Cal Thomas, Red Maryland’s Greg Kline, SBA List’s Marjorie Dannenfelser and Judicial Watch’s Chris Farrell joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C Would you donate money to build the border wall? (Washington Examiner) — Rep. Diane Black, a Republican running for Tennessee governor, has introduced legislation that would let people and companies donate to the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Her bill would create an account at the Treasury Department to take donations that would be used to fund President Trump’s biggest campaign promise, after Congress failed to give him the $25 billion he requested in January. “While Democrats block commonsense border security and put illegal immigrants before our families, we are going to put America first. Real immigration reform cannot be achieved without a secure border,” Black said in a statement. The Border Wall Trust Fund Act would allow money deposited in the Treasury fund to be used for “planning, designing, constructing, and maintaining a barrier along the international border,” her press release stated.

5am – D         Netflix announces former Pres. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama “have entered into a multi-year agreement to produce films and series” for the streaming service.

5am – E         LATEST ON TRUMP vs DOJ/FBI:

• White House says Rosenstein agrees to Trump ‘demand’ DOJ investigate whether campaign ‘infiltrated’ (ABC News) — President Donald Trump met Monday at the White House with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray a day after he tweeted that he would “demand” the Justice Department investigate whether his 2016 presidential campaign was improperly “infiltrated or surveilled” for political purposes by an alleged FBI informant. Neither Rosenstein nor Wray spoke after the meeting. But White House press secretary Sarah Sanders issued a statement indicating that while Trump may not have gone as far as he could have – agreeing to fold his demand into an existing probe – Rosenstein and the others had acceded at least in part to Trump’s order, something some critics were calling inappropriate interference.  “Based on the meeting with the President, the Department of Justice has asked the Inspector General to expand its current investigation to include any irregularities with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s or the Department of Justice’s tactics concerning the Trump Campaign. It was also agreed that White House Chief of Staff Kelly will immediately set up a meeting with the FBI, DOJ, and DNI together with Congressional Leaders to review highly classified and other information they have requested,” Sanders said in the statement.
• Justice Department to proceed with FBI investigation (Axios) — The Justice Department inspector general will investigate “any irregularities with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s or the Department of Justice’s tactics concerning the Trump Campaign,” per a statement from White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. Between the lines: That’s the outcome from President Trump’s meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray this afternoon, and it’s pretty much where the investigation was already headed as of Sunday. But there will also be a meeting with White House chief of staff John Kelly, intelligence agencies, and congressional leaders to review classified information.
• IG report on the Clinton case is expected to hit FBI leaders for sitting on emails in 2016. (Axios) — “President Trump, increasingly concerned that his summit meeting in Singapore next month with North Korea’s leader could turn into a political embarrassment, has begun pressing his aides and allies about whether he should take the risk of proceeding,” the N.Y. Times David E. Sanger reports. Why it matters: ‘Trump’s aides have grown concerned that the president — who has said that ‘everyone thinks’ he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts — has signaled that he wants the summit meeting too much.”
• Justice Department calls for inquiry after Trump demands probe into whether FBI ‘infiltrated or surveilled’ his campaign
• Prodded by Trump, FBI to look into complaint about its 2016 tactics
• “White House Chief of Staff Kelly will immediately set up a meeting with the FBI, DOJ, and DNI together with Congressional Leaders to review highly classified and other information they have requested,” White House says.
• SEAN DAVIS: This confirms @MZHemingway’s reporting last week that, contra claims from the Washington Post and anonymous DOJ officials, the White House was never on board with Rosenstein’s plan to obstruct a congressional subpoena.
• VP: “The American people understand that when it comes to The Justice Dept, when it comes to the @FBI, that we have thousands of men and women who each and every day are dedicated to enforcing the laws and protecting our families and protecting our country.” #TheStory
• VP on reports of FBI surveillance of the #Trump campaign: “We don’t know what happened…it’s all very troubling to those of us that hold the @FBI in such high regard.”

 

6am – A/B/C 4 DAY SCHOOL WEEKS: Schools across the nation are now adopting a four-day week. (NBC News) – Four-day weeks bring smiles in rural schools. But will they work in big cities? Increasingly, school districts across the country are banking on the short week to save money and alleviate the worsening teacher shortage. Three-day weekends are a nice recruiting tool. McLOUD, Okla. — In many ways Oliver Prince is your typical, happy fifth-grader. He enjoys recess, gym class and time at school on the computer. But in one key way, he, along with the other 92 students at White Rock School in this tiny, bucolic town 50 miles east of Oklahoma City, are very different: They go to school only four days a week. The single-school district is one of the 97 of Oklahoma’s 513 districts that have made the switch to the four-day week in recent years, citing struggles to cut their budgets and recruit high-quality teachers amid a nationwide teacher shortage and pay crisis that has had a particularly devastating effect on schools in the Sooner State. “There are lots of challenges and problems that people haven’t tried to fix,” Bob Gragg, the superintendent, told NBC News. “But just because we’ve been doing it one way for a long time doesn’t mean we necessarily need to keep doing it that way.” City school districts are taking notice. The four day-week is now beating a path to urban districts, which are facing their own crippling budget shortfalls and teacher retention challenges and are ready to try new solutions to solve growing problems.

6am – D         INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – syndicated columnist – discussed the latest on Trump vs FBI/DOJ.

6am – E         DC Mayor Muriel Bowser adopts newborn. Mayor Bowser welcomed Baby Bowser into her home and heart over the weekend. WASHINGTON — (WUSA9) She’s the hometown girl who became mayor of her favorite city. Muriel Bowser leads the nation’s capital and is running to stay in that role for a second term. But she’s about to realize her biggest dream. Mayor Bowser invited WUSA9 Anchor Lesli Foster into her home to share the news. The city sees her in good times and bad. Making tough decisions, like the one she made to accept the resignation of then-DC Public Schools chancellor Antwan Wilson. Wilson bypassed a city wide lottery with rules that he helped to create in order to get his daughter into a more optimal school setting. Mayor Bowser is celebrating the success of her evolving city and is out on the campaign trail pushing her vision to transform Washington, D.C. But for the longest time, something was missing.

“People tell me all the time when they see me with kids, ‘you could have a baby. You should have a baby,’ and I said, ‘okay, maybe I should,'” says Bowser.

6am – F         Masters of the Universe: Google Officially Removes ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Motto from Code of Conduct (Breitbart) – Tech giant Google has officially removed the long-time company motto of “Don’t be evil” from its code of conduct. For years Google’s unofficial company motto was “Don’t be evil,” but according to the company’s updated code of conduct, that is no longer their mantra.  According to Gizmodo, Google removed the motto from their code of conduct in late April or early May. The phrase has been featured in Google documentation since 2000, making its sudden removal a worrying sign as tech companies come under greater scrutiny for their roles in users lives. This decision also seems to come shortly after a number of employees quit the company to protest a contract that Google has entered into with the U.S. government to help improve military drone software.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – GREG KLINE – RED MARYLAND – co-founder of “Red Maryland”, a popular conservative blog about Republican politics in the Free State of Maryland. KLINE is also an attorney in Maryland @RedMaryland @GregoryKline

• Democratic candidates take swipes at Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in first TV debate of election season. (Baltimore Sun) — In the first televised debate of the election season, Democrats running for Maryland governor attacked popular Republican incumbent Larry Hogan and attempted to stand out by highlighting what little differences exist among their campaigns. The hour-long taped debate, which aired at 7 p.m. Monday on Maryland Public Television and WBAL-TV’s digital channel, offered many voters their first glimpse at the crowded field of nine candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in the June 26 primary election. The Democrats — from longtime government officials to political novices — largely agreed that Maryland needs to spend more on education and mass transit and less on locking people in jails. They also agreed that Hogan had damaged Baltimore by canceling the proposed Red Line transit project and by not engaging enough to help the city deal with the more than 1,100 homicides during the GOP governor’s term. They criticized Hogan for not investing more in education and for what they described as an unfriendly business climate.

7am – B         ‘GOD LOVES YOU’ Pope Francis tells gay man ‘God made you like this and loves you like this’ (The Sun) — The remarks were apparently made to a victim of clerical sexual abuse and are the most striking acceptance of homosexuality by the Catholic Church to date. POPE Francis has told a gay man that God loves him during a private meeting, it has been claimed. In a private dialogue, the Pontiff is understood to have told Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests, that God loves gay people and it is fine to be homosexual. The comments are the most striking public acceptance about homosexuality ever made by a head of the Roman Catholic Church. The remarks were made during a private meeting at the Vatican between the pair, in which the Pope offered a heartfelt apology. Cruz was a victim of Chile’s most notorious paedophile priest Fernando Karadima.  Father Karadima, now aged 87, was found guilty of sexual abuse by the Vatican in 2011. Cruz claims that his suffering was ignored by a number of Latin American bishops who used his homosexuality to brand him a liar when he spoke out. Speaking to Spanish newspaper El País, Cruz said: “He [the Pope] told me, ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. “God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. “The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.” The Pope’s words signal a much more open and inclusive approach by the often restrictive faith – a move which will likely upset many conservative Catholics.

7am – C         Conservative Wave Urges Jim Jordan For Speaker (Daily Caller) — A coalition of more than 100 conservatives sent a letter to House Freedom Caucus (HFC) co-founder Jim Jordan Monday urging him to throw his name in to replace outgoing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. “There must be a real race for Speaker of the House. Now. No backroom deals. A real race, starting this spring, to make every incumbent and candidate commit on the record, as a campaign issue, whether they’ll vote to save the Swamp or drain it,” the letter reads. “America needs you to declare yourself as a candidate for Speaker at once. We write to you on behalf of millions of Americans who want Congress to Drain the Swamp.” Ryan rattled Capitol Hill in April when he announced he will retire from the House after nearly 20 years in Congress, telling reporters he wanted to spend more time with his family and pursue other opportunities. Two of the top House Republicans — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana — are angling for the position, but neither thought to have a guaranteed lock on the speakership.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – Marjorie Dannenfelser – President of the Susan B. Anthony List, an American political organization that seeks to advance pro-life women in politics.

• Trump Takes Taxpayers Out of the Abortion Business
• Kellyanne Conway On Trump Defunding Planned Parenthood: ‘Abortion Is Not Family Planning’
• President Donald Trump to Keynote Susan B. Anthony List’s 11th Annual Gala. Honorable Kellyanne Conway to Receive Pro-life Distinguished Leader Award, Majority Whip Steve Scalise to Give Special Remarks. Washington, D.C. – This afternoon the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List announced that President Donald J. Trump will speak at the organization’s eleventh annual Campaign for Life Gala. The event will take place Tuesday, May 22 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.  Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President, will receive SBA List’s 2018 Distinguished Leader Award. Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana will give special remarks. Long-time pro-life advocate and businesswoman Kathy Ireland will serve as Mistress of Ceremonies.

7am – E         Trump’s tweets include grammatical errors. And some are on purpose. (Boston Globe) — WASHINGTON — The hallmark of President Trump’s Twitter feed is that it sounds like him — grammatical miscues and all. But it’s not always Trump tapping out a Tweet, even when it sounds like his voice. West Wing employees who draft proposed tweets intentionally employ suspect grammar and staccato syntax in order to mimic the president’s style, according to two people familiar with the process. They overuse the exclamation point! They Capitalize random words for emphasis. Fragments. Loosely connected ideas. All part of a process that is not as spontaneous as Trump’s Twitter feed often appears. Presidential speechwriters have always sought to channel their bosses’ style and cadence, but Trump’s team is blazing new ground with its approach to his favorite means of instant communication. Some staff members even relish the scoldings Trump gets from elites shocked by the Trumpian language they strive to imitate, believing that debates over presidential typos fortify the belief within his base that he has the common touch.

 

8am – A         INTERVIEW – CHRIS FARRELL – Judicial Watch Director of Investigations and Research – discussed Trump’s battle with the DOJ and FBI.

8am – B         SCHOOL APOLOGIES:

• School apologizes for trash talking rival in yearbook. (AP) — SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah high school is apologizing to its rival after publishing a yearbook page criticizing the school as “lame,” “satanic” and “trash.” Administrators at Maple Mountain High School in Spanish Fork told students at rival Springville High School on Saturday they made a mistake in allowing the remarks to be published on a page titled “Describe Springville.” The yearbook page included the comments and others as part of a word cloud in the shape of Springville High School’s logo.
• New Jersey principal apologizes for ‘insensitive’ prom tickets that tell students to ‘party like it’s 1776.’ (Daily Mail) — A New Jersey high school is under fire after it released prom tickets that encouraged students to ‘party like it’s 1776’.  Cherry Hill High School East designed the prom tickets to commemorate that the dance was being held at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. But the ‘insensitive’ language offended members of the student body, prompting an immediate apology from principal Dennis Perry.  ‘I am writing to apologize for the hurt feelings this reference caused for members of our school family,’ Perry wrote in a letter posted to Twitter on Friday.    ‘It was insensitive and irresponsible not to appreciate that not all communities can celebrate what life was like in 1776.’   ‘I especially apologize to our African American students, who I have let down by not initially recognizing the inappropriateness of this wording.’  Perry then promised that the school will ‘do better…to produce well thought out, appropriate communications’.

8am – C         CAPS WIN: Capitals come up big, force Game 7 with 3-0 win against Lightning. (USA Today) — WASHINGTON – T.J. Oshie quibbled with the motivating factor behind the Washington Capitals’ Game 6 victory.  “Not really a sense of desperation because I don’t think we felt desperate out there, but a pretty direct urgency,” Oshie told reporters after the 3-0 victory that sets up a decisive Game 7 at Tampa’s Amalie Arena on Wednesday.

8am – D/E     Would you donate money to build the border wall? (Washington Examiner) — Rep. Diane Black, a Republican running for Tennessee governor, has introduced legislation that would let people and companies donate to the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Her bill would create an account at the Treasury Department to take donations that would be used to fund President Trump’s biggest campaign promise, after Congress failed to give him the $25 billion he requested in January. “While Democrats block commonsense border security and put illegal immigrants before our families, we are going to put America first. Real immigration reform cannot be achieved without a secure border,” Black said in a statement. The Border Wall Trust Fund Act would allow money deposited in the Treasury fund to be used for “planning, designing, constructing, and maintaining a barrier along the international border,” her press release stated.