Gen. Jack Keane, Ed Henry and Trevor Matich joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, August 11, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C   NORTH KOREA

• President Trump says his “fire and fury” statement was perhaps “not tough enough” for North Korea
• North Korea is “carefully examining” plans to attack Guam, a U.S. territory. North Korea says it will complete plan to attack waters near Guam by mid-August. (ABC News) — North Korea’s state-run media reported the country is “carefully examining” plans to attack the U.S. territory of Guam on Wednesday. The plans include using medium- to long-range ballistic missiles. The threat is unsurprising for the more than 160,000 people who live on the small island, roughly the size of Chicago, in the western Pacific Ocean. Guam is the largest and most southern island in the Mariana island chain. Part of Micronesia, Guam lies about 3,800 miles west of Honolulu, Hawaii. Dededo is the most populous village on the island. The indigenous people are referred to as Chamorros and are considered U.S. citizens by birth. However, residents of the colony do not pay U.S. income taxes or vote for president.

5am – D         MANAFORT

• Manafort switching legal team as feds crank up heat on him. (Politico) – Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is changing his attorneys as a federal investigation heats up into his financial transactions, according to people familiar with the matter. Manafort’s case will now be handled by Miller and Chevalier, a boutique firm in Washington that specializes in complicated financial crimes among other issues, these people said. A spokesman confirmed the change. “Mr. Manafort is in the process of retaining his former counsel, Miller & Chevalier, to represent him in the office of special counsel investigation. As of today, WilmerHale no longer represents Mr. Manafort,” Jason Maloni said in a statement.
• SQUEEZING MANAFORT: (Bloomberg) – Mueller’s team of investigators has sent subpoenas in recent weeks from a Washington grand jury to global banks for account information and records of transactions involving Manafort and some of his companies, as well as those of a long-time business partner, Rick Gates, according to people familiar with the matter. The special counsel has also reached out to other business associates, including Manafort’s son-in-law and a Ukrainian oligarch, according to one of the people. Those efforts were characterized as an apparent attempt to gain information that could be used to squeeze Manafort, or force him to be more helpful to prosecutors.
• Trump ‘Surprised’ That FBI Raided Ex-Campaign Manager’s Home. President Trump said he was “surprised” that FBI agents raided the Virginia home of his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, last month. “You know, they do that very seldom, so I was surprised to see it. I was very, very surprised to see it,” Trump said in remarks from Bedminster, N.J., where he is vacationing. “I don’t know, but I thought it was pretty tough stuff to wake him up, perhaps his family was there. I think that’s pretty tough stuff.”

5am – E         CUBA NEWS:

• Reports: ‘Incident’ in Cuba Leaves U.S. Diplomats with ‘Severe Hearing Loss,’ Concussion Symptoms. The U.S. State Department confirmed Wednesday that several American diplomats left the U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba, in May after complaining of “a variety of physical symptoms” triggered by unspecified “incidents.” The Associated Press and CNN reported spokeswoman Heather Nauert’s comments at the agency’s daily press briefing that unnamed sources had confirmed the symptoms included “unexplained losses of hearing” and symptoms similar to those of concussions. The AP notes that their sources believe a “covert sonic device” triggered the symptoms, but there is no confirmation that the Cuban government possessed or used such a device.
• US expels 2 Cuban diplomats after unexplained incidents in Cuba left US officials there with hearing loss. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.S. retaliated by expelling two Cuban diplomats from their embassy in Washington on May 23. She did not say how many U.S. diplomats were affected or confirm they had suffered hearing loss, saying only that they had “a variety of physical symptoms.” The Cuban government said in a lengthy statement late Wednesday that “Cuba has never permitted, nor will permit, that Cuban territory be used for any action against accredited diplomatic officials or their families, with no exception.” The statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry said it had been informed of the incidents on Feb. 17 and had launched an “exhaustive, high-priority, urgent investigation at the behest of the highest level of the Cuban government.”  It said the decision to expel two Cuban diplomats was “unjustified and baseless.”

6am – A         HILLARY NEWS

• Hillary Clinton looks for her role in midterms. (Politico) — Hillary Clinton wants to play a role in next year’s midterm elections. It’s just not clear yet what that role will be.
• Federal Judge Orders State Dept To Search Hillary Aides’ Accounts For Benghazi Records. (Daily Caller) – Washington D.C. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, ordered State to search the accounts of Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s top aides at the State Department, in response to a lawsuit filed by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.Mehta said that the State Department did not do enough to search for all emails it has on its computer systems regarding the Benghazi attacks, which left four Americans dead.
• Hillary’s Pastor Compared Her Election Loss To Jesus’ Death And Resurrection. (Daily Caller)  The pastor for failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton compared her loss in the 2016 election to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in an email sent to the Democratic leader. The email, obtained by CNN, was sent to Clinton on the morning of November 9, 2016, the day after her loss to Donald Trump, by United Methodist City Society Executive Director the Rev. Bill Shillady. “It is Friday, but Sunday is coming. This is not the devotional I had hoped to write. This is not the devotional you wish to receive this day. While Good Friday may be the starkest representation of a Friday that we have, life is filled with a lot of Fridays,” Shillady wrote.

6am – B         Study: Montgomery would lose 47,000 jobs by 2022 if minimum wage went to $15. (Washington Post) — Montgomery County would lose approximately 47,000 jobs by 2022 if it raises the minimum wage to $15 an hour, according to a study released by the county government Tuesday evening. County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) commissioned the study — which suggests the vast majority of jobs lost would be low-wage positions — when he vetoed an increase to the minimum wage in January.

6am – C         CNN severs ties with Jeffrey Lord. (CNNMoney) CNN severed ties with Jeffrey Lord on Thursday, hours after he ignited controversy by tweeting the words “Sieg Heil!” at a prominent liberal activist. “Nazi salutes are indefensible,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.” Lord said his tweet was misunderstood. He said he was mocking fascists, not acting like one. “I love CNN, but I feel they are caving to bullies here,” he said in a telephone interview shortly after the network’s decision was announced. Lord said his contract was set to expire at the end of the year. He said he greatly respected CNN management despite disagreeing with the decision.

6am – D/E     Too politically correct? Board drops ‘Lynch’ from school names. (Fox News) — A school board in Portland, Ore., has dropped “Lynch” from the names of two elementary schools, claiming it had negative connotations and made some people feel uncomfortable. The move Wednesday evening by the Centennial School District’s board also included a slight alteration to the name of a third school. But the move has sparked criticism, including on social media, from some community residents and former students. They claim the board’s decision is a sign of political correctness running amok. The district had received complaints in recent years that the names of Lynch Meadows Elementary School, Lynch View Elementary School and Lynch Wood Elementary School reminded them too much of “lynch mobs” and “lynchings,” conjuring the image of people being hanged by an angry mob, KATU reported. All three schools were named after the Lynch family, who donated land for the schools more than a century ago. There’s disagreement over the derivation of “lynch mob” and “lynching.” Some say it started with an 18th century politician named Charles Lynch, NPR reported. Others link the words to Capt. William Lynch, an 18th century Virginian who was a proponent of quickly dispensed “justice” – although accounts vary.

6am – E         In a new survey, 56% of Google employees disagreed with the decision to fire James Damore. Over half of Google employees polled say the web giant shouldn’t have fired the engineer behind the controversial memo. Former Google engineer James Damore’s memo on diversity generated lots of controversy.  So too, as it turns out, has the web giant’s subsequent decision to fire him. Employees across Silicon Valley are deeply divided about Google’s move, according to a survey conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday by Blind, an anonymous corporate chat app. When Blind asked its users if they thought Google should have fired Damore, over 4,000 from different companies weighed in. Perhaps most pertinently, 441 Google employees responded. Of them, more than half  – 56% to be precise– said they didn’t think it was right for the company to fire Damore.

6am – F         Trump calls it a ‘disgrace’ that McConnell couldn’t get Obamacare repeal through the Senate – and dodges question on whether he should STEP DOWN as Senate leader. (Daily Mail) – President Donald Trump refused to say whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should step down Thursday – after blasting his fellow Republican online and calling it a ‘disgrace’ he couldn’t move an Obamacare repeal bill. Trump got asked about McConnell after repeatedly attacking him on Twitter, following McConnell’s own statement about Trump’s political inexperience.  The two had a tense phone call this week.  ‘I said, Mitch, get to work and let’s get it done. They should have had this last one done. They lost by one vote. For a thing like that to happen is a disgrace,’ Trump fumed, standing outside his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club. Asked whether he thought McConnell should step down as Senate leader, Trump responded: ‘Well I’ll tell you what, if he doesn’t get repeal and replace done and if he doesn’t get taxes done meaning cuts and reform [plus infrastructure] … If he doesn’t get them done then you can ask me that question.’ Ask to clarify his statement, Trump said: ‘You can ask me the question. That means ask me that question. Let’s hope he gets it done.’  Trump brought up repeated GOP passage of Obamacare repeal legislation under President Obama, but the inability to get a bill to his desk.   ‘All I hear is repeal and replace,’ Trump said. ‘And then I get there [the White House] and I say where’s the bill I wanna sign it? First day. And they don’t have it,’ he vented.

7am – A         INTERVIEW — ED HENRY – Fox News Chief National Correspondent and New York Times Bestselling Author “42 Faith” – discussed President Trump’s sparring with McConnell and U.S. diplomats in Cuba suffering from severe hearing loss.

7am – B         ENTERTAINMENT NEWS:

• JAMES FRANCO Demolishes Princeton Prof’s Pro-Abortion Argument — With One Sentence. Who’s Up For James Franco Arguing Against Abortion? (Daily Caller) – I’m not a big fan of James Franco’s work, other than Freaks and Geeks and the first 20 minutes of Pineapple Express. But I’ve always kind of admired his eclectic interests. He doesn’t let Hollywood tell him what “movie stars” should and shouldn’t do, and he gets himself into all sorts of weird, esoteric stuff. He’s a dilettante, but at least he actually seems to care about the things he dabbles in. His latest venture is a YouTube series called Philosophy Time, where he sits around with academics and kinda-sorta debates various topics for a few minutes. In one recent episode, he jumped right in and stomped on that third rail: abortion.
• Taylor Swift Testifies: ‘He Grabbed My Ass Underneath My Skirt’ (Rolling Stone) — Pop star appeared in Denver federal court detailing how former radio host allegedly groped her during a pre-concert photo shoot in 2013. Taylor Swift testified in a Denver court Thursday, saying that she was “completely sure” former radio host David Mueller sexually assaulted her during a 2013 press photo. Swift appeared on the stand for roughly an hour, CNN reports, after her mother Andrea Swift also testified about the alleged incident.  “It was a definite grab … A very long grab. He grabbed my ass underneath my skirt,” Swift said on the stand. She called the 2013 incident “horrifying and shocking.”  The singer asserted that Mueller grabbed her on purpose, rejecting Mueller’s claim that their interaction was random or rushed. “This was not jostling. We were perfectly in position for the photograph to be taken,” said Swift. “What Mr. Mueller did was very intentional.” Swift said that at the time, she continued the meet-and-greet because she didn’t want to disappoint her fans. She said she first mentioned the alleged groping to her photographer, Stephanie Simbeck, 15 minutes after it occurred. Swift added she had no reaction to learning that Mueller had been fired for the alleged behavior. “I’m not going to allow you or your client to make me feel in anyway that this is my fault because it isn’t,” she said. “I am being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are a product of his decisions and not mine.” On Tuesday, Mueller testified saying that he never touched Swift. In the photo, it appears Mueller’s hand was placed near Swift’s backside. Mueller said he may have accidentally touched Swift’s body while he was trying to get in the photo.

7am – C         Former Virginia college student gets jail time for registering dead Democrats. But, what voter fraud? Virginia college student gets 100 days in jail for registering dead voters for Democrats. (Washington Examiner) — A James Madison University student was sentenced to prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to registering dead voters for the Democratic Party during the 2016 election. Andrew Spieles, 21, was given a 100-day prison sentence in federal court for falsifying 18 Virginia voter registration forms last August. A judge waived any fees associated with the charges due to an inability to pay the fine, and Spieles will not have to serve any probation following his jail-time. Voter fraud is punishable by up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine in the Commonwealth of Virginia, but Spieles was able to enter a plea agreement with Assistant United States Attorney Jeb Terrien that limited his sentence to between 100 and 120 days behind bars. Spieles worked as a Democratic campaign operative during its voter registration drive, and admitted that he prepared the false voter registration forms by obtaining the name, age, and address of individuals from “walk sheets” provided to him by the Virginia Democratic Party. He fabricated a birth date based on the ages listed in the walk sheet, and fabricated the social security numbers, the Justice Department said. Spieles said he acted alone, and was not told by anyone else in the party to create fake voters.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — TREVOR MATICH – WMAL’s Redskins Analyst, Comcast SportsNet co-host and former Redskins long snapper

• Washington Redskins 3 – 23 Baltimore Ravens
• Football’s back! Oh, wait, the Redskins were pretty brutal to watch. BALTIMORE  — Football is back! Huzzah and hurrah, football has arrived! Professional football — our prized autumn diversion, our soap opera in shoulder pads, our gladiators on grass — has finally, lovingly arrived. And, huh, actually, this initial rendition was kind of awful. There are two ways to interpret the Washington Redskins’ long-awaited return to the field Thursday night, a 23-3 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. Maybe the whole thing meant absolutely nothing — not in the grander we’re-all-gonna-die sense but in the first-preseason-games-are-pointless sense. In that reading, let’s hope you only checked in on the Redskins and Ravens during baseball commercial breaks.

7am – E         CHELSEA MANNING NEWS:

• Chelsea Manning poses in a scarlet swimsuit for Vogue. (Daily Mail) – Newly-released Manning poses in a scarlet swimsuit for Vogue as she reveals how fashion magazines kept her going in prison and shares her plans to start dating. Chelsea Manning took part in a lengthy interview with Vogue writer Nathan Heller. In it she describes her time in Fort Leveanworth prison where she attempted suicide twice. Now 29, she is living in New York City as a woman after transitioning from male. She told Vogue of her plans to write a memoir and said she was considering public office. There was no mention of Donald Trump who called her an ‘ungrateful traitor’ after she was released by Obama in one of his final acts as president. Manning was jailed in 2010 for giving 750,000 classified US government files to WikiLeaks. She stood by the breach in her interview, saying there still were no safe channels for whistle blowers.
• One ACLU Lawyer Refuses To Defend The First Amendment Because Milo Yiannopoulos Is ‘Reprehensible’ (Daily Mail) — Chase Strangio, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who defended Chelsea Manning, distanced himself from the organization’s defense of Milo Yiannopoulos Wednesday. “I don’t believe in protecting principle for the sake of principle,” he stated. On Wednesday, the ACLU announced its lawsuit against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in defense of Milo Yiannopoulos’ right to free speech. The organization’s decision has raised the ire of progressives, who equate his mockery of social justice warriors to hate speech — including Strangio. The ACLU, which has defended the First Amendment rights of thousands of individuals and organizations — including the Ku Klux Klan and the Nation of Islam — had finally crossed the line.  Strangio claims that Yiannopoulos’ words “exacerbate the many harms that transgender people, people of color, Muslim people, immigrants and others regularly experience.”

8am – A         INTERVIEW – GENERAL JACK KEANE — iss a retired 4-star general, former Vice Chief of staff of the US Army, Chairman of the Institute for the Study of War and a Fox News military analyst.

• President Trump says his “fire and fury” statement was perhaps “not tough enough” for North Korea
• North Korea is “carefully examining” plans to attack Guam, a U.S. territory. North Korea says it will complete plan to attack waters near Guam by mid-August. (ABC News) — North Korea’s state-run media reported the country is “carefully examining” plans to attack the U.S. territory of Guam on Wednesday. The plans include using medium- to long-range ballistic missiles. The threat is unsurprising for the more than 160,000 people who live on the small island, roughly the size of Chicago, in the western Pacific Ocean. Guam is the largest and most southern island in the Mariana island chain. Part of Micronesia, Guam lies about 3,800 miles west of Honolulu, Hawaii. Dededo is the most populous village on the island. The indigenous people are referred to as Chamorros and are considered U.S. citizens by birth. However, residents of the colony do not pay U.S. income taxes or vote for president.
• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump  31m31 minutes ago:  Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely.  Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!

8am – B         DEM NEWS:

• Democrats Want Wasserman Schultz ‘To Go Away’.  (Daily Caller) — Democrats in Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s home state want the Florida Democratic Rep. “to just go away.” According to Politico, following a stream of political failures and controversies after a DNC email hack last year revealed embarrassing information regarding Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, Wasserman Schultz is a now unwelcome among her colleagues.“We wish she would go away and stop being so public by doubling down on negative stories,” Nikki Barnes, a progressive Florida DNC member, told Politico. Barnes claims Wasserman Schultz left the national party “in shambles” while she was chairwoman, noting both the DNC server hack and 2016 presidential campaign loss for Democrats. Barnes responded to Schultz defense of Awan, saying that “none of this makes sense. It doesn’t sound like racial profiling … there must have been something for her.”
• Hillary Clinton looks for her role in midterms. (Politico) – Hillary Clinton wants to play a role in next year’s midterm elections. It’s just not clear yet what that role will be.  Clinton has already launched a PAC aimed at helping congressional Democratic candidates in 2018, signaling the former first lady, senator and secretary of State is ready to help her party with fundraising.  She also is looking at the House districts she won in last year’s presidential contest against Donald Trump as part of an autopsy of her failed campaign, according to two sources who have spoken to the former secretary of State.
• DNC HACK UPDATE: MARY NOTES: This piece from the Nation claims that the DNC was never hacked.  It was an inside job. The author attributes this to “former NSA experts” but nothing more specific than that.  It sure would explain why they still refuse to turn that server over!
• THE NATION: A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack. Former NSA experts say it wasn’t a hack at all, but a leak—an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system.

8am – C         CA BUNKER BUSINESS BOOMING: The owner of a California-based bunker business said his phone is ringing off the hook, amid heightened tensions between the United States and North Korea.

• California Bunker Business Sees Spike As Tensions Rise With North Korea. SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – The owner of a California-based bunker business said his phone is ringing off the hook, amid heightened tensions between the United States and North Korea. Fear sells, and Ron Hubbard knows this firsthand as president of Los Angeles-based Atlas Survival Shelters. Hubbard’s company builds 20 different types of shelters, ranging in price from $10,000 to $10 million. Interest in shelters has gone up after President Donald Trump threatened “fire and fury” at North Korea as Kim Jong Un’s regime continues testing its missile program. “I take that as a preemptive nuclear strike,” Hubbard said.

8am – D/E     More Celeb Airport Outrage: Ashley Judd loses her mind when airport worker calls her ‘sweetheart’. Lena Dunham has created a monster.  Her outrage over airline worker comments at an airport exploded on social media and now this has encouraged nutjobs like actress Ashley Judd to find offense and torment at the airport. What was the offense this time? An airport worker told her she had a nice dress and called her sweetheart.

• Ashley Judd slams ‘everyday sexism’ after airport security run-in. (PageSix) — Don’t call Ashley Judd “sweetheart.” The actress slammed an airport employee for referring to her by the pet name, as well as putting his hands on her. “This is the kind of thing to me that happens which I categorize as everyday sexism,” she fumed in a Facebook Live video on Saturday. “And it is so easy to let it go and not to speak up, particularly when it is so easy for someone to push back and say, ‘Oh, I was just being polite.’ So I was coming through security and a guy said ‘Hey sweetheart,’ and I said, ‘I’m not your sweetheart, I am your client.’ So I was already setting a boundary.” Judd, 49, didn’t specify at which airport the incident occurred, but had been traveling through Europe over the weekend to film “Berlin Station.” She claimed the offenses didn’t end there. “When I was setting my things out, he said, ‘Hey nice dress!’ I didn’t hear him say anything about the attire of any of the other folks in the entire line and I am in one of the most traveled airports in the world. I’m surrounded by lots and lots of other people dressed in lots of different kinds of dress. … And then guess what happened next? He touched me,” she alleged. “I didn’t see him touch anybody else. And I turned around and I said, ‘That was unnecessary.’ By that time, you know, my skin was burning, my feet are burning — it’s so hard to continue to set these boundaries when someone continues to push,” she explained. “And then for good measure, he just said one more time, ‘Have a good day sweetheart!’”