Cal Thomas, Dr. Stephen Farnsworth, Rep. Steve King, MD Delegate Nic Kipke and Christopher Bedford joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C WHITE HOUSE’S DACA MEETING:

• TRUMP on DACA amnesty: “This should be a bill of love, truly, it should be a bill of love and we can do that.”
• POTUS wants three things in the bill: border security, end to chain migration and end to visa lottery program.
• Trump: We will do DACA, then we’ll start on comprehensive immigration

‘CLEAN’ DACA BILL

• Trump causes confusion about ‘clean’ DACA bill
• Feinstein: “What about a clean DACA bill now, with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive immigration reform procedure?”
• President Donald J. Trump: “I would like it…. I think a lot of people would like to see that”
• POTUS later clarified that he considers “clean” DACA bill to include border security.

WILL SIGN ANYTHING

• Trump says he will sign ANY immigration agreement Congress gives him “I’m not going to say ‘oh gee I want this or I want that’ I will be signing it”

WALL

• Asked by pool if he would agree to a DACA deal without the wall, POTUS said: “You need it. … I’d love not to build the wall, but you need the wall.”   He added: “If you don’t have the wall, you can’t have security.”

MEETING REACTION:

• GRAHAM: Lindsey Graham heaps praise on Trump after WH immigration meeting: “This was the most fascinating meeting I’ve been involved with in twenty plus years in politics.”
• After DACA Comments, Tucker Asks Trump: ‘What Was The Point Of Running For President?’
• Ann Coulter@AnnCoulter: Trump, flanked by Dems & open-borders GOPS, announces plan for 100% open-ended amnesty (per courts). 1:24 PM – Jan 9, 2018
• Jeb Bush ‏@JebBush: 15h15 hours ago: Encouraged the President is seeking bipartisan solutions to our immigration challenges.
• CNN’s Dana Bash on POTUS’s bipartisan meeting with Congress: He was “in command”
• Wolf Blitzer hails the President’s decision to open up bipartisan immigration meeting to media

5am – D         DOSSIER NEWS:

• Senator releases text of interview with Fusion GPS official (AP) — The former British spy who compiled a dossier of allegations about Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia brought the document to the FBI in July 2016 because he was worried about “whether a political candidate was being blackmailed,” according to a congressional interview transcript released Tuesday. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, revealed the transcript from an August closed-door interview with Glenn Simpson, a co-founder of the political opposition research firm Fusion GPS. The firm commissioned the dossier, which was initially paid for by a conservative website and then later by Democrats, including Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Feinstein made the transcript public over the objections of Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who called the move “confounding” in a statement shortly after Feinstein made it public. Grassley said the release could undermine attempts to interview other witnesses in the committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
• Fusion GPS Lawyer: ‘Somebody’s Already Been Killed’ as a Result of Trump Dossier’s Publishing. (Breitbart) — Publication of the Trump dossier has led to someone’s death, a lawyer for Fusion GPS, the firm that produced the dossier, said during testimony released by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on Tuesday. The testimony, from a closed interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2017, revealed that when a committee investigator asked Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, whether he had ever tried to assess the credibility of the dossier author’s sources, his lawyer explained that he could not answer that question. “It’s a voluntary interview, and in addition to that he wants to be very careful to protect his sources. Somebody’s already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier and no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work,” Simpson’s lawyer Josh Levy said.
• Author of Trump dossier told FBI had a “source” inside Trump campaign. (Washington Examiner) – The former British intelligence officer that authored the so-called Trump dossier was told the FBI had someone inside President Trump’s world giving FBI agents information. This was revealed by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, whose August 2017 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee was released Tuesday by ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “[M]y understanding was that they believed Chris at this point — that they believed Chris might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization,” Simpson said in his testimony, referring to Christopher Steele, the dossier’s author. According to Simpson, Steele first went to the FBI to say he was concerned Trump was being blackmailed, fearing a “national security threat.”
• Trump lawyer sues BuzzFeed for defamation over dossier. (Axios) — President Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, has filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed, as well as a separate suit against Fusion GPS and founder Glenn Simpson, over claims made in the Russia dossier commissioned by Fusion and published by Buzzfeed News, according to a Bloomberg report. Why it matters: The dossier includes “unverified claims that Cohen and Trump had suspicious connections with Russian figures,” per Bloomberg.
• House Chairman Asks Paul Ryan To Declassify All DOJ And FBI ‘Trump Dossier’ Docs. (Daily Caller) — Florida GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis asked Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on Tuesday to declassify all of the Department of Justice and FBI’s Trump dossier files, The Caller News Foundation has learned. DeSantis, the chairman of the House Oversight subcommittee on National Security, formally asked Ryan in a letter to invoke Rule X in order to declassify all documents obtained by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

5am – E         BANNON OUT AT BREITBART:

• Stephen K. Bannon Steps Down from Breitbart News Network. Stephen K. Bannon has stepped down from Breitbart News Network, where he served as Executive Chairman since 2012. Bannon and Breitbart will work together on a smooth and orderly transition. Bannon said, “I’m proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform.” According to Breitbart CEO Larry Solov, “Steve is a valued part of our legacy, and we will always be grateful for his contributions, and what he has helped us to accomplish.”
• WSJ reporter Rebecca Ballhaus‏ @rebeccaballhaus: “Breitbart board—Mercers, Larry Solov and Susie Breitbart—spent recent days debating whether Bannon needed to go. In the end, they were united on his ouster. Mercers contacted Bannon thru intermediary on Monday to tell him it was time to go, per source.”
• Axios reporter Jonathan Swan ‏@jonathanvswan 12h12 hours ago: Bannon still thinks of himself as a revolutionary. That self-perception won’t change. It’s just that now he has no vehicle, no staff, no platform, and no major donors funding his ambitions.
• Washington Post reporter Robert Costa ‏@costareports 12h12 hours ago: Per people close to Bannon, he is wistful but has referenced Thomas Cromwell in recent days, noting that Cromwell guided a King but it never lasts… and Cromwell was eventually sent to the Tower.

6am – A/B/C ANALYSIS: WHITE HOUSE DACA MEETING

6am – D         INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – Syndicated columnist — discussed the Trump White House DACA meeting and Trump’s comments on Oprah.

6am – E         Marvel creator Stan Lee, 95, is accused of groping nurses and demanding oral sex in the shower at his $20m Los Angeles home – but says he is victim of a ‘shake down.’ (Daily Mail) — Stan Lee, the 95-year-old comic book legend who co-created Spider Man, the X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and other characters is accused of sex abuse. DailyMail.com can disclose a nursing company employed to care for him stopped working with him after string of complaints. Young female nurses complained he demanded oral sex from them, groped them and walked around naked. But Lee’s lawyers tells DailyMail.com he has sent a cease and desist letter to the company which employs the women, accusing it of defaming Lee. ‘Mr Lee will not be extorted or blackmailed, and will pay no money to anyone because he has done absolutely nothing wrong,’ attorney Tom Lallas said. Lee has a personal fortune of at least $50 million and his home in the Bird Streets area has commanding views of Los Angeles.

6am – F         Ex-Arizona sheriff Arpaio running for Senate. (Reuters) – Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff known for his tough stance on illegal immigration and who received a criminal pardon from President Donald Trump, announced on Tuesday that he would run for the U.S. Senate. Arpaio’s positions on immigration and treatment of prisoners while sheriff made him a national conservative celebrity and liberal foe. He will seek to replace retiring Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who has been a frequent critic of Trump. The 85-year-old Arpaio was convicted in July of criminal contempt of court in a racial profiling case, but subsequently received a pardon from the president. In announcing his bid, Arpaio immediately positioned himself as a staunch supporter of Trump, who won Arizona by 5 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election. Arpaio’s candidacy is likely to generate headaches for Republicans in Washington, who are desperate to hold on to the Arizona Senate seat or risk losing control of the chamber. Republicans hold a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate, and will defend eight seats in November’s election – when voters will decide who holds 34 Senate and all 435 House seats.

7am – A INTERVIEW — DR. STEPHEN FARNSWORTH – Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA  @drsfarnsworth

• Preview what to expect in the Virginia legislature
• Flurry of bills precede legislators as Virginia General Assembly convenes. State lawmakers return to Richmond this week to kick off the 2018 General Assembly session. With Ralph Northam’s inauguration as governor slated for Saturday and a slew of new Democrats shaking up the balance of power in Virginia’s House of Delegates, the legislative session opening Wednesday will be one to watch. Lawmakers will build a biennial budget that will go into effect this summer and debate thousands of bills during the 60-day session. Since Nov. 20, when bill prefiling began, legislators had filed 657 bills as of midday Friday, according to Richmond Sunlight. Lawmakers will continue filing bills until the Jan. 19 deadline. Last session, legislators filed 3,201 pieces of legislation. But that number could be higher this year because delegates and senators are allowed to prefile an unlimited number of bills during long sessions that occur in even-numbered years. Wednesday for 60-day session
• What to watch when Virginia legislature convenes this week
• Northam: Gun control, Medicaid among priorities for 2018

7am – B         Google CAUGHT, New Feature Only Attacks Conservative Sites. oogle’s New Fact-Check Feature Almost Exclusively Targets Conservative Sites. (Daily Caller) — Google, the most powerful search engine in the world, is now displaying fact checks for conservative publications in its results. No prominent liberal site receives the same treatment. And not only is Google’s fact-checking highly partisan — perhaps reflecting the sentiments of its leaders — it is also blatantly wrong, asserting sites made “claims” they demonstrably never made. When searching for a media outlet that leans right, like The Daily Caller (TheDC), Google gives users details on the sidebar, including what topics the site typically writes about, as well as a section titled “Reviewed Claims.” Vox, and other left-wing outlets and blogs like Gizmodo, are not given the same fact-check treatment. When searching their names, a “Topics they write about” section appears, but there are no “Reviewed Claims.”

7am – C         Jeff Bezos is now the richest person of all time.  (CNN) – That should put an Amazon smile on his face. The Amazon CEO’s net worth reached $105.1 billion Monday, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire tracker. That eclipses the record previously held by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Forbes, the other major tracker of the net worth of the world’s richest, put Bezos’ net worth at a mere $104.4 billion. The majority of that net worth comes from the 78.9 million shares of Amazon stock he owns. Shares of Amazon (AMZN) climbed 1.4% Monday, adding about $1.4 billion to his net worth. Shares of Amazon (AMZN) are up nearly 7% so far in this year after rising 56% in 2017. Bezos’ other holdings include the Washington Post and Blue Origin, a private space travel business that intends to take tourists to space.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — REP. STEVE KING – R-IA – shared his thoughts on the White House Immigration meeting.

7am – E         BANNON OUT AT BREITBART:

• Stephen K. Bannon Steps Down from Breitbart News Network. Stephen K. Bannon has stepped down from Breitbart News Network, where he served as Executive Chairman since 2012. Bannon and Breitbart will work together on a smooth and orderly transition. Bannon said, “I’m proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform.” According to Breitbart CEO Larry Solov, “Steve is a valued part of our legacy, and we will always be grateful for his contributions, and what he has helped us to accomplish.”

8am – A         DOSSIER NEWS:

• Senator releases text of interview with Fusion GPS official
• Fusion GPS Lawyer: ‘Somebody’s Already Been Killed’ as a Result of Trump Dossier’s Publishing.
• Author of Trump dossier told FBI had a “source” inside Trump campaign.
• Trump lawyer sues BuzzFeed for defamation over dossier.
• House Chairman Asks Paul Ryan To Declassify All DOJ And FBI ‘Trump Dossier’ Docs

8am – B/C  INTERVIEW – MD Delegate NIC KIPKE – House Republican Leader, Maryland General Assembly and Minority Leader in the MD House of Delegates

• Maryland’s legislative session will begin Wednesday with Gov. Larry Hogan and the Democrats who control the General Assembly aiming to address federal policies that affect the state and lay the groundwork for what they hope will be big victories in November.
• Key themes include tempering Baltimore City’s crime wave, battling over paid time off for sick workers, responding to changes in the U.S. tax code, making health care more affordable, diversifying the state’s medical-marijuana industry and creating a dedicated revenue source for Metro.
• Gov. Larry Hogan calls for term limits for state lawmakers (WTOP) – WASHINGTON — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan wants term limits for state lawmakers. In a news conference the day before the start of the Maryland General Assembly Session in Annapolis, Hogan announced what he called The Government Accountability Act. Under his proposal, Maryland lawmakers would be limited to serving a maximum of eight years in each chamber in the Maryland General Assembly. Hogan, a Republican who is running for re-election, said 15 other states have legislative term limits.
• MD GOVERNOR RACE PREVIEW: Maryland Governor’s Race Among Top 10 In US: Washington Post.  “It won’t necessarily be easy for Democrats to wrestle it back,” the Washington Post says of the Maryland governor’s seat. Republican control of governor’s mansions nationwide could also be at stake — and Maryland’s gubernatorial race is one of the top 10 seats in play, according to The Washington Post. The newspaper named Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s bid for a second term as the No. 10 gubernatorial race nationwide among governor posts most likely to flip parties. The businessman turned governor remains widely popular in Maryland, with the most recent Goucher Poll done in September 2017 keeping his 60 percent approval rating.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – CHRISTOPHER BEDFORD – Editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller News Foundation,  author of “The Art Of The Donald” – analyzed Trump’s deal making skills at the White House immigration meeting.

8am – E         Analysis of the Trump Immigration meeting at the White House