wmal.com/ **** 888-630-WMAL (9625)  

Facebook: facebook.com/wmaldc ** Twitter: @wmaldc

** E-mail: [email protected] **

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

5am – A/B/C Obamacare Repeal & Replace Struggles: Is there a Lack of Leadership from Trump?

• GOP Senators Who Voted For Clean Obamacare Repeal in 2015 Won’t Vote For It Now (Daily Caller) These 48 Republican Senators Voted For A Clean Obamacare Repeal In 2015. Two Republicans senators who voted to repeal Obamacare in 2015 now say they will not support a similar bill by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Forty-eight current Republican senators supported the 2015 Obamacare repeal bill, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. Now Murkowski and Moore Capito oppose the McConnell measure. Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins has also said she will vote “no,” which is the same position she had in 2015. The Trump administration backed Obamacare repeal-and-replace legislation stalled Monday as a total of four Republican senators said they wouldn’t support the bill. The GOP currently holds 52 seats in the Senate.
• ‘Let’s Do What We Said!’ Jim Jordan Wants a Clean Obamacare Repeal (Daily Caller) Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said Tuesday that he would definitely vote for a clean Obamacare repeal because “that’s what we told the American people we were gonna do.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Monday that the Senate would no longer vote on a a GOP-crafted replacement bill for Obamacare, and instead would vote on a straight repeal bill that would phase out Obamacare over two years. The announcement was made after it became clear that the Senate did not have enough votes to pass the replacement.

5am – D More Obama officials scrutinized in ‘unmasking’ probe (Fox News) The number of people thought to be involved in the alleged “unmasking” of American citizens under the Obama administration could be expanding, according to a source close to the House Intelligence Committee’s review. The source with knowledge of the review told Fox News the records suggest the unmasking “goes beyond” key officials like former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power. The source said more than a half-dozen former senior Obama administration officials are now of interest to House committee investigators.

5am – E “Nobody kill anybody”: Murder-free weekend urged in Baltimore (Baltimore Sun) A 44-year-old mother might seem an unusual visitor on the drug corners of Baltimore, but Erricka Bridgeford has shown up for weeks to make her pitch for peace. Forget your grudges for one weekend, she urges the young men she finds. Help bring a 72-hour truce to a city besieged by gun violence. “It’s a citywide call,” she tells them, “but I’m talking to you.” Bridgeford and other neighborhood leaders are drumming up support for a three-day ceasefire the first weekend of August to quell Baltimore’s violence. She admits that such peace is a tall order for a city that’s seen 188 killings this year. Organizers aim to stop the shooting from Friday, Aug. 4, through Sunday, Aug. 6, with a unified and blunt message: “Nobody kill anybody.” Their message has been printed on T-shirts and flyers. They designed a website and held community meetings. More than 1,600 people visited their Facebook page. The grass-roots campaign has swelled since it began in May.

6am – A/B/C GOP Official Retweets Article Begging 80-Year-Old McCain To ‘Just F***ing Die Already’ (Washington Post) A member of the Republican National Committee in Nevada apologized after retweeting an article that begged for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to die. Diana Orrock, a national committeewoman for the Nevada GOP, shared a story headlined “Please Just F***ing Die Already.” In retweeting the piece, which was published on Medium, Orrock wrote “Amen.” Several hours after posting the now-deleted tweet, Orrock apologized to McCain and to the Nevada and national GOP, calling the ailing senator “an American hero” — and her own post “disrespectful.”

6am – D INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – Syndicated columnist

TOPIC: Obamacare

• President Trump needs to stop dealing with feckless members of Congress who care more about their own careers than they do the people they are supposed to be serving.
• Republicans, especially, voted seven times — That’s SEVEN TIMES — to repeal Obamacare when its author was President. That appears to have been done, not because they believed the president would actually sign a bill overturning his signature achievement, but because Republicans wanted to tell their supporters they did what they could. Now that a Republican is in the White House and repeal would be certain, too many Republicans have shown they really don’t want to repeal Obamacare because they fear retribution from voters who feel entitled to its benefits.
• The President should deliver a national address summarizing the problem and saying that since Congress refuses to fix it, he will, by summoning the best minds from the private sector to develop a health insurance plan that will benefit the most Americans and then demanding that Congress pass it. If they still refuse, he should make it a campaign issue next year and run against those Republicans who don’t have the courage to do what they did seven times before when it didn’t matter. Why does anyone think government can do anything better than the private sector? We can’t even win wars anymore.

6am – E What Americans Care about vs. What the Media Cares about (Ricochet) Bloomberg released a poll Monday in which they gauged Americans’ mood six months into the new presidency. While Trump didn’t fare too well, Americans are quite optimistic about the economy in general and their personal financial health. As part of the study, Bloomberg asked respondents what they think is the top issue facing the country. Here are the results: Not surprisingly, health care tops the list of concerns, followed by jobs and security issues. These findings are pretty typical, though the collapse of Obamacare and the GOP bills to fix it have caused health care to surge higher than usual. But look toward the center of the list. Russia, the issue that has dominated press coverage since the November election, scores a paltry 6 percent on Americans’ top concerns. Just 6 percent of Americans think Russia is the top issue, yet nightly newscasts devoted 75 percent of their airtime to the story. Meanwhile, Americans’ biggest concern, health care, only garnered 4 percent of the major networks’ total coverage. The media have shown how drastically out of step they are with their own audience. If they want to earn back their hemorrhaging Nielsen numbers, perhaps they can spend time on something other than Russia Russia Russia.

7am – A Trump Promise Watch

• Trump Didn’t Tear Up The Iran Deal On Day 1 — He Recertified It On Day 178 BUT…. Trump Administration Announces New Sanctions on Iran; Trump Administration Recertifies Iran Deal (The Daily Caller) The Trump administration recertified the Iranian nuclear deal Monday. The agreement, also known as the JCPOA, went into effect in October 2015 and is between China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the U.S., the European Union, and Iran. President Obama said the agreement would stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, although then-candidate Trump slammed it and promised to “rip up” the deal.
• Trump Announces New Sanctions, Launches Review To ‘Aggressively Counter’ Iran (Daily Caller) The Trump administration announced a round of new sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ballistic missile program and paramilitary force Tuesday — one day after certifying Iran’s technical compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. The U.S. Department of State and the Department of Treasury announced the sanctions simultaneously.
• Immigration arrests up, deportations down under Trump (USA Today) In the final three months of the Obama administration, ICE averaged 9,134 arrests per month. That number has steadily increased under Trump, with the agency averaging 13,085 each month from February through June. [..] ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan recently said the drop in deportations is because of the backlog in federal immigration courts…
• U.S. Calls for ‘Much Better Deal’ in NAFTA Overhaul Plan (New York Times) Claiming it wants to negotiate a “much better deal for all Americans,” the Trump administration on Monday revealed its most detailed list of objectives to date for an overhaul of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. The United States Trade Representative said a revamped Nafta must include provisions to eliminate unfair subsidies and give the United States broader authority to crack down on an influx of cheap products. Trade is a centerpiece of President Trump’s economic agenda, and the renegotiation of Nafta has been a pillar of his promise to revive American manufacturing. “Too many Americans have been hurt by closed factories, exported jobs and broken political promises,” said Robert Lighthizer, Mr. Trump’s trade representative.

7am – B Women’s March

• Dem Senators Decline to Condemn Women’s March for Supporting Terrorist (The Daily Caller) Three prominent Democratic senators declined to withdraw their support for Women’s March after the organization declared support for Assata Shakur, a convicted cop-killer and domestic terrorist on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Sens. Kamala Harris, Dianne Feinstein and Kirsten Gillibrand have all been enthusiastic supporters of Women’s March. As reported by The Daily Caller, the organization declared its support over the weekend for Shakur, who fled to Cuba after escaping from the prison where she was serving a life sentence. Shakur, Women’s March said, is a “sign of resistance.”
• CNN Anchor Condemns Women’s March For Pro Cop Killer Tweet (The Daily Caller) CNN anchor Jake Tapper slammed the silence from “progressives” that refused to condemn the Women’s March tweeting out support of a cop killer Tuesday. The Women’s March honored cop-killer Assata Shakur on Monday by tweeting out a birthday wish for her. Tapper criticized the left for not speaking up about the organization honoring Shakur, or for past comments made by Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour. “Shakur is a cop-killer fugitive in Cuba. This, ugly sentiments from @lsarsour & @dykemarchchi …Any progressives out there condemning this?” Tapper tweeted, also criticizing the left’s silence on the Dyke March banning Jewish pride flags. The Women’s March doubled down on their support of Shakur Monday after facing outrage over social media. The group said that, while they don’t support Shakur’s violent methods, it views Shakur as a “feminist figure” for trying to fight the sexism in the Black Liberation Movement.
• Linda Sarsour Says Jake Tapper Is A White Nationalist (The Daily Caller) Left-wing activist and Woman’s March organizer Linda Sarsour accused CNN anchor Jake Tapper of being a member of the alt-right, a small white nationalist faction on the far-right. Tapper called out Women’s March and Sarsour after the organization expressed its support for convicted cop-killer and domestic terrorist Assata Shakur. Tapper also referenced “ugly sentiments” from Sarsour and recent anti-Semitic statements made by a Chicago-based LGBT activist group.

7am – C Tropical Storm Don weakens as Tropical Storm Hilary gathers strength (The Hill) Tropical Storm Don is set to scatter winds and rain across the Caribbean Sea Tuesday, weakening as another tropical storm — named Hilary — is expected to form in the Pacific Ocean. The storms’ names are, coincidentally, strikingly similar to those of the 2016 presidential candidates. Storm names are chosen using a strictly predetermined list decided by the Switzerland-based World Meteorological Organization. So when the Weather Channel reports that “Don is no threat to the United States,” the organization is not making a political statement. Max Mayfield, a former National Hurricane Center director who headed the committee that added Don to the name list in 2006, told the Associated Press the names were purely a coincidence. “I hadn’t even thought about that,” he said. “I guarantee you that it has no connection to Donald Trump.” The meteorological organization uses a rotating six-year list of names to label tropical storms, with the exception names — such as Sandy or Katrina — that get retired for sensitivity after deadly or costly storms.

7am – D RUSSIAN TO JUDGMENT The eighth person to attend the Trump Tower meeting has been identified as Ike Kaveladze, a real estate executive who was implicated in a possible money laundering scheme in the U.S. nearly two decades ago. Kaveladze, who has residences in the U.S. but splits time in Moscow, is said to have attended the meeting on behalf of Aras Agalarov, a Russian-Azerbaijani real estate mogul who has done business with the Trump family in the past. Mueller is expected to speak to all eight of the people in the meeting to determine whether members of the Trump campaign attempted to collude with the Russian government during the presidential campaign.

7am – E Va. middle school principal charged with assault over spanking allegations (Washington Post) A principal at an Alexandria school was charged with assault and battery over allegations that he spanked a student after she was asked to pick something up off the cafeteria floor and refused. The alleged incident occurred April 4 when the 12-year-old student was in the cafeteria with a few friends at Carl Sandburg Middle School, according to Fairfax County police. The principal, Terrence Yarborough, purportedly came into the cafeteria and asked her to pick a piece of trash off the floor; she said no. It’s unclear whether the student had dropped the item on the floor. Yarborough then asked her again to pick it up and she refused a second time, according to police. Yarborough, 53, then allegedly smacked the girl on her buttocks, police said. The student left the cafeteria and reported the alleged incident to a teacher. A school resource officer was contacted, as were officials from Fairfax County Public Schools along with Child Protective Services.

8am – A/B/C DO YOU WANT TO FORCE A REPEAL VOTE? WAS THIS A LACK OF LEADERSHIP FROM TRUMP?

• GOP Senators Who Voted For Clean Obamacare Repeal In 2015 Won’t Vote For It Now. (Daily Caller) — These 48 Republican Senators Voted For A Clean Obamacare Repeal In 2015. Two Republicans senators who voted to repeal Obamacare in 2015 now say they will not support a similar bill by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Forty-eight current Republican senators supported the 2015 Obamacare repeal bill, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. Now Murkowski and Moore Capito oppose the McConnell measure. Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins has also said she will vote “no,” which is the same position she had in 2015. The Trump administration backed Obamacare repeal-and-replace legislation stalled Monday as a total of four Republican senators said they wouldn’t support the bill. The GOP currently holds 52 seats in the Senate.
• ‘Let’s Do What We Said!’ Jim Jordan Wants A Clean Obamacare Repeal. (Daily Caller) — Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said Tuesday that he would definitely vote for a clean Obamacare repeal because “that’s what we told the American people we were gonna do.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Monday that the Senate would no longer vote on a a GOP-crafted replacement bill for Obamacare, and instead would vote on a straight repeal bill that would phase out Obamacare over two years. The announcement was made after it became clear that the Senate did not have enough votes to pass the replacement.
• TRUMP: ‘We’ll Just Let Obamacare Fail… We’re Not Going To Own It. I’m Not Going To Own It.’

8am – D More Obama officials scrutinized in ‘unmasking’ probe (Fox News) The number of people thought to be involved in the alleged “unmasking” of American citizens under the Obama administration could be expanding, according to a source close to the House Intelligence Committee’s review. The source with knowledge of the review told Fox News the records suggest the unmasking “goes beyond” key officials like former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power. The source said more than a half-dozen former senior Obama administration officials are now of interest to House committee investigators.

8am – E GRADE INFLATION? A’s on the rise in U.S. report cards, but SAT scores founder (USA Today) Recent findings show that the proportion of high school seniors graduating with an A average — that includes an A-minus or A-plus — has grown sharply over the past generation, even as average SAT scores have fallen. The good news on America’s report cards: More high school teachers are handing out A’s. But the bad news is that students aren’t necessarily learning more. Recent findings show that the proportion of high school seniors graduating with an A average — that includes an A-minus or A-plus — has grown sharply over the past generation, even as average SAT scores have fallen. In 1998, it was 38.9%. By last year, it had grown to 47%. That’s right: Nearly half of America’s Class of 2016 are A students. Meanwhile, their average SAT score fell from 1,026 to 1,002 on a 1,600-point scale — suggesting that those A’s on report cards might be fool’s gold.