Joe diGenova, Chelsea Janes, Roger Stone and Rep. Dave Brat joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, October 30, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C   Will Ferrell’s funny videos to parents: Put your phones away. Will Ferrell will make you laugh in three videos about smart phones at the dinner table. Will Ferrell, star of Daddy’s Home 2 (in theaters Nov. 10), captures with his usual hapless hilarity the role of parent with a smart phone at dinner in his latest project, #devicefreedinner. He plays a smart phone-addicted dad, obsessed with social media “likes” and oblivious that his children say they desperately miss him, although he’s inches away at the dinner table. Ferrell partnered with Common Sense Media for a series of three videos aimed at reducing distracted parenting and reconnecting families at dinner.

5am – D/E     Mueller Indictment News:

• Christie slams leak of reported indictment in Russia probe: ‘It could be a crime.’ New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) in an interview early Sunday slammed the leak of a reported federal indictment in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, saying it could be a crime. “First off, it’s supposed to be kept secret,” Christie, a former prosecutor, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “There are very strict criminal laws about disclosing grand jury information. Now depending on who disclosed this to CNN, it could be a crime,” he added.
• Gowdy slams Mueller team over leaks about charges in Trump-Russia probe. (Fox News) — Chairman of the House Oversight Committee joins ‘Fox News Sunday’ to discuss new revelations surrounding Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, the leader of the House’s top investigative committee, slammed special counsel Robert Mueller on Sunday for allowing the news media to learn that he and his legal team now have charges in their Russia investigation. “In the only conversation I’ve had with Robert Mueller, I stressed to him the importance of cutting out the leaks,” Gowdy, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s kind of ironic that the people charged with investigating the law and the violations of the law would violate the law.” Mueller and his team have for roughly the past five months been leading a Justice Department investigation into whether anybody associated with the President Trump’s 2016 White House campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election outcome. On Friday night, CNN reported that Mueller’s team has filed the first charges in the case with a federal grand jury.
• DID MUELLER LEAK TO CNN? The Russia investigation into President Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia is being conducted by former FBI director Robert Mueller, who today saw the grand jury he impaneled recommend charges. At least one person could face arrest as soon as this Monday.  But while the charges remain sealed until Monday, one news organization had the scoop Friday night.  CNN exclusively reported the news Friday, citing anonymous sources connected to the probe.

6am – A         PELOSI NEWS:

• Nancy Pelosi isn’t going anywhere. Will it help or hurt Democrats in 2018? Pelosi openly mocks GOP for failing negotiations: Behind the scenes, Pelosi has been working with Republicans to undermine the Trump agenda. In recent months, she has strategized with Republican governors over preserving key parts of the ACA. She described Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval as a “resource on persuading others” to resist Medicaid cuts, and aides said she also talked with Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, an independent. A spokesman for Walker confirmed the conversations; the offices of Sandoval and Kasich did not reply to a request for comment. She also has led her caucus to negotiating victories in Washington. The budget agreement this past spring failed to fund most Republican priorities, including a new border wall, while providing billions for medical research, disaster funding and college grants. “Even though they had the signature and two majorities, we ate their lunch,” Pelosi boasted. “That’s what we do.” The process repeated itself last month, when she joined Schumer in winning Trump’s support for a three-month budget extension, set to create a December showdown over the 2018 budget. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) later argued that the deal was not as bad as it seemed. “He was trying to pin a rose on it, poor baby,” Pelosi said. “We now have more leverage.”
• Pelosi says she’s never been sexually harassed. While Pelosi said she has never experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, she also believes that the unacceptable level of sexism in the culture has changed little since the 1980s. “No, it’s about the same: nick, nick, nick, nick,” she said, pointing with her hands to demonstrate how women’s power is undercut by the men. This is one of the reasons, she said, that she is so unabashed about pointing out her own abilities.

• Pelosi: GOP ‘Disunity Gives Us Leverage’  About a week after the Vegas fundraiser, Pelosi traveled to her alma mater, Trinity Washington University, a Catholic women’s school in the District, where more than 10 percent of the student population are “Dreamers” — undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. She told the students Democrats would not leave for the winter break without a legislative fix to give them legal status. It was an implicit threat: If Republicans wanted Democratic votes to prevent a government shutdown, they would need to deal. But she denies any effort by Democrats to shut down anything. “They have the votes, and they have the White House,” she said of the Republicans. “They have the power to keep government open.” That is a crafty bit of messaging, an attempt to take responsibility off Democrats, even though it has been clear for months that Republicans cannot hold their caucus together. “Their disunity gives us leverage,” she explained. “They need our vote. We need our say.”     This is the plight of the current Republican leadership. Did she ever feel sympathy for speakers John A. Boehner or Paul D. Ryan as they struggled in their jobs?  “No,” she said, without flinching. “Pity.”

6am – B         TAX REFORM NEWS:

• GOP tax bill shrouded in secrecy. Days ahead of the plan’s release, even rank-and-file Republicans are alarmed that they’re being kept in the dark. (Politico) – Rank-and-file House Republicans are increasingly alarmed by the secrecy shrouding the massive tax bill their party leaders plan to ram through Congress next month. Just days ahead of the legislation’s release, GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee are still in the dark on numerous details being ironed out by the powerful tax-writing committee’s chairman, Kevin Brady (R-Texas), and his staff. And they’re blaming the panel’s top-down approach for the uncertainty.
• TOP 20% OF TAXPAYERS PAY 95% OF ALL TAXES: OMB later cited internal data to the Washington Examiner that said the top 20 percent of people to pay income taxes account for 94.8 percent of those taxes in 2016. That appears to be a jump from just a few years ago. In 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that the top 20 percent of income earners paid 84 percent of income taxes.

6am – C         Roger Stone vows legal action over Twitter suspension. Roger Stone, the longtime Republican strategist and an informal adviser to President Donald Trump, plans to file an antitrust lawsuit against Twitter after the company permanently suspended his account on Saturday. “I am going to sue Twitter on multiple grounds,” Stone told Business Insider on Sunday.

6am – D         George Washington’s Church Says Plaque Honoring First President Must Come Down. Leaders at the church that George Washington attended decided that a plaque honoring the first president of the United States must be removed. Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia will take down a memorial marking the pew where Washington sat with his family, saying it is not acceptable to all worshipers. “The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome,” leaders said, a reference to the fact that Washington was a slaveholder. “Some visitors and guests who worship with us choose not to return because they receive an unintended message from the prominent presence of the plaques.” “Many in our congregation feel a strong need for the church to stand clearly on the side of ‘all are welcome- no exceptions,'” they concluded. A memorial to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee will also come down. The decision comes in the wake of renewed controversy over whether statues honoring Civil War figures should be no longer honored. The debate broke out again over the summer after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia killed one and injured others. President Trump expressed concern that the censoring of Confederate generals would lead to dishonoring Thomas Jefferson and George Washington as well.

6am – E         Kevin Spacey’s Weird Apology:

• Actor Claims Kevin Spacey Tried To Seduce Him When He Was Only 14 Years Old. An actor named Anthony Rapp has claimed that Hollywood A-lister Kevin Spacey tried to seduce him after a party when he was only 14 years old. This is explosive news. Will Spacey ever work again? BuzzFeed reported: Actor Anthony Rapp: Kevin Spacey Made A Sexual Advance Toward Me When I Was 14. Last June, Anthony Rapp settled in at the home of his good friend and fellow actor Camryn Manheim to watch the Tony Awards. The New York natives were both in Toronto working, and Manheim had invited Rapp and his boyfriend over to partake in the beloved theater geek ritual. But for the first time, Rapp — a working actor since he was 9 years old, and most famously part of the original cast of the musical Rent — felt something he’d never experienced before with the Tonys: dread. And that’s because the host that night was Kevin Spacey. In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Rapp is publicly alleging for the first time that in 1986, Spacey befriended Rapp while they both performed on Broadway shows, invited Rapp over to his apartment for a party, and, at the end of the night, picked Rapp up, placed him on his bed, and climbed on top of him, making a sexual advance. According to public records, Spacey was 26. Rapp was 14… Rapp said. Spacey, he recalled, “sort of stood in the doorway, kind of swaying. My impression when he came in the room was that he was drunk.” Rapp doesn’t remember Spacey saying anything to him. Instead, Rapp said, “He picked me up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold. But I don’t, like, squirm away initially, because  I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then he lays down on top of me.” “He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp said. “I don’t know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”
• SPACEY APOLOGY: In response to the allegations, Spacey tweeted that he was “beyond horrified to hear [Rapp’s] story.” Spacey tweeted: “I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago. “But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years.”   Kevin Spacey has come out publicly as gay after years of speculation. The Oscar-winning actor, who has fiercely guarded his personal life for years, announced his homosexuality on Twitter as he responded to allegations by actor Anthony Rapp that Spacey had tried to seduce him when he was 14 years old. The House of Cards star, 58, tweeted: ‘I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man.’

6am – F         VA GOVERNOR RACE:

• Virginia’s governor’s race draws big names from both parties. Former Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California spent the weekend at get-out-the-vote rallies and black churches trying to rally Democrats around the statewide ticket.  Gillespie has an event scheduled Sunday evening with U.S. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and a Monday event with U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Gillespie campaigned last week with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.

• The WMAL Diner Tour is back! WMAL’s Mornings on the Mall is heading to Virginia just in time for Election Day! Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese are taking the pulse of Virginia voters with a live broadcast at Metro 29 Diner in Arlington, just ahead of the election. Stop by to join the conversation live with Mornings on the Mall and WMAL!

7am – A/B/C INTERVIEW – JOE DIGENOVA – LEGAL ANALYST AND FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY TO THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA – discussed the reported indictment in the Russia probe.

7am – D         BOEHNER UNHINGED:

• POLITICO PIECE: John Boehner Unchained: The former House speaker feels liberated—but he’s also seething about what happened to his party.
• John Boehner: Jason Chaffetz is an asshole. Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a new profile from Politico on Sunday that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) are “a–holes.”  “Gowdy — that’s my guy, even though he doesn’t know how to dress,” John Boehner told Politico.  “F— Jordan. F— Chaffetz. They’re both a–holes.” Boehner also called Chaffetz a “total phony” who was obsessed with promoting himself while in Congress. “With Chaffetz it’s always about Chaffetz,” Boehner told Politico.
• Boehner on Jim Jordan: “Jordan was a terrorist as a legislator going back to his days in the Ohio House and Senate”
• GOP lawmaker once held a knife to John Boehner’s throat. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) once pinned former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) against a wall and held a knife to his throat during a heated debate about earmarks. John Boehner told Politico about the incident in a new profile published Sunday.  The former speaker described his difficulties in banning earmarks, or measures that funded projects in lawmaker’s home districts. Boehner said that Young once pinned him against a wall in the House during an argument over earmarks, and that Young held a 10-inch knife to Boehner’s throat. Boehner responded by staring Young in the eyes and saying, “F— you.”  Young confirmed the account as “mostly true” to Politico, but pointed out that he and Boehner later became such good friends that Boehner was the best man at his wedding.

7am – E         INTERVIEW – CHELSEA JANES – Sports reporter (Nats/baseball), Washington Post – discussed the Nats Manager change and latest of what’s happening at the World Series.

• NATS: Nationals Hire Cubs Bench Coach Dave Martinez To Replace Dusty Baker. Nationals agree to three-year deal to make Davey Martinez their next manager 
• WORLD SERIES: Astros take wild Game 5, take 3-2 lead to Los Angeles

8am – A         Paul Manafort, Who Once Ran Trump Campaign, Told to Surrender. WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort and his former business associate Rick Gates were told to surrender to federal authorities Monday morning, the first charges in a special counsel investigation, according to a person involved in the case.

8am – B/C    INTERVIEW – ROGER STONE – New York Times bestselling author of new book “The Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution” AND  a political veteran of ten Republican presidential campaigns and an adviser to President Nixon, Reagan, and Trump

• Roger Stone vows legal action over Twitter suspension.
• Paul Manafort, Who Once Ran Trump Campaign, Told to Surrender

8am – D         INTERVIEW — REP. DAVE BRAT (R-VA) – representing Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District. Brat is also on the House Committees on House Budget and the House Small Business Committee – discussed the Manafort indictment and tax reform in Congress.

8am – E         Paul Manafort and Rick Gates Indicted on 12 Counts Including Conspiracy Against U.S.