Hans Von Spakovsky, Larry Michael, Christian Toto and Bret Baier joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, September 7, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C Booker releases Kavanaugh documents but GOP insists they were already cleared. New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker said he was ready to risk expulsion from the Senate for making public documents pertinent Kavanaugh’s time as a top White House aide to President George W. Bush, but the GOP mocked him for grandstanding ahead of a possible 2020 run — saying it had already cleared the emails for release. In a striking political gambit, Booker, backed up by Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, released emails — which had been designated as “committee confidential” — that reference Kavanaugh’s position on racial profiling and thoughts on Roe v. Wade dating from his time as a White House official under Bush.

5am – D         12 House Republicans call on Trump to declassify Russia probe FISA documents. (Fox News) — A dozen Republican members of Congress on Thursday called on President Trump to declassify key documents related to the FBI’s probe of Russian actions during the 2016 presidential election, including an application for a renewed surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The lawmakers, led by Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., also demanded the release of 12 FBI reports on interviews with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr. Zeldin said he was “confident” that the reports, known as 302s, “contain critically important information that should have been provided to the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA] court, but wasn’t.” In a third part of the request, Zeldin asked Trump to declassify documents given to the so-called “Gang of Eight” — bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate, as well as both intelligence committees — which he said had “exculpatory evidence regarding Carter Page and others.”

The request came one day after Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., asked the Justice Department and its inspector general to review Ohr’s contacts with former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of an unverified dossier that made several claims about Trump’s financial and personal ties to Russia. In a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Meadows wrote that Ohr had testified to having “multiple” contacts with the FBI and Steele after the ex-spy was fired as a confidential source by the bureau. In addition to his contacts with Steele, Ohr has come under scrutiny over wife Nellie’s role with Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned the dossier.

5am – E         Elizabeth Warren: Time to use 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. (CNN) Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, seizing on an explosive op-ed from an anonymous administration official, said Thursday that it’s time to use constitutional powers to remove President Donald Trump office if top officials don’t think he can do the job. “If senior administration officials think the President of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment,” Warren told CNN. “The Constitution provides for a procedure whenever the Vice President and senior officials think the President can’t do his job. It does not provide that senior officials go around the President — take documents off his desk, write anonymous op-eds … Everyone of these officials have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It’s time for them to do their job.” The hard-charging comments by the potential 2020 presidential candidate come in the wake of the stunning New York Times piece where an anonymous official raises deep concerns about the President and contends there were some initial conversations to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the President from office. The White House has aggressively pushed back on the piece, calling the author a traitor and a coward.

6am – A/B/C NYT OP-ED RESPONSE:

• BOOKIES TAKING BETS ON THE IDENTITY OF THE LEAKER: Pence was listed at 2-to-3 odds on the site MyBookie as the fifth column official who claims to be working behind the scenes to stop some of Trump’s policies that they find wrongheaded. The biggest favorite, at 1-3 odds, is “the field,” someone not listed among the 18 administration officials listed by the Costa Rica-based operation.
• FIRST LADY SPEAKS OUT ON THE OP-ED: First lady Melania Trump criticized the media’s use of anonymous sources and criticized a recent anonymous op-ed in the New York Times disparaging President Donald Trump. “To the writer of the op-ed — you are not protecting this country; you are  sabotaging it with your cowardly actions,” she said in a Thursday statement provided to CNN. She preceded her declaration on the op-ed with a lengthy condemnation of anonymous sources generally.
• EVERYONE DISAVOWS BEING THE AUTHOR: Top administration officials publicly denied penning the explosive New York Times op-ed from an anonymous “senior official” that described a secret inside effort to protect the country from President Trump’s “misguided impulses,” as the White House fumed over the column and demanded the author be exposed and resign.
• VP on the anonymous author of the NY Times op-ed: “They ought to do the honorable thing and they ought to resign.”

6am – D/E/F  Burt Reynolds, Movie Star, Dies at 82. The ex-jock from Florida starred in ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Boogie Nights’ but preferred making such populist, fun fare as ‘Smokey and the Bandit,’ ‘The Cannonball Run’ and ‘Starting Over.’ Burt Reynolds, the charismatic star of such films as Deliverance, The Longest Yard and Smokey and the Bandit who set out to have as much fun as possible on and off the screen — and wildly succeeded — has died. He was 82. Reynolds, who received an Oscar nomination when he portrayed porn director Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997) and was the No. 1 box-office attraction for a five-year stretch starting in the late 1970s, died Thursday morning at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida, his manager, Erik Kritzer, told The Hollywood Reporter.  The cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest.

7am – A         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  — recapped the Kavanaugh hearing.

7am – B/C     ‘I’m only going to say this once’: North Carolina dad’s post about school drop-off etiquette going viral. “I was kind of making a joke for Union County, and it just went viral,” David Danielewicz told NBC Charlotte. “I’ve seen people combing their kids’ hair, letting them finish their cereal, truly amazing.” A Facebook post by an Indian Trail dad regarding school drop-off and pick-up etiquette is going viral. On the first day of school, David Danielewicz posted a bit of a rant. “I’m only going to say this once. If you have to bathe or dress your kid, comb their hair, scramble them an egg and write them a send off letter before they can exit the car – YOU DO NOT BELONG IN THE SCHOOL DROP OFF LINE. Only people who raised their kids to jump out of the car with backpacks loaded like they are storming the beaches of Normandy while the car is at a slow roll are allowed in the drop off line. I will be giving stink eye warnings today but tomorrow I’m issuing citations.” Thousands of people shared, liked and commented on the post.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — LARRY MICHAEL – Voice of the Redskins

• Preview this weekend’s game: Sunday 9/9 – Washington Redskins @ Arizona Cardinals – 4:25 PM
• The Washington Redskins are taking on the Arizona Cardinals in Week 1 of the NFL season.
• Washington Post: The Cardinals have a new coach, scheme and QB. That means extra prep work for Redskins.
• Adrian Peterson starting for Redskins Sunday vs. Cards

7am – E         Twitter Bars Alex Jones and Infowars, Citing Harassing Messages. SAN FRANCISCO — Apple, Facebook and Google’s YouTube mostly barred Alex Jones, the right-wing provocateur and creator of the conspiracy theorist website Infowars, last month for propagating hate speech. Twitter did not. On Thursday, though, Twitter said it would permanently suspend Mr. Jones’s account, as well as the account for Infowars. The social media company said Mr. Jones had posted messages within the previous 24 hours that violated its policies, which prohibit direct threats of violence and some forms of hate speech but allow deception or misinformation. “Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope,” the company posted on its Safety account. “We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ past violations.”

8am – A         INTERVIEW – CHRISTIAN TOTO – Film Critic, HollywoodInToto.com and Host of “The Hollywood in Toto” podcast  (available on iTunes) @HollywoodInToto – discussed the life and legacy of Burt Reynolds.

8am – B         Hockey Hall of Fame asks NHL players to stop doing keg stands on Stanley Cup. (Fox News) — No more handstands on the cup! Though NHL stars dream of nothing more than having the Stanley Cup in their arms, hockey officials have asked players to refrain from using the 126-year-old trophy for keg stands. Soon after the Washington Capitals won the cup in June, team captain Alex Ovechkin made headlines for chugging beer from the storied prize via the drinking stunt, in a clip that has since been viewed over 806,000 times on Twitter. According to The Washington Post, Capitals forward Tom Wilson and defenseman Brooks Orpik followed suit with similarly viral keg stands of their own. A few days later, even Jimmy Fallon got in on the fun, with the help of Overchkin and goalie Braden Holtby, on “The Tonight Show.” The alarming craze has not slowed down since, with a much-buzzed-about cup stand in late August done by two players’ mothers and a former assistant coach. While there are no set rules banning celebratory activities with the storied prize, Hockey Hall of Fame officials, who are tasked with maintaining the Stanley Cup, are wary of the wear and tear keg stands may have on the chalice. “We ask them politely not to do it,” Hall of Fame vice president Philip Pritchard told the Post. “We’re trying to preserve the history of the Stanley Cup. We don’t want any unnecessary damage to it or a person, in case they drop the person or he presses too hard or something.” “We’ll see what happens as we move forward with the Cup,” he added, referring to a possible ban of keg stands with the cup. “At the end of September, the Cup is going in to get engraved and updated and cleaned and everything, so we’ll see how it is because we have to take it apart then and everything.” “We’ll know probably more then, in early October, once it’s back for the home opener. Our biggest thing is respect for it.”

8am – C         Missouri college to remove uniforms containing Nike logo over Kaepernick deal. (The Hill) — A small private college in Missouri says it will end its use of uniforms containing the Nike logo over due to the athletic brand’s decision to select Colin Kaepernick as the face of its “Just do it” advertising campaign. College of the Ozarks President Jerry Davis said in a statement obtained Wednesday by the Chronicle of Higher Education that the college would not support the company over Kaepernick’s involvement in kneeling in protest against police brutality and racism during the national anthem before football games. The protests, which have spread throughout the NFL, are widely credited with Kaepernick’s inability to sign with an NFL team since 2016. “If Nike is ashamed of America, we are ashamed of them,” Davis said in a statement. “We also believe that those who know what sacrifice is all about are more likely to be wearing a military uniform than an athletic uniform.” “Nike is free to campaign as it sees fit, as the college is free, and honor-bound by its mission and goals, to ensure that it respects our country and those who truly served and sacrificed,” added Marci Linson, the college’s dean of admissions.

8am – D         INTERVIEW — BRET BAIER – Anchor, Special Report, Fox News Channel, weeknights at 6 PM and author of Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire” @BretBaier

• NYT OP-ED: President Trump, at a rally in Montana, slammed the author of the anonymous New York Times op-ed, saying the plan by the ‘gutless coward’ to undermine his administration had ‘backfired.’ TRUMP TO ‘GUTLESS’ WHITE HOUSE STAFFER: YOUR PLAN BACKFIRED: President Trump, speaking a campaign rally in Billings, Mont., on Thursday night, said the New York Times op-ed written by the anonymous “senior White House official” in his administration had “backfired” and given him more supporters … “Unelected, deep-state operatives who defy the voters to push their own secret agendas are truly a threat to democracy itself,” Trump said. “For the sake of our national security, the New York Times should publish his name at once. I think their reporters should go and investigate who he is. That would actually be a good story.”
• KAVANAUGH HEARINGS: More political fireworks marked the third day of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill. One leading Democrat released ‘confidential’ documents and others focused on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and old Kavanaugh emails.
• Booker releases Kavanaugh documents but GOP insists they were already cleared. New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker said he was ready to risk expulsion from the Senate for making public documents pertinent Kavanaugh’s time as a top White House aide to President George W. Bush, but the GOP mocked him for grandstanding ahead of a possible 2020 run — saying it had already cleared the emails for release. In a striking political gambit, Booker, backed up by Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, released emails — which had been designated as “committee confidential” — that reference Kavanaugh’s position on racial profiling and thoughts on Roe v. Wade dating from his time as a White House official under Bush.
• FISA: 12 House Republicans call on Trump to declassify Russia probe FISA documents. (Fox News) — A dozen Republican members of Congress on Thursday called on President Trump to declassify key documents related to the FBI’s probe of Russian actions during the 2016 presidential election, including an application for a renewed surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The lawmakers, led by Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., also demanded the release of 12 FBI reports on interviews with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr. Zeldin said he was “confident” that the reports, known as 302s, “contain critically important information that should have been provided to the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA] court, but wasn’t.” In a third part of the request, Zeldin asked Trump to declassify documents given to the so-called “Gang of Eight” — bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate, as well as both intelligence committees — which he said had “exculpatory evidence regarding Carter Page and others.”

8am – E         Bye and Thank you, Jamee Whitten! You’ve been listening to Jamee Whitten anchoring WMAL’s morning-drive traffic every ten minutes First On The 5, weekday mornings, on WMAL for many years. Jamee has been reporting on traffic troubles in Washington for the last 20 years. Her quick wit and charm have been a great addition to Washington’s new morning radio choice. In addition to her two decades of traffic reporting on WMAL, Jamee has appeared regularly as traffic anchor for WUSA-TV9, WJLA-TV 7, and NewsChannel 8.  A graduate of West Virginia, Jamee is a proud Pittsburgh Steelers fan, along with her son Ethan. Twin son Hunter and husband Dan are diehard Redskin fans.