Trevor Matich, Joe diGenova, AEI’s Michael Auslin and Susan Ferrechio joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, December 5, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B Why Should You Still Send Christmas Cards?

5am – C FISHER HOUSE RADIOTHON: Thank you to our audience for their generous gifts on Friday and Saturday to Fisher House during WMAL’s radiothon. We made a record setting $485,505 as we left the air Saturday night.

5am – D

• Former General James Mattis Will Need Congress To Waive Its Rules About Former Generals. Retired Gen. James Mattis’ nomination to be President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of defense may, well, march through the Senate, but there is one potential obstacle to maneuver around: the retired general part. The National Security Act of 1947, which established the current national defense structure, had a key stipulation, requiring that the secretary of defense be a civilian well removed from military service.

5am – E Recount Update:

• Jill Stein says she’ll ‘escalate’ Pennsylvania recount case after earlier plans to drop it. Washington (CNN)Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein said early Sunday she would “escalate” her statewide recount efforts in Pennsylvania through a federal lawsuit, after announcing she would drop it. Stein on Saturday cited a major cost placed on voters due to a state court ruling that says the voters requesting the recount must pay a $1 million bond. But shortly after midnight Sunday Stein tweeted about plans to continue on the recount bid.
• Judge Orders Michigan Recount to Begin at Noon Monday. (AP) — Michigan must begin its presidential recount at noon Monday, a federal judge ruled in a late-night order that could make it more likely the state will complete the count ahead of a Dec. 13 deadline. In his ruling early Monday morning, Judge Mark Goldsmith rejected an effort by state officials to delay the hand-counting of about 4.8 million ballots.
• Presidential recount: Counting complete in 6 counties; results have barely changed. RACINE COUNTY — A milestone was reached Sunday, December 4th related to the presidential recount in Wisconsin — more than a million votes have now been added up for a second time, and the results have barely changed. As of Sunday, the recount was over in six Wisconsin counties, and in those counties, the margin between President-elect Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton stayed exactly the same. Christensen said as of Sunday, workers were almost halfway through the 97,000 ballots they must recount by the December 12th deadline. She reported no significant changes in the results.

6am – A/B/C The significance of the Trump phone call with Taiwan:

• Trump speaks with Taiwanese president, a major break with decades of U.S. policy on China. (Washington Post) — President-elect Donald Trump spoke Friday with Taiwan’s president, a major departure from decades of U.S. policy in Asia and a breach of diplomatic protocol with ramifications for the incoming president’s relations with China. The call is the first known contact between a U.S. president or president-elect with a Taiwanese leader since before the United States broke diplomatic relations with the island in 1979. China considers Taiwan a province, and news of the official outreach by Trump is likely to infuriate the regional military and economic power. The exchange is one of a string of unorthodox conversations with foreign leaders that Trump has held since his election. It comes at a particularly tense time between China and Taiwan, which earlier this year elected a president, ­­­Tsai Ing-wen, who has not endorsed the notion of a unified China. Her election angered Beijing to the point of cutting off all official communication with the island government. It is not clear whether Trump intends a more formal shift in U.S. relations with Taiwan or China. On the call, Trump and Tsai congratulated each other on winning their elections, a statement from Trump’s transition office said.
• Donald Trump rails against China as team runs damage control over Taiwan. President-elect Donald Trump railed against China on Sunday, only hours after his transition team denied that his call with Taiwan’s president signaled a new US policy toward Pacific power. “Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?” he tweeted. “I don’t think so!”
• Amb. John Bolton on Trump’s Taiwan call: China doesn’t tell us who we can talk to.
• White House wasn’t told about Trump’s Taiwan call till after it happened, official says possible fallout “significant” (NY Times) — The White House was not told about Mr. Trump’s call until after it happened, according to a senior administration official. But afterward, the Chinese government contacted the White House to discuss the matter. The longer-term fallout from the Trump-Tsai conversation could be significant, the administration official said, noting that the Chinese government issued a bitter protest after the United States sold weapons to Taiwan as part of a well-established arms agreement grudgingly accepted by Beijing. Mr. Trump’s call with President Tsai is a bigger provocation. Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province and has adamantly opposed the attempts of any country to carry on official relations with it.
• China lodges complaint with US over Trump’s Taiwan phone call. China has lodged “solemn representations” with the US over a call between the president-elect, Donald Trump, and Taiwan’s leader, Tsai Ing-wen. Trump looked to have sparked a potentially damaging diplomatic row with Beijing on Friday after speaking to the Taiwanese president on the telephone. The call, first reported by the Taipei Times and confirmed by the Financial Times, is thought to be the first between the leader of the island and a US president or president-elect since ties between the two countries were severed in 1979, at Beijing’s behest. The US closed its embassy in Taiwan – a democratically ruled island which Beijing regards as a breakaway province – in the late 1970s after the historic rapprochement between Beijing and Washington that stemmed from Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China. Since then the US has adhered to the “One China” principle, which officially considers the independently governed island to be part of the same single Chinese nation as the mainland.

6am – C FISHER HOUSE RADIOTHON: Thank you to our audience for their generous gifts on Friday and Saturday to Fisher House during WMAL’s radiothon. We made a record setting $485,505 as we left the air Saturday night.

6am – D INTERVIEW — TREVOR MATICH — Redskins elite long snapper, WMAL’s Redskins analyst and Comcast SportsNet co-host

• RECAP: Washington Redskins (6-5) 23 vs Arizona Cardinals (5-6) 31 6-5-1, 3rd in NFC East / Final – yesterday, 4:25 PM / University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Arizona
• Redskins’ Jay Gruden blasts team after ‘frustrating’ loss to Cardinals. GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Washington Redskins got kicked in the gut by the Arizona Cardinals during the game and chewed out by their own coach afterward. Redskins coach Jay Gruden scolded his players after Sunday’s 31-23 loss, his voice carrying through the walls of the locker room. Washington has lost two in a row and fallen behind the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the sixth and final playoff spot. “This is the hottest I’ve ever seen him,” Redskins defensive end Chris Baker said. “He has every right to be as mad as he is because we’re too good for this. If we want to get to that next step and have another chance to get to the playoffs, we have to handle our business.” Gruden was upset with how the Redskins started the game. For the second consecutive game, the defense allowed the opposition to drive for an opening touchdown. On Sunday, the Cardinals marched 75 yards in 15 plays.

6am – E Washington Monument to stay closed until 2019. (USA Today) — Businessman and philanthropist David Rubenstein has agreed to donate $2 to $3 million to renovate the Washington Monument’s elevator, but the D.C. landmark will remain closed at least until 2019. Rubenstein’s gift will allow the National Park Service to modernize the monument’s elevator by replacing its computer system and adding diagnostic technology to better monitor and repair its problems. The gift will also improve the mechanical hardware of the existing system. Rubenstein had already donated $7.5 million to repair the monument after a 2011 earthquake left it damaged and cracked. The monument was open for two years after the earthquake repairs were finished before closing again on Aug. 17 due to ongoing issues with its elevator. “Mr. Rubenstein’s continued support for the Washington Monument will ensure generations of visitors can safely enjoy this historically significant monument for years to come,” Director of the National Park Service Jonathan B. Jarvis said in a press release. There is no start date for the project, The Washington Post reported, because the park service wants to fund and and construct a new security screening entrance at the same time. The park service has requested federal funds for that project as a part of the next fiscal year’s budget.

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

• Former POW Bowe Bergdahl seeks pardon from Obama to avert court martial for desertion. White House and Justice Department officials said Saturday that Bergdahl had submitted copies of the clemency request seeking leniency. If granted by Obama, it would allow Bergdahl to avert a military trial scheduled for April where he faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. The misbehavior charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. If the pardon isn’t granted, Bergdahl’s defense team said it will expand its legal strategy to the new administration by filing a motion arguing President-elect Donald Trump violated his due process rights with scathing public comments about the case.
• Trump: Supreme Court pick coming ‘pretty soon’
• Obama ethics office congratulates Trump in bizarre mini-tweetstorm (Politico) — The federal Office of Government Ethics offered its congratulations to President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday afternoon for his announcement that he will be ceding control of his business empire as president. The president-elect made the announcement Wednesday morning on Twitter, telling his followers, “I will be holding a major news conference in New York City with my children on December 15 to discuss the fact that I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” After cryptically posting and then deleting tweets directed at Trump earlier in the day, the OGE sent a flurry of posts praising the president-elect for his “divestiture” from his business holdings. But Trump did not say anything about divesting in his Tuesday morning announcement, and previously pledged only to give control of his companies to his three eldest children, not to remove his financial interests in them.

7am – B Trump Chooses Ben Carson to Lead HUD. Ben Carson, who took Donald J. Trump on a tour of blighted neighborhoods in Detroit during the presidential campaign, including his boyhood home, has been chosen by Mr. Trump to oversee one of the government’s main efforts to lift American cities as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, was an early endorser of Mr. Trump after ending his own presidential bid. “Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities,” Mr. Trump said in a statement Monday morning. “We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities.” “Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans,” he added. “He is a tough competitor and never gives up.”

7am – C FISHER HOUSE RADIOTHON: Thank you to our audience for their generous gifts on Friday and Saturday to Fisher House during WMAL’s radiothon. We made a record setting $485,505 as we left the air Saturday night.

7am – D Trump responds immediately to ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit mocking his tweets. (USA Today) — The Donald Trump-themed cold opens keep coming on Saturday Night Live, this week with more jokes lobbed at the president-elect for his prolific Twitter account. Within an hour of air time, Trump had responded on, you guessed it, Twitter. “Just tried watching Saturday Night Live – unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse. Sad,” Trump wrote before the episode had concluded.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: Just tried watching Saturday Night Live – unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse. Sad 12:13 AM – 4 Dec 2016

Alec Baldwin wasted no time hitting back at Trump. “Release your tax returns and I’ll stop,” he tweeted.

Saturday Night Live Tries to Track Down Hillary Clinton in ‘The Hunt for Hill’ Recent public sightings of Hillary Clinton throughout the forests of upstate New York and in local shops prompted Saturday Night Live to seek out the former Democratic presidential nominee. In a sketch called ‘The Hunt for Hil,” two wildlife hunters seek to track down Clinton to thank her for her work. They start in the woods of Chappaqua, reach out to others who have seen her, analyze her footprints, impersonate her laugh as a mating call and leave out a newspaper article about the Wisconsin election recount to bait her.

7am – E Man opens fire in restaurant targeted by anti-Clinton “PizzaGate” fake news conspiracy. WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man who said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place fired an assault rifle inside the Washington, D.C., restaurant on Sunday injuring no one, police and news reports said. Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Aquita Brown said police detained a 28-year-old man from Salisbury, North Carolina. The deputy mayor for public safety and justice said on Twitter the suspect has been identified as Edgar Maddison Welch. Police responded and arrested Welch without incident. They recovered an “assault rifle,” Brown said. Welch was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. Two firearms were recovered inside the restaurant and an additional weapon was recovered from the suspect’s vehicle, police said in a statement on Sunday evening. The suspect entered the location and pointed a firearm in the direction of an employee of the restaurant, the MPD said in a statement. The victim was able to flee and notify police. The suspect fired an undetermined number of shots inside of the restaurant, according to the MPD. During a post arrest interview, the suspect also revealed that he came to the establishment to self-investigate “Pizza Gate,” the MPD said in a statement. As CBS affiliate WUSA reported previously, using the hashtag #PizzaGate, an imaginary story about the popular pizza shop was spread across social media and websites associated with the “alt-right” movement, accusing its proprietors of allowing Bill and Hillary Clinton and her former campaign manager to run a child sex slave ring from the business. As a result, the pizza place has been hammered by thousands of threats and bizarre, unsubstantiated tales about child sex trafficking online for weeks.

8am – A INTERVIEW – MICHAEL AUSLIN – Resident scholar and Director of Japan Studies at American Enterprise Institute and author of upcoming book “The End of the Asian Century: War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World’s Most Dynamic Region” (Yale University Press, January 2017)

• The significance of the Trump phone call with Taiwan:
• Trump speaks with Taiwanese president, a major break with decades of U.S. policy on China.
• Donald Trump rails against China as team runs damage control over Taiwan.
• Amb. John Bolton on Trump’s Taiwan call: China doesn’t tell us who we can talk to.
• White House wasn’t told about Trump’s Taiwan call till after it happened, official says possible fallout “significant”
• China lodges complaint with US over Trump’s Taiwan phone call. China has lodged “solemn representations” with the US over a call between the president-elect, Donald Trump, and Taiwan’s leader, Tsai Ing-wen.

8am – B Calls on Taiwan Phone Call

8am – C Redskins Lose: Washington Redskins (6-5) 23 vs Arizona Cardinals (5-6) 31 6-5-1, 3rd in NFC East / Final – yesterday, 4:25 PM / University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Arizona

• Redskins’ Jay Gruden blasts team after ‘frustrating’ loss to Cardinals. GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Washington Redskins got kicked in the gut by the Arizona Cardinals during the game and chewed out by their own coach afterward. Redskins coach Jay Gruden scolded his players after Sunday’s 31-23 loss, his voice carrying through the walls of the locker room.

8am – D INTERVIEW — SUSAN FERRECHIO — Washington Examiner’s Chief Congressional Correspondent

• What Congress accomplished last week and what’s left on the agenda:
• Congress looks to bolt after spending, Flint bills
• GOP weighs reversal of ‘hundreds’ of Obama executive actions
• Pelosi: After Historic Election Loss, Congressional Democrats Don’t Want A New Direction
• Former General James Mattis Will Need Congress To Waive Its Rules About Former Generals. Retired Gen. James Mattis’ nomination to be President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of defense may, well, march through the Senate, but there is one potential obstacle to maneuver around: the retired general part. The National Security Act of 1947, which established the current national defense structure, had a key stipulation, requiring that the secretary of defense be a civilian well removed from military service.

8am – E FISHER HOUSE RADIOTHON: Thank you to our audience for their generous gifts on Friday and Saturday to Fisher House during WMAL’s radiothon. We made a record setting $485,505 as we left the air Saturday night.