RNC’s Sean Spicer, legal analyst Ken Klukowski, Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton and CNN’s Jake Tapper joined WMAL on Thursday!

Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

5am – A/B/C Senior GOP Official Says the Party Will Decide the Nominee: ‘Media Has Created the Perception That the Voters Will Decide the Nomination.’ A member of the Republican National Committee’s rules-making body said Wednesday that ultimately the party will decide who the GOP nominee is, not voters. “The media has created the perception that the voters will decide the nomination,” Curly Haugland, who sits on the RNC rules committee, said in an interview with CNBC. “That’s the conflict here.” “The political parties choose their nominees, not the general public, contrary to popular belief,” Haugland added.

5am – D         DRIVE AT FIVE INTERVIEW — KEN KLUKOWSKI – Bretitbart legal editor and senior counsel for First Liberty Institute – analyzed President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination pick.

5am – E         Metro says service on all lines will resume at 5 a.m. Thursday following inspections. DC subway shutdown ends, but systemic problems remain. WASHINGTON (AP) – Commuters in the nation’s capital are returning to their regular routines after an unprecedented daylong shutdown of the Washington subway system.  But the problems that led to the closure won’t be fixed so easily and will continue to cause headaches for riders, some of whom have already abandoned the aging system because of safety and reliability concerns.    The 29-hour shutdown is scheduled to end at 5 a.m. Thursday. It was ordered to allow workers to inspect 600 third-rail power cables throughout the Metro transit system. Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said the inspection was essential to ensure passenger safety after an electrical fire on the tracks Monday. The inspections revealed 26 areas needing replacement or repair, including three that Wiedefeld called “show-stoppers.”

6am – A/B/C Fox’s GOP debate canceled after Trump and Kasich back out. Fox News canceled its upcoming Republican presidential debate after contenders Donald Trump and John Kasich backed out. Kasich, the Ohio governor, said he would join the event only with the participation of GOP front-runner Trump, who on Wednesday morning said he planned to skip the Monday debate in Salt Lake City because he already had plans to deliver a “very major speech” on the same day. “I’m making a very major speech in front of a very important group of people,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends,” later confirming that the remarks will be delivered before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Trump said his speech at the powerful lobbying group’s conference in Washington “was scheduled a while ago.” AIPAC invited all presidential candidates to speak, but only Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton are listed as speakers so far. Fox said it canceled the debate after Trump and Kasich backed out.

6am – D         FCPS Will Ask Families What They Think of Pre-Labor Day Start. The Fairfax County School Board is seriously considering starting school before Labor Day in 2017-18. The school board’s Public Engagement Committee (PEC) will discuss the matter at a work session on Thursday. The PEC is planning an online survey to gauge community opinion on the calendar, says school board At-Large member Ryan McElveen, who chairs the PEC. The survey will take place in April, and the board will vote on the calendar change April 28, he added. The 2016-17 calendar will not change. That was adopted in December, and school will begin on Sept. 6, 2016. In Fairfax County, school has for decades started the day after Labor Day in accordance with the Virginia “Kings Dominion” law. FCPS qualifies for the waiver because, during five of the past 10 years, the district has averaged 8.4 days missed due to weather conditions and other events.

6am – E         President Obama chooses Kansas to win it all in tournament. WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama picked Kansas to win the NCAA title, with the hopes of correctly selecting college basketball’s national champion in the first and last years of his presidency. Obama will leave office in January 2017. He correctly picked North Carolina in his first year in office in 2009, but he hasn’t selected the winner in the past six brackets. Obama also picked the Jayhawks to knock off Texas A&M and the Tar Heels to beat Michigan State in the Final Four before meeting in the final April 4 in Houston.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – SEAN SPICER – RNC Senior Strategist and Communications Director

• Obama picks Merrick Garland to fill Supreme Court seat.
• Fox’s GOP debate canceled after Trump and Kasich back out.
• Senior GOP Official Says the Party Will Decide the Nominee: ‘Media Has Created the Perception That the Voters Will Decide the Nomination’

7am – B         INTERVIEW — DARA FOX — stay-at-home mom in Manassas, Virginia and most importantly, an Uber driving WMAL listener

• On the road with an Uber driver: Can she cash in on the Metro shutdown? (Washington Post) — It seemed like a good day to be an Uber driver. When Washington’s Metrorail system began its 24-hour shutdown at midnight Tuesday, leaving hundreds of thousands of commuters in dire straits, you could almost hear the collective “Ka-ching!” going off in the minds of the area’s ride-share drivers. According to Uber, a record number of drivers — 50 percent more than usual, although the company wouldn’t reveal an exact number — were on the road Wednesday morning during the 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. rush, hoping to make some easy money. Dara Fox wouldn’t have said it was easy. A 50-year-old stay-at-home mom from Manassas, Va., she headed out in her black Nissan Quest at 6 p.m. Tuesday. She heard about the Metro shutdown shortly afterward and decided to continue through the morning rush, with a little break for coffee around 2 a.m. “Usually what I do is drive towards a busy area,” she said. But today, “it’s hard to see what a busy area is going to be, because people could come from anywhere.” Uber drivers keep about 80 percent of a fare, but the driver doesn’t know a passenger’s destination until they’ve picked them up. So Fox is never sure whether she’ll be shuttling people back and forth on Capitol Hill, or driving to Baltimore. That’s the gamble on a day like Wednesday: There could be high demand, but if one ride takes her far from the surge, she‘ll forfeit the spoils. Fox had already ferried two people to the airport when she picked this reporter up at 5:30 a.m., offering a bottle of water and a granola bar like a true mom (and a driver who wants to maintain her very good 4.84 rating). “I’m pretty awake right now,” she said. A political junkie, she had been listening to the coverage of the primaries on WMAL but had switched over to a playlist of folksy, non-controversial ’70s hits. “I had to turn it off because it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea,” she said.

7am – C         Frank Sinatra Jr. has died. Frank Sinatra Jr., son of the legendary singer, died of a heart attack Wednesday while on tour in Daytona Beach, Florida. He was 72. His death was confirmed by the Associated Press, which received a statement from Sinatra’s family citing cardiac arrest as the cause of death. Frank Jr.’s sister Nancy shared the news with a Facebook post, saying, “Sleep warm, Frankie…” The younger Sinatra was kidnapped at age 19 at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe on December 8, 1963, as his father was in production on “Robin and the Seven Hoods”; Sinatra Sr. paid ransom of $240,000, and his son was released two days later. By that time, he had already begun pursuing a musical career of his own, having become the vocalist for the Sam Donahue band. In 1988, at his father’s insistence, Sinatra Jr. put his own performing career on hold to work as Sinatra Sr.’s musical director and conductor. Frank Sinatra Sr. died in 1998.

7am – D/E     INTERVIEW – TOM FITTON – president of Judicial Watch

• Obama picks Merrick Garland to fill Supreme Court seat. – Garland has been described as “a Moderate” — is he?
• Emails: Clinton sought secure smartphone, rebuffed by NSA. WASHINGTON (AP) — Newly released emails show a 2009 request to issue a secure government smartphone to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was denied by the National Security Agency. A month later, she began using private email accounts accessed through her BlackBerry to exchange messages with her top aides. The messages made public Wednesday were obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal advocacy group that has filed numerous lawsuits seeking the release of federal documents related to Clinton’s tenure as the nation’s top diplomat.

8am – A/B/C Adam LaRoche puts family first in walking away from White Sox. CHICAGO — One thing not up for debate during a wild two days for the Chicago White Sox is the quality of the kid at the center of a saga that erupted between the team and veteran slugger Adam LaRoche. Cases can be made for whether or not a 14-year-old’s presence in a Major League Baseball clubhouse should be unlimited, with restrictions, or not allowed at all. There is no evidence, however, that LaRoche’s son, Drake, an aspiring third-generation baseball player, is anything but a respectful, appropriately confident, well-liked kid who was never anything but a delight to be around. So why all the fuss? Why would the White Sox ask that LaRoche curtail the clubhouse visits by his son? And why would a veteran of 12 major league seasons choose the forfeiture of a $13 million salary as a way to make a stand? Although the clubhouse is typically the domain of the players and manager, it was White Sox executive vice president Kenny Williams who made the request of LaRoche to reduce his son’s visits by half. How much did that play a role in what appears to be LaRoche’s decision to walk away with a year on his contract rather than limit his son’s presence? Drake LaRoche, who is believed to participate in a combination of home schooling as well as traditional education, has been in White Sox camp in Arizona this spring every day that his dad has been there, according to statements Williams made to multiple outlets. So Williams made a request, and it turned out to be a not-so-simple one. Williams reportedly told LaRoche that even half the visits by his son were too many, in his opinion, but he was willing to meet somewhere in the middle. Two days later, LaRoche apparently tendered his resignation, leaving a small fortune on the table.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – JAKE TAPPER – Anchor of “The Lead” and “State of the Union” on CNN

• Fox’s GOP debate canceled after Trump and Kasich back out.
• Donald Trump on brokered convention: ‘I think you’d have riots’
• Obama picks Merrick Garland to fill Supreme Court seat.

8am – E         Happy St. Patrick’s Day:

• Things to know about St. Patrick’s Day:
  • St. Patrick was not actually Irish: atrick was a nobleman born in about 400 A.D. in Britain and kidnapped by Irish pirates at the age of 16, said Philip Freeman, author of St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography. Patrick was born into a religious family, but was an atheist early in his life. However, he rediscovered his faith while enslaved in Ireland. After 17 years as a slave, St. Patrick escaped Ireland and found his way home, but returned to Ireland as a missionary, according to Freeman. It’s unclear if St. Patrick did in fact die in Ireland, but March 17 is widely believed to be the day of his death.
  • Gobs and gobs of Guinness: The Irish stout is the drink of choice on St. Patrick’s Day. On a typical day, Americans drink about 600,000 pints of the Dublin-based beer. But on St. Patrick’s Day, about 3 million pints of Guinness are downed, according to Guinness in an email to USA TODAY Network.
  • So much corned beef and cabbage: Although a classic St. Patrick’s Day meal, corned beef and cabbage is more American than Irish. Irish Americans in the 19th century were mostly poor. The most affordable meat available was corned beef, according to Cronin. And cabbage? “It’s a spring vegetable and it’s cheap,” Cronin said. Industry experts say cabbage shipments increase 70 percent during St. Patrick’s week, according to WalletHub.
• Pornhub says searches for ‘leprechaun’ will rise 10,000 per cent on St Patrick’s Day. Pornhub says searches for ‘leprechaun’ will rise 10,000 per cent on St Patrick’s Day. Pornhub has reported that it expects a 10,000 per cent spike in “leprechaun” porn viewing on St Patrick’s Day, based on figures from last year. Searches for “leprechaun” increased 9,325 per cent on St Patrick’s Day, compared to an average day, in 2015.