Joe diGenova, Jim Geraghty, Joe Concha and guest host Vince Coglianese joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, May 15, 2017

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C   COMEY FBI REPLACEMENT – SHOULD SESSIONS RECUSE HIMSELF FROM FBI DIRECTOR INTERVIEWS?

• Sen Dianne Feinstein‏ @SenFeinstein May 13: Attorney General Sessions has recused himself from the Russia investigations. He shouldn’t be involved in picking the new FBI director.
• Lee: Sessions Should Be Involved In FBI Director Search. GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said he believes Attorney General Jeff Sessions should be involved in the process of finding a new FBI director during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” Lee’s comments were a sharp split from Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner’s, who told host Chris Wallace it would be “inappropriate” for the man who recused himself from the investigation into Russian government influence in the presidential election to be involved in the process. “I completely disagree with the suggestion that he has to detach himself from the process of finding an FBI director,” Lee said. “As attorney general, he will be working with the FBI director in a whole lot of cases involving a whole lot of matters that have nothing to do with anything as to which Attorney General Sessions has recused himself. So I completely disagree. I couldn’t disagree more with that suggestion.”
• Adam Schiff‏ @RepAdamSchiff 16h16 hours ago: Attorney General Sessions should have played no part in firing – or hiring – FBI Director. Only underscores why we need independent counsel

5am – D         Top Senate Intel Dem: I will “absolutely” subpoena tapes between Comey and Trump if they exist. (The Hill) — Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he will “absolutely” subpoena recordings of conversations between President Trump and former FBI Director James Comey if they exist. “Listen, I don’t have the foggiest whether there are tapes are not, but the fact that the president made allusions to that and then the White House would not confirm or deny, it is not anything we have seen in recent days,” Warner told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. Warner, who is leading the Senate’s investigation into Russia’s attempts to interfere in the United States presidential election along with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), said that while another committee may need to subpoena the tapes, it is essential to make sure they don’t “mysteriously disappear.” “I’ve asked, others have asked, to make sure the tapes are preserved, if they exist,” Warner said. Trump on Friday threatened Comey on Twitter several days after firing him.

5am – E         Critter News:

• Couple finds bear cub honking horn inside their SUV. ROANOKE CO., Va. — It was a bear of a day for authorities in Roanoke County, Va. — literally.  CBS affiliate WDBJ-TV reports Ryan and Mary Beth McClanahan heard a honk on their car horn Thursday morning. When they went outside to see what caused the commotion, the couple found a bear sitting inside their SUV.  “If you did get too close, he would scratch the window,” Mary Beth said. “So that’s when I’m jumping back, and running back in the house.”  Officers say the bear caused a fair amount of damage to the inside of the vehicle. The window was not broken, but authorities think the bear may have pulled on the car handle.
• Lawsuit claims woman was attacked by camel at Jefferson Davis home. (AP) — BILOXI, Miss. –  A Florida woman claims a camel at the last home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis attacked her at the Mississippi tourist attraction in 2015. She’s suing the United Sons of Confederate Veterans Inc., identified as the operator of Beauvoir plantation in Biloxi. The Sun Herald reports Sylvia June Abbott says Sir Camelot injured her mentally and physically. Attorney Charles M. Thomas says Abbott and her husband were walking to a cemetery behind Beauvoir when the camel stampeded her and bit her, leaving her with a fractured wrist and vertebrae. Abbott’s suit says Beauvoir’s operators should have known the camel had “behaved dangerously” in the past, though it didn’t specify any prior incidents. Beauvoir’s executive director, Tom Payne, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

 

6am – A/B/C Trump: White House should ‘not have press conferences’ unless ‘I do them myself’. President Trump suggested in a new interview that he might get rid of White House press briefings, unless he chooses to do them himself every two weeks. Fox News released a clip of Trump’s interview with Jeanine Pirro in which Trump stands by his tweet floating the possibility of cancelling “all future” press briefings “for the sake of accuracy.”  “We don’t have press conferences, we just don’t have them, unless I have them every two weeks and I do them myself,” Trump said. “I think it’s a good idea.” White House press briefings are typically held daily and are conducted by the White House press secretary or deputy press secretary.

6am – D/E/F  Cyberattack havoc could grow as work week begins. The ransomware attack carried out Friday has hit some 200,000 hospitals, companies and government offices in more than 150 countries. “The fact that so many organizations were vulnerable to this was quite a surprise”, cyber expert and CEO of Capital Alpha Security in the U.K. Matt  Tait told NPR. “All other NHS Borders services are running as usual”. A cyberattack which crippled computers all over the world – including those of Nissan and the NHS – could grow on Monday (15 May), the head of Europol, the European Union’s police agency, has said. He added: “That’s why we’re seeing these numbers increasing all the time”. Bryce Boland, Asia Pacific chief technology officer for FireEye, a cybersecurity company, said it would be straightforward for existing attackers to launch new releases or for other ransomware authors to start copying the way the malware replicated. His concerns were echoed by James Clapper, former director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama.

7am – A         INTERVIEW — JOE DIGENOVA – legal analyst and former U,.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia

• Eight candidates for Trump’s FBI pick interviewed today. (The Hill) — So far 14 people have emerged as candidates. Just over half of them met Saturday with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein. Those interviewed for the job include Sen. John Corny of Texas, former congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan and acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. Two female candidates, former Bush administration officials Alice Fisher and Frances Townsend, also met with Sessions and Rosenstein. The FBI has never been led by a woman.
• Top Senate Intel Dem: I will “absolutely” subpoena tapes between Comey and Trump if they exist. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he will “absolutely” subpoena recordings of conversations between President Trump and former FBI Director James Comey if they exist. “Listen, I don’t have the foggiest whether there are tapes are not, but the fact that the president made allusions to that and then the White House would not confirm or deny, it is not anything we have seen in recent days,” Warner told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

7am – B         Trump urges Liberty graduates to ‘never give up,’ challenge status quo. President Trump on Saturday urged graduates of Liberty University to “never give up” and find the courage to challenge the establishment and critics, much like he has done in Washington. “In my short time in Washington, I’ve seen firsthand how the system is broken,” he said. “A small group of failed voices, who think they know everything … want to tell everybody else how to live,” Trump said in his commencement speech at the Christian school, in Lynchburg, Va. “But you aren’t going to let other people tell you what to believe, especially when you know that you’re right. … We don’t need a lecture from Washington on how to lead our lives.” Trump, a businessman and first-time elected official, made three previous visits to Liberty but none likely as important as his January 2016 trip in which he asked and received the support of evangelical Christians.

7am – C         Top baby names: Noah, Emma remained No. 1 in 2016. Caitlyn plummets. WASHINGTON (AP) — Don’t call me Caitlyn. A year after Caitlyn Jenner announced her new name and gender, the popularity of the name Caitlyn plummeted more than any other baby name, according to Social Security’s annual list of the most popular baby names. In fact, the four names that dropped the most were all variations of the same name: Caitlin, Caitlyn, Katelynn and Kaitlynn. “It was inevitable,” said Laura Wattenberg, founder of BabynameWizard.com. “Caitlyn was already falling in popularity. Now it is suddenly controversial.” The Social Security Administration released its annual list of the 1,000 most popular baby names for 2016 on Friday. The agency uses the announcement to drive traffic to its website, where workers can start tracking their benefits long before they retire. Emma was the top baby name for girls for the third year in a row. It was followed by Olivia, Ava, Sophia and Isabella. Noah was the top baby name for boys for the fourth year in a row. It was followed by Liam, William, Mason and James. The agency also lists the baby names that increase — and decrease — the most in popularity. All four versions of Caitlyn fell out of the top 1,000. In 2015, the former Bruce Jenner, an Olympic gold medalist, shocked the world when she announced that she is now a transgender woman. The iconic cover of Vanity Fair magazine was emblazoned with the quote, “Call me Caitlyn,” on top of a picture of a very feminine Jenner. The issue sparked much debate and an outpouring of support for Jenner in a country that is still evolving in its views of gay marriage and equal rights for the LGBT community.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – JIM GERAGHTY – Senior Political Correspondent, National Review

• GERAGHTY:  President Trump’s Worst Enemy Is…Himself
• Trump: White House should ‘not have press conferences’ unless ‘I do them myself’
• Top Senate Intel Dem: I will “absolutely” subpoena tapes between Comey and Trump if they exist. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he will “absolutely” subpoena recordings of conversations between President Trump and former FBI Director James Comey if they exist.
• REP ADAM SCHIFF on FACE THE NATION:  Attorney General Sessions should have played no part in firing – or hiring – FBI Director. Only underscores why we need independent counsel

7am – E         JetBlue kick family off plane in confrontation over their mom’s birthday cake after it is ‘deemed a SECURITY RISK’ on flight to Las Vegas to celebrate her 40^th. (Daily Mail) — A family claim they were kicked off a JetBlue plane because the birthday cake was deemed a ‘security risk’. Cameron Burke, his wife and two children were flying to Las Vegas from JFK on May 3 to celebrate his wife’s 40th birthday – and they brought a buttercream cake with them. But after they say they received conflicting advice about where they could store it a disagreement developed and they were ordered off the flight. The airline claims the family stored it in areas that were ‘improper’ – an overhead bin for safety equipment – and refused to move it. But the family say they followed all the cabin crew’s instructions.  Even after Port Authority officers called to the scene deemed ‘no wrongdoing’ on the part of the family, as see in a video obtained by ABC 7 NY, airline staff nonetheless forced them to exit the plane. The Burkes had boarded a Jet Blue flight out of Kennedy Airport and stored their buttercream cake in the overhead bin before taking their seats in the last row.

8am – A INTERVIEW — JOE CONCHA — Media reporter, The Hill

• Trump: White House should ‘not have press conferences’ unless ‘I do them myself’

8am – B/C     And the 2017 Miss USA winner is… Miss. D.C. crowned Miss USA for second year in a row. Kára McCullough, a 25-year-old chemist who works for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, wins Miss USA title.

• Miss District of Columbia wins 2017 edition of Miss USA. The District of Columbia has won back-to-back Miss USA titles. Kara McCullough, a 25-year-old chemist working for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was crowned Sunday at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on the Las Vegas Strip. She will go on to compete on the Miss Universe contest. The runner-up was Miss New Jersey Chhavi Verg, a student at Rutgers University studying marketing and Spanish. The second runner-up was Miss Minnesota Meridith Gould, who is studying apparel retail merchandising at the University of Minnesota. Fifty-one women representing each state and the nation’s capital participated in the decades-old competition. McCullough was born in Naples, Italy, and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She said she wants to inspire children to pursue careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
• Miss USA Kara McCullough says health care is a ‘privilege’ instead of a right, igniting social media debate.  The new Miss USA is a scientist at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and she knows a thing or two about dropping a bomb. Pageant winner Kara McCullough sent heads shaking Sunday night when she said affordable health care in America is a “privilege” instead of a “right.” McCullough, 25, who started the day as Miss District of Columbia, linked health care access to job creation, leaving the impression that people without a job are not entitled to coverage. “I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege,” McCullough (photo) said during the question-and-answer segment of the 2017 pageant at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on the Las Vegas Strip.

8am – D/E     Some D.C. Renters Make Tens of Thousands of Dollars Exploiting Decades-Old Law. (NBC Washington) — Some D.C. renters are holding homes hostage for high-dollar payouts and blocking sales by exploiting a decades-old law, the News4 I-Team learned. If you live in a rental that’s going up for sale, you can get a piece of the profit. “I’ve heard payouts as high as $50,000 to $100,000, and that’s for single family homes,” D.C. Association of Realtors President Colin Johnson said. Renters have become more savvy in using the law to force buyers and sellers to pay up or risk having their sale held hostage, Johnson said. Enacted in 1980, the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) was designed to keep longtime D.C. renters from being forced out of gentrifying neighborhoods or to help them afford a new lease in a different building. It basically gives the renters the first right to buy the place they live once it goes up for sale. But the News4 I-team found even when tenants don’t want to, or can’t afford to buy it, they can rake in big bucks by selling those rights to the highest bidder.