Isaias Medina, Sidney Powell, MD Del. Nic Kipke, Rep. Louie Gohmert and ICE’s Derek Benner joined WMAL on Thursday!

Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C TRUMP AND TWITTER:

• Trump Fires Off 60 Mostly Anti-Biden Retweets in an Hour
• Poll: Voters say Trump’s Twitter use could cost him reelection

5am – D         Rep. Ilhan Omar says US ‘kind of helped lead the devastation’ in Venezuela. (Fox News) — Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, suggested Wednesday the United States could be partly to blame for the ongoing turmoil in Venezuela, saying the policies of the Trump administration had “kind of helped lead the devastation.” Appearing on Democracy Now, a news program broadcast on PBS, among other outlets, Omar was asked to weigh in on what the host described as a “US-supported coup attempt” against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. “A lot of the policies that we have put in place has kind of helped lead the devastation in Venezuela and we have sort of set the stage for where we are arriving today,” Omar said. “This particular bullying and the use of sanctions to eventually intervene and make regime change really does not help the people of countries like Venezuela and it certainly does not help and is not in the interest of the United States.” Omar added that there are “finally” lawmakers who have been elected to Congress who agree with her views.

5am – E         ‘Chevy or Ford’ argument reportedly sparks Virginia shooting. (Fox News) — A Virginia man was arrested last week after he allegedly shot two people because they seemingly disagreed on a topic: which is better, a Chevy or a Ford? Mark Turner, 56, was taken into custody on April 23 after the incident, which took place the night before. Turner, his girlfriend, his girlfriend’s son and the son’s girlfriend were eating dinner at a home in Bedford, a city roughly 28 miles east of Roanoke, when the group went out to the front yard. Soon, an argument broke out between Turner and his girlfriend’s son, WSET reported. The two couldn’t agree on whether Chevrolet or Ford vehicles were better. Turner allegedly whipped out a knife during his argument, a situation which Turner’s girlfriend tried to deescalate. According to the Bedford County Commonwealth’s Attorney Wes Nance, Turner’s girlfriend was stabbed with the knife in her lower back, sustaining a six-inch wound. The man then retrieved a gun from inside the home. When his girlfriend again put herself between Turner and her son, Turner allegedly shot her in the leg five times, and shot her son in the arm.

6am – A/B/C RECAP THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE BARR HEARING

6am – D         INTERVIEW – ISAIAS MEDINA – an international lawyer and former Venezuelan UN Diplomat — reacted to the situation in Venezuela.

Venezuela sees second day of unrest as Guaidó seeks power. (Fox News) — Protesters and military forces clashed for the second day in Venezuela on Wednesday as both the country’s disputed president, Nicolas Maduro, and opposition leader, Juan Guaido, vied for power. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Caracas as part of a rebellion that has so far been the most serious challenge to socialist Maduro’s rule in the once-prosperous nation. “If the regime thought we had reached maximum pressure, they cannot even imagine,” Guaidó told supporters, according to Reuters. “We have to remain in the streets.” Maduro took to the airwaves on Tuesday night to proclaim that the rebellion had been defeated, but that didn’t stop Guaidó, who in a video tweeted Tuesday night urged the military to join with those seeking change in Venezuela. So far, only one high-ranking officer and a small group of soldiers have broken publicly from Maduro. The leader of SEBIN, Venezuela’s secret police, reprimanded Maduro in a letter he wrote to the Venezuelan people on Tuesday. Manuel Ricardo Cristopher Figuera said it’s time to “rebuild the country.”

6am – E         INSUFFERABLE COMEY OP-ED:

• Comey Pens Op-Ed on ‘What Happened’ to Bill Barr: Trump ‘Eats Your Soul in Small Bites’
• CNN’s Gloria Borger on James Comey’s op-ed: “I don’t know why James Comey feels the need to weigh in at every moment.”

6am – F         1,000 ‘fake’ families found at border over past seven months. Homeland Security has spotted more than 1,000 fraudulent families at the southwest border over the past seven months, officials said Wednesday, putting parameters on the growing phenomenon of adults trying to use someone else’s children to sneak into the U.S. The department announced it will start a pilot program at the border next week to use DNA testing to try to match children with their parents, hoping to further weed out juveniles being used to try to game U.S. laws. “It’s definitely an escalating trend that we’re seeing,” one department official said in briefing reporters about the move.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – SIDNEY POWELL – a former federal prosecutor and veteran of 500 federal appeals, is the author of “LICENSED TO LIE: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.” She is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. Powell reacted to Barr’s hearing

• Leaked Mueller letter leads to Barr grilling in hyperpartisan hearing
• Comey Pens Op-Ed on ‘What Happened’ to Bill Barr: Trump ‘Eats Your Soul in Small Bites’

7am – B/C     MORE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BARR HEARING

7am – D         INTERVIEW –  MD Delegate NIC KIPKE  – House Republican Leader, Maryland General Assembly and Minority Leader in the MD House of Delegates

• Baltimore County Adrienne Jones officially sworn in as new Maryland House Speaker. ANNAPOLIS (WJZ) — Del. Adrienne Jones has been voted as the next Maryland Speaker of the House after caucus meetings on Wednesday.She is the first woman and African American to be elected to the position.
• EARLIER THIS WEEK: IT WAS A “GAME OF THRONES” FIGHT: “It’s ‘Game of Thrones,’ Annapolis style,” said Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), reflecting on the ugliness of the race to succeed longtime House Speaker Michael E. Busch, who died earlier this month. The drama over who should lead the lower chamber of the Maryland legislature is so full of tension and suspense that one delegate likened it to the popular fantasy epic playing on HBO. There have been threats, as the Democrats, who hold more than two-thirds of the seats in the House of Delegates, weigh whether to elect the first black speaker or the first woman, who would also be the first openly gay person to hold the powerful position. Outside groups, including unions, black pastors and social advocacy organizations, have vowed political retaliation for Democrats depending on whom they support. Ahead of a vote scheduled for Wednesday, questions of race, gender and ideology took center stage, with a third candidate, an African American woman, dropping out to throw her support behind Dereck E. Davis of Prince George’s County. Other powerful Democrats spoke openly and bitterly about whether the need to recognize the historic role of African Americans in the Democratic electorate outweighed the importance of uniting behind the party’s liberal agenda.

7am – E         BILLBOARD AWARDS:

• Taylor Swift gets stung by the Beyhive for ‘copying’ Beyonce’s Homecoming marching band at BBMAs. Fans Are Accusing Taylor Swift of Copying Beyoncé During Her Billboard Awards Performance. Taylor Swift just opened the 2019 Billboard Music Awards with her brand new single “ME!” And while fans couldn’t stop staring at all the pastels, Brendon Urie, and suited dancers flying through the sky with their umbrellas, others couldn’t help but notice that Swift’s high-energy performance looked eerily familiar to Beyoncé’s historic Coachella (a.k.a. “Beychella”) set from 2018. Similar to what audiences saw in Beyoncé’s groundbreaking Netflix documentary, Homecoming, Swift rocked the stage alongside a pink-adorned marching band, while wearing a fringed majorette costume. Of course, Beyoncé didn’t invent the drumline or marching band concept, as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been doing this for decades at football games and at annual showcase events like Battle of the Bands. But Beyoncé definitely brought the legacy of the marching band to mainstream audiences, as very few entertainers have performed a full music set with a band and drum majorettes. And Beyoncé’s loyal fanbase, the BeyHive, definitely took notice, posting their hilarious observations on Twitter immediately following Swift’s performance.
• Imagine Dragons beats out Queen at Billboard Music Awards – and Twitter explodes. Some fans are upset after Imagine Dragons bested the iconic rock band Queen to take home the coveted Top Rock Artist honor Wednesday evening at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas.
• Imagine dragons won a rock award over queen, one of the best rock bands of all time,” tweeted one social media user, while many others echoed the same frustration with the decision. “What kind of world gives best rock band to @Imaginedragons over Queen?” wrote another viewer.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – REP. LOUIE GOHMERT – R-TX, member of House Judiciary Committee – shared his thoughts on the AG Barr hearing and Barr skipping today’s House hearing.

• NO BARR THURSDAY HEARING: Barr to skip House hearing, could face subpoena, contempt charge. After Wednesday’s contentious day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the Mueller report, Attorney General William Barr informed the House Judiciary Committee that he would not testify Thursday as scheduled, prompting threats of subpoenas from Democrats and a possible contempt citation. Democrats have vowed to hold the hearing anyway, leaving open the possibility of the spectacle of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., gaveling a hearing with an empty chair reserved for Barr. A key sticking point was that Nadler wanted to have House Judiciary Committee staff — rather than members of Congress — question him on his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia But DOJ officials said members should conduct the inquiry, and it was unclear why Democrats did not propose having staffers provide questions to members during the hearing.
• Leaked Mueller letter leads to Barr grilling in hyperpartisan hearing. The rift between Barr and Congressional Democrats was the backdrop for a tense day of testimony Wednesday where the attorney general accused the lawmakers of using criminal justice process as “political weapon” ahead of the 2020 presidential election and declared the Justice Department’s role in the Russia probe controversy “over.” President Trump, in an interview on Fox Business’ “Trish Regan Primetime,” praised Barr’s testimony but said lawmakers treated him “differently” than anyone else.

8am – B/C     ‘C’mon Man!’ Joe Biden Scoffs at China Threat. IOWA CITY, IOWA – Former Vice President Joe Biden dismissed the threat from China during a 2020 campaign rally in Iowa City, Iowa on Wednesday. He said: China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. They can’t even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east, I mean in the west, They can’t figure out how they are going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not competition for us.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – ICE Acting Deputy Director DEREK BENNER

• 1,000 ‘fake’ families found at border over past seven months
• Homeland Security to use DNA tests to thwart ‘fake’ illegal immigrant families. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deployed special teams to the border to step up investigations. Over the past two weeks, they’ve produced information that’s led to 33 prosecutions, officials said. The DNA testing is the next step. The pilot program will ask adults whether they and the children they’re traveling with consent to being swabbed. Officials said the DNA swabs are immediately destroyed, but within a couple of hours agents will get back results showing whether the adult and child are related. Fake families are those in which the adult isn’t a parent. Authorities say that under the law, cases where an older sibling, aunt or uncle or grandparent are caught with the child all must be treated as fraudulent families and the children deemed unaccompanied and put into HHS shelters.
• Radio Ads In Central America Are Encouraging Illegal Immigration, Border Patrol Says. (Daily Caller) – Advertisements, paid for by human smugglers, encouraging Central Americans to migrate to the S. have become more prevalent in recent time, with many illegal aliens claiming they were prompted to make the trip specifically because of the promises made in those ads. “The whole word knows, they put it in the news. They tell us everywhere if you come to the United States, they’ll help you,” a Honduran woman told agents when she was apprehended near the Rio Grande Valley.

8am – E         Colorado Sen. Bennet enters presidential race after prostate cancer treatment. (NBC News) — The lawmaker is probably best known for a tirade against Ted Cruz on the Senate floor that went viral. Less than a month after he revealed he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet on Thursday announced he is running for president. “My plan is to run for president, and I appreciate your letting me come here to announce that,” Bennet, 54, said on CBS “This Morning.” Michael Bennet @MichaelBennet  We cannot be the first generation to leave less to our kids, not more.  That’s why I’m running for President. Let’s build opportunity for every American and restore integrity to our government. 8:21 AM – May 2, 2019 In March, Bennet had told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he was “very inclined” to throw his hat in the ring, and planned to focus on income inequality and healthcare.