Mornings on the Mall 12.28.18

Mornings

Jim Hanson, Joe Concha, Larry Michael, Spy Museum’s Chris Costa, The Hill’s Juliegrace Brufke, and guest hosts Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer and Gunnery Sgt. Jessie Jane Duff joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, December 28, 2018

Hosts: Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer and Gunnery Sgt. Jessie Jane Duff

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C For liberal media, Trump’s visit to US troops in Iraq can’t go uncriticized (Tony Shaffer/USA Today) — President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump spent the day after Christmas in Iraq visiting U.S. troops. After facing criticism for not visiting the troops on Christmas by multiple mainstream media outlets, when news of his trip broke it actually became another opportunity for the media to criticize the president. Really? The visit counters the false narrative that the liberal media and anti-Trump politicians have been working to construct about our commander in chief. Instead of admitting to their error, they attack him for the visit. Although the narrative-building has been going on for weeks, it kicked into high gear after Trump’s announcement that the Americans embedded in Syria’s brutal civil war would be coming home to their families. Interventionist voices exploded in protest, condemning the president for avoiding an open-ended military entanglement. But already we have observed mission creep in the U.S.-Syria entanglement; another meandering military expedition is not in the interests of the United States or our allies.

5am – D         Democrats more excited for ‘someone new’ in 2020 over Biden, O’Rourke: Poll. (The Washington Times) — Democratic and independent voters are more excited about an unnamed candidate than they are about Joseph R. Biden, Beto O’Rourke or Bernard Sanders running for president in 2020, a new poll has revealed. “Someone entirely new” topped the list of 10 potential Democratic candidates voters want to see in the 2020 presidential field, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Wednesday. Trailing six percentage points behind the unnamed candidate was Mr. Biden with 53 percent of voters saying they’d be “excited” about him running, followed by Mr. Sanders with 36 percent and Mr. O’Rourke with 30 percent. Trailing Mr. O’Rourke in the poll was Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg and Amy Klobuchar.  At the bottom of the list was twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who excited only 15 percent of the voters polled, compared to 70 percent who said she should sit this one out.

5am – E         Michelle Obama takes ‘most admired woman’ title from Hillary Clinton.

Former US first lady Michelle Obama has ended Hillary Clinton’s 17-year run as America’s most admired woman. Mrs Clinton, ex-presidential candidate, secretary of state and first lady, came third in the annual Gallup poll, with talk-show host Oprah Winfrey in second. The Queen finished in the top 10 for the 50th time, Gallup said. Former President Barack Obama was most admired man for the 11th year in a row. President Donald Trump finished second for the fourth consecutive year.

 

6am – A/B/C Big deadline for Sears on Friday. New York (CNN Business)Sears is nearing a crucial deadline that could determine whether it survives. The bankrupt company set Friday as the deadline for potential buyers to bid for Sears’ assets. It wants someone to buy about 500 of its stores and the Kenmore appliance brand to keep Sears and Kmart open for business. Sears told the bankruptcy court it has interest from multiple parties. But the only public bidder for those assets is the hedge fund controlled by Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert, who is the company’s largest creditor and served as CEO until its bankruptcy. He is offering $4.6 billion for those operating assets. Lampert says his plan would let 50,000 Sears employees keep their jobs. The company had 68,000 workers at the time of its bankruptcy filing. Lampert is not offering to put up much new cash. Instead, he wants to forgive about $1.8 billion of the debt he holds from Sears. Lampert has until Friday to make that bid official. If he doesn’t — and if no other bidders arise, Sears will have a critical decision to make. It could extend the deadline — or it could decide to accept defeat and begin a plan to close all of its stores and liquidate its assets. A liquidation would probably take months to complete. Spokespeople for Sears and Lampert declined to comment Thursday. Some Sears creditors, including landlords and vendors, believe shutting down the company is the best way to retrieve the greatest portion of the money Sears owes them. They question the legitimacy of Lampert’s bid to keep it open.

6am – D/E     Cell signal puts Cohen outside Prague around time of purported Russian meeting. WASHINGTON — A mobile phone traced to President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, leaving an electronic record to support claims that Cohen met secretly there with Russian officials, four people with knowledge of the matter say. During the same period of late August or early September, electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague, two people familiar with the incident said. The phone and surveillance data, which have not previously been disclosed, lend new credence to a key part of a former British spy’s dossier of Kremlin intelligence describing purported coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia’s election meddling operation. The dossier, which Trump has dismissed as “a pile of garbage,” said Cohen and one or more Kremlin officials huddled in or around the Czech capital to plot ways to limit discovery of the close “liaison” between the Trump campaign and Russia. The new information regarding the recovery of Cohen’s cell phone location doesn’t explain why he was apparently there or who he was meeting with, if anyone. But it adds to evidence that Cohen was in or near Prague around the time of the supposed meeting. Both of the newly surfaced foreign electronic intelligence intercepts were shared with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, people familiar with the matter said. Mueller is investigating Russia’s 2016 election interference and whether Trump’s campaign colluded in the scheme. Mueller also is examining whether Trump has obstructed the sweeping inquiry. McClatchy reported in April 2018 that Mueller had obtained evidence Cohen traveled to Prague from Germany in late August or early September of 2016, but it could not be learned how that information was gleaned. Cohen tweeted a denial hours after this story was published.

6am – F         White House says it didn’t distribute MAGA hats Trump signed in Iraq, Germany.  (CNN) President Donald Trump made his first visit to a war zone on Wednesday, receiving an enthusiastic reception from many US troops there — some of whom may have run afoul of military rules. Video footage and the written report of Trump’s visit with service members in Iraq showed the President signing “Make America Great Again” hats and an embroidered patch that read “Trump 2020.” A US military official told CNN the MAGA hats that Trump signed at the Ramstein Air Base event in Germany were personal and brought there by military personnel in hopes of getting an autograph. The official contended that it was not a campaign event and that the hats were used as support for Trump, not as a statement of political support. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told CNN the hats were personal items brought by the troops in Iraq and Germany. Sanders said the White House did not distribute them.


7am – A         Interview – JIM HANSON – President, Security Studies Group

  • Bombshell: New Info Says Khashoggi Was A Foreign Influence Agent. Jamal Khashoggi’s op-eds published in the very influential Washington Post certainly qualify as attempts to change U.S. policy against Saudi Arabia and in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Washington Post has caused itself a major scandal since it has come to light they and their martyred “reformer” Jamal Khashoggi were publishing anti-Saudi propaganda for Qatar. They tried to bury this in a pre-Christmas Saturday news dump, but that can’t stop the damage this will do to their reputation. “Text messages between Khashoggi and an executive at Qatar Foundation International show that the executive, Maggie Mitchell Salem, at times shaped the columns he submitted to The Washington Post, proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government,” the Post wrote December 21.  The Post says they were unaware of this, although Khashoggi’s Qatar connections were well known. They will have to answer for what is either incompetence in connecting these dots or simply not caring as Khashoggi’s attacks on President Trump and the Saudis fit right in with their narrative. The Qatar Foundation denies they were paying him to produce the anti-Saudi material. But during Security Studies Group research for our report on the information operation after his death, we heard from reliable sources familiar with the investigation that documents showing wire transfers from Qatar were found in his apartment in Turkey. They were immediately put out of reach by Turkish security services, so they did not show the collusion between Khashoggi, Qatar, and Turkey prior to his death. We have published a new, unredacted set of findings about the case. It is damning to Qatar, Turkey, and the Washington Post.

7am – B/C     INTERVIEW – JOE CONCHA – Media Reporter, The Hill

  • MEDIA REACTION TO TRUMP’S VISIT TO IRAQ AND GERMANY:
  • CBS, NBC Slam Trump’s Visit to Troops in Iraq: Took Him Long Enough
  • CNN: Trump Is ‘The Grinch’, ‘Stole Christmas’ from the Troops in Iraq
  • Melania Trump gets mocked for wearing Timberland boots while visiting the troops
  • MAGA HATS MEDIA CONTROVERSY / WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE
  • CNN Decries U.S. Troops in Iraq Who Had Their MAGA Hats Signed By Trump
  • Daily Mail’s David Martosko: ‏@dmartosko:  15h15 hours ago: For anyone clinging to a conspiracy theory that the White House passed out MAGA hats for Trump to sign on a U.S. military base in Iraq, this statement from @PressSec to me: “We didn’t bring any of the items with us. They were personal items of the service members.”

7am – D         INTERVIEW – LARRY MICHAEL – Voice of The Redskins

  • Philadelphia Eagles (8-7) vs. Washington Redskins (7-8): A few weeks ago, the Eagles’ chances for a playoff spot seemed laughable. Now Philadelphia fans can travel a few hours down I-95 to watch their team play the final game of the season with a realistic shot at earning a wild card slot. If they beat Washington — now on its fourth quarterback — and the Vikings lose to the playoff-bound Bears, the Eagles are in. Date: Sunday, Dec. 30 / Game time: 1 p.m.
  • Redskins place Colt McCoy and Jordan Reed on injured reserve. LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. – The list continues to grow for the Redskins as they limp to the finish line. On Thursday, the team placed quarterback Colt McCoy and tight end Jordan Reed on the injured reserve list, bringing the tally of players currently shut down to 24. In 2017, the Redskins finished the season with 24 players on the injured reserve.
  • Adrian Peterson says he’d like to return to Washington next year, should the Redskins re-sign him? Adrian Peterson was preparing himself for a team to call him during the offseason before Derrius Guice tore his ACL on August 9th in the Redskins first preseason game against the New England Patriots. Peterson was brought in with several other free agent running backs, and blew everyone away with his workout. From that day on, he has been the Redskins #1 RB, and has surprised a lot of people this season with his performance.

7am – E         Government shutdown: Compromise unlikely before end of year. A partial government shutdown will enter its seventh day Friday amid no signs that Congress and the White House are any closer to ending their standoff. The House and Senate returned to work Thursday but quickly adjourned after scheduling no votes.  Border wall funding has been at the center of a budget dispute that has shut down nine federal departments and several smaller agencies since Saturday, forcing about 800,000 federal employees to go on furlough or work without pay.


8am – A/B/C Interview – Chris Costa – Executive Director of the International Spy Museum

  • ABOUT MUSEUM: The International Spy Museum is a museum dedicated to the tradecraft, history and contemporary role of espionage, featuring the largest collection of international espionage artifacts currently on public display.
  • BIO: Chris Costa is a former career intelligence officer, a former member of the National Security Council at the White House and the current Executive Director of the International Spy Museum. Recently, Mr. Costa served as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council (NSC).  At the NSC, he was responsible for coordinating counterterrorism policy and strategy as well as US hostage recovery activities. Mr. Costa had 34 years of progressive national security experience and well-documented success in strategy policy, special operations, counterintelligence, and human intelligence, deploying on multiple contingencies and to combat operations in the Republic of Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Mr. Costa’s most recent assignment was with the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) as a Program Director in the Operations Directorate.
  • Spy Museum prepares for big move. The museum has now outgrown its home in Penn Quarter and will head to a new building twice its in L’Enfant Plaza.The International Spy Museum has attracted visitors curious in espionage for 16 years, but soon it will be on the move. The museum has now outgrown its home in Penn Quarter and will head to a new building twice its size in L’Enfant Plaza. “We’re starting off in 2019 with a brand new museum based on all those years of learning,” said Chris Costa, the Executive Director of the International Spy Museum.  “So there’s a lot of excitement, a lot of anticipation with our move.”  The new Spy Museum location, at 700 L’Enfant Plaza SW, is 140,000 square feet and was built from the ground up specifically for the espionage exhibits.  Staff will officially close the doors of the current location, in Penn Quarter, at the end of the day on January 1st.  The first artifact to make the move on January 5th will be the iconic James Bond Aston Martin DB5 from the movie Goldfinger, which will be taken out by crane. While the Aston Martin will permanently reside in the new museum’s lobby, the Bond artifacts in the Spy Museum’s Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains exhibit will not be part of the move. “We knew we were going to have to move, it’s no secret,” said Costa. “We’ve been planning for it for a long time.” Costa says the museum has outgrown its home at the intersection of 9th Street and F Street NW, where it was founded in 2002. He pointed out the museum has tripled the number of artifacts it has since it opened.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – Juliegrace Brufke – reporter, The Hill – discussed the latest on the shutdown.

  • House and Senate Back In Session Amid Shutdown Stalemate
  • Trump: Pelosi prolonging shutdown as part of bid to be speaker

 

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