Lanny Davis, Trevor Matich and Bret Baier joined WMAL on Friday.

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, August 28, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Smith

5am – A/B     DRIVE AT FIVE INTERVIEW – MARYLAND COMPTROLLER PETER FRANCHOT – discussed Maryland standardized testing and starting schools after Labor Day.

5am – C         Trump rebuts toupee claim in NYTimes article. Donald Trump bashed an article on the front page of Thursday’s New York Times during a campaign speech in Greenville, South Carolina, taking issue with both its quotes and its reporting. The article cited a Spanish radio host in Los Angeles who refers to Trump as “El hombre peluquín,” or “the man of the toupee.” “I don’t wear a toupee. It’s my hair. I swear!” Trump exclaimed at the top of his speech, before inviting a woman from the audience on stage to confirm. Trump, speaking to an announced crowd of 1,800 at the Upstate Chamber Coalition’s Presidential Series, bemoaned the fact that the media did not cover his speech in Dubuque, Iowa, on Tuesday, instead of his confrontation with Univision and Fusion journalist Jorge Ramos.

5am – D         Usain Bolt collides with a Segway-riding cameraman. (CNN) Even the fastest man on Earth has got to watch where he’s going. Usain Bolt snatched the 200 meters title from his arch rival, Justin Gatlin, at the World Athletics Championships in Beijing in his usual, effortless style. As he started on a customary lap of honor, his eyes were fixed on the cheering, adoring crowd. A moment he was clearly reveling in.

Usain Bolt – the world’s fastest man. That was until a cameraman, inches away from the athlete with his lens focused on him, loses control of his Segway, crashes into Bolt, and the two come tumbling down to the ground. The cameraman even gets hit by his equipment as he lands. Somersaulting and returning to his feet, Bolt recovers. While the culprit reaches out to him apologetically.

5am – E         HILLARY NEWS:

• Poll: Most voters associate Hillary Clinton with the word “liar.” The Quinnipiac University sampling released on Thursday found that 61 percent of all voters believe Clinton has neither of those attributes. That score is her lowest on honesty and trustworthiness since the polling agency began tracking her campaign in April. It added that just 34 percent of all voters see the former secretary of State as honest and trustworthy. Quinnipiac additionally found that most voters associate the word “liar” with Clinton, with 178 respondents describing her as such. Quinnipiac’s latest survey found that Clinton still edges out her Republican competition in 2016 among all voters, however. It said that Clinton beats GOP front-runner Donald Trump, 45 percent to 41 percent. She also tops former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, 42 percent to 40 percent, Quinnipiac found. She bests Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), 44 percent to 43 percent.
• Here are the top one-word responses that people gave for three top candidates:

Hillary: Liar, dishonest, untrustworthy, experience, strong, Bill, woman, smart, crook

Trump: Arrogant, blowhard, idiot, businessman, clown, honest, ego, money, outspoken

Bush: Bush, family, honest, weak, brother, dynasty, experience, George, Florida

• Poll: Biden outperforms Hillary in general election; Trump leads GOP field (Politico) — Vice President Joe Biden has the best favorability rating among top 2016 contenders in either party, and he would run a little better than Hillary Clinton in the general election, according to a new Quinnipiac University national poll released Thursday that also shows Donald Trump increasing his lead in the GOP race. Biden, who has not made his intentions known about a third bid for the White House, earned a net favorability of 77 points among Democrats. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio led Republicans with a net rating of 69. (Among all registered voters, regardless of party affiliation, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson led the field with a net positive rating of 20.).
• Hillary under fire for ‘terrorist’ attack, Republicans want apology. Republican Party called on Hillary Clinton to apologize Thursday after she compared GOP candidates to terrorists during an Ohio campaign stop. Speaking in Cleveland, the Democratic presidential front-runner hammered Republican presidential candidates for their views on abortion and other women’s issues. “Now, extreme views about women, we expect that from some of the terrorist groups. We expect that from people who don’t want to live in the modern world. But it’s a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States,” Clinton said. She specifically cited candidates Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

6am – A/B/C HURRICANE KATRINA ANNIVERSARY: Obama Remembers New Orleans 10 Years After Katrina: Years after then-presidential hopeful Barack Obama declared “America failed the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,” he returned to the city to hail Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts and highlight the region’s resilience in the face of massive devastation. President Obama praised the hard work of the local community in the wake of the storm, saying that their efforts inspired not only him, but the rest of the nation.

6am – D         INTERVIEW — LANNY DAVIS – former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, weekly columnist for The Hill newspaper and author of “Crisis Tales”

• LANNY DAVIS: Clinton Still Leads Dems and GOP Candidates, Despite Onslaught. (The Hill) — In the Iowa caucus, the RealClearPolitics average during this same time period has Clinton leading Sanders by 24 percent — 50.5 percent to 26 percent — and the vice president, who had 9 percent, running in third place, 17 percentage points behind Sanders and 41 percent behind Clinton.
• Poll: Most voters associate Hillary Clinton with the word “liar”
• Poll: Biden outperforms Hillary in general election; Trump leads GOP field

6am – E         Redskins’ RGIII evades concussion questions, cleared to face Ravens. ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — Robert Griffin III evaded questions Thursday about when — or even if — he sustained a concussion in the Washington Redskins’ second preseason game. “You’ve got to talk to the people who report that stuff,” Griffin said. “I don’t report that stuff. I was in the locker room, taking a shower, getting ready to watch the rest of the game, so I don’t know.” The Redskins said later Thursday that the quarterback was cleared by an independent neurologist to play Saturday night at the Baltimore Ravens in what could be his last preseason action. So far, Griffin is 6 for 13 for 44 yards in two appearances, and the Redskins have not scored a touchdown with him on the field. ast week against Detroit, Griffin left after four series, going 2 for 5 with two fumbles, three sacks and a few other big hits.

7am – A/B/C Eric Cantor endorses Jeb Bush for president. (CNN) Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor endorsed presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Thursday. “Governor Bush is a true conservative leader with a long-term vision for this country and the practical know-how to implement it,” Cantor said in a statement. “After eight years of anemic growth and declining international relevance, America needs a president that can re-energize our nation and recapture our greatness — Jeb Bush is that man. I look forward to working closely with the governor and his team as they chart a course to the White House.” Cantor also tweeted his support, using the hashtag #AllInForJeb. Cantor, 52, was also named a Virginia state co-chair of Bush’s 2016 campaign. The endorsement was first reported by Politico. Donald Trump, now frequently playing Bush’s foil, mocked the Cantor endorsement in a tweet: “Who wants the endorsement of a guy (@EricCantor) who lost in perhaps the greatest upset in the history of Congress?”

7am – D         How to tell if you’re a ‘mobile addict.’ (USA Today) — Smartphone and tablet users just can’t get enough of their mobile devices. Some do nearly everything with phone in hand. U.S. consumers spend, on average, three hours and 40 minutes each day on their mobile devices, an increase of 35% from a year ago in the second quarter of 2014. And that time spent on mobile devices continues to increase, said Simon Khalaf, senior vice president of publishing products at Yahoo. Globally there are 280 million “mobile addicts,” who use apps more than 60 times daily. Effectively, “these folks are conducting their lives on mobile,” Khalaf said. Regular users access apps up to 16 times daily, Flurry’s research found. Over the last six months, the average time consumers spend on their phones or devices has increased by 43 minutes, or 24%, he said. “This is the mobile revolution,” Khalaf said. “There hasn’t been a single industry that hasn’t been disrupted by mobile and its applications.”

7am – E         DC News:

• Report shows Metro spent $250K on public relations help after smoke incident death. WASHINGTON – Metro is defending itself against a new report that shows in the days after January’s L’Enfant Plaza smoke incident that killed a Virginia woman, it spent $250,000 on public relations. This comes on the heels of a bus shooting that wasn’t revealed and a failure to fix a track problem that caused a derailment at Smithsonian station. Will Sommer, a columnist for the Washington City Paper and FOX 5 contributor, said it all started with a question about Metro’s public relations costs. “Metro wouldn’t say how much they had paid for them, and obviously, that sets off alarm bells,” he told us. Sommer sent a records request to Metro and got back a CD. It was packed with documents, but parts of it were blacked out. But the problem for Metro? By moving a cursor, you can reveal what was blacked out in the documents. Sommer then soon received a phone call from Metro asking for him to send it back. The redacted documents show that Metro paid $250,000 to the Hill+Knowlton public relations firm after the L’Enfant Plaza accident.
• Black Lives Matter activists disrupt Bowser speech on how to stop killings. (Washington Post) — Anger over a rising murder rate and the District’s response to it boiled over into a shouting match Thursday as Mayor Muriel E. Bowser struggled to tell a crowd about a new initiative to fight crime while being shouted down by protesters. Bowser (D) planned to announce a wide-ranging, $15 million plan to boost both community programs and police presence in response to a 43 percent spike in killings this year. The plan includes financial incentives to keep police on the force despite a looming retirement bubble, as well as legislation that would increase some penalties for violent crime and give police the power to search the residences of violent ex-offenders. But protesters linked to a nationwide movement that has mobilized over allegations of police misconduct erupted at her first mention of putting more officers on the streets. Community activists quickly joined the chants of “Black Lives Matter” with their own demands for jobs and recreation centers. Bowser fought back, at times acknowledging the voices of dissent and at other times simply raising her voice over the roar. “I will not be shouted down or scared away,” she said as her supporters stood and cheered over the din of protest, effectively splitting the room into opposing sides.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – TREVOR MATICH – Redskins elite long snapper and WMAL’s Redskins analyst

• Redskins’ RGIII evades concussion questions, cleared to face Ravens
• PREVIEW: Redskins vs Ravens

8am – B         ‘Manspreading,’ ‘Hangry,’ ‘Butt Dial’ And ‘Wine O’Clock’ Added To Oxford Dictionary. (Daily Caller) — The Oxford Dictionary has added new modern words to its free online dictionary. Cat ladies, angry hungry people, butt dialers, time conscious drinkers and mic droppers everywhere can rejoice in their usage of modern lingo. The Associated Press reports a new list of words added to OxfordDictionaries.com:

   — beer o’clock, n: the appropriate time of day to start drinking beer

   — wine o’clock, n: same as above, only with wine

   — butt dial, v.: calling someone accidentally with your mobile phone in a rear pocket

— cat cafe, n.: a café or similar establishment where people pay to interact with cats housed on the premises

 — hangry, adj: bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger:

   — awesomesauce, adj: extremely good; excellent

8am – C         Critter News:

• Pet coyote caught in Maryland euthanized. WASHINGTON — A coyote being kept as a pet was captured near a restaurant in North Beach, Maryland on Wednesday, NBC Washington reports. Animal control caught the coyote running around near Neptune’s just after 8 a.m. It was wearing a blue collar, which led police to its owner, NBC Washington reports. It is illegal to own a coyote in Maryland. Police said the coyote’s owner got the animal from Virginia as a puppy. The animal had to be euthanized, police said, due to the possible risk of rabies exposure.
• Study: New ‘super-lice’ have arrived in Md., Va. WASHINGTON– Researchers say a strain of mutated head lice is on the move around the country       and has already arrived in Maryland and Virginia. These lice have built up a resistance to pyrethroids — over-the-counter treatments that have been used for years. Scientists from Southern Illinois University and the University of Massachusetts recently told the American Chemical Society that they found samples of mutated lice in 25 of the first 30 states they studied. They predict that soon, these “super-lice” will be found everywhere.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – BRET BAIER – Anchor, Special Report on Fox News Channel

• Poll: Most voters associate Hillary Clinton with the word “liar”
• Poll: Biden outperforms Hillary in general election; Trump leads GOP field
• Eric Cantor endorses Jeb Bush for president

MONDAY:    Joe diGenova, Tom Bevan and Haley Barbour