Joe diGenova, Trevor Matich and General Jack Keane joined WMAL on Monday.

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, October 19, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C Benghazi hearing preview:

• Gowdy: New Benghazi emails show ‘disconnect’ with Washington. WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the panel investigating the deadly 2012 Benghazi attacks said Sunday that new information reveals a “total disconnect” between the security needs of U.S. personnel on the ground and the political priorities of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department staff in Washington. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., described emails from Ambassador Chris Stevens to the State Department requesting more security almost from the moment he arrived in Libya. The request virtually crossed paths with one Clinton’s staff sent to Stevens, asking the new ambassador to read and respond to an email from a Clinton confidant, according to Gowdy. At another point, Clinton aide Victoria Nuland asked Stevens for advice on “public messaging” on the increasingly dangerous situation in the region, Gowdy said.
• The chairman of the Benghazi committee is telling his GOP colleagues to “shut up.” WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman of the congressional panel probing the Benghazi tragedy is telling his GOP colleagues to “shut up” about the committee’s work because most of them know very little about what the panel is doing. Speaking Sunday on CBS’ Face The Nation, South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy dismissed recent statements by two Republican lawmakers — including Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California — implying that at least part of the panel’s mission was to embarrass Democrat Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of State during the Benghazi attacks and is now running for president. “I get that there is a presidential campaign going on,” Gowdy said on the show. “I have told my own Republican colleagues and friends to shut up talking about things you don’t know anything about and unless you’re on the committee, you have no idea what we’ve done, why we’ve done it, and what new facts we have found.” Clinton is scheduled to testify before the committee Thursday.

5am – D         Redskins News:

• Depleted Redskins run ragged by Jets in second half of 34-20 defeat
• Jay Gruden backs Kirk Cousins despite Redskins’ struggles
• Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins: Kirk Cousins, after another multiple-interception game, is running out of rope

5am – E         D.C. streetcar on track for year-end opening, top transportation official says. The District is in a final dash to open its long-delayed and much-maligned streetcar project to passengers by year’s end, the city’s top transportation official said. But Leif A. Dormsjo, seeking to avoid the “arbitrary deadlines” he railed against after taking over as the transportation director in January, said the “facts on the ground” will remain the final arbiter and more delays are possible. “I think we are on track to be wrapped up here by the end of the year,” Dormsjo said. “There’s been a lot of improvement. . . . But at the end of the day, the only thing that counts is getting the system open safely and responsibly, and that’s really our guiding mission right now.”

6am – A/B/C Donald Trump, Jeb Bush again dispute George W. Bush and 9/11. Donald Trump and Jeb Bush took their latest dust-up — this one over President George W. Bush and the 9/11 terrorist attacks — to the Sunday morning talk show circuit, saying it reflects fundamental differences over foreign policy. Trump told Fox News Sunday he doesn’t blame George W. Bush for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but does question Jeb Bush’s claim that his presidential brother kept the nation “safe” — using 9/11 as the prime example. “Look, look, Jeb said we were safe with my brother — we were safe,” the Republican front-runner told Fox. “Well, the World Trade Center just fell down! Now, am I trying to blame him? I’m not blaming anybody. But the World Trade Center came down.”

6am – D         A Note to Entitled Millennials in the Workplace: Give Humility a Try. (National Review/David French) — Imagine for a moment that you’re a middle-level manager, mentoring and leading an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of young employees. Some stay. Some go. But as is typically the case with entry-level positions, turnover is a constant problem. You want to do something about it — you really do — but there’s only so much you can do to make a person’s “first real job” all that glamorous. So you try to at least make the workplace more bearable. You bring in a foosball table and set up tournaments. You treat employees to free lunch on occasion. While you can’t make data entry fun or world-changing, you can at least start to build a workplace community, a place where people can earn a living, learn the discipline necessary to thrive in the real world, and start their long, slow march up the career ladder. Then, one day, a friend forwards you a viral essay from LinkedIn, and you learn that you’re an idiot. All that effort to make work just a tiny bit more fun? Wasted. You’re losing Millennials because you’re just not amazing enough for them. You’re not designing self-driving cars, redefining social media, or blazing a new trail in adventure tourism. You’re not changing the world. You’re just making an unglamorous product or providing a mundane service, so good luck with your GenX employees, old man. Millennials are simply too awesome to be assigned normal jobs or settle for normal lives. That’s the core message of “Why Millennials Keep Dumping You,” an “open letter” to management from young college graduate Elizabeth McLeod. While it purports to be helpful guide in how to unlock the “energy of a thousand suns” — the energy of an engaged, happy young worker — in reality it’s a textbook example of stereotypical Millennial entitlement and self-love, with the basic message a simple and startling declaration that, “I’ll only love you if you’re awesome.” McLeod’s list of demands include making sure that her individual talent is recognized (masked as a concern that low-performers aren’t sufficiently punished), that she feels like she’s “making a difference” beyond providing a return on investment (ROI) to her firm, that she’s surrounded by people who are “on fire for what they’re doing,” and that she’s not just a “number” but instead a world-changer. So that’s all managers have to do? Create a high-energy, boundary-pushing workplace that not only recognizes true talent but also makes the world a better place?

6am – E         From Chocolate City to Latte City: Being black in the new D.C. (Petula Dvorak/Washington Post) — It made news a few years back when we learned that Chocolate City, as majority-black Washington had long been known, wasn’t so chocolate anymore. And the news today? Not only is the city’s African American population shrinking — almost half of the District’s 650,000 residents are white — but it’s getting harder to be black in the nation’s capital. The city that had long been a beacon for the nation’s African American population — where slavery was outlawed nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, where segregated public schools were the first in the nation to be integrated after Brown v. Board of Education — has gone through more than just a huge demographic shift. It is a change in the attitude of the city, the culture, the way we view and treat one another… In the new Latte City, it’s hard to shop while black. Or decide not to get cash at the ATM while black. Or how about staying in your home town while black?

7am – A         INTERVIEW — JOE DIGENOVA — legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia – previewed Secretary Clinton’s Benghazi hearing this week.

• Gowdy: New Benghazi emails show ‘disconnect’ with Washington.
• The chairman of the Benghazi committee is telling his GOP colleagues to “shut up.”

7am – B         Clinton’s Southern strategy? Hillary fakes her accent for local crowd. Hillary Clinton has started faking a Southern drawl to speak to Southerners, just as she did during her last presidential run eight years ago. The tactic drew chuckles, derision and not a little resentment when she tried it in 2007 and 2008. But she was back at it again in Alabama on Saturday, putting on a heavy twang to express her contempt for Republicans. With Bernie Sanders narrowing her lead or overtaking her in early caucus and primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton is hoping for a “Southern firewall,” and her itinerary of upcoming events reveals a determinatiion to set it ablaze quickly. She wants to win in South Carolina and then in the many Southern states holding primaries on “Super Tuesday,” where Sanders is polling much worse.

7am – C         Governor’s mansion lit pink for breast cancer awareness. The governor’s mansion in Annapolis has been lit pink this weekend to raise awareness about breast cancer. Gov. Larry Hogan issued a proclamation earlier this month announcing October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The governor’s office says about 4,730 Maryland women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and an estimated 810 will die of the disease. Medical experts say regular breast cancer screening for women should begin at age 40. Hogan himself just finished his final round of chemotherapy at the University of Maryland Medical Center for B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Over the last four months, the Republican governor has undergone 30 days of 24-hour chemotherapy.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – TREVOR MATICH — Redskins elite long snapper and WMAL’s Redskins analyst

• RECAP: Washington Redskins vs New York Jets / Sunday, October 18, 1:00 PM on FOX, MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey
• Depleted Redskins run ragged by Jets in second half of 34-20 defeat
• Jay Gruden backs Kirk Cousins despite Redskins’ struggles
• Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins: Kirk Cousins, after another multiple-interception game, is running out of rope

7am – E         Entertainment News: SNL

• Larry David Plays Bernie Sanders on Saturday Night Live: ‘We’re Doomed!’ Larry David may have found his acting calling in playing Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday Night Live this weekend. The Curb Your Enthusiasm star, and a former writer on the sketch series, matched the real-life Sanders gesture-for-gesture and shout-for-shout in the episode’s cold open, which satirized the recent CNN debate between the Democratic presidential candidates. He started appropriately: “We’re DOOMED! We need a revolution!”
• Tracy Morgan returned to NBC SNL last night. (USA Today) — Emotions and nostalgia ran high on Tracy Morgan’s episode of Saturday Night Live, with casts from both the real and fictional 30 Rockefeller Center welcoming the comedian home. There were coma jokes, a way too on-the-nose impression of Bernie Sanders from surprise guest Larry David, and essentially a greatest hits of sketches for former SNL cast member, Tracy. But the best part was when Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer reunited to do a “prothetic” episode of 30 Rock from 2012 (with name-drops for PSY and Skrillex at that), looking like they just stepped off the set five minutes ago.
• “Playboy” magazine told Tina Fey it’s not too late for her to pose in the last nude issue.
• Eddie Murphy receives top US humor prize at Kennedy Center. WASHINGTON (AP) — A star-studded lineup of comedians including Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, George Lopez, Kathy Griffin and Arsenio Hall honored Eddie Murphy as an “American icon.” The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presented the comedian Sunday with the Mark Twain Prize, the nation’s top prize for humor. The evening’s most emotional tribute came from “Saturday Night Live” alum Tracy Morgan, who received a standing ovation from the audience. He called Murphy his “comedic hero.”

8am – A         INTERVIEW: GENERAL JACK KEANE- four star general, former acting Chief of Staff and Vice Chair of the U.S. Army.

• AFGHANISTAN: Obama ignores generals’ advice on troop levels for unprecedented sixth time. By Rowan Scarborough – The Washington Times – In the end, President Obama was forced to listen to his generals — not his political instincts — on Afghanistan troop levels, and he decided to split the difference. Mr. Obama is keeping 5,500 troops in Afghanistan beyond his presidency, about half the strength recommended by his top general in-country. It marks the sixth time he has rejected the advice of a ground commander on the force size in the long Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Military experts call that streak unprecedented for a commander in chief.

8am – B         School Board Hasn’t Responded to FOIAs on Transgender Policy.(CNSNews.com) – Concerned parents in a Washington, D.C. suburb say the local school board acted hastily in making “gender identity” part of its non-discrimination policy, but those same public officials are in no rush to release behind-the-scenes information leading up to their controversial decision. The Fairfax County (Va.) School Board is taking months, not the legally required five days, to respond to multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for all communications between school board members and state and federal officials regarding the board’s decision to include gender identity in its non-discrimination policies. The FOIA requests, filed through Judicial Watch five months ago, are an attempt by Fairfax parents and residents to understand the discussions leading up to the policy change last May.

8am – C         ‘Star Wars’ trailer to play during ‘Monday Night Football.’ LOS ANGELES (AP) — More than just football fans will likely be tuning in to watch halftime on “Monday Night Football” this week. A new trailer for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” will debut during halftime of the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles game, Lucasfilm announced Sunday. Tickets will also go on sale for the film, opening Dec. 18, after the trailer plays. The game will be broadcast on ESPN, which, like Lucasfilm is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.

8am – D/E     Donald Trump, Jeb Bush again dispute George W. Bush and 9/11. Donald Trump and Jeb Bush took their latest dust-up — this one over President George W. Bush and the 9/11 terrorist attacks — to the Sunday morning talk show circuit, saying it reflects fundamental differences over foreign policy. Trump told Fox News Sunday he doesn’t blame George W. Bush for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but does question Jeb Bush’s claim that his presidential brother kept the nation “safe” — using 9/11 as the prime example. “Look, look, Jeb said we were safe with my brother — we were safe,” the Republican front-runner told Fox. “Well, the World Trade Center just fell down! Now, am I trying to blame him? I’m not blaming anybody. But the World Trade Center came down.”

TOMORROW: Larry Kudlow and Tucker Carlson