joined WMAL on Tuesday!
Mornings on the Mall
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese
5am – A/B/C Question: Our morning show producer received a mysterious text from an unknown number at 2 AM this morning. How would you respond if you received this text? TEXT: “ARE YOU SLEEPING WITH MY HUSBAND?”
5am – D HURRICANE IRMA UPDATE:
- Irma weakens to a tropical storm after knocking out power to millions in Florida
- White House: Florida Keys residents may not be able to return for weeks
- Irma, which smashed into Florida on Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane with 130 mph winds, weakened to a post-tropical cyclone Tuesday with sustained winds of about 25 mph. The center of the storm was 65 mph southwest of Atlanta at 5 am ET. Six deaths in Florida have been blamed on Irma, along with three in Georgia and one in South Carolina. At least 35 people were killed in the Caribbean.
- Irma, by the numbers:
- More than 40 people have died in the countries affected by the storm, including 7 in Florida and 1 in Georgia
- 36 million people are in the path of the storm as it prepares to slam Florida’s west coast
- 350 mile-wide hurricane
- Nearly 6 million without power in Florida — nearly 60% of the state population; close to 1 million have lost power in Georgia
- 130 mph sustained winds when Irma hit the Florida coast; 142 mph when it hit Naples, Florida
- 10-foot storm surge recorded in the Keys; 7-foot surge recorded in Naples, Florida
- 7 million in Florida and Georgia have evacuated
- 124,000 people are in shelters run by the Red Cross
- 90% of buildings and vehicles in Barbuda destroyed
- 66% of gas stations in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area have no fuel
- More than 5,000 flights have been canceled as a result of the storm
5am – E NORTH KOREA:
- UN Security Council Strengthens North Korea Sanctions
- “…fell significantly short of the far-reaching penalties that the Trump administration had demanded just days ago.”
- “…setting a cap on oil exports to North Korea, but not blocking them altogether.”
- “There was no immediate reaction to the new resolution from North Korea. But on Sunday the North warned that it would inflict the “greatest pain and suffering” on the United States, in the event of tougher international sanctions.”
- U.N. Security Council unanimously approves new sanctions on North Korea without oil import ban U.S. wanted. (USA Today) – The U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously approved new sanctions against North Korea for its growing nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but the measures did not include an oil import ban favored by the United States. The resolution is a watered-down version of what the U.S. initially proposed, removing the demand to ban all oil imports to the North and to freeze international assets of the government and leader Kim Jong Un, according to the Associated Press.
6am – A/B/C Is it a good idea to let your dog sleep in the bedroom? (CBS News) — Whether or not a dog is allowed in the bedroom is a highly individualized decision: Some pet owners are eager to cuddle up to their pup at night, while others banish Fido from their sleeping quarters. Now, new research attempts to shed some light on whether letting a dog sleep the bedroom helps or hurts a person’s efforts to get a good night’s sleep. A small study from the Mayo Clinic finds that sleeping in the same room with your pet does not appear to affect quality of sleep. In fact, it may actually lead to a more restful night. However, that benefit does not extend to people who actually shared their bed with their pet, which the research found may negatively affect sleep quality. “Most people assume having pets in the bedroom is a disruption,” study author Lois Krahn, M.D., a sleep medicine specialist at the Center for Sleep Medicine on Mayo Clinic’s Arizona campus, said in a statement. “We found that many people actually find comfort and a sense of security from sleeping with their pets.”
6am – D Steve Bannon Hijacks White House Press Briefing. (Daily Caller) –
WASHINGTON — Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon dominated Monday’s White House press briefing as press secretary Sarah Sanders fielded question after question about the departed adviser’s “60 Minutes” interview. Bannon, who is back at the helm of Breitbart News, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan are blocking Trump’s agenda and that firing former FBI Director James Comey was the worst mistake in “modern political history.”
Sanders faced at least 10 questions about the interview. “We may be answering more questions on Steve Bannon now that he’s not here than when we was,” the White House press secretary remarked at one moment.
6am – E Apple set to unveil anniversary iPhone in major product launch. CUPERTINO, Calif. (Reuters) – A decade after then-CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone, Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Tuesday is set to introduce a completely redesigned top-of-the-line iPhone along with two other new phones, as well as a big upgrade to the Apple Watch and a higher-definition Apple TV. The splashy launch event will take place at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple’s new Apple Park “spaceship” campus – widely considered to be the final product designed by Jobs, who died in 2011. The new products and the holiday shopping season that follows are the most important for Apple in years. The company has sold more than 1.2 billion iPhones over the past decade and ushered in the era of mobile computing, but last year suffered a substantial decline in revenue as many consumers rejected the iPhone 7 as being too similar to the iPhone 6. Apple hopes the new high-end phone, expected to be called the iPhone X, will silence critics who say the company has lost its innovation edge. It features an edge-to-edge display with richer colors and facial recognition to unlock the phone without the need for a fingerprint reader or physical home button. The two other models, expected to be called the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, are intended to update the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. They could also include some new features, such as a glass back similar to the iPhone 4 that would help facilitate wireless charging. The phones are expected to come with a steep price tag. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi predicts the top-end model will cost $899, though other analysts expect it to cross the $1,000 threshold. That compares to a top base price of $769 for the iPhone 7 Plus prior.
6am – F EQUIFAX
- Lawmakers demand accounting from Equifax on massive security breach. Senate Finance Committee wants answers from Equifax.
- Equifax, one of the three major credit reporting agencies, handles the data of 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide. Between May and July of this year 143 million people in the U.S. may have had their names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and even driver’s license numbers accessed. In addition, the hack compromised 209,000 people’s credit card numbers and personal dispute details for another 182,000 people. What bad actors could do with that information is daunting.
7am – A INTERVIEW – MICHAEL THIELAN (tee-lan) – is the Executive Director of the Republican National Lawyers Association.
- Election Integrity: On Tuesday, the Presidential Advisory Commission will hold its second meeting in New Hampshire. The meeting will be devoted to studying declining public confidence in elections, and also include a statistical review of decades of elections and a discussion of whether fraud has reduced citizens’ trust in the fairness of elections.
- Republican National Lawyers Association had an advisory role in the development of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which meets Tuesday in New Hampshire. It’s the 2nd meeting and they’ll be discussing public confidence in the electoral system and the use of electronic voting (and presumably if there are ways to prevent hacking).
- The meeting in NH is interesting because Kris Kobach (Kansas SOS), who co-chairs the commission, recently alleged that NH may have been the victim of “drive-by” voting that gave voters the opportunity (via state law) to register that same day without a state ID. Some believe enough voters did that to tip the primary to Hillary. The left has had a field day saying he wants to suppress the vote of young people in the state (since they say the people that did that were students).
7am – B HILLARY’S BOOK: Hillary Clinton will begin promoting her most recent work, “What Happened,” Tuesday in New York City. The former secretary of state also is making the rounds on television, including appearances on Sunday morning political talk shows and with “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert this week.
- AMAZON, WAL-MART slash book price by 40% — before release! Two huge booksellers, Amazon and Walmart, have already cut the price of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2016 tell-all by 40 percent — and it isn’t even available yet. Set to be released Tuesday, both have priced “What Happened?” at $17.99. Publisher Simon and Schuster set a price of $30. Much of what’s in her book has already been reported on, thanks to leaked copies of the Democratic presidential candidate’s latest work. The price cut, however, has likely helped to boost sales. It is No. 1 on Amazon.
- Vince’s notes about what is NOT IN Hillary’s book:
- Hillary glosses over fainting into van…
- “On Sunday, when I got to the memorial, the sun was beaming down. My head ached. You know the rest.”
- Ignores Donna Brazile….
- Hillary Clinton’s 450-page book attempting to excuse her failed 2016 presidential campaign, “What Happened,” conveniently ignores one of the election’s biggest scandals: then-Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile’s leaking of debate questions to Clinton during the Democratic primary — a clear-cut example of DNC officials rigging the primary in favor of Clinton.
7am – C Montgomery County wants to sell you a $6,800 bottle of tequila. WASHINGTON — The Montgomery County Department of Liquor Control controls liquor sales in the Maryland county, and that includes the really good stuff. It apparently does a good job of snooping out rare offerings, and there is a fair amount of demand for it. An example? The county now has, under lock-and-key, a bottle of Patron tequila that’s priced at $6,799. But it’s not just any Patron tequila. It comes in a Lalique crystal decanter, and the special series, “Patron en Lalique: Serie 1,” is an extremely limited run of rare tequila in what must be very fine, French crystal. “It is so rare. There are only 500 bottles for the whole world. So when we found out it was so rare, we said, ‘Yes, we will take one,’” Diane Wurdeman, at the county’s Department of Liquor Control, told WTOP. Described as a blend of the oldest and rarest of tequilas hand-selected from Patron’s barrel aging room, it is aged for four years and bottled in a Lalique crystal decanter “inspired by Mexico’s Weber blue agave plant with a bottle stop shaped to represent the heart of the agave, the Pina,” says the brochure.
7am – D INTERVIEW – MICHAEL AUSLIN – Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia, Hoover Institution and author of “The End of the Asian Century: War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World’s Most Dynamic Region”
- U.N. Security Council unanimously approves new sanctions on North Korea without oil import ban U.S. wanted
7am – E DACA NEWS:
- John Kelly fires back at Democrat who called him ‘disgrace to the uniform’
- John Kelly: Congress did “nothing” to help Dreamers
- Cory Booker: We ‘Should Be Building Tunnels, Not Walls’
- Maryland AG Frosh joins lawsuit against DACA rollback
- — TWEET: Brian Frosh @BrianFrosh 14h14 hours ago: “TODAY: My office filed suit against Trump Administration over rescinding #DACA”
8am – A INTERVIEW – MICHAEL STEELE – former RNC Chairman and former Lt. Governor of Maryland
- Washington Post: “Trump teaming up with “Chuck and Nancy” was foretold by Michael Steele in November
- Romney Plans 2018 Senate Run. (Daily Caller) – Two-time presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney reportedly plans to run for Senate in 2018 if Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch retires. Romney has yet to publicly commit to a Senate run, but he has reportedly decided to run in the event that Hatch steps down after his seventh term, two sources close to Romney told Utah Policy. Hatch, 83, remains undecided about his future political career, but has said that he will run for his eighth term contingent on the continued good health of himself and his wife. Hatch likely won’t make a final decision on whether to run in 2018 until December, effectively preventing a field of challengers from assembling, according to Utah Policy. While Hatch hasn’t made a final determination on the 2018 race, he indicated in March he would be willing to step aside if an “outstanding person” such as Romney were to run.
- Pattern Of Retirements Could Jeopardize GOP House Majority In 2018 (Daily Caller) – GOP Rep. Dave Trott of Michigan announced his retirement Monday, making him the third swing district Republican to back out of the 2018 race in a week, showing a pattern that might imperil the GOP’s House majority in 2018. Trott’s announcement comes days after GOP Reps. Dave Reichert of Washington and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania announced they would not run for re-election in 2018. The three lawmakers join fellow Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, who announced her retirement earlier this year. The recent retirees managed to secure successive victories in traditionally swing districts, so their departures create a significant opportunity for Democrats to capture the now-vulnerable seats.
8am – B ENTERTAINMENT NEWS:
- Jim Carrey Attends New York Fashion Week Party, Says “There’s No Meaning to Any of This” (Hollywood Reporter) – While attending the Harper’s Bazaar Icons party, the actor said he wanted to attend “the most meaningless thing that I could come to.” Jim Carrey attended a New York Fashion Week soiree Friday night and gave a rather head-scratching interview on the red carpet. While at the Harper’s Bazaar Icons party, Carrey told E!’s Catt Sadler about how “there’s no meaning to any of this” and he wanted to “find the most meaningless thing I could come to and join and here I am.” The actor added, “It’s completely meaningless.” When Sadler informed Carrey that the evening was all about celebrating icons, he responded, “That is just the absolute lowest aiming, you know, possibility that we can come up with.” Carrey then asked Sadler if she believed in icons. Before she had a chance to answer his question, he declared, “I don’t believe in personalities. I don’t believe that you exist. … I believe we’re a field of energy dancing for itself and I don’t care.” He concluded: “I didn’t get dressed up. There is no me.” The actor recently expressed losing himself while playing the late American comedian Andy Kaufman for his new documentary called Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond — The Story of Jim Carrey & Andy Kaufman Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. “Jim Carrey didn’t exist at that time,” he said of the filming process, adding, “It was psychotic at times.” During his discussion about the doc, the 55-year-old Carrey also spoke of being “nothing.”
- Kid Rock says criticism about his upcoming concerts in Detroit is politically motivated. Kid Rock, who is white, wrote, “None of this would be going on if I were not thinking of running for office.” Kid Rock took a moment on the first Sunday of the NFL season to put any player who dares to take a knee or sit during the national anthem on notice. Amidst a lengthy, expletive rant about a variety of topics, the outspoken rockstar blasted players who are continuing Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest in his absence in the league. He didn’t sugarcoat it either. “F**k ANYONE who takes a knee or sits during our national anthem!,” the 46-year-old performer said
8am – C “DaddyOFive” YouTubers sentenced to five years probation for child neglect. The couple behind the controversial “DaddyOFive” YouTube channel were sentenced to five years of probation on charges of child neglect in Frederick County Circuit Court on Monday. Michael and Heather Martin of Ijamsville entered Alford pleas to two counts of child neglect each — charges that stem from “prank” videos that caused a viral outcry from viewers who thought they amounted to child abuse. Under their Alford pleas, the Martins maintain their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to win a conviction. Frederick County Assistant State’s Attorney Lindy Angel said that an investigation into the Martins began in April after “various sources” alerted the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office to Michael Martin’s YouTube channel, “DaddyOFive.” In more than 300 now-deleted videos, the Martins were seen destroying an Xbox, and berating and cursing at two of their five children. In other videos, Michael Martin is seen pushing his son Cody Martin into a bookcase, giving him a bloody nose and ordering one of his stepsons to slap his daughter, Emma Martin, in what he deemed a game.
8am – D INTERVIEW – LARRY KUDLOW – CNBC Senior Contributor and host of The Larry Kudlow Show on WMAL Saturdays at 7 pm and author of “JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity”
- Mnuchin, Cohn head to Congress Tuesday for tax talks (Politico) — Senate Republicans and top Trump administration aides will huddle on Tuesday to discuss a key precondition to tax reform: Passing a budget. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and top Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn will meet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and members of the Senate Budget Committee to plot how to pass a budget through committee and the narrowly divided Senate, according to two people familiar with the meeting. The gathering demonstrates how quickly Republicans are hoping to pivot to tax reform following a failed attempt to gut Obamacare and President Donald Trump’s surprising deal with the Democrats on the debt ceiling and spending issues.
- National debt breaks $20 trillion for the first time ever (The Hill) — The U.S. federal government’s gross debt surpassed $20 trillion on Friday, according to a daily Treasury statement. The debt jumped from $19.8 trillion to $20.1 trillion after Congress suspended the debt ceiling for three months, allowing the Treasury to borrow again on the open markets. For months, it had been using off-book extraordinary measures to keep from defaulting. Since President Trump signed a bill including the debt lift Friday, it was able to start unwinding those measures with regular borrowing, and increase the debt.
8am – E Hurricane Irma Update
