Dana Perino, Washington Post’s Martine Powers, Dr. Seb Gorka, Larry Kudlow and guest host Katie Pavlich joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Katie Pavlich

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B     Trump Transition News:

• Trump Names Rex Tillerson as nominee for secretary of state
• It looks like the next WH press secretary may be RNC strategist Sean Spicer
• Donald Trump Eyes Carly Fiorina for Director of National Intelligence
• Trump Expected to Tap Ronna Romney McDaniel to Lead RNC

• Perry, Manchin and Washburne are top finalists for Trump’s Energy pick, people briefed on the list say

5am – C         Final Wisconsin recount tally strengthens Trump’s victory. Donald Trump slightly widened his lead over Hillary Clinton in a recount of Wisconsin’s presidential contest, leaving him more than 22,000 votes ahead in the final tally. The results effectively ended the recount efforts of Green Party presidential hopeful Jill Stein in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the crucial Rust Belt states that Trump won by narrow margins. Courts blocked the recounts that Stein had sought in Pennsylvania, which certified its results on Monday, and Michigan. The Wisconsin recount that was completed Monday increased Trump’s victory margin there by 131 votes. He won 1,405,284 votes — 22,748 more than Clinton.

5am – D         More Intelligence Officials Are Disputing CIA’s Claims About Russian Hacking. (Daily Caller) — The CIA’s assessment that Russian hackers intervened during the presidential election specifically to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton relies on a “thin reed” of evidence, an official with the U.S. intelligence community says. The official, who is with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), is one of three sources who told Reuters that the CIA’s assessment, which was reported over the weekend, is flawed. The DNI sources told Reuters that the intelligence community does not quibble with the CIA’s conclusion that Russia engaged in a major cyber attack operation against the U.S. But they say that there is not enough evidence to say that the attacks were specifically designed to help elect Trump president rather than to merely insert chaos into the election. “ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can’t prove intent,” one of the three officials told Reuters. “Of course they can’t, absent agents in on the decision-making in Moscow.” Federal authorities have said for months that they believe Russia is behind cyber attacks that have largely been directed at Democrats and the Clinton campaign. Many of the hacked documents, including those from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, were provided to and published by WikiLeaks. The CIA arrived at its conclusion “based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked,” one of the officials told Reuters. “(It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment,” the official added.

5am – E         Crime News:

• Gallup poll: Crime victims more likely to own guns. WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (UPI) — Crime victims report higher rates of gun ownership than those without weapons, according to findings from Gallup crime surveys. Thirty-three percent of recent victims of assault, theft and property crime in the United States reported that they own a gun, compared to 28 percent of adults who haven’t been recent crime victims, according to Gallup.
• Should young violent offenders get a second chance? (Washington Post Editorial Board) — THE DISTRICT has had on its books since 1985 a law that gives judges extraordinary discretion in whether to give youthful offenders a second chance. The commendable aim is to give young people an opportunity to learn from their mistakes, change their ways and have futures unburdened by a criminal record. As desirable as those goals are, particularly given concerns over racial disparities in criminal justice and over-incarceration, the question has emerged of whether the District has endangered public safety by tilting too far toward leniency. A recent Post investigation analyzing the District’s Youth Rehabilitation Act suggests yes. Judges in D.C. Superior Court need to review how they use the law, and the D.C. Council should assess whether limits should be placed on who can benefit from it. Post reporters Amy Brittain, Aaron C. Davis and Steven Rich, in an unprecedented examination of how the law has been applied, concluded that hundreds of criminals sentenced under the District’s unique law have gone on to rob, rape or kill. The court doesn’t maintain records on the law’s implementation, so there are built-in limitations to The Post’s review: those who successfully completed the terms of their sentences without reoffending had their records expunged and so weren’t included.

6am – A/B/C Montgomery County Public Schools considering adding ‘affirmative consent’ to sex ed curriculum. (Fox 5 DC) – ROCKVILLE, Md. – Middle and high school students in Montgomery County may be in for a change when it comes to sex education. A new proposal would add a tool called “affirmative consent” to the curriculum and would teach students more about consent instead of conflict. We have heard the phrase “no means no” when it comes to sexual assault. But now, Montgomery County Public Schools are one of the first school systems in the country to consider this change when it comes to teaching students about sex education. Maryland Del. Ariana Kelly (D-Montgomery) recently spoke to other local lawmakers about a bill that would teach Montgomery County seventh and tenth grade students in the classroom more about saying “yes” when it comes to sex. “Right now in the tenth grade, sex ed curriculum in Montgomery County, we do discuss consent and we teach largely girls, but also boys strategies for how to get out of bad situation,” said Kelly. “If someone is pressuring them to engage in something they are not comfortable with – how to avoid it, how to minimize it. But what we don’t teach is that people should not be pressuring other people to engage in sexual activity and [how] that’s illegal and potentially could really damage their lives later on down the road.” Supporters of this proposal believe more needs to be done earlier to prevent rape.

6am – D/E     Mosque News:

• At Va. mosque, US Attorney General acknowledges minorities’ fears that civil rights gains could be rolled back. STERLING, Virginia (AP) — Hate crimes tear at the fabric of American communities and represent a stain on the country’s soul, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at a mosque and Muslim community center on Monday. Lynch spoke at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center as law enforcement across the country confronts a spike in hate crimes targeting Muslims. Her speech at an interfaith gathering in the waning weeks of the Obama administration was intended to reaffirm the Justice Department’s commitment to safeguarding civil rights and protecting racial and religious minorities. But she also acknowledged concerns from minorities that divisive rhetoric and a new administration could lead to an erosion of some of the progress she said had been made in the last eight years.
• Justice Dept. files lawsuit against Culpeper County, Virginia, for blocking mosque construction. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department on Monday filed a lawsuit against Culpeper County, Virginia, over an April board vote that effectively blocked construction of a mosque, the department said in a news release. The federal complaint alleges that the county’s Board of Supervisors imposed a substantial burden on the Islamic Center of Culpeper (ICC)’s exercise of religion, and that the board was discriminating when it refused to grant a “pump-and-haul” permit for transporting sewage from a septic system. County officials had told the ICC that such a permit was necessary because its soil, like much soil in the area, could not support a septic system. The board later voted down the ICC’s permit request in a 4–3 vote, effectively preventing the ICC from building a small mosque on land that it had purchased. The land is located in a zoning district where religious land use is permitted.

7am – A         INTERVIEW — DANA PERINO – Fox News Channel host of “The Five”, former White House Press Secretary, and author of “Let Me Tell You about Jasper: How My Best Friend Became America’s Dog”

• Her event is in D.C. in January:  She, Greg Gutfeld and Larry Gatlin will be at the Warner Theater on Jan. 28th — Get Tickets Now at Ticketmaster!
• Discuss her thoughts on the Trump Transition

7am – B/C     INTERVIEW — MARTINE POWERS – Transportation reporter, Washington Post

• Martine Powers is a reporter for the Post’s transportation and development team. She writes primarily about Metro, and generally about trains, planes, and automobiles.
• Cars on Metro’s Red Line became separated as train moved between stops. (Washington Post) — Six railcars at the end of a Red Line train detached Monday morning as the train approached Maryland’s Rockville station, causing two passengers to be evacuated onto the tracks. Metro officials say they are investigating the incident, which occurred on one of the new eight-car trains in the transit agency’s 7000-series fleet. None of the 40 passengers aboard the train were injured, Metro said in a statement. “The train’s safety system worked as intended and brought the train cars to a stop,” Metro spokeswoman Sherri Ly said. It took about an hour and a half for both sections of the train to be cleared off the tracks. One of the evacuated passengers said she was told by a Metro employee that the rails near where she was walking were electrified; a spokeswoman for the Metro system said the status of the rails during the evacuation was under investigation. Most of the passengers aboard the train exited at the platform.

7am – D         The office holiday party: More awkward than meeting the parents. (Washington Post) — Jasmine Carpenter was eager to take her boyfriend of two months to her company’s Christmas party for the first time in 2013. Then she gave him a once-over. “I was like, ‘You look tacky,’ ” she recalls, laughing. “He had on a burgundy sweater with a collared shirt, which was nice, but then his pants were, like, some off-shade green. I get that it’s Christmas time, but . . . ” We’ll take it from here, Jasmine. But it’s the office Christmas party: an institution that continues to exist largely so that your colleagues can pry into your personal life. Because, as the invite explicitly requests, “Bring your SO for fun and merriment.” Corporate translation: “We are looking forward to finally answering the absolutely work-related question that has plagued us in fiscal year 2015.” The annual soiree is not merely an opportunity to don sequins, sip terrible wine and nosh on canapes from Costco. It’s the year’s most crucial social function, the ideal place to rub shoulders and make lasting impressions. Add in our new, casual, cubicle-free open workspaces, and our now pretty much mandatory Facebook friendships with the boss, and it’s impossible to wall off your personal life from your professional life for very long.

7am – E         Trump Transition

• Trump Names Rex Tillerson as nominee for secretary of state
• It looks like the next WH press secretary may be RNC strategist Sean Spicer
• Donald Trump Eyes Carly Fiorina for Director of National Intelligence
• Trump Expected to Tap Ronna Romney McDaniel to Lead RNC
• Perry, Manchin and Washburne are top finalists for Trump’s Energy pick, people briefed on the list say
• Trump announces plan to nominate ExxonMobil CEO Tillerson as secretary of state. Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 54m54 minutes ago: I have chosen one of the truly great business leaders of the world, Rex Tillerson, Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, to be Secretary of State. // President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday morning announced that he plans to nominate ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state, setting up a potential confirmation fight with senators wary of the executive’s ties to Russia. Trump praised Tillerson’s “deep understanding of geopolitics” and praised his business skills. “Rex Tillerson’s career is the embodiment of the American dream. Through hard work, dedication and smart deal making, Rex rose through the ranks to become CEO of ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest and most respected companies,” Trump said in a release.

8am – A         Barack Obama tells The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah that Russian hacking was no ‘big surprise.’ US president Barack Obama discussed Russia’s impact on the 2016 election and the importance of security briefings on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Monday in his first television interview since Nov 8.  Mr Obama said Russian involvement in the hacking was no “big surprise” and that the real question should be how did “fairly routine” hacked emails receive more attention than any policy and become the “overwhelming story and constant source of breathless coverage.” “When the DNC got hacked, we immediately assigned our intelligence community – our law enforcement – to investigate what had happened.

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW — DR. SEBASTIAN GORKA — Vice President & Professor of Strategy and Irregular Warfare, INSTITUTE of WORLD POLITICS and author of new book “Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War”

• More Intelligence Officials Are Disputing CIA’s Claims About Russian Hacking

8am – D         INTERVIEW —  LARRY KUDLOW – CNBC Senior Contributor and host of The Larry Kudlow Show on WMAL Saturdays at 7 pm

• Trump Names Rex Tillerson as nominee for secretary of state

8am – E         Icy weather possible early Saturday in Washington. Late Friday night into Saturday, D.C. may have its first disruptive winter weather event of the season. The stage will be set for wintry precipitation when Arctic air pours into the region starting Wednesday night. Between Thursday morning and Saturday morning, temperatures are unlikely to get out of the 20s. The ground will be frozen solid when a storm system developing to the west potentially first spreads precipitation into the region very early Saturday. Assuming precipitation materializes, the first half of Saturday could be an icy mess. This looks like one of those cases where we start off with a period of snow and sleet and then transition to freezing rain and finally rain. There are still lots of questions concerning how much precipitation falls Saturday as some models forecast the initial surge to be to our north, leaving us in only light precipitation, while others bring in enough precipitation to cause problems.