Guest host Saagar Enjeti joined Mary Walter on WMAL Friday morning!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, June 22, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and guest host Saagar Enjeti

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C Q & A with SAAGAR ENJETI

5am – D         Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize winner and longtime Fox News contributor, dead at 68. Charles Krauthammer, a longtime Fox News contributor, Pulitzer Prize winner, Harvard-trained psychiatrist and best-selling author who came to be known as the dean of conservative commentators, died Thursday. He was 68. His death had been expected after he wrote a heartbreaking letter to colleagues, friends and viewers on June 8 that said in part “I have been uncharacteristically silent these past ten months. I had thought that silence would soon be coming to an end, but I’m afraid I must tell you now that fate has decided on a different course for me… “Recent tests have revealed that the cancer has returned. There was no sign of it as recently as a month ago, which means it is aggressive and spreading rapidly. My doctors tell me their best estimate is that I have only a few weeks left to live. This is the final verdict. My fight is over.” The letter continued, “I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life — full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living.” In recent years, Krauthammer was best known for his nightly appearance as a panelist on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” and as a commentator on various Fox news shows. Following the news of the death of his “good friend,” Baier posted on Twitter, “I am sure you will be owning the panel discussion in heaven as well. And we’ll make sure your wise words and thoughts – your legacy – will live on here.” Brit Hume, senior political analyst on Fox News, also tweeted about the “terribly sad news.” “The great Charles Krauthammer has died,” he said.

5am – E         High Court: Online shoppers can be forced to pay sales tax.  WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court says states can force online shoppers to pay sales tax. The 5-4 ruling Thursday is a win for states, who said they were losing out on billions of dollars annually under two decades-old Supreme Court decisions that impacted online sales tax collection. The high court ruled Thursday to overturn those decisions. They had resulted in some companies not collecting sales tax on every online purchase. The cases the court overturned said that if a business was shipping a product to a state where it didn’t have a physical presence such as a warehouse or office, the business didn’t have to collect the state’s sales tax. Customers were generally supposed to pay the tax to the state themselves if they don’t get charged it, but the vast majority didn’t. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the previous decisions were flawed.

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump: Big Supreme Court win on internet sales tax – about time! Big victory for fairness and for our country. Great victory for consumers and retailers.

6am – A         MELANIA’S JACKET CAUSES UPROAR: First Lady Melania Trump made an unannounced visit to the southern border on Thursday morning to visit one of the detention centers housing immigrant children — but it was the jacket she wore while boarding the plane at Joint Base Andrews that has everyone’s hackles raised. The jacket, according to The Daily Mail, is a $39 Zara piece in military olive green. It has the words “I really don’t care, do u?” emblazoned on the back.

• Trump shrugs off Melania’s ‘I really don’t care, do u?’ coat, saying it was targeting media NOT immigrant children: Donald J. Trump ‏ @realDonaldTrump: “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” written on the back of Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!
• NBC News Monica Alba @albamonica: FLOTUS indeed wore the “I really don’t care. Do U?” jacket when boarding flight for TX this morning. Her spokeswoman tells @kwelkernbc: “It’s just a jacket. There’s no message. I hope we can talk about her important visit with children today rather than her wardrobe choice.”
• President Trump’s statement on Melania’s jacket runs contrary to her communications director. President Trump weighed in on the controversy surrounding first lady Melania Trump’s jacket choice on Wednesday with a jab at the “Fake News Media.” ‘’’I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?’ written on the back of Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News Media,” Trump explained in a tweet. “Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!” The first lady caught a whirlwind of backlash on Wednesday for wearing a jacket that read, “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?”, while boarding a flight bound for Texas ahead of a visit to the southern border. Her communications director Stephanie Grisham told the Washington Examiner that there was no hidden message behind the first lady’s outfit choice.

6am – B         Will ‘Roseanne’ fans show up for a Barr-free ‘The Conners’? ABC to air “Roseanne” spin-off with the entire cast except Roseanne (The Hill) — ABC announced Thursday that it has picked up a spinoff of “Roseanne” but it will not feature the show’s star, Roseanne Barr. “The Conners,” which is the spinoff’s working title, will premier in the fall with 10 episodes, according to an announcement from ABC Entertainment. The show will follow the Conner family and will feature former “Roseanne” castmembers John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson and Michael Fishman. “We have received a tremendous amount of support from fans of our show, and it’s clear that these characters not only have a place in our hearts, but in the hearts and homes of our audience. We all came back last season because we wanted to tell stories about the challenges facing a working- class family today. We are so happy to have the opportunity to return with the cast and crew to continue to share those stories through love and laughter,” the cast said in a statement.  The announcement comes less than a month after the “Roseanne” reboot was canceled after Barr made a racist comment about former Obama administration adviser Valerie Jarrett. ABC Entertainment said Barr will not have any role in the new show.

6am – C         Trump Reportedly Tossed Candy to Merkel at G-7: ‘Don’t Say I Never Give You Anything’ (Breitbart News) — During the peak of tensions at the Group of Seven (G-7) summit, Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer said that Trump tossed candy onto the table in front of Angela Merkel, saying, “Don’t say I never give you anything.” In a CBS News interview, Bremmer described a scene in which international leaders gathered around the president to directly push him to sign the meeting’s official communique: “Trump was sitting there with his arms crossed, clearly not liking the fact that they were ganging up on him,” he said. “He eventually agreed and said OK, he’ll sign it. And at that point, he stood up, put his hand in his pocket, his suit jacket pocket, and he took two Starburst candies out, threw them on the table and said to Merkel, ‘Here, Angela. Don’t say I never give you anything.’”

6am – D         INTERVIEW — HANS VON SPAKOVSKY @HvonSpakovsky — former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department,  former commissioner for the Federal Election Commission from 2006 to 2007 and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation

• High Court: Online shoppers can be forced to pay sales tax
• Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump: Big Supreme Court win on internet sales tax – about time! Big victory for fairness and for our country. Great victory for consumers and retailers.

6am – E         Parents are fed up with kids’ summer vacation after just 13 days, study finds. (Fox News) — Stressed-out parents want summer to end after just 13 days, according to new research. A study of 2,000 parents examined how they cope with summer break, and found it takes less than two weeks for moms and dads to feel the stress takes toll. The pressure to entertain is great. More than half of parents (58 percent) find themselves pressured to plan out what their kids will do for the entirety of their summer. And planning ahead can be daunting, which can explain why 75 percent of parents feel ready for their kids to go back to school at the end of the summer. The study, conducted by OnePoll in conjunction with Groupon, looked into the parental decisions associated with planning for their children and found that three in five parents worry that their summer plans won’t live up to their kids’ expectations. In fact, 64 percent of parents have felt like they were letting their kid down because they wanted them to do, see, or have the same things one of their friends had or experienced. So what kinds of things are causing parents to be filled with guilt? It turns out that the number one reason for PSG (Parental Summer Guilt) was when their kids stayed in the house rather than getting out and about.

6am – F         CONGRESS / IMMIGRATION VOTE:

• House GOP pushes compromise immigration vote to next week (The Hil) — House GOP leaders in a surprise move Thursday night pushed back a vote on a compromise immigration bill until next week, underscoring the difficulty they’re facing in winning votes — and how the stakes have been raised by the crisis at the border. The decision to delay the vote, which had already been postponed from Thursday to Friday, followed a two-hour conference meeting designed to brief members on the measure’s contents.
• House Republicans cancel vote on immigration legislation.  House Republicans will no longer vote on immigration legislation Friday after struggling to win enough support for a compromise proposal supported by President Trump and House leadership.
• As expected, the house rejected an immigration bill that was favored by conservatives 193 – 231.
• Trump Tweet Deflates Ryan’s Amnesty Push. President Donald Trump deflated House Speaker Paul Ryan’s amnesty push Thursday night with a Tweet saying that Democrats will block any amnesty deal.
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump:  You cannot pass legislation on immigration whether it be for safety and security or any other reason including “heart,” without getting Dem votes. Problem is, they don’t care about security and R’s do. Zero Dems voted to support the Goodlatte Bill. They won’t vote for anything! 7:07 PM – Jun 21, 2018

 

7am – A         White House proposes merging education, labor departments. The plan represents the latest aspiration of a presidential administration to revamp a sprawling federal government. (AP) — WASHINGTON — The Trump administration proposed a major reorganization of the federal government on Thursday, calling for merging the education and labor departments, moving the federal food stamp program to the Department of Health and Human Services and renaming that agency. The plan represented the latest aspiration of a presidential administration to revamp a sprawling federal government. Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told The Associated Press in an interview that the effort is part of President Donald Trump’s “drain the swamp’ agenda” and was aimed at streamlining a long list of overlapping regulations and department functions. The sweeping reorganization proposal, which was formally unveiled during the president’s Cabinet meeting Thursday, is the result of an order signed by Trump in March 2017 calling for a review of the federal government aimed at identifying redundancies and streamlining agencies. It’s the latest in a long line of federal government overhaul proposals announced by administrations from both parties.

7am – B         TRUMP CABINET MEETING / RIPS DEMS:

• President Trump skewers “extremist open border Democrats” on the immigration
• Pres. Trump claims Democrats “want us to take care of the minors, and that’s fine. But they don’t want to give us the money to take care of them. Because the worse everything looks, they think the better they’re going to do” in the midterms
• Trump: Democrats ‘don’t care about the children’
• Trump on Democrats: “Their policies all stink”
• Trump says that Democrats are responsible for a ‘massive child smuggling industry’

7am – C         Duluth restaurants face backlash for hosting Fox News. It only took 10 minutes before the Uncle Loui’s Cafe Facebook page was bombarded with comments. The owners had just announced they would be hosting Fox & Friends on Thursday for their morning news segment. “There were people that were congratulating us and then there were some people that were very angry,” said Matt Berthiaume, the general manager of the cafe. “There were some regulars that come in and now don’t want to eat here anymore, which is unfortunate.” Coinciding with President Donald Trump’s visit to Duluth on Wednesday, the network called the local eatery last week hoping to broadcast from the restaurant the day after the rally. Berthiaume said he thinks his mother and Uncle Loui’s owner, Debra Strop, didn’t fully realize how some people would perceive the decision. “My mom’s so apolitical — she just wants to feed people,” Berthiaume said. “She just wants people to come in. It’s great exposure for our restaurant, which I can’t blame her for. If it wasn’t us, it’d be somebody else.”

7am – D         TIME MAGAZINE COVER DEBUNKED:

• “Welcome to America”: Time cover story asks “What kind of country are we?”
• Time cover hits #Trump over #family_separation – but a key detail ruins the narrative
• DAILY MAIL EXCLUSIVE: Father of Honduran two-year-old who became the face of the family separation crisis speaks out

7am – E         Alyssa Milano offers to foster migrant children brought to NYC (NY Post) — Actress Alyssa Milano wants to take in one of the hundreds of immigrant children housed in foster care facilities in Harlem, who were torn from their parents under President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. The native of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, wrote to the CEO of Cayuga Centers, Edward Myers Hayes, on Thursday, offering to help, according to a letter obtained by The Post. “Based on New York City news reports detailing a covert, dark-of-night transport of children it appears your organization has stepped up to temporarily care for these poor souls. I, along with others — while fervently against the White House policy that put these children in your care — acknowledge your efforts,” wrote Milano, 45. “With this, I write to offer my assistance. Like many people touched by this tragedy, I have thought about ways I can help,” she added. “As a mother, I know that children need to be reunited with their parents in the United States more than anything.” The “Charmed” screen star and mom of two said she was willing to offer children “my home and my heart; my love and whatever stability I can give them until they can be reunited with a parent.” “I will register with the appropriate authorities so I can bring some of these children into my home and foster them during this time of need,” she offered in the letter. “Afterwards, I will help ensure they get the help they need to fight their cases, stay, and win. I am sure this is something many other Americans would consider a moral and patriotic duty, as well.”

 

8am – A         Q & A with SAAGAR ENJETI

8am – B         INTERVIEW – FRED BARNES – Executive Editor, Weekly Standard @fredbarnes — remembering Charles Krauthammer

8am – C         Capitol Hill protest has kids, cages, and thermal blankets, mirroring detention center conditions. Multiple organizations gathered Thursday on Capitol Hill for a demonstration involving a group of children lying down with thermal survival blankets and cages, protesting the Trump administration’s enforcement of a zero tolerance immigration policy that led to thousands of children being separated from their families who crossed the southern border illegally. The Franciscan Action Network, Faith in Action, and the DMV Congregation Network led the protest, mirroring the conditions experienced by children placed in detainment who have been separated from their parents, like those in Texas. “All of God’s children are welcome in the land that God has created!” said one of the priests addressing the event in the Russell Senate Office Building. “We have allowed this evil to continue and it will not continue any longer! We will pray! We will pass! We will vote! We will rise! We will protest! Until victory is won!”

8am – D         MELANIA’S JACKET CAUSES UPROAR: First Lady Melania Trump made an unannounced visit to the southern border on Thursday morning to visit one of the detention centers housing immigrant children — but it was the jacket she wore while boarding the plane at Joint Base Andrews that has everyone’s hackles raised. The jacket, according to The Daily Mail, is a $39 Zara piece in military olive green. It has the words “I really don’t care, do u?” emblazoned on the back.

• Trump shrugs off Melania’s ‘I really don’t care, do u?’ coat, saying it was targeting media NOT immigrant children: Donald J. Trump ‏ @realDonaldTrump: “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” written on the back of Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!
• NBC News Monica Alba @albamonica: FLOTUS indeed wore the “I really don’t care. Do U?” jacket when boarding flight for TX this morning. Her spokeswoman tells @kwelkernbc: “It’s just a jacket. There’s no message. I hope we can talk about her important visit with children today rather than her wardrobe choice.”
• President Trump’s statement on Melania’s jacket runs contrary to her communications director. President Trump weighed in on the controversy surrounding first lady Melania Trump’s jacket choice on Wednesday with a jab at the “Fake News Media.” ‘’’I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?’ written on the back of Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News Media,” Trump explained in a tweet. “Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!” The first lady caught a whirlwind of backlash on Wednesday for wearing a jacket that read, “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?”, while boarding a flight bound for Texas ahead of a visit to the southern border. Her communications director Stephanie Grisham told the Washington Examiner that there was no hidden message behind the first lady’s outfit choice.

8am – E         Stormy Daniels heading to border to try to help migrant children. Stormy Daniels, the adult-film star who is suing President Trump and his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, says she is heading to the border to offer assistance to migrants. “I am headed down in a week,” Daniels tweeted on Thursday to a user asking her to help children impacted by President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies. “Don’t worry. Just figuring out my best course of action to maximize my resources.” Daniels’s tweet comes the same day her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, announced that he’s representing whistleblowers within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).