Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

Newt Gingrich, Tom Fitton, Wilfred Reilly and John Solomon joined WMAL on Tuesday morning!

5am – A/B/C AG Barr asked Trump to speak to other countries in probe of Russia investigation, official says; source pushes back on New York Times reporting. (Fox News) – Separately, a Justice Department official told Fox News on Monday that Attorney General William Barr asked President Trump to make introductions to foreign countries that might have had information pertinent to U.S. Attorney John Durham’s ongoing probe into the origins of the Russia collusion investigation and possible misconduct by the intelligence community. But, a person familiar with the situation told Fox News it would be wrong to say Trump “pressed” the Australian prime minister for information that could have discredited former Special Counsel Mueller’s now-completed probe, as the New York Times reported earlier Monday. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., slammed the Times report on “Hannity,” calling it an “effort” to shut down Barr’s investigation.

5am – D         IMPEACHMENT / UKRAINE / SUBPOENAS:

• McConnell says if House impeaches Trump, Senate rules would force him to start a trial. On Monday, McConnell said he was bound by existing Senate rules governing the impeachment and conviction process, amid speculation that he could simply ignore the specter of putting Trump on trial. Senior Republican aides had worked to try to tamp down that notion over the weekend. […] “I would have no choice but to take it up,” McConnell said during a CNBC interview. “How long you’re on it is a whole different matter, but I would have no choice but to take it up, based on a Senate rule on impeachment.” The Kentucky Republican — who hasn’t hesitated in the past to revise Senate rules to benefit Republicans, specifically the president’s judicial nominees — stressed he would not change them to aid Trump. That move would require the support of 67 senators, almost certainly an insurmountable threshold. “The Senate impeachment rules are very clear,” McConnell said. “The Senate would have to take up an impeachment resolution if it came over from the House.”
• RUDY SUBPOENAED: Rudolph Giuliani, President Trump’s private lawyer, was subpoenaed by House Democrats to furnish records for their impeachment inquiry. The chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees have subpoenaed President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, as part of their investigation into President Trump’s efforts to get the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. The subpoena requires Giuliani to produce communications — including text messages and phone records — regarding Biden’s son, Hunter. The chairmen also asked that Giuliani hand over communications regarding U.S. foreign assistance to Ukraine and any efforts to withhold or delay it.
• Giuliani blasts Biden camp for trying to ‘silence’ him; Pompeo listened in on Trump-Ukraine call: report. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was among the administration officials who listened in on the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president, a senior State Department official told the Wall Street Journal. The report would appear to support Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani’s claims on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that Pompeo was aware of his efforts to encourage Ukraine’s government to investigate the Bidens. Over the weekend, the Democratic chairmen of three House committees subpoenaed Pompeo for documents related to Ukraine they said were critical to their probe.
• House Democrats on Monday subpoenaed Giuliani’s text messages, phone records, and other documents and communications as part of their formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump. In an interview on “Hannity,” Giuliani blasted the Biden camp for apparently trying to “silence” him by encouraging media outlets not to book him as a guest. The former New York City mayor said the Democrats are going to turn into the “party of corruption.” Meanwhile, top Republicans are wondering whether Trump is a victim of a “political setup” by Democrats in the Ukraine call controversy, thanks to comments made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday.

5am – E         San Francisco removes boulders meant to deter homeless campers because they were ‘not big enough’ (Fox News) – The city of San Francisco on Monday removed about two dozen small boulders from a residential side street after a group of neighbors had them installed last week in an effort to deter homeless people from camping out on the sidewalk amid the city’s ongoing crisis. San Francisco’s Public Works removed the rocks set up along Clinton Park in the city’s Mission Dolores neighborhood. Residents last week said they pooled their funds to keep drug users from having a space to shoot up as they camp out overnight. The department’s director, Mohammed Nuru, told the San Francisco Examiner that the boulders installed by the residents “were not big enough” and began posing a safety concern as they were being pushed into the street. He said the city would work with residents to come up with a more permanent solution that “could involve larger boulders or a landscape plan.” “They would have saved a lot of money and a lot of trouble if they just said something to us,” Daniel Bartosiewicz, a homeless man who said he’s camped in Clinton Park for the past two months, told the Bay Area’s KNTV. “Use your compassion and love and understanding. We’re humans.” The San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness reacted to the city’s decision to remove the Clinton Park boulders, writing: “They should remove all the anti-homeless design and hostile architecture from the rest of the city while they’re at it — most of which are *City-sanctioned.*”

6am – A/B/C Black Virginia 6th grader who claimed white classmates cut off dreadlocks made story up, family says. (Fox News) – A Virginia sixth grader who claimed three of her white male classmates held her down and cut off her dreadlocks is now saying she made up the entire story. Amari Allen, an African-American 12-year-old who attends Immanuel Christian School in Springfield — a private school where second lady Karen Pence teaches art — reported the alleged incident last week. She told several media outlets that three boys at school pinned her down and cut off her hair, and local police opened an investigation. “They said my hair was nappy and I was ugly,” she told WRC-TV. “They put their hands over my mouth. They put my hands behind my back. And they started cutting my hair and saying it was ugly.” The girl’s grandmother said she was doing Amari’s hair one day when she realized portions of her dreadlocks were missing, which is when the girl told the story. “It was like she just died. That’s how painful it was for me,” the girl’s grandmother, said after the girl made the allegations.

6am – D         Casey Anthony is considering having another child: report. (NY Post) – Casey Anthony, the Florida woman who was acquitted of murdering her toddler daughter, is worried her biological clock is ticking and wants more children, a report said. “She knows she’s getting older,” a source described as being “very close” to the 33-year-old told People. “She’s not the young girl who everyone saw on trial. She’s in her 30s, wondering what to do next, and hoping that she can find some meaning in her life.” At her 2011 murder trial, prosecutors said that the single mom, then 25, had killed her daughter Caylee in June 2008 by covering her mouth with duct tape and dumping the body in a wooded area. They contended that the child had kept Anthony from a life of dating and partying. The skeletal remains of Caylee were found a quarter of a mile from the family home, six months after she disappeared. A physician called to give evidence at the trial was unable to provide an exact cause of death, and prosecutors were ultimately unable to link Anthony to the murder. If she had been found guilty, Anthony could have received the death penalty, but after 33 days of testimony from more than 100 people and hundreds of pieces of evidence, the jury took 10 hours to pronounce her not guilty of the most serious charges. Although she was cleared of murder and other charges in the disappearance and death of her 2-year-old daughter, Anthony was sentenced to four years in prison for lying to police who probed the tot’s death. Anthony, who lives in West Palm Beach, began dating a man last year, but the relationship ended, the source told People. “Marriage, family, the white picket fence,” said the source. “In some ways, that’s very appealing to Casey. She’d want things to be less dysfunctional than the family she had growing up, but she likes the idea of stability.”

6am – E/F      Hillary Clinton blasts Pompeo, Giuliani over Ukraine fallout on ‘The Late Show.’  Hillary Clinton blasted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, Monday night during an appearance on “The Late Show” over their reported involvement in Trump’s controversial call with the leader of Ukraine.   While promoting her new book alongside her daughter Chelsea Clinton, the former secretary of state was asked what she thought about the recent Wall Street Journal report that claimed Pompeo was listening in on the call that prompted a whistleblower complaint and a subsequent formal impeachment inquiry. “How many times when you were secretary of state did you have to say to Obama, ‘You can’t extort foreign countries to get dirt on your political enemies?’” host Stephen Colbert asked Clinton, who responded with a loud chuckle.   

7am – A         INTERVIEW – NEWT GINGRICH – former Speaker of the House and host of the “Newt’s World” podcast and you can check out his website GINGRICH360.com.  Gingrich discussed the latest impeachment efforts.

• PELOSI FLOOR VOTE BY DECEMBER? Articles of impeachment by Thanksgiving? Pelosi wants to move ‘expeditiously.’ (ABC News) – Pelosi and top Democrats hope to keep their impeachment inquiry narrowly focused on the Ukraine matter. Some want to prepare articles of impeachment by Thanksgiving and send them to the full House of Representatives by December, allowing the House to hold a floor vote on an impeachment before the new year.
• IMPEACHMENT PROBE RAPIDLY WIDENS: Over the weekend, Schiff, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-MD., subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for documents related to Ukraine they said were critical to their probe. “Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena shall constitute evidence of obstruction on the House’s impeachment inquiry,” they wrote.
• McConnell says if House impeaches Trump, Senate rules would force him to start a trial. On Monday, McConnell said he was bound by existing Senate rules governing the impeachment and conviction process, amid speculation that he could simply ignore the specter of putting Trump on trial. Senior Republican aides had worked to try to tamp down that notion over the weekend. […] “I would have no choice but to take it up,” McConnell said during a CNBC interview. “How long you’re on it is a whole different matter, but I would have no choice but to take it up, based on a Senate rule on impeachment.” The Kentucky Republican — who hasn’t hesitated in the past to revise Senate rules to benefit Republicans, specifically the president’s judicial nominees — stressed he would not change them to aid Trump. That move would require the support of 67 senators, almost certainly an insurmountable threshold. “The Senate impeachment rules are very clear,” McConnell said. “The Senate would have to take up an impeachment resolution if it came over from the House.”
• RUDY SUBPOENAED: Rudolph Giuliani, President Trump’s private lawyer, was subpoenaed by House Democrats to furnish records for their impeachment inquiry. *The chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees have subpoenaed President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, as part of their investigation into President Trump’s efforts to get the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. The subpoena requires Giuliani to produce communications — including text messages and phone records — regarding Biden’s son, Hunter. The chairmen also asked that Giuliani hand over communications regarding U.S. foreign assistance to Ukraine and any efforts to withhold or delay it.
• NY TIMES: Trump Pressed Australian Leader to Help Barr Investigate Mueller Inquiry’s Origins. WASHINGTON — President Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.

7am – B         NEW MARYLAND LAWS STARTING OCTOBER 1ST (TODAY):

• New Maryland laws: GENDER-NEUTRAL DRIVERS’ LICENSE: Marylanders will now have the option to choose “X” for their gender on driver’s licenses and state identification cards, in addition to the choices of “M” for male and “F” for female. The change is meant to be inclusive of residents who are transgender or nonbinary, meaning they don’t identify strictly as male or female.
• SMOKING AGE CHANGE IN MD – CHANGED TO 21: The new minimum age to buy all tobacco products in Maryland is 21 years old. Tobacco products include electronic smoking devices, e-cigarettes, vapes, pod devices, filters, e-liquids and accessories and components regardless of nicotine content. Tobacco also includes cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, snuff, snus, rolling papers and pipes. Active military personnel can still buy tobacco products at 18 years old with a valid military ID.

7am – C         ANGRY BAGEL GUY FIGHT PROMOTER ANGERED BY NO-SHOW …You Cost Us $100k!!! (TMZ) – The angry little bagel guy may have made a big mistake by pulling out of his “celebrity” fight at the last minute … because the promoter’s lawyered up and wants to hit him where it hurts, legally speaking. Chris Morgan surprised everyone involved with his scheduled boxing event Saturday night in Atlantic City by announcing on Twitter hours before that he’d fooled them all … and had no intention of showing up to get beat up. We’re told promoted Damon Feldman is PISSED about the ruse, and has retained an attorney to explore legal options to take against Bagel Guy. Our sources say Morgan didn’t give anyone a heads up on backing out, so Feldman and other promoters found out he wasn’t coming when everyone else did … which forced them to scramble to find a replacement. We’re told Bagel Guy’s decision to bail cost promoters up to $100k in revenue, and he also took $3k in advance for press appearances … so everyone wants him to pay up. As we reported … Morgan was originally booked to fight Lenny Dykstra for his celeb boxing match, but after Dykstra pulled out, “Saved by the Bell” star Dustin Diamond stepped in. Bam Margera was named as the celebrity ref, but then he had to pull out to deal with personal issues, so Dwight Gooden replaced him. As a fitting conclusion to the fiasco, filmmaker Matt Wolf stepped in to replace Bagel Guy at the last minute … but suffered a one-punch “knockout” at the hands of Screech.

7am – D/E     INTERVIEW – TOM FITTON – President of Judicial Watch – shared his thoughts on the Ukraine probe, Biden ties and impeachment efforts.

• Judicial Watch Sues for Documents on Biden Forcing Firing of Ukraine Prosecutor. WASHINGTON—Judicial Watch announced Sept. 26 that it has filed suit in federal court seeking to force the State Department to release all official U.S. government documents related to the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor, as demanded by former Vice President Joe Biden. The nonprofit government watchdog’s suit was in response to the government’s failure to respond to a May 7 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for: Any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to Viktor Shokin’s investigation of Mykola Zolchevsky, and Shokin’s resignation at Ukraine’s Prosecutor General.

8am – A/B/C INTERVIEW – PROFESSOR WILFRED REILLY – author of book  “Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War” – discussed the story of the black Virginia 6th grader who claimed white classmates cut off dreadlocks and now the family says she made the story up.

• Amari Allen, an African-American 12-year-old who attends Immanuel Christian School in Springfield — a private school where second lady Karen Pence teaches art — reported the alleged incident last week. She told several media outlets that three boys at school pinned her down and cut off her hair, and local police opened an investigation. “They said my hair was nappy and I was ugly,” she told WRC-TV. “They put their hands over my mouth. They put my hands behind my back. And they started cutting my hair and saying it was ugly.” The girl’s grandmother said she was doing Amari’s hair one day when she realized portions of her dreadlocks were missing, which is when the girl told the story.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – JOHN SOLOMON – investigative journalist and executive vice president at The Hill – discussed being listed in the whistle-blower complaint and his thoughts on the Ukraine probe.

8am – E         LA TIMES: California will allow college athletes to profit from endorsements under bill signed by Newsom. (LA Times) – SACRAMENTO —  California became the first state to require major financial reforms in college athletics on Monday after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a measure that allows players to receive endorsement deals, despite the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. calling the move unconstitutional. Other states have proposed similar measures to pressure the NCAA, but so far only California is on a collision course with the governing body of college athletics, a billion-dollar organization that has repeatedly opposed efforts to allow players to profit off their sports. Senate Bill 206 by Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) prohibits the NCAA from barring a university from competition if its athletes are compensated for the use of their name, image or likeness beginning Jan. 1, 2023. The University of California system, California State University schools, Stanford and USC all opposed the bill, saying they feared it would increase costs to ensure compliance with the law and lead to fines or even expulsion from the NCAA. Newsom said university presidents and athletic boosters contacted him and urged him to veto the bill but that he felt strongly the state needed to address the racial, gender and economic injustices ingrained in college athletics. “I have deep reverence, deep respect for the NCAA and college athletics,” Newsom said Monday. “I just think the system has been perverted, and this is fundamentally about rebalancing things. It’s about equity, it’s about fairness, and it’s about time.” The NCAA responded less tersely than it had previously, expressing concerns about states creating their own rules for college athletes.