Thank you to @amber_athey for co-hosting with @TheDCVince on @WMALDC this morning! #MOTM pic.twitter.com/V3zDjefQ70

— WMAL DC (@WMALDC) January 2, 2019

Cal Thomas, Mark Krikorian, Matt Schlapp and guest co-host Amber Athey joined WMAL on Wednesday morning!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Hosts: Vince Coglianese and Amber Athey

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C BORDER WALL FUNDING FIGHT/SHUTDOWN:

• Trump invites congressional leaders to White House for border wall briefing. It would be the first sit-down that Trump has held with Democratic and Republican leaders since the partial shutdown began on Dec. 22. WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has invited congressional leaders from both parties to the White House for a Wednesday afternoon briefing on the border wall amid the ongoing partial government shutdown, sources told NBC News on Tuesday. Those invited to attend include Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, House GOP leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Whip John Thune, according to two Congressional leadership sources and another person familiar with the invitation.
• House Democrats are preparing bills to end the government shutdown, deny Trump his wall money, and pressure the Senate to go along, WaPo reports. The strategy Democrats announced Monday would usher in a new era of divided government in Washington with a dare to Trump, aimed at forcing him and Senate Republicans to take their deal or prolong a partial government shutdown. House Democrats plan to use their new majority to vote through measures that would reopen nearly all of the shuttered federal agencies through the end of September, at funding levels Senate Republicans have previously agreed to. Those spending bills contain scores of priorities and pet projects for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The Democratic proposal holds out one exception: The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border security, would keep its current level of funding, with no new money for a border wall. The plan would also extend the department’s budget only through Feb. 8, allowing Democrats to revisit funding for key parts of Trump’s immigration policy in a month.

5am – D/E     ROMNEY’s WAPO Op-Ed: The president shapes the public character of the nation. Trump’s character falls short. “The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs all defined his presidency down. It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion. His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions this month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.”

 

6am – A/B/C CNN’s Wild And Drunk New Year’s Eve Coverage:

• Don Lemon blurts out ‘This is the gayest New Year’s show on air.’
• ANDERSON COOPER GETS DRUNK ON TEQUILA ON CNN’S NEW YEAR’S EVE BROADCAST: CNN anchor Anderson Cooper became increasingly inebriated during the network’s live New Year’s Eve broadcast as he and co-host Andy Cohen took hourly tequila shots on air. Cooper made it clear at the top of CNN’s broadcast from New York City’s Times Square that he is not a heavy drinker and would probably struggle to throw back the shots. During the first tequila shot at 8 pm, Cooper physically grimaced and coughed with disgust. “I feel like my lungs are scorched,” Cooper complained. “It’s just the beginning,” Cohen warned.
• ‘I’m not drunk!’: Don Lemon sings, holds puppies, gets ‘lady lit’ for NYE. Ringing in another year of on-air shenanigans, CNN’s Don Lemon brought a mix of work and play to the network’s New Year’s Eve coverage from New Orleans. His entertaining antics once again sent the #DrunkDonLemon hashtag into overdrive on Twitter, where users posted footage of the anchor singing, dancing, cradling puppies and tossing back drinks while reporting live. “Everyone wants to see Don Lemon get lady lit!” he told co-host Brooke Baldwin. “What number are we on?” she asked as he slurped from a plastic cup and gave Tito’s a shoutout. Lemon admitted he’d stopped counting. “Don Lemon fried out here,” one Twitter user wrote, along with two laughing emojis. Another gave him props for “living his best life.”
• CNN’S RANDI KAYE DOES CHAMPAGNE BONG ON AIR FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE: CNN reporter Randi Kaye kicked off New Year’s Eve by drinking champagne through a bong made out of a snorkel. Kaye received a slightly classier assignment for the end of 2018 and is broadcasting live from a yacht in St. Bart’s.
• Viewers slam NBC for ‘train-wreck’ New Year’s Eve coverage… ‘I’m embarrassed for America’: Puzzled viewers slam NBC for its ‘train-wreck’ New Year’s Eve coverage after it failed to show the Ball Drop and aired Chrissy Teigen talking about ‘vaginal steaming.’  Viewers slammed NBC for its live New Year’s Eve coverage in New York’s Times Square. Angry viewers described it as a ‘train-wreck’ after the network failed to show the entire countdown and aired Chrissy Teigen talking about vaginal steaming. Some called the network’s coverage a ‘complete disaster’ and others suggested it was the ‘worst New Year’s Show ever’

6am – D         INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – Syndicated columnist

• ROMNEY’s WAPO Op-Ed: The president shapes the public character of the nation. Trump’s character falls short.
• Border Wall Funding Fight & Government shutdown
• Elizabeth Warren 2020: Sen. Elizabeth Warren forms exploratory committee for 2020 presidential run.

6am – E         Authorities use tear gas to stop migrants at southern border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement that the gas was aimed at rock throwers on the Mexican side who prevented agents from helping children being passed over the concertina wire. The agency says 25 migrants were detained. Katie Waldman, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said: “Once again we have had a violent mob of migrants attempt to enter the United States illegally by attacking our agents with projectiles.  As has happened before – in this and previous administrations — our personnel used the minimum force necessary to defend themselves, defend our border, and restore order.  The agents involved should be applauded for handling the situation with no reported injuries to the attackers.” According to her, “initial reporting indicates that once the attempted illegal entry was thwarted by agents, the mob began pushing women and minors to the front, forcing minors to climb dangerous concertina wire, and encouraged conveniently invited media to begin filming their illegal acts.”

6am – F         Kathy Griffin Claims Jeff Zucker Cut Her Salary For Hosting CNN New Year’s Eve Event. After Kathy Griffin was fired last year from hosting CNN’s annual New Year’s Eve event after holding up a fake severed, bloody head of Donald Trump, we thought everyone has moved on from the incident. However, Griffin took to Twitter to spill some tea about her gig at CNN. In a long and interesting Twitter thread, Griffin talked about hosting the event on CNN for eight years and then began to talk about her fee. “I worked my way up by the 10th year at CNN to get a fee of $150,000,” she wrote. “By the way, just as a point of reference, Anderson Cooper regularly bragged for years that his annual CNN contract was $10 million a year.” She admits that $150,000 is a lot of money and went on to say, “The first two years I appeared on CNN, it didn’t even occur to me to ask for a salary. The 8th year when I asked Jeff Zucker for a raise, he was so angry he docked me 30%. I’m sorry to say I took the pay cut because I truly enjoyed making you all laugh.” In the epic thread, she said that Leslie Jones (who she supported) was considered for the hosting gig, but after a couple of speed bumps, she ended up going to NBC as a correspondent for their New Year’s Eve event with hosts Carson Daly and Chrissy Teigen. Griffin says she was “dropped from the show entirely because NBC Universal did not want her to appear on a different network.” She added that this didn’t pass “the smell test” and that Jeff Zucker could have made this happen and then asked “What say you, Jeff?” She continued, “You have to admit, it didn’t make sense that NBC Uni wouldn’t have a problem with Andy Cohen, who also works for NBC Uni, appearing on CNN, but would have a problem with Leslie? Since Leslie didn’t work out, CNN couldn’t find one woman standup comic star to co-host? Jeff?”

 

7am – A         INTERVIEW – MARK KRIKORIAN – nationally recognized expert on immigration issues, and is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) – discussed the border wall funding fight and government shutdown.

• Trump invites congressional leaders to White House for border wall briefing.
• House Democrats are preparing bills to end the government shutdown, deny Trump his wall money, and pressure the Senate to go along, WaPo reports
• Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  21h21 hours ago: The Democrats, much as I suspected, have allocated no money for a new Wall. So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security – and our Country must finally have a Strong and Secure Southern Border!
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump  20h20 hours ago: One thing has now been proven. The Democrats do not care about Open Borders and all of the crime and drugs that Open Borders bring!
• Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  17h17 hours ago: Border Security and the Wall “thing” and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let’s make a deal?

7am – B/C     WAPO: A plastic straw ban and a Confederate name change: New laws in the D.C. region in 2019: Higher traffic fines in the District, the formal renaming of a street honoring a Confederate leader in Alexandria and new health insurance requirements in Maryland are among a raft of laws taking effect Tuesday in the Washington region.

7am – D         ROMNEY RIPS TRUMP IN WASHINGTON POST OP-ED

• ROMNEY’s WAPO Op-Ed: The president shapes the public character of the nation. Trump’s character falls short.
• Jeff Flake ‏@JeffFlake: A thoughtful piece by incoming Senator Romney.

7am – E         INSTANT POT WINE:

• Drop everything! It is possible to make wine in your Instant Pot. (Today) — Just when we thought all the possibilities of the Instant Pot had been discovered, a creative home cook has done the impossible. No kitchen appliance, in recent history, has rocked the culinary world quite like the Instant Pot. But just when we thought all the possibilities of this special cooking device had been uncovered, one forward-thinking home cook has done the impossible: David Murphy, a food blogger and recipe developer, has made wine in an Instant Pot. Murphy, a New Jersey native with a big family, is an Instant Pot devotee, he told TODAY Food, because “it saves me a lot of kitchen counter space and [I] am able to make a lot at one time.” Murphy also takes care of his special-needs sister Angela, who doesn’t have very good hand-eye coordination due to a neurological disorder. However, Murphy said she loves cooking with the Instant Pot because she can easily help him cook by dumping ingredients into what she refers to as the “magic pot.” The lovechild of a pressure cooker and a slow cooker, the Instant Pot ($79, Amazon) promises to make meals that used to take hours in a matter of minutes. And while the device has been around since 2010, its popularity has really taken off in the last few years, due in large part to a dedicated social media fanbase. With its foolproof settings — including soup, poultry, rice, beans and chili, stews, and even yogurt — it’s no wonder the pot has been welcomed into thousands of Americans homes and inspired a whole new ultra-specific cookbook genre.
• Please do not offer me the “wine” you made from grape juice in your Instant Pot. (QZ.com) — DIY-loving Americans have come up with arguably the most despicable use for their Instant Pot: making homemade wine. Let’s be clear: This is isn’t a recipe for mulled wine. It’s grape juice transmogrified to table “wine.” Shunning centuries of enology and viticulture, lovers of the cult kitchen appliance claim that they can cut out the vintner and generate a palatable brew in just a few days, with supermarket grape juice such as Welch’s, a bit of sugar and yeast, and the multi-cooker’s “yogurt” setting. The New Jersey-based food blogger David Murphy seems to have been the first to develop a recipe for wine in the Instant Pot, which he published on the blog, Food N Service. He says he was inspired by a meme that jokingly asked why no such recipe existed. And since Murphy’s blog post circulated in February, it appears that more Americans have followed his zany experiment. A Google Trends snapshot indicates that interest in Instant Pot wine-making is on the rise in US, overtaking more generic searches for “home winemaking” in the last couple years. Oregon and Washington register on top of the list of states where the term “instant pot wine” is queried on Google—which makes some sense given that the Pacific Northwest is a region where traditional wine making also thrives. Prior to this year, Canadian Instant Pot oenophiles were also researching recipes. How does it taste? “Honestly, it was so much better than some of those cheap bottles of wine that I’ve bought. Dare I say, even better than the Two-Buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s,” Murphy reported, referring to the bargain-priced Charles Shaw wine sold at the US grocery chain.

 

8am – A         INTERVIEW – MATT SCHLAPP  – chairman of the American Conservative Union @mschlapp

• Senator-elect Romney rips President Trump in a new Washington Post op-ed
• Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 8m8 minutes ago: Here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast! Question will be, is he a Flake?  I hope not. Would much prefer that Mitt focus on Border Security and so many other things where he can be helpful. I won big, and he didn’t. He should be happy for all Republicans. Be a TEAM player & WIN!
• Border Wall Funding Fight & Government shutdown
• Elizabeth Warren 2020: Sen. Elizabeth Warren forms exploratory committee for 2020 presidential run. Warren to make first Iowa trip this weekend. (CNN)Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren will visit Iowa this weekend, making her first trip to the state that begins the Democratic presidential nominating process, days after taking a major step toward a 2020 run. Warren will hold events in Council Bluffs, Sioux City, Storm Lake and Des Moines, a source familiar with her plans said. The details of those events are not yet available.

8am – B/C     Kanye West pledges to perform in Maga hat, reaffirms presidential ambitions. The rapper started the new year with a string of pro-Trump and anti-Democrat tweets. Having distanced himself from politics in October, Kanye West welcomed the new year by reaffirming his support for Donald Trump in a series of tweets. “Trump all day,” West posted, followed by a tweet containing three dragon emojis, an apparent reference to his description of himself and the US president sharing “dragon energy”. A further tweet stated: “Just so in 2019 you know where I stand.” He affirmed, “From now on I’m performing with my mutherfucking hat on,” in reference to the Make America Great Again hat associated with Trump’s presidential campaign that he frequently wore in 2018.

8am – D         Elizabeth Warren drinks beer, gives 2020 thoughts in Instagram livestream. In a seemingly spontaneous livestream posted on Instagram that channeled similar social-media efforts by former Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke and incoming New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren cracked open a beer on-camera and took some questions from her followers on New Year’s Eve. Warren announced at a news conference outside her home hours earlier Monday that she was filing paperwork to launch an exploratory committee for president, becoming the first candidate to take the major step toward a 2020 run — and she reminded her audience that the day had been a break from her normal routine. “I’m here in my kitchen, uh, and um, I thought maybe we’d just take some questions and I’d see what I can do,” Warren, 69, began as she looked into a camera apparently set up on a countertop. She continued: “It’s been kind of an amazing day. So, today, I, um, got up early this morning, and, uh, talked to a bunch of folks on the phone, and then went outside and talked to the press — and this is our house, and has been for a long time, and there are all these reporters, and trucks, and everybody outside the house.”

8am – E         Jane Curtin’s New Year’s resolution is ‘to make sure that the Republican party dies.’ (Fox News) – Former Conehead Jane Curtin got political on CNN’s New Year’s Eve show, sharing with viewers that her resolution for 2019 was “to make sure that the Republican party dies.” The “Saturday Night Live” alum was among several stars to share their New Year’s resolutions in recorded messages on the night’s telecast. Pop singer Ashlee Simpson resolved “to focus on love…and positivity, ” HBO star Lena Dunham vowed to “kiss more gay men on the lips consensually,” and actress Patricia Arquette resolved “to stop caring about New Year’s resolutions.” But Curtin, 71, was the most political of the bunch. The actress was an original cast member of the famously left-leaning “SNL,” which has turned bashing the current Republican president into a cottage industry, with A-listers like Alec Baldwin, Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro popping in regularly to take swings at Trump and his administration.