Michael Brendan Dougherty, Mark Krikorian, Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Jim Jordan joined WMAL on Thursday!

Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, May 9, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C CONTEMPT VOTE:

• President Trump invoked blanket executive privilege yesterday over special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report in retribution for the move by House Democrats towards holding Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. A White House statement blamed “blatant abuse of power” by Democrats and said the President was advised by the attorney general to withhold subpoenaed materials.
• House Judiciary Cmte. votes 24-16 along party lines to hold AG Barr in contempt in relation to the Mueller report; resolution will go to a vote in the full House.
• The Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee says President Trump’s stonewalling created a “constitutional crisis” that set the stage for his panel’s 24-16 vote yesterday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress. The Justice Department accuses Jerry Nadler of holding a “politically motivated and unnecessary” vote, prompted by Barr’s refusal to answer a subpoena and produce an unredacted copy of the Mueller report.
• HEARING HIGHLIGHTS:
  • “If it weren’t for him being president, he’d be in prison with Michael Cohen today,” says Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen on President Trump. “We are in danger. We need to respond. And we need to act for the people of the United States of America.
  • Rep. Matt Gaetz:This hearing is not about the AG. This hearing is not about the Mueller Report. This is all about impeaching the President. Why won’t Dems just jump to impeachment like their liberal media overlords are telling them to?
  • House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler on executive privilege: “This decision represents a clear escalation in the Trump administration’s blanket defiance of Congress’ constitutionally mandated duties.”
  • “This is not a step we take lightly,” Rep. Jerry Nadler said as the House Judiciary Committee moves to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for refusing to make the Mueller report’s full contents available to Congress
  • Rep. Louie Gohmert blasts Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee who want Barr to release the full undereducated Mueller Report. “You cannot be in contempt for failing to produce what would be illegal to produce without a court order. You’re on the wrong side of history.”
  • Rep. Jackson Lee criticizes Pres. Trump’s use of executive privilege over release of full Mueller report: “I can only conclude that the president now seeks to take a wrecking ball to the Constitution of the United States of America.”
  • After Rep. Jim_= Jordan asks Rep Jerry Nadler: “My understanding is Mr. Mueller is going to be here next week. Why are we doing … why don’t you hold off on this contempt vote?”
  • Nadler: “Well, essentially, because it would be useful to have the materiel before he is in front of us.”
  • JORDAN lays out how they spied on Trump and Barr is getting to the bottom of it
  • Judiciary Cmte. member Rep. Cedric Richmond insists it’s ‘not a witch hunt’: “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. And if it looks like obstruction, sounds like obstruction, smells like obstruction, it’s obstruction.”
  • FLASHBACK in a TV interview, Rep. Cedric Richmond says ‘my sole focus is to make sure this president is not president next term’
  • Judiciary Cmte. member Rep. Ted Deutch: “Executive privilege is not a cloak of secrecy that drapes across our nation’s capital from the White House to the Justice Department … We’re just asking for the truth.”
  • Rep Eric Swalwell likening Russian clickbait & alleged email hacking to Pearl Harbor & 9/11.
  • After vote to hold the US attorney general in contempt, Chairman Nadler declares that “we’ve talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis — we are now in it.”
  • REACTION TO CONTEMPT VOTE: After vote to hold the US attorney general in contempt, Chairman Nadler declares that “we’ve talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis — we are now in it.”

5am – D         Hans von Spakovsky: NY Times publication of Trump tax information violates his legal right to confidentiality. (By Hans A. von Spakovsky | Fox News) —

The New York Times no doubt considers it quite a coup to have obtained and published President Trump’s tax return information from 1985 to 1994. But doing so violated Trump’s right under federal law to the confidentiality of his tax returns. The Times – which reported that Trump’s businesses lost $1.17 billion during the 10-year period – has no more right to Trump’s tax returns than it has to mine or those of any of you reading these words. Confidentiality, as the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held in 1991 in U.S. v. Richey, is essential to “maintaining a workable tax system.” Taxpayer privacy is “fundamental to a tax system that relies on self-reporting” since it protects “sensitive or otherwise personal information,” said then-Judge (now Supreme Court Justice) Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1986 in another case when she served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Federal law – 26 U.S.C. §7213(a)(1) – makes it a felony for any federal employee to disclose tax returns or “return information.” Infractions are punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine as high as $250,000 under the Alternative Fines Act (18 U.S.C. §3571). Regardless of the accuracy or inaccuracy of The New York Times story, tax returns themselves, as well as tax return information such as these IRS transcripts (which are a summary of the tax returns), are protected from disclosure by federal law. And this provision applies to private individuals as well as government employees, a fact that should be considered by the New York Times’ source. According to the newspaper, it did not actually obtain Trump’s tax returns but “printouts from his official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form, the 1040, from someone who had legal access to them.”

5am – E         Biden’s resurfaced 2007 comments on Iowa, race, education spark backlash. (Fox News) — Former Vice President Joe Biden, the leading Democrat in the 2020 White House race, is facing new pushback this week after a series of quotes from 2007 resurfaced online in which he said Iowa had better schools than Washington, D.C., while mentioning their differences in demographics. “There’s less than one percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than four of five percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with,” Biden told the Washington Post at the time. “When you have children coming from dysfunctional homes, when you have children coming from homes where there’s no books, where the mother from the time they’re born doesn’t talk to them — as opposed to the mother in Iowa who’s sitting out there and talks to them, the kid starts out with a 300 word larger vocabulary at age three. Half this education gap  exists before the kid steps foot in the classroom.” Biden’s campaign didn’t respond to Fox News’ request for comment. The campaign said in 2007: “This was not a race-based distinction, but a discussion of the problems kids face who don’t have the same socio-economic support system (and all that implies–nutrition, pre K, etc.) entering grade school and the impact of those disadvantages on outcomes.”

6am – A/B/C Buckingham Palace says Meghan and Harry’s baby is named Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. LONDON (AP) — Tired but beaming, new parents Meghan and Prince Harry presented their 2-day-old son to the world as he slumbered Wednesday and also revealed his name: Archie. The royal couple, known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex since their marriage not quite a year ago, said the full name of the child born seventh in line to the British throne is Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. The baby slept peacefully through his carefully orchestrated media moment. His mother, making her first public appearance since giving birth early Monday, called Archie “a dream” who “has the sweetest temperament.” “He’s really calm,” Meghan said. Harry quipped: “I wonder who he gets that from.” Harry and Meghan did not choose an aristocratic title for their son. He is not a prince but could have been given the title “Lord” before his first name. Instead he will be known for now as “Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.” The surname, used by some members of the royal family, was created to recognize the lineage of both Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip. Unlike many senior royals, Archie only has one middle name. Prince Harry’s full name is Henry Charles Albert David. The couple did not disclose why they chose his first and middle names — though the meaning of Harrison, “son of Harry,” is probably a clue. Many in Britain had expected a more traditional royal name, with bookmakers taking many bets on Alexander, Arthur and James. Archie, a name of Germanic origin with meanings that include “genuine”, “bold” and “brave,” is an increasingly popular baby name in Britain.

6am – B/C     BRIAN SIMS UPDATE:

• Thousands Call for Rep. Brian Sims to Resign Over Abortion Protest Videos, Pro-life Rally Launched in Philadelphia
• Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic Where Brian Sims Harassed Pro-Lifers Failed 13 of Its 23 Inspections. (Life News) — You may have seen the video going around of State Rep. Brian Sims (D-Philadelphia) harassing and mocking a woman praying outside of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Philadelphia. This is shameful behavior, especially by a current lawmaker. But did you know this is the largest abortion clinic for Planned Parenthood in Pennsylvania? And they have a shameful health and safety record with the state, with no repercussions. The Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center at Locust Street (Philadelphia), has failed 13 of their last 23 patient safety inspections. Below is a summary of the failings in each of the thirteen failed inspections, which include failing to report child sex abuse, improper storage of aborted babies, failure to report a serious incident to a patient and no background checks on employees.
• Pro-Lifers Will Rally at Planned Parenthood Where Brian Sims Harassed Women: “Come With Your Camera” (LifeNews) — Several leading pro-life groups and activists are planning a rally on Friday at the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Philadelphia where state representative Brian Sims filmed himself twice harassing and bullying pro-life women. The rally is planned for Friday morning and hundreds of pro-life people are expected to attend. The goal of the rally is to send the message to Representative Sims that he can’t stop pro-life people from helping women find abortion alternatives outside that Planned Parenthood clinic. Rally organizers have invited Sims to attend and even to bring his camera and have a conversation with her life leaders and activists about his intimidation.

6am – D/E/F  INTERVIEW — MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHTERTY – author of “My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son’s Search for Home” and senior writer at National Review — IN STUDIO

• ABOUT THE BOOK: National Review senior writer Michael Brendan Dougherty delivers a meditation on belonging, fatherhood, and nationalism, through a series of letters to his estranged Irish father. The child of an Irish man and an Irish-American woman who split up before he was born, Michael Brendan Dougherty grew up with an acute sense of absence. He was raised in New Jersey by his hard-working single mother, who gave him a passion for Ireland, the land of her roots and the home of Michael’s father. She put him to bed using little phrases in the Irish language, sang traditional songs, and filled their home with a romantic vision of a homeland over the horizon. Every few years, his father returned from Dublin for a visit, but those encounters were never long enough. Devastated by his father’s departures, Michael eventually consoled himself by believing that fatherhood was best understood as a check in the mail. Wearied by the Irish kitsch of the 1990s, he began to reject his mother’s Irish nationalism as a romantic myth. Years later, when Michael found out that he would soon be a father himself, he could no longer afford to be jaded; he would need to tell his daughter who she is and where she comes from. He immediately re-immersed himself in the biographies of firebrands like Patrick Pearse and studied the Irish language. And he decided to reconnect with the man who had left him behind, and the nation just over the horizon. He began writing letters to his father about what he remembered, missed, and longed for. Those letters would become this book.

7am – A/B/C INTERVIEW — MARK KRIKORIAN – Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS)

• WH Immigration Plan Will Focus On Border Security And Merit-Based Immigration
• CIS: How Many Would Really Come if the Borders Were Open? Analysis of a recent Gallup poll: https://cis.org/Sussis/How-Many-Would-Really-Come-if-Borders-Were-Open

7am – B/C     More on the House Judiciary Contempt Vote           

7am – D/E     INTERVIEW — SEN. RICK SANTORUM – former United States Senator from Pennsylvania and chairman of Patriot Voices and Senior Political Commentator for CNN – discussed the Left growing more radical on abortion.

• CNN Panel on Abortion Goes Completely Off the Rails: ‘That is a Lie!’  Christine Quinn on CNN: “When a woman is pregnant, that is not a human being inside of her.”
• Henry Rodgers @henryrodgersdc 14h14 hours ago Rep. Andy Barr just asked for unanimous consent for the House to consider the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Democrats refused protections for babies born alive after surviving an abortion the 38th time.
• Ocasio-Cortez blasts ‘heartbeat’ abortion bill, calls it a ‘backdoor ban’: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC: “6 weeks pregnant” = 2 weeks late on your period. Most of the men writing these bills don’t know the first thing about a woman’s body outside of the things they want from it. It’s relatively common for a woman to have a late period + not be pregnant. So this is a backdoor ban.
• Thousands Call for Rep. Brian Sims to Resign Over Abortion Protest Videos, Pro-life Rally Launched in Philadelphia

8am – A         INTERVIEW – REP. JIM JORDAN – (R-Ohio), member of the House Judiciary Committee and founding member of the Freedom Caucus – shared his thoughts on the House Judiciary contempt vote.

8am – B/C     TRUMP WEDNESDAY NIGHT RALLY:

• Trump holds ‘MAGA’ rally in Florida amid tussle with Democrats over release of full Mueller report
• President Donald Trump promised a swift infusion of federal aid to the Florida Panhandle seven months after devastating Hurricane Michael as he rallied supporters yesterday for his re-election. Federal emergency funds to the area hit by the Category 5 hurricane and elsewhere have been caught up in a Washington standoff over Trump’s opposition to more hurricane aid for Puerto Rico.
• Trump weighs in on how his Democratic rivals with fare in international negotiations. He singles out Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg.
• Trump: BOOT-EDGE-EDGE!
• Trump: “I want to be in the room” when President Buttigieg is taking on China’s Xi
• Trump mocks Beto poll plunge: ‘What the hell happened to Beto?’
• Trump mimics Hillary Clinton over her 2016 loss: ‘Ahhh, I think they stole the election’

8am – D         COMEY AND SESSIONS ON SPYING:

• Former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday took aim at Attorney General William Barr over comments about “spying” that Barr believes targeted President Trump’s campaign in 2016. In an appearance on “CBS This Morning,” the former FBI chief admonished Barr for his use of the word “spy” and said that is not what the FBI does.
• Comey unleashes on AG Barr: “The FBI doesn’t spy”