Joe diGenova, Sebastian Gorka and Saagar Enjeti joined WMAL on Monday morning!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, August 20, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C Could Trump’s promises of a “red wave” depress GOP turnout?

5am – D/E     MCGAHN-MUELLER MEETING:

• TRUMP TWEET: President Trump attacked The New York Times for its report on White House counsel Don McGahn’s “extensive” cooperation with the Mueller investigation in a Sunday morning tweet.“The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel [sic] Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel [sic], he must be a John Dean type “RAT.” But I allowed him and all others to testify – I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide and have demanded transparency so that this Rigged and Disgusting Witch Hunt can come to a close. So many lives have been ruined over nothing – McCarthyism at its WORST! Yet Mueller & his gang of Dems refuse to look at the real crimes on the other side – Media is even worse!”
• McGAHN COOPERATING WITH MUELLER: In at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months, Mr. McGahn described the president’s fury toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged Mr. McGahn to respond to it. He provided the investigators examining whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice a clear view of the president’s most intimate moments with his lawyer.
• Trump’s chief lawyer, Donald McGahn, is providing Mueller with material information related to the president’s behavior during former FBI Director James Comey’s firing. McGahn is also giving background information about Trump’s desire to gain control over the probe, the report notes.
• TRUMP STANDS BY McGAHN: Trump, in a series of angry tweets, blasted a New York Times story reporting that McGahn has been cooperating extensively with the special counsel team investigating Russian election meddling and potential collusion with Trump’s Republican campaign.

6am – A/B/C BRENNAN DOES WHINY MEDIA TOUR:

• John Brennan miserably tries to walk back “nothing short of treasonous”
• “I didn’t mean that he committed treason, but it was a term that I used, nothing short of treasonous.
• Clapper: John Brennan’s rhetoric had become an issue
• Mike Mullen on ex-intel officials keeping clearances… concerned about Brennan statements…
• Brennan may take legal action against Trump after getting security clearance revoked

6am – D         Rudy Giuliani Says “Truth Isn’t Truth” on ‘Meet the Press’ (AP) -President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani used the line Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. Giuliani was trying to make the case that having Trump sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team wouldn’t accomplish much because of the he-said-she-said nature of witnesses’ recollections. He said it’s “silly” to say Trump should testify “because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry” because “it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth.” When Todd insisted, “Truth is truth,” Giuliani responded, “Truth isn’t truth.” The comment left the host flummoxed.

6am – E         Box Office: Kevin Spacey’s ‘Billionaire Boys Club’ Earns Abysmal $126 on Opening Day. Kevin Spacey’s new movie earns just $126 on opening day. The movie “Billionaire Boys Club,” which features disgraced actor Kevin Spacey, made just $126 at the box office on its opening day Friday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Sources told THR that the film, which opened in 10 theaters in select states, that the total marked “the worst showing of a film” starring Spacey. THR notes that the total averages out to fewer than two tickets sold for the film per venue. The film’s poor showing comes months after Spacey faced several accusations of sexual harassment from coworkers on the hit Netflix series “House of Cards.

6am – F         ICE says man taken while rushing pregnant wife to hospital is wanted for murder in Mexico. (USA Today) — A man detained by U.S. immigration officials while rushing his wife to a California hospital for the birth of their fifth child was wanted in Mexico on homicide charges, authorities now say. Joel Arrona-Lara, 36, was taken into custody Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a gas station in San Bernardino. Surveillance video from the station shows Arrona-Lara being taken away in handcuffs. The arrest set off the latest in a series of firestorms over the zero tolerance immigration policies of President Donald Trump. ICE initially issued a statement noting that no one is exempt from deportation and “all of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and” removal from the U.S. On Saturday, ICE released a statement saying Arrona-Lara “was brought to ICE’s attention due to an outstanding warrant.

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

• Manafort jury returns today; possible verdict today
• McGahn met with Mueller for 30 hours, per NYT
• Former CIA Director John Brennan Is ‘Thinking About’ Taking Legal Action Over Revoked Security Clearance

7am – B         MARYLAND NEWS:

• Washington Post: Ben Jealous skips traditional stop on Maryland’s political circuit, leaving some Democrats ‘nervous and concerned’
• Ben Jealous: We should pay for universal pre-K by taxing marijuana
• ATF Study Reveals Where Criminals In Baltimore Are Getting Their Guns… MARYLAND

7am – C         People are threatening to boycott a beloved hot-dog brand because its executive chairman — one of Trump’s best friends — is holding a fundraiser for the president. (Business Insider) — Nathan’s Hot Dogs is facing backlash in the wake of a report that its executive chairman is holding a fundraiser for President Donald Trump this week. Howard Lorber, the hot-dog chain’s executive chairman and one of Trump’s best friends, is holding a fundraiser for the president on Friday, Bloomberg reported. People are threatening to boycott the hot-dog brand following the report. Nathan’s Hot Dogs is facing backlash in the wake of a report that the iconic brand’s executive chairman is holding a fundraiser for President Donald Trump. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Howard Lorber is holding a fundraising event for Trump in the Hamptons on Friday. Lorber, who is a real estate mogul in addition to being Nathan’s Hot Dogs executive chairman, has been friends with Trump for decades. In 2016, Trump named Lorber as one of his two best friends when asked by The New York Times.

7am – D         AL SHARPTON MISSPELLS FAMOUS ARETHA FRANKLIN SONG: ‘R-E-S-P-I-C-T’ (Daily Caller) — Rev. Al Sharpton accidentally botched the spelling of Aretha Franklin’s famous song “Respect” while paying tribute to the late singer during his MSNBC show on Sunday. Sharpton, the host of “PoliticsNation,” was criticizing President Donald Trump for calling former White House staffer and “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman a “dog,” asserting that “sometimes the dog bites back.” “I think you might’ve learned the lesson this week, sometimes the dog bites back with a book deal,” Sharpton said. Sharpton closed the segment by quoting perhaps Franklin’s most well-known song, 1967’s “Respect,” but he didn’t echo Franklin’s correct spelling of the song’s title. Rather than reciting ‘R-E-S-P-E-C-T,’ Sharpton slipped an ‘I’ into the tail end of the word. “So in the words of my late friend Aretha Franklin, show some R-E-S-P-I-C-T, and the next time you get a black woman and a beagle confused, remember this: I got you,” Sharpton said proudly.

7am – E         Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: I ‘fully admit’ our bias is ‘more left-leaning’ (The Hill) — Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Saturday that he “fully admit[s]” Twitter employees share a largely left-leaning bias after facing accusations that conservatives are discriminated against on the social media platform. In an interview that aired Saturday on CNN, Dorsey said his company has a responsibility to be open about its political viewpoints, but to operate without bias when applying content policies to users. “We need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is … is more left-leaning,” Dorsey says. “But the real question behind the question is, are we doing something according to political ideology or viewpoints? And we are not. Period,” he added. Dorsey went on to insist that his company only polices behavior on the platform, not content. Dorsey’s remarks follow criticism from the right over supposed “shadow-banning” of conservative users. The platform and Dorsey have also faced questions over the decision not to remove far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from the platform, despite other social media platforms choosing to do so. The Twitter CEO said in an interview with The Hill this week that Jones was banned after he received complaints that Jones’s content was inciting violence.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – DR. SEBASTIAN GORKA – FOX News National Security Strategist, author of new book “Why We Fight” (to be published October 2018) and Fmr deputy assistant to President Donald Trump @SebGorka

• Brennan’s media tour of whining about Trump stripping him of security clearance
• Trump says he is likely to strip DOJ official’s clearance ‘very quickly’

8am – B         CATHOLIC CHURCH SCANDAL GETTING COSTLY:

• Pope on Pennsylvania sex abuse report: ‘We abandoned the little ones.’ Rome (CNN) Pope Francis has acknowledged “with shame and repentance” the Catholic Church’s failure to act over sexual abuse by clerics against minors going back decades, writing “we showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.” In an unusually blunt letter released by the Vatican on Monday, the Pope wrote, “I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons.
• Clergy sex abuse has cost Catholic Church $3 billion in settlements
• Catholics consider withholding donations amid sex abuse scandals

8am – C         Winona Ryder might have married Keanu Reeves for real on the set of Dracula (Entertainment Weekly) — Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves might be married…in Romania. While promoting their upcoming rom-com Destination Wedding, Ryder revealed to EW that their movie love might extend off screen because she’s not entirely sure the pair didn’t have a real wedding back in 1992 while filming Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Musing about her feelings on weddings alongside Reeves, Ryder told EW, “We actually got married in Dracula. No, I swear to god I think we’re married in real life.” “In that scene, Francis [Ford Coppola] used a real Romanian priest,” she added. “We shot the master and he did the whole thing. So I think we’re married.” Reeves took the news in stride and joked, “It’s lovely to see you again.” But Ryder reminded him that they went through the entire ceremony and said their “I dos.” When Reeves asked, “We said yes?” Ryder responded, “Don’t you remember that? It was on Valentine’s Day.” This left Reeves no choice but to conclude, “Oh my gosh, we’re married.

8am – D          INTERVIEW — SAAGAR ENJETI – White House correspondent, The Daily Caller – discussed the latest WH news and Trump tweets, including tweets about Don McGahn, Brennan/Ohr security clearances and a WH speechwriter resigned.