work on many issues and not be pigeonholed into one particular area.” Carson was under consideration for Cabinet positions including secretary of health and human services, as well as secretary of education. Carson said he was offered positions but did not “want to go into the details.”

7am – B         UVA Professors To UVA President: You Can’t Quote Thomas Jefferson. (Federalist) — Students and professors at the University of Virginia aren’t happy their university president sent an e-mail quoting the school’s founder, Thomas Jefferson. The Cavalier Daily reports that university President Teresa Sullivan sent a campus-wide e-mail on November 9, the day after the election, encouraging students to stay resilient and hopeful in the wake of Donald Trump’s electoral victory. Sullivan wrote: “Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that University of Virginia students ‘are not of ordinary significance only: they are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.’ . . . I encourage today’s U.Va. students to embrace that responsibility.” In response, a group of professors and students sent a letter two days later objecting to her decision to quote Jefferson because, like many men at the time, he owned slaves. “We would like for our administration to understand that although some members of this community may have come to this university because of Thomas Jefferson’s legacy, others of us came here in spite of it,” the letter stated, according to The Cavalier Daily. “For many of us, the inclusion of Jefferson quotations in these e-mails undermines the message of unity, equality and civility that you are attempting to convey.” The letter was reportedly signed by 469 students and teachers.

7am – C         Protests at Trump Hotel:

• D.C. students walk out of class to protest Trump. The students poured out of class, then crammed into Metro stations throughout the city. They crowded downtown streets carrying signs, marching and chanting until they arrived at the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Many couldn’t vote in this election, but they wanted to put a voice to their frustrations. More than 2,000 D.C. middle school and high school students ditched classes Tuesday afternoon to protest the election of Donald Trump, telling the president-elect that, despite his campaign’s divisive rhetoric, their diverse student bodies would remain united. “This isn’t an anti-Donald Trump rally,” said Jordan Johnson, a 17-year-old senior at McKinley Technology Education Campus in Northeast Washington. “We’re coming out here to display unity, despite all that’s happened these past few years.”
• Trump leases his D.C. hotel from a government agency he’ll soon be in charge of. It’s an enormous conflict of interest. He ought to give it up immediately. (Washington Post) — In 2013, the General Services Administration leased Washington’s historic Post Office Pavilion to the Trump Organization for $180 million. Before his inauguration on Jan. 20, the GSA must terminate the Organization’s lease. The 60-year deal presents unprecedented and intolerable conflicts of interest. Swift action by GSA is necessary to protect the integrity of the federal government contracting process. The federal procurement system has a 200-year record of transparency and integrity. As part of the protection of the contracting process from corruption, federal contracting regulations mandate that “government business shall be conducted in a manner above reproach … to avoid … even the appearance of a conflict of interest in Government-contractor relationships.”
• Trump Name to Be Removed From NYC Apartment Buildings. Donald Trump’s name is expected to be permanently removed from an apartment complex on Manhattan’s Upper West Side after numerous complaints from tenants. The buildings at 140, 160 and 180 Riverside Blvd. will be renamed for their street addresses, according to Equity Residential, which owns the three buildings. The Trump Place name, emblazoned in big gold letters, could be removed as early as this week.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — KT MCFARLAND – Fox News National Security Analyst

• RAND PAUL: John Bolton is ‘totally unfit’ for secretary of state, and Rudy Giuliani is ‘very similar.’
• McCain to Trump: Don’t try to reset relations with Putin.
• During Final Foreign Trip: Obama: ‘I Think I Did a Pretty Good Job’ as President; People Wanted to ‘Shake Things Up’

7am – E         Entertainment News:

• Carrie Fisher reveals ‘intense’ affair with Harrison Ford. After nearly 40 years of keeping the secret in the vault, Carrie Fisher is coming clean: Han Solo and Princess Leia had a real-life affair. Fisher told People magazine that when she was 19, she and Ford had a whirlwind three-month affair while filming Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope in 1976. It wasn’t exactly a kosher situation: Ford was then a 33-year-old married father of two. “It was so intense,” says Fisher. “It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend.” Fisher told the magazine she gave Ford advance notice she’d be spilling the tea in her new memoir, The Princess Diarist, which pulls from journals she kept while filming the franchise. The two stars spent their first night together after a birthday party for George Lucas, Fisher recalls in her book (out Nov. 22). “I looked over at Harrison. A hero’s face — a few strands of hair fell over his noble, slightly furrowed brow,” she writes. “How could you ask such a shining specimen of a man to be satisfied with the likes of me?”
• Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is officially the Sexiest Man Alive.  The world’s highest-paid actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has big box-office draw — but it’s his even bigger heart that made the Moana star this year’s Sexiest Man Alive! So what did the former WWE champ, 44, think when he first heard about his latest title? “I said, ‘That’s awesome.’ And then what went through my mind was just how cool and exciting it is,” Johnson tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “And then I thought, ‘Wow, we’ve pretty much reached the pinnacle.’ I’m not quite too sure where we go from here. I’ve done it all, this is it.” To celebrate his title – and his upcoming Disney role – Johnson is making his Sexiest Man Alive debut Tuesday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (check local listings for time). At 6’5″ and 245 lbs., the Herculean star insists that becoming comfortable in his own skin “took a lot of time.”
  

8am – A         INTERVIEW – ROBERT COSTA – a national political reporter at The Washington Post

• TRUMP TRANSITION:
• Ben Carson says no to serving in Trump administration.
• Firings and Discord Put Trump Transition Team in a State of Disarray.
• Mnuchin Said to Be Top Treasury Pick Among Trump’s Advisers.
• Ted Cruz Considered by Trump for Attorney General
• RAND PAUL: John Bolton is ‘totally unfit’ for secretary of state, and Rudy Giuliani is ‘very similar’
• Rebekah Mercer, Daughter of Major Donor, Named to Trump Role.

8am – B/C  INTERVIEW — U.S. SENATOR DAVID VITTER – senior United States Senator from Louisiana and Chairman of the Senate Border Security Caucus and Deputy Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee

• Fight Over Sanctuary Cities:
• Mayors of Sanctuary Cities Say They’ll Fight Trump’s Plans
• DC Mayor: Nation’s Capital Will Remain a ‘Sanctuary City’

8am – D         INTERVIEW — BILL PRESS – Nationally syndicated radio host, author of “Buyer’s Remorse”, CNN contributor and former WMAL host

• DEMS IN DISARRAY: Dems Trying To Figure Out New Leadership

8am – E         National Fast Food Day is Wednesday: What are your fast food favorites?