Joe diGenova, Sean Spicer, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Joe Concha and Howard Kurtz joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, April 30, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C WHCD DINNER UPROAR: Should WHCA Apologize to Sarah Sanders?

• Washington in uproar over “disgusting” White House Correspondents’ dinner comedy routine
• White House Correspondents’ Association: Michelle Wolf’s routine was “not in the spirit” of our mission
• White House Correspondents’ Association president: I regret that comedian’s speech is defining a “unifying” night
• Top Journalists Reject Michelle Wolf’s Insults of Sarah Sanders
• Scaramucci: White House Correspondents’ Association president owes Sanders an apology over Michelle Wolf’s jokes http://hill.cm/M8Sy7uG
• Ed Henry: “Sarah Sanders should get an apology from the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
• Mike Huckabee: I hope my grandchildren never see comedian’s jokes about Sarah Sanders

5am – D         NORTH KOREA NEWS:

• Kim Jong Un promises to give up nuclear weapons if US vows not to invade (The Hill) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly said he would give up his nation’s nuclear weapons if the United States vows not to invade his country. The New York Times reported remarks from a South Korean official, who recounted Kim’s remarks in the historic meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
• Mike Pompeo: Kim Jong Un is “serious” about talks (DC Examiner) — North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is “serious” about engaging in negotiations over the pariah state’s nuclear weapons program, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday. “I did get a sense that he was serious,” Pompeo told reporters at a NATO summit in Brussels. “The economic pressure, that has been put in place by this global effort that President Trump has led, has led him to believe that its in his best interest to come to the table and talk about denuclearization.” Pompeo, addressing reporters for the first time the nation’s top diplomat after a 15-month tenure as the CIA chief, met privately with Kim during a secret trip to North Korea over Easter weekend. He gave that assessment of the dictator hours after an historic summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who issued a joint statement calling for “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula and “no more war” between the neighbors.
• Trump insists he won’t “get played” in negotiations with North Korea: “The United States in the past was played like a fiddle.”
• Trump says “two or three sites” considered for North Korea summit (DC Examiner) — President Trump said Friday that the U.S. had narrowed potential locations for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to “two or three sites” in two countries. “Hopefully we’re going to have great success,” Trump told reporters at the White House, a day after Kim met with South Korea’s president.
• THE KOREAN SUMMIT (NY Times) — North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, told President Moon Jae-in of South Korea when they met that he would abandon his nuclear weapons if the United States would agree to formally end the Korean War and promise that it would not invade his country, a South Korean government spokesman said Sunday. In a faith-building gesture ahead of a summit meeting with President Trump, Mr. Kim also said he would invite experts and journalists from South Korea and the United States to watch the shutdown next month of his country’s only known underground nuclear test site.

5am – E         Brooks Suggests Republicans Are Retiring Because of Assassination Fears (Roll Call) — Brooks also pointed to the fact that in the past month, a man pled guilty to threatening Arizona Rep. Martha McSally and three different people have been arrested for threatening Reps. Scott Taylor and Tom Garrett of Virginia and Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey. “Notice a trend here?” he said. “I have a congressman who is a friend here who has a three-year old daughter whose daughter was threatened with murder.”

 

6am – A/B/C NO WHCD IN 2019??

• Some journalists think the White House Correspondents’ Dinner format should die. Michelle Wolf’s roast of the Trump administration at the scholarship dinner heightened a standing debate on whether or not having a comedian host the event is good for journalism.
• Bret Baier ‏ @BretBaier: Maybe this week —the #WHCA should announce that there will be NO dinner in 2019.  Take the year off.  Instead -use the year to raise a lot money for journalism scholarships (networks step up) – present scholarships & then come back in 2020 with a rebooted -retooled #WHCADinner.
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: 7h7 hours ago: The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a failure last year, but this year was an embarrassment to everyone associated with it. The filthy “comedian” totally bombed (couldn’t even deliver her lines-much like the Seth Meyers weak performance). Put Dinner to rest, or start over!
• Axios reporter Jonathan Swan: “I’m all in favor of cancelling the [White House Correspondents] dinner”

6am – D/E     Declassified Congressional Report: James Clapper Lied About Dossier Leaks To CNN. (Federalist) — Buried within a newly declassified congressional report on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections is a shocking revelation: former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper not only leaked information about the infamous Steele dossier and high-level government briefings about it to CNN, he also may have lied to Congress about the matter. In one of the findings within the 253-page report, the House intelligence committee wrote that Clapper leaked details of a dossier briefing given to then-President-elect Donald Trump to CNN’s Jake Tapper, lied to Congress about the leak, and was rewarded with a CNN contract a few months later.

6am – F         NORTH KOREA CREDIT:

• Top Democrat: Trump deserves some credit for getting North Korea to the table (Dc Examiner) — Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said President Trump does deserve some credit for North Korea’s willingness to come to the table and negotiate over its nuclear program. Schiff said on ABC’s “This Week” Trump’s personality may have forced North Korea to the bargaining table, but it could also be a problem during talks. “It’s more than fair to say that the combination of the president’s unpredictability and his bellicosity had something to do with North Korea’s willingness to come to the table,” Schiff said. “He needs to realize we may go into a confrontational phase, and he may not want want the full blame if things go south.
• Amb John Bolton: “President Moon of South Korea for example has been very clear that…the economic pressure, the political military pressure that President @realDonaldTrump has put on North Korea, we would not be where we are today.” #FoxNewsSunday
• Dennis Rodman credits himself for Trump-Kim meeting: (TMZ) — Dennis Rodman is ecstatic his friends, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, are getting along … especially because he believes he played a big part in bringing the peace. We spoke with the basketball Hall of Famer about North Korea’s newfound friendliness with the U.S. and its historic summit with South Korea … he tells us it’s simply been the result of open communication and good old-fashioned diplomacy. Rodman also points to his June 2017 visit to N. Korea — in which he supplied Jong-un with some of Trump’s books — as a catalyst for the dictator’s change of heart about the Prez and the American people. Dennis is clear he doesn’t want to take the credit for the good vibes happening right now … but he can’t hide his joy in the role he played.
• Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for North Korea, Lindsey Graham says. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Friday that President Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize if North and South Korea formally agree to denuclearize and bring peace to the Korean Peninsula. “It wouldn’t have happened without Trump,” Graham said on Fox News. “What happened? Donald Trump convinced North Korea and China he was serious about bringing about change,” he said. “We’re not there yet, but if this happens, President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”

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

• HOUSE INTEL REPORT: House Intelligence GOP Finds No Trump-Russia Collusion in Final Report. The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee published the final report on the committee’s investigation into possible collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia during the election. After a yearlong investigation, the members “found no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian government.”
• CLAPPER / LEAKER: Declassified Congressional Report: James Clapper Lied About Dossier Leaks To CNN. (Federalist) — Buried within a newly declassified congressional report on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections is a shocking revelation: former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper not only leaked information about the infamous Steele dossier and high-level government briefings about it to CNN, he also may have lied to Congress about the matter. In one of the findings within the 253-page report, the House intelligence committee wrote that Clapper leaked details of a dossier briefing given to then-President-elect Donald Trump to CNN’s Jake Tapper, lied to Congress about the leak, and was rewarded with a CNN contract a few months later.
• John Brennan Blasts Trump Over Clapper Attacks
• WAS FLYNN COERCED? A stunning report released Friday by the House Intelligence Committee regarding its investigation into alleged Russian collusion by the president’s election campaign contains evidence the FBI coerced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn into a guilty plea.

7am – B         NBC TROUBLE:

• MSNBC’s Joy Reid says “I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things” The host says she doesn’t think she wrote the posts, but admits they don’t seem to have been hacked. On Saturday morning, five days after Joy Reid was accused of authoring a series of homophobic blog posts that were unearthed by a Twitter user, the MSNBC host apologized for the controversy, but said that she still doesn’t think she wrote the posts in question.
• Tom Brokaw pulls out of commencement speech after sexual harassment allegations, is replaced with Trump official (The Hill) — Veteran NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw has withdrawn as the commencement speaker at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, a day after allegations emerged that he sexually harassed two women in the 1990s. John Petillo, the university’s president, said in a letter to students, faculty and staff on Friday that he had been informed of Brokaw’s decision to pull out of the engagement and that Linda McMahon, the head of the Small Business Administration, would take his place.  “This morning Tom Brokaw informed us of his decision to withdraw as our undergraduate commencement speaker,” Petillo wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by News 8 in New Haven, Conn. “Given events in the news, Mr. Brokaw did not want to distract from the intended and most important focus of the day — our graduating students and their families.”
• NBC won’t launch full investigation into Tom Brokaw allegations @foxnews / NBC won’t be launching a full internal investigation into new sex harassment allegations against former news anchor Tom Brokaw, network sources told Page Six on Friday. “She’s given her side, and he’s responded. They don’t feel there’s anything left to investigate in the case,’’ an NBC source said, adding, “We may make further inquiries if more information emerges.” Former NBC News war correspondent Linda Vester accused Brokaw in an article in Variety on Thursday of groping her and trying to kiss her against her will in the 1990s. She said she finally came forward because she was upset with the way the network had handled sex-harassment allegations against its former “Today’’ host Matt Lauer. Brokaw denied Vester’s claims, and so far, it seems he has got the full backing of his NBC News bosses.
• Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell Among More Than 60 Women To Sign Letter Supporting Tom Brokaw (Deadline) — The Morning Joe co-host joined Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell, and more than 60 other women who currently or formerly worked at NBC News, who have put their names on the document. The carefully crafted letter begins by saying that “as professional women, we fully endorse the conversation around abuse of power in the workplace. In the context of that conversation, we would like to share our perspectives on working with Tom Brokaw.”
• Tom Brokaw Blasts Ex-Colleague “Who Had Trouble With The Truth” And News Outlets That “Perp Walked” Him. In a letter to colleagues, NBC News veteran Tom Brokaw has blasted Linda Vester and the two news outlets that published her claims he sexually harassed her in the 1990’s

7am – C         D.C. SPORTS SCORED WINS OVER WEEKEND:

• Penguins leave town fuming after Game 2 loss to the Capitals
• Gio Gonzalez leads Nats to victory over Dbacks. UP NEXT: Nationals: Washington’s homestand continues as Pittsburgh arrives Monday for a four-game series. RHP Tanner Roark (1-2, 3.77) seeks his first victory since April 2.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – SEAN SPICER – Former White House Press Secretary – discussed his thoughts on the White House Correspondents’ dinner.

7am – E         VA SECRETARY:

• Ronny Jackson won’t return to old job as Trump’s physician. (Politico) – White House physician Ronny Jackson will not return to his role as the president’s personal physician, according to two senior administration officials, after a string of allegations caused the Navy rear admiral to withdraw his nomination last week to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. Sean Conley, a Navy officer who took over Jackson’s role as the president’s personal doctor last month, will continue in the role, the officials said.
• The Next Secretary Of The Va: John Kelly? (Hot Air) — His reward for doing the most impossible job in Washington is that soon he’ll get to do the second-most impossible one. In fact, his current job of trying to manage President Chaos is so impossible that Trump might not appoint a successor. I wonder if Kelly thinks back sometimes to being in battle and remembers it as a relatively tranquil period in his life. According to sources familiar with the situation, White House officials and Trump confidantes are currently discussing the possibility of moving Kelly to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. These people say that the collapse of Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson’s nomination has created an opening for Trump to slide Kelly into the role. It would give Kelly a soft landing, while also having the benefit of putting a qualified official in charge of the sprawling department. “They’re looking for a place for Kelly to land that won’t be embarrassing for him,” one Republican briefed on the conversations said.

 

8am – A         INTERVIEW – DR. SEBASTIAN GORKA –  – FOXNews National Security Strategist, NYT Bestseller author of “DEFEATING JIHAD” and Fmr deputy assistant to President Donald Trump – discussed the latest news about North Korea.

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW – JOE CONCHA – Media Reporter, The Hill – discuss the uproar over the WHCD and reacted to Joy Reid’s weird apology.

8am – D         INTERVIEW –  HOWARD KURTZ – author of new book “MEDIA MADNESS” and hosts the weekend show Media Buzz on Fox News and writes a weekly column on FoxNews.com – shared his thoughts on the WHCD.

8am – E         Kanye West defends pro-Trump remarks in new song “Ye vs. the People.” (Daily Caller) — Rap star Kanye West says in a new song that black Americans still aren’t “off the plantation” of thinking they must be Democrats. West says, “That’s the problem with this damn nation, all blacks gotta be Democrats, man, we ain’t made it off the plantation.” This lyric is part of an upcoming song he has with rap artist T.I. called “Ye vs. The People.” The song appears to address critics of his recent decision to sport a “Make America Great Again” hat in a photo posted on Twitter.