Gayle Trotter, Kevin Daley and Byron York joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

5am – A/B/C  Latest on the Kavanaugh confirmation and accuser:

• Senate lawmakers have invited Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford to testify about decades-old sexual assault allegations that have surfaced against the judge, postponing this week’s key confirmation vote and setting up a dramatic showdown in a public hearing next Monday
• Two former girlfriends of Judge Brett Kavanaugh defended him in an interview with FOX News’ Martha MacCallum
• SUPREME SHOWDOWN: The Senate Judiciary Committee invited Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford to a public hearing next week after decades-old sexual assault allegations surfaced … Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the hearing will “give these recent allegations a full airing.” Grassley noted that he tried to have the panel’s staff conduct phone interviews with both Kavanaugh and Ford. Democrats, however, rejected the private interviews and wanted the FBI to investigate the allegations as part of the judge’s background investigation. The Kavanaugh-Ford hearing is scheduled to take place next Monday. The latest developments forced Thursday’s scheduled committee confirmation vote to be postponed. President Trump indicated he was open to postponing the confirmation proceedings in Congress while allegations against Kavanaugh are investigated. Still, the delay makes it increasingly difficult for Kavanaugh to win approval by Oct. 1, when the new session of the Supreme Court begins. It also sets up a public, televised airing of sexual misconduct allegations, reminiscent of the seminal hearings against Clarence Thomas in 1991, that could derail Kavanaugh’s nomination altogether.

5am – D         Ex-ABC Journalist Brian Ross Is Back and Ready to Cover Trump Again. Brian Ross resigned from ABC News after making an erroneous assertion about the president. The ensuing hysteria made him feel he had been put ‘on a kind of enemies list.’ Much to the displeasure of Donald Trump-friendly media outlets, Brian Ross is still employable. Ross is “the former investigative reporter for ABC who resigned after spreading fake news,” the Daily Caller snarked about the recent announcement that Ross and his longtime producing partner, Rhonda Schwartz—who both left ABC News in July after 24 years there—had landed together at media entrepreneur Dan Abrams’ streaming video startup, Law & Crime, which boasts financial backing from the A&E Network. “Given their track record, it might only be a matter of time until Ross and Schwartz try to peddle some more ‘fake news’ as the real thing,” the right-wing NewsBusters site piled on—under a headline that referred to its target as “Scandal-Ridden Brian Ross.” For Ross—who has been at it for nearly five decades, earning every conceivable broadcast journalism prize while making his share of mistakes and occasionally drawing the ire of presidents of the United States, corporate bigwigs, and even his own bosses—such brickbats constitute just another day at the office.

5am – E         INTERVIEW – RAY STAGICH – Weather Channel meteorologist — discuss our rainy Tuesday

• Rain, flooding continue to mark much of DC area. WASHINGTON — If thunder and lightning woke you up last night, you weren’t the only one. Florence’s remains dumped around 2 inches of rain on most of the D.C. region, prompting flood warnings. Rainfall is still in the forecast for the D.C. area Tuesday, and a Flash Flood Watch continues for the region until 6 p.m. Florence is slowly making its exit, bringing strong thunderstorms, floods and even a few tornadoes east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Standing water on some area roadways is sure to cause travel headaches for morning commuters. Rail service is also impacted.

6am – A         Trump orders feds to declassify key FISA documents, text messages in FBI Russia probe. The documents to be declassified also include 12 FBI reports on interviews with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all other applications to surveil Carter Page.

6am –B          HILLARY’S OP-ED: ‘Our democracy is in crisis’: Hillary Clinton SLAMS ‘monstrous and despicable’ actions of Trump administration as she claims president has ‘sunk far below his already low-bar’ in savage op-ed. Hillary Clinton wrote a lengthy op-ed in The Atlantic excoriating Donald Trump. Clinton cited the ‘unspeakable cruelty’ of separating families at the border. She blasted Trump’s ‘monstrous neglect’ of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. She also slammed Trump’s continued dismissal of Russia’s interference in the election as a ‘hoax.’ (Daily Mail) — She added that ‘our democratic institutions and traditions are under siege’ and ‘we need to do everything we can to fight back.’ Clinton goes on to list the five main fronts of the ‘assault’ on American democracy. First, Trump’s assault on the rule of law. Clinton cites Trump’s reported comments to White House aides that he expected Attorney General Jeff Sessions to protect him, regardless of the law. She also notes former FBI Director James Comey’s claim that the president demanded his loyalty. She also cites a New York Times report that said Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to special counsel Robert Mueller arguing that if Trump interfered with an investigation, it doesn’t amount to obstruction of justice because he is the president. Clinton lists the second ‘assault’ as the legitimacy of elections being in doubt. As well as Russia’s ongoing interference and trump’s ‘unwillingness to stop it,’ she cites voter suppression and gerrymandering as taking the country ‘further away from the sacred principle of ‘one person, one vote.’ Third, she says Trump is ‘waging war on truth and reason.’

6am – C         Saudi Arabia can’t seem to stop buying homes on Chain Bridge Road.

Saudi Arabia Scooping Up Land in Northern Virginia. (Washington Free Beacon) — Saudi Arabia is scooping up large swaths of land in Northern Virginia, just a stone’s throw away from the nation’s capital, according to local reports. “The Saudi government now owns five adjacent properties on the grandiose corridor in McLean that is home to high-profile, pricey estates and bucolic views of the Potomac River, according to government assessment records,” Washington Business Journal reported. The Saudi government is said to have purchased a series of adjacent homes “occupying about a half-mile stretch” near Chain Bridge Road in Northern Virginia, according to the report. The report continues:

The kingdom paid $43 million on May 24 to purchase Steve Case‘s Merrywood Estate at 700 Chain Bridge Road, making it the biggest residential property sale in the region’s history. The county valued the property, which was also the childhood home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, at just shy of $24 million.

6am – D         Senate lawmakers have invited Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford to testify about decades-old sexual assault allegations that have surfaced against the judge, postponing this week’s key confirmation vote and setting up a dramatic showdown in a public hearing next Monday.

6am – E         TOM ARNOLD IS CRAZY:

• Actor turned activist Tom Arnold is ‘not afraid of dying’ in his quest to bring down President Donald Trump with his highly anticipated new TV series – The Hunt for the Trump Tapes. The True Lies star, and former husband of controversial Trump supporting actress and comedienne Roseanne Barr, says former friend Trump will resign once he collates more evidence of his alleged wrong doing.
• Tom Arnold and ‘The Apprentice’ producer Mark Burnett apparently scuffled at a pre-Emmys party. Arnold and Burnett’s wife, Roma Downey, each tweeted about the incident at the Evening Before the Emmys event on Sunday night. Tom Arnold and Roma Downey are each making accusations of physical attacks that also involved Downey’s husband, The Apprentice producer Mark Burnett, at the Evening Before the Emmys party on Sunday night. Mark Burnett just went apeshit & choked me at this huge Emmy party then he ran away with his torn Pink shirt & missing gold chain. I’m waiting for LAPD,” Arnold tweeted. Marty Singer, Arnold’s lawyer, confirmed the incident occurred to The Hollywood Reporter and said that Burnett “attacked” Arnold.  Monday morning, Los Angeles police told The Hollywood Reporter they were aware of an alleged incident and later in the day, Arnold filed an assault charge against Burnett.

6am – F         Alexander Ovechkin Gains Vitality From Booze:

• Chatter, however, surrounded Ovechkin’s physique. Players and management mentioned how refreshed he looked — even after a summer during which he was supposedly partying the whole time.
• “He actually looks a little bit leaner than he has in a while,” MacLellan said. “He looks like he’s in a good place mentally.”

7am – A         INTERVIEW — GAYLE TROTTER – attorney and spokeswoman for the Judicial Crisis Network

• Senate lawmakers have invited Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford to testify about decades-old sexual assault allegations that have surfaced against the judge, postponing this week’s key confirmation vote and setting up a dramatic showdown in a public hearing next Monday

7am – B/C MoCo bike plan estimated to cost $6 billion according to one official. WASHINGTON (WMAL) – Montgomery County’s proposed bicycle master plan is designed to get cars off the road by making it safer and more convenient for people to bike places instead, but the council’s deputy director, Glenn Orlin, said the good intention comes with a prohibitively expensive price tag. After crunching the numbers, Orlin estimates the plan would cost $6.5 billion dollars, which he said it unaffordable. To put it in perspective, the current five-year plan for all pedestrian expenses – mostly sidewalks – is $225 million according to a report. Orlin will present to the council’s transportation committee Monday. Orlin said the bike plan would take up a huge chunk of the money the county has to spend on capital improvements. “If it were $6.5 billion, there really wouldn’t be money left over for much of anything else, and I don’t mean just transportation, I mean also schools, police stations, fire stations, libraries rec centers etc,” Orlin said.

Orlin will go before the council’s transportation committee Monday and recommend the plan be scaled back significantly.

7am – D         Cat knocks out power to 7,500 in New Orleans. NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A cat got into a utility company substation and came into contact with electrical equipment, knocking out electricity to more than 7,500 New Orleans customers. Entergy New Orleans said on its website and in social media posts that it happened Monday morning. New Orleans news outlets said the outage happened around 8:30 a.m. Power had been fully restored by midday. The outage affected part of the city’s central business district, and some other neighborhoods. The utility said it is unusual for a cat to get into a substation or make it around protective devices. The company added that, when it happens, the animal doesn’t survive.

7am – E         EMMYS HIGHLIGHTS:

• Emmys host Michael Che says the only people who thank Jesus at award shows are ‘Republicans and ex-crackheads’
• RuPaul, Jenifer Lewis and more get political on the Emmy red carpet. “Black-ish” star Jenifer Lewis repped Nike and Colin Kaepernick on Monday, wearing a blinged-out red and black sweatshirt as a way to support the company that stood by the embattled quarterback. Others on the carpet took a more subtle tack with their messaging. Emmy winner and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” host RuPaul Charles walked the carpet in a pristine white suit featuring a repeating black pattern of the Statue of Liberty.

8am – A         INTERVIEW — KEVIN DALEY – Daily Caller News Foundation’s Supreme Court reporter @KevinDaleyDC

• Senate lawmakers have invited Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford to testify about decades-old sexual assault allegations that have surfaced against the judge, postponing this week’s key confirmation vote and setting up a dramatic showdown in a public hearing next Monday

8am – B         Roseanne Barr Says Her Namesake Character Dies of an Opioid Overdose on The Conners. Roseanne Barr has revealed how her namesake character will be written off the upcoming The Conners spin-off. During an appearance on Brandon Straka’s YouTube show Walk Away over the weekend, Barr said her character will die of an overdose. “Oh ya, they killed her,” she said. “They have her die of an opioid overdose.” Barr admitted she was unhappy with the way the writers apparently decided to end her character’s arc. “It wasn’t enough to [fire me], they had to so cruelly insult the people who loved that family and that show,” she said.  But the actress said she’s come to terms with the show moving on without her. “There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s done. It’s over,” she said. “There’s No fight left.”

8am – C         Police: Man rubbed produce on bare behind then put it back. A Manassas police release says a grocery store employee on Saturday noticed a man grabbing produce, pulling down his pants and rubbing the produce on his behind before putting it back. News outlets report 27-year-old Michael Dwayne Johnson, of Manassas, is charged with indecent exposure and destruction of property.  A Manassas police release says an employee on Saturday noticed Johnson grabbing produce, pulling down his pants and rubbing the produce on his behind before putting it back. It says the store had to destroy several pallets of produce because of Johnson’s actions. A police spokeswoman says the report lists fruit as the ruined produce. Authorities have not released a motive.

8am – D         INTERVIEW: BYRON YORK – chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner @ByronYork

• Trump orders feds to declassify key FISA documents, text messages in FBI Russia probe.