Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Hosts: Vince Coglianese and Mary Walter

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Joe Concha, Charles Payne and Rep. Denver Riggleman joined WMAL on Tuesday!

5am – A/B/C LESSONS FROM QUARANTINE: Coronavirus reveals financial irresponsibility of Americans. (The Hill) – How long could you sustain your household if you were to stop earning income? If you are like most Americans, the answer is not for long. Only 40 percent of Americans can afford an unexpected $1,000 expense with their savings. In fact, nearly 80 percent of workers are living paycheck to paycheck. It is no surprise that the probability of an economic recession brought on by the coronavirus pandemic caused many to worry.In major cities such as Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, restaurants and businesses have been ordered to close. For many hourly workers, this means no paychecks in the coming weeks. Almost one in five Americans have already lost their jobs or have reduced hours. At the same time, salaried workers are concerned about job security, as mass layoffs at numerous companies loom. While the situation is understandably stressful for every person affected, it serves as a sobering reminder that Americans must learn to live within their means and regularly save money. The need for all Americans to be able to sustain themselves for at least a few months on savings is accentuated during a time of crisis. This means planning ahead when times are good. Financial planners suggest saving at least 20 percent of take home income, while spending at most 30 percent on discretionary items. Yet too many workers still fail to think twice about spending entire paychecks for things they want but do not need.

5am – D/E     LATEST ON SENATE NEGOTIATIONS:

• Expect a coronavirus stimulus agreement in Senate, Schumer says. (Washington Examiner) – Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters early Tuesday that he expects Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to come together and reach an agreement on the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package that set off a fierce debate on the Senate floor and allegations from both sides that the other was politicizing the emergency. Despite the logjam, Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters that there was progress made in late-night negotiations. Schumer said he expects a vote sometime on Tuesday. One of the key issues in the package is the $500 billion “Exchange Stabilization Fund.”  Democrats call it a “slush fund,” and claim Mnuchin would have far too much influence over which industries would have access to the fund. Mnuchin denied the claim on Fox Business, saying, “It’s not a slush fund; it’s a mechanism that we can use working with the Federal Reserve that will provide another $4 trillion of potential liquidity into the market. That’s on top of the Fed’s balance sheet.”
• Pelosi’s Coronavirus Bill Pushes Provisions Unrelated To The Crisis. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on Monday introduced a massive coronavirus bill with a number of provisions completely unrelated to the crisis. Pelosi’s coronavirus bill is 1,119 pages and contains provisions including, “conducting risk-limiting audits of results of elections,” bailing out the postal service, requiring early voting, same-day voter registration, requiring the airlines to fully offset their carbon emissions, gives you chance to look up greenhouse gas emissions from the flights you want to take, and much more that have nothing to do with helping solve the crisis at hand.

6am – A/B/C President Trump Wants America Back In Weeks, Not Months.  

• MONMOUTH POLL: NATIONAL POLL: Government measures to stop #COVID19 spread FEDERAL: 47% – Appropriate 45% – Not far enough 6% – Too far STATE: 62% – Appropriate 25% – Not far enough 9% – Too far
• Texas lieutenant governor says grandparents are willing to risk dying from coronavirus to save economy

6am – D         INTERVIEW – DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, M.D. –  highly respected infectious disease expert, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force addressing the coronavirus pandemic

• Dr. Anthony Fauci slams media for attempting to create a ‘rift’ between him and Trump: ‘I wish that would stop.’ (Fox News) – Dr. Anthony Fauci slammed the media’s ongoing attempt to “pit” him against President Trump, expressing his desire for that to stop. Appearing on the radio show “Mornings on the Mall” on Tuesday, Dr. Fauci was asked about the growing number of stories that depict an apparent tension between him and President Trump. “I wanted to ask you about something that I’ve seen transpiring over the past couple of days, especially as it relates to you. It seems like increasingly a bunch of the questions from the media are designed to create a rift between you and the president of the United States. Or at least to sort of emphasize differences of opinion in a way that creates distance between you and the president. Are you sensing that as the media continuously asks you questions about the differences you have with him?” co-host Vince Coglianese asked. “That is really unfortunate,” Dr. Fauci responded. “I would wish that would stop because we have a much bigger problem here than trying to point out differences. They’re really fundamentally at the core when you look at things, they are not differences.” He continued, “The president has listened to what I’ve said and to the other people who are on the task force have said. When I’ve made recommendations, he has taken them. He has never countered, overwritten me. The idea of just pitting one against the other is not helpful. I wish that would stop and that we’d look ahead at the challenge we have to get over this thing.”

6am – E         Discussed Dr. Fauci’s interview and the latest news about the White House taskforce briefings:

• White House blasts CNN, MSNBC for cutting away from daily COVID-19 briefing
• Dr. Birx says she had a “low-grade fever” Saturday, got a test, and stayed home Sunday to be careful. Pres. Trump jokingly moves away from her when she mentions her fever.
• Member of White House press corps suspected to have contracted COVID-19. A journalist in the White House press corps is suspected to have contracted COVID-19, White House Correspondents Association president Jon Karl announced Monday. […] Details: The reporter was at the White House on March 9, 11, 16 and 18. The White House recently began implementing social distancing measures during daily briefings on the coronavirus outbreak, requiring reporters to sit a seat apart from one another.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – JOE CONCHA – Media Reporter, The Hill 

• White House blasts CNN, MSNBC for cutting away from daily COVID-19 briefing. The White House called out two left-leaning media outlets for cutting away from the Trump administration’s daily Coronavirus Task Force briefing on Monday, calling the actions of CNN and MSNBC “disgraceful.” White House spokesman Judd Deere tweeted, “Pretty disgraceful that @CNN and @MSNBC have both cut away from this @WhiteHouse briefing with @realDonaldTrump and @Mike_Pence during a global pandemic. Thank you to @FoxNews for keeping Americans informed. #COVID19.”
• Networks should stop airing Trump’s task force briefings, says Rachel Maddow, claiming that lives will be lost otherwise. “Honestly, it’s going to cost lives.”  
• Washington Post’s media report Margaret Sullivan: “The media must stop live-broadcasting Trump’s dangerous, destructive coronavirus briefings.”
• Fox News to host virtual town hall with Trump, task force on Tuesday. Fox News Channel is hosting a two-hour virtual town hall with President Trump and members of the White House coronavirus task force on Tuesday, March 24, at 12 p.m. ET. The president and his team will be answering text and video questions you submit to Fox News’ Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, as well as email submissions for the special live event at [email protected]. Anchors Harris Faulkner and Bill Hemmer will co-moderate the event, and will be joined by Dr. Mehmet Oz and Fox News contributors Dr. Nicole Saphier and Dr. Marc Siegel.
• Monmouth poll gives media lower job approval than Trump amid coronavirus crisis. A Monday poll from Monmouth University shows that Americans are giving the media a lower performance approval than President Trump amid the global coronavirus crisis. According to the poll, 50 percent of Americans said President Trump has done a “good job” with his handling of the coronavirus outbreak while 45 percent said he has done a “bad job.” However, there’s a much more narrow split among those polled on the media’s job performance. According to the poll, just 45 percent of Americans said the media did a good job reporting on the outbreak while 43 percent said the opposite. Roughly 10 percent of those polled responded with “mixed, depends.” Congress earned even lower job approval numbers with 42 percent saying it has done a “good job” while 37 percent say it’s been doing a “bad job.”
• Member of White House press corps suspected to have contracted COVID-19. A journalist in the White House press corps is suspected to have contracted COVID-19, White House Correspondents Association president Jon Karl announced Monday. […] Details: The reporter was at the White House on March 9, 11, 16 and 18. The White House recently began implementing social distancing measures during daily briefings on the coronavirus outbreak, requiring reporters to sit a seat apart from one another.

7am – B/C     BIDEN COMES OUT OF HIDIN’:

• Former Vice President Joe Biden broke his silence Monday morning to rip President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for their response to the coronavirus pandemic.The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee accused Trump and McConnell of pushing measures that favor big corporations over working Americans a day after Senate Democrats tanked a $1.6 trillion emergency relief package.
• Former Vice President Joe Biden made a series of gaffes Monday during a coronavirus-focused speech he gave at his home in Delaware.
• Joe Biden’s flub when the teleprompter stops working is a train wreck: “We have to make sure that we are in a position that we are, well let me go to the second thing. I’ve spoke enough on that,” Biden said.
• Joe Biden confuses MA Gov. Charlie Baker’s name: “Governor Charlie Parker in Massachusetts”

7am – D         INTERVIEW – CHARLES PAYNE – host of “Making Money with Charles Payne” on Fox Business

• Stock futures gain ground as Congress moves closer to a stimulus deal. U.S. equity futures are pointing to a higher open when Wall Street begins trading on Tuesday as congressional and White House officials emerged from grueling negotiations at the Capitol over the $2 trillion coronavirus rescue package saying they expected to reach a deal Tuesday. This comes after the Federal Reserve promised support to the struggling economy. The major futures indexes are indicating a gain of more than 3 percent or around 600 Dow points. The Fed promised to buy as many Treasurys and other assets as needed to keep financial markets functioning.
• Trump predicts ‘this is going to be bad’ but vows to reopen America. “Our country was not built to be shut down,” the President warned on Monday. “We are going to be opening up our country for business because our country was meant to be open.” “We are going to get it all going again very soon,” he said, without setting a timeline — though he previously called for rethinking the White House’s guidance on social distancing next week.
• Trump said he will not allow the coronavirus to do long-lasting damage to the U.S. economy and that he would consider how to move forward after a 15-day shutdown ends next week – even as the disease spreads rapidly and hospitals brace for a wave of deaths
• Fed commits to unlimited bond purchases in bid to counter pandemic fallout. The Federal Reserve announced Monday morning that it was committing to buying an unlimited amount of bonds to counter the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. It also said that it had established a range of new programs to ensure the provision of credit in markets that have frozen up as sectors of the economy have been shut down. Together, Monday’s actions rival or go beyond the Fed’s emergency measures taken during the 2008 financial crisis. The announcement was also the third such surprise move by the central bank in the past month, as it had already lowered its target interest rate to zero. “The Federal Reserve is committed to use its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy in this challenging time,” Fed officials said in a previously unscheduled monetary policy announcement. The decision was unanimous among the central bank’s monetary policy committee members. 

7am – E         LATEST ON SENATE:  Top congressional and White House officials negotiating a nearly $2 trillion coronavirus rescue package say they expect to reach a deal sometime today. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer say they spoke by phone with President Trump as they met late into the night at the Capitol. While the two sides have resolved many issues in the package, some disagreements remain.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – REP. DENVER RIGGLEMAN (R-Virginia), owner of Silverback Distillery

• Riggleman is currently serving in the United States House of Representatives for Virginia’s 5th congressional district. The 5th District contains counties located in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge Region stretching vertically across the state from the Virginia-North Carolina Border going 250 miles up to Fauquier County in Northern Virginia, West of Washington DC.
• Virginia congressman is using his family’s distillery to make hand sanitizer. Rep. Denver Riggleman, owner of the Silverback Distillery, has turned his whiskey-making operation into a hand sanitizer factory.

8am – B/C     GUNS / ESSENTIAL BIZ:

• Non-essential MD businesses ordered to close at 5 Monday; state offers help to businesses. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan ordered the closure of all nonessential businesses, organizations, establishments and facilities in Maryland. The closure started at 5 p.m. Monday. He did not issue a shelter-in-place order. Hogan said there were 288 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Maryland as of Monday morning. The disease has reached 21 of 24 Maryland jurisdictions, he said, adding that the third person in the state to die of the disease is a Montgomery County woman in her 40s.
• CORONAVIRUS / GUN STORES FIGHT TO BE CONSIDERED ‘ESSENTIAL’ BIZ:  Gun stores and industry seek to stay open as ‘essential’ during virus crisis. (Washington Examiner) – Citing the supply needs of the police and military, and self-defense by the public, the gun industry is seeking to be included as “critical infrastructure” by the federal government, a designation that would allow stores and manufacturing plants to stay open and supplied during the coronavirus crisis. The industry trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents 9,000 companies and retailers, said it is lobbying officials to be included as part of the “defense industrial base” and “emergency services sector,” part of the nation’s 16 critical infrastructures vital to the country. In a letter to Department of Homeland Security, NSSF’s Senior Vice President Lawrence G. Keane wrote, “Whether it is providing firearms or ammunition to military, law enforcement, and law-abiding citizens or ensuring that they have access to shooting ranges for training, the firearm industry is a critical component of our nation’s security, public safety, and economic well-being. We must remain open for business. By including our industry among our nation’s critical infrastructure industries, you can help ensure that we are able to do so.”
• GUN RIGHTS COALITION SUES NJ GOV MURPHY FOR SUSPENDING GUN RIGHTS: Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, issued an executive order Saturday closing all non-essential businesses in New Jersey. Firearms dealers were not deemed essential and the state also stopped processing background checks.
• D.C. GUNS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO GET:  WASHINGTON POST / March 22, 2020: In Washington, D.C., the demand for handguns spiked so sharply this month that dealer Charles Sykes, the only person who can legally provide pistols to residents of the nation’s capital, said he has stopped doing so, because he was overwhelmed. “It looked like it was going to continue, that there was no end in sight,” he said. “A person has to know his limitations, and I know mine.” Although handgun ownership has been legal in the District since a 2008 Supreme Court ruling, there are no gun stores. Like O’Connor in Maryland, Sykes is an FFL-holder in D.C. — and the only one. Any city resident who wants to legally acquire a pistol has to order it outside of D.C. and have it shipped to Sykes to finish the transaction. But no more. “I was getting so inundated with firearms coming in, it got to be too much,” Sykes said. “I had to stop accepting them. Any firearms that come in now, they automatically get sent back.”

8am – D         REPLAY DR. FAUCI’S INTERVIEW