Susan Ferrechio, David Limbaugh and Kurt Schlichter joined WMAL on Thursday!

Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C FBI REPORT:

• Kavanaugh file signed, sealed and delivered to Senate committee; will be reviewed early Thursday
• The White House announced early Thursday it has received the FBI’s investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and is ‘fully confident’ he will be confirmed to the nation’s highest court
• Senate receives FBI background check of Kavanaugh, with procedural vote on the nomination expected Friday (Washington Post) — The rapid completion of the bureau’s work comes as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), anticipating the FBI report arriving on the Hill, teed up a key procedural vote advancing Kavanaugh’s nomination for Friday. The bureau’s probe appears to have been extremely narrow, focused mostly on an allegation by a California professor, Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh assaulted her decades ago at a party in Maryland, when both were high school students.

5am – D         NYT REPORT ON TRUMP INCOME:

• NYTs ALLEGES WRONGDOING BY TRUMP’S FATHER  (NY Times) — The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.
• TRUMP’S LAWYER WARNS NY TIMES (CNS News) — The lawyer who won a multi-million dollar libel settlement for Melania Trump is now warning The New York Times about a story suggesting her husband, President Donald Trump, may have committed tax fraud. On Tuesday, the Times published a story, “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches from His Father,” in which it claims to have obtained confidential tax records and says Trump committed “outright fraud”:
• NY STATE TAX FRAUD DIVISION INVESTIGATING CLAIMS IN NYT HIT PIECE (CNBC) –– New York state tax officials are investigating allegations detailed in an exhaustive New York Times investigation into Donald Trump and his family’s business dealings. “The Tax Department is reviewing the allegations in the NYT article and is vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues of investigation,” a spokesman from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance said in an email to CNBC.
• Trump Attacks ‘Failing New York Times’ Over Tax Scheme Reporting: WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday criticized a New York Times investigation into his and his family’s use of dubious tax schemes over the years and the origins of his own wealth, calling the article an “old, boring and often told hit piece.” Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump  The Failing New York Times did something I have never seen done before. They used the concept of “time value of money” in doing a very old, boring and often told hit piece on me. Added up, this means that 97% of their stories on me are bad. Never recovered from bad election call! 8:53 AM – Oct 3, 2018 //  Referring to The Times as the “Failing New York Times,” Mr. Trump did not offer an outright denial of the facts in the report, such as that the money he made during his decades in real estate came from tax schemes of dubious legality, the existence of records of deception in documenting the family’s financial assets, and that the beginning of the president’s so-called self-made fortune dates back to his toddler years when, by the time he was 3 years old, Mr. Trump earned $200,000 a year in today’s dollars from his father. Nor did Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, during a subsequent briefing with reporters. Asked to identify what in the article was incorrect, she said, “I won’t go through every line of a very boring 14,000-word story.”

5am – E         FORD’S POLYGRAPH:

• Christine Blasey Ford’s ex-boyfriend says she coached friend on how to take a polygraph: Report. Christine Blasey Ford’s ex-boyfriend has sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee contradicting her claims last week that she never coached anyone about how to take a polygraph test, Fox News reported Tuesday. The ex-boyfriend, whose name was redacted from the letter Fox posted, said he dated Ms. Blasey Ford for roughly six years and she never mentioned a sexual assault in her past, nor did she seem afraid of flying or of enclosed spaces. Ms. Blasey Ford last week testified that she was assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh when they were in high school — and said it left her afraid of tight spaces without escape routes. She also testified that she had been reluctant to come to Washington to testify because she was afraid of flying. The ex-boyfriend also said he recalled Ms. Blasey Ford, a psychologist by training, coaching a friend, Monica McLean, on how to take a polygraph test in preparation for a job interview.
• Friend of Kavanaugh accuser disputes polygraph controversy   (CNN) A friend of Christine Blasey Ford is speaking out publicly for the first time to deny an allegation that Ford lied during testimony when she said she had never given advice on how to take a polygraph. Monica McLean, a retired FBI agent and friend of Ford, told CNN that the “allegations are completely false.” She told CNN that she is furious that her reputation is now being called into question by a “lie” that has thrust her into the national spotlight. McLean spoke to CNN after a sworn declaration questioning the veracity of Ford’s testimony was leaked to Fox News after being provided to the Judiciary Committee. In the declaration, which was obtained by CNN, a man who says he dated Ford in the mid-90s, wrote that he “witnessed Dr. Ford help Monica McLean prepare for a polygraph examination.” The man’s name was redacted in written declarations obtained by media outlets. CNN has identified him as Brian Merrick. In Merrick’s statement he made clear their relationship did not end amicably. Merrick has refused to discuss the allegation with CNN. He wrote that it was his understanding that McLean was applying for jobs with the FBI and the US Attorney’s office at the time he witnessed Ford helping with the polygraph.

6am –A          KAVANAUGH VOTE:

• Senate Majority Leader McConnell files cloture to continue Senate confirmation process for Judge Kavanaugh, setting up debate, followed by weekend voting on the nomination. McConnell sets vote Friday to move Kavanaugh confirmation forward. If the motion passes, there will be up to 30 hours of debate, followed by a final confirmation vote, possibly Saturday.
• McConnell designs gambit to handle other issues in Senate, while advancing Kavanaugh nomination. (Fox News/Chad Pergram) — There’s a lot which could go wrong for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as he tries to usher the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court to confirmation. And so McConnell’s been trying to avoid those pitfalls since the end of last week. It started with little fanfare Friday night when McConnell managed to formally start Senate debate on Kavanaugh’s nomination. And then, before dimming the lights for the weekend, McConnell “recessed” the Senate until Monday. The Senate did not “adjourn.” There is a key procedural difference between adjourning and recessing the Senate, even though it looks the same to the untrained eye. On Monday, McConnell again “recessed” the Senate until Tuesday. But the Kentucky Republican did not “adjourn” the Senate. Same thing Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, the Senate “recessed” until Wednesday. It did not “adjourn.” Why the difference? McConnell is trying to streamline the process on Kavanaugh as much as he can.  If the Senate hasn’t “adjourned” for the day, it’s still the “old day.” In other words, in the Senate’s space-time continuum, it’s essentially last week. It didn’t roll over to this week. The Senate has only “recessed” multiple times since Friday. The Senate has yet to move on. The maneuvers by McConnell may not mean much to the casual observer. But recessing the Senate, rather than adjourning the Senate helps McConnell smooth the path as much as he can on the Kavanaugh nomination.

6am – B         Metro says it doesn’t know what to do about falling ridership. An internal report lays out exactly what to do. (Washington Post) – Metro’s leaders have said publicly that they have no clear solution to the system’s ridership decline, but an internal document dated May of this year shows otherwise; it lays out a detailed plan for increasing riders on the nation’s second-busiest subway. According to the internal “ridership action plan,” the agency needs to: launch all-day peak service, extend Yellow Line service to Greenbelt, run all eight-car trains and overhaul the Metrobus system, among other things. Those measures could add more than 20,000 daily rail trips, Metro says, and, paired with measures such as bus priority and free rail-to-bus transfers, could net tens of thousands of additional daily trips for the struggling transit agency. The document was circulated between Metro’s offices of planning and performance and comes on the heels of a Washington Post report that highlighted the board and management’s uncertainty on how to address Metro’s ridership slide. It is perhaps the most candid assessment of Metro’s operating challenges — positing that the transit agency is largely responsible for its own ridership woes and acknowledging in plain language that service is a key factor that drives ridership, along with population and jobs, tourists and reliability. Neither the Metro board nor the agency’s general manager had seen the report before it was published by The Post on Wednesday, officials said, though it was unclear how a comprehensive report on such a critical problem could not have crossed agency chief Paul J. Wiedefeld’s desk.

6am – C         Arlington government may nix requirement to recycle glass (Inside NOVA) — The raw power of economic forces usually wins out over good intentions. And for the Arlington government – whose good intentions are the stuff of legend – a day of real-world reckoning may be on the horizon when it comes to recycling. The county government appears on the verge of eliminating collection of glass as recyclable material and directing residents to instead dump it in their regular trash bins. Why? Because market forces and the nitty-gritty of recycling-plant operations are conspiring against continuation. At the present time, recycling glass “makes really no economic sense,” said Erik Grabowsky, chief of the Solid Waste Bureau of the county government’s Department of Environmental Services, in a briefing to County Board members. Currently, it costs the Arlington government $43 (and change) for every ton of trash that it sends to be burned. While it costs $72 per ton to dispose of recyclables, the government gets back rebates from processors based on the value of the materials being recycled. But currently, there is a “negative market value” for glass, County Manager Mark Schwartz told board members, and because it’s difficult for processors to recycle glass products, most of it ends up being destroyed like regular trash anyway – either to a landfill or to be incinerated. “There is no light at the end of the tunnel” to see a turnaround, Grabowsky said.

6am – D/E     THE NEW LINDSEY GRAHAM:

• GRAHAM TROLLS ATLANTIC FEST W/CARVILLE QUOTE: “This is what’s degrading: ‘This is what you get when you go through a trailer park with a hundred-dollar bill,'” said Graham, when asked about President Donald Trump’s “degrading” treatment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser Christine Blasey Ford.
• AUDIENCE BOOS GRAHAM & HE HITS BACK W/FUN CLINTON FACT: Graham started, “So President Trump went through a factual rendition that I didn’t particularly like and I would tell him, knock it off, you’re not helping. But it can be worse. You can actually kill somebody’s cat and puncture their tires to get ‘em to shut up.”
• GRAHAM IS APPARENTLY A ROCK STAR – TMZ ASKS HIM ABOUT KAEPERNICK  “Anything that will bring the country together,” Graham told the reporter. “I want to watch football without feeling guilty about it.”

• He added, “I want to work on sentencing reform, prison reform. A lot of people in jail for a long period of time. African-American males, Hispanic males, particularly. Three strikes and you’re out has been pretty hard. So, might be something we can all work on that would bring us together.”

6am – F         Montgomery County Official Seeks Outside Dining Smoking Ban (AP) — A Montgomery County official wants to ban smoking in outside dining areas. Councilman Sidney Katz is set to introduce the measure on Tuesday. It would prohibit smoking in outdoor serving areas such as patios, decks or porches. If approved, Montgomery County would be the first county in Maryland to enact such a law.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – SUSAN FERRECHIO – Chief congressional correspondent for the Washington Examiner – discussed the latest on the Kavanaugh drama in the Senate, Friday vote and FBI report.

• McConnell sets vote Friday to move Kavanaugh confirmation forward. Senate Majority Leader McConnell files cloture to continue Senate confirmation process for Judge Kavanaugh, setting up debate, followed by weekend voting on the nomination.  If Friday’s vote passes, there will be up to 30 hours of debate followed by a final confirmation vote on Kavanaugh, perhaps as early as Saturday.
• Kavanaugh file signed, sealed and delivered to Senate committee; will be reviewed early Thursday.
• The White House announced early Thursday it has received the FBI’s investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and is ‘fully confident’ he will be confirmed to the nation’s highest court
• Senate receives FBI background check of Kavanaugh, with procedural vote on the nomination expected Friday (Washington Post) — The rapid completion of the bureau’s work comes as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), anticipating the FBI report arriving on the Hill, teed up a key procedural vote advancing Kavanaugh’s nomination for Friday. The bureau’s probe appears to have been extremely narrow, focused mostly on an allegation by a California professor, Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh assaulted her decades ago at a party in Maryland, when both were high school students.

7am – B/C     Republican enthusiasm surges amid Supreme Court battle. (McClatchy) – WASHINGTON — They are getting outraised. They are struggling in suburbia. And their top guy is dividing America. But suddenly, five weeks from Election Day, Republicans are seeing tangible evidence of a spike in GOP enthusiasm that has eluded them all cycle. “It’s got to be Kavanaugh,” said Republican pollster Robert Blizzard, coming to the same conclusion as GOP operatives nationwide: the Democrats’ efforts to block President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee are backfiring with Republicans who were previously apathetic about the midterms but are now angry—and engaged. Conversations with pollsters, strategists and party officials reveal that Republican voters are circling the wagons around Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee who has been accused of sexual assault, allegations he strongly denies. And now, there are concrete signs that the drama over his confirmation, complete with emotional Senate hearings and an FBI supplemental investigation, is helping Republicans close an enthusiasm gap with Democrats, which has been one of the GOP’s biggest challenges of the last two years. “It’s the difference between victory and defeat in a close race,” said veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres, who said he’s seeing a bump in Republican enthusiasm.

7am – D/E     INTERVIEW — DAVID LIMBAUGH – lawyer and bestselling author – discussed his new book “Jesus Is Risen.”

• ABOUT BOOK: JESUS IS RISEN: Originally confined to a small circle of believers centered in Jerusalem, Christianity’s stunning transformation into the world’s most popular faith is one of history’s greatest, most miraculous stories. In Jesus Is Risen, #1 bestselling author David Limbaugh provides a riveting account of the birth of Christianity. Using the Book of Acts and six New Testament epistles as his guide, Limbaugh takes readers on an exhilarating journey through the sorrow and suffering, as well as the joys and triumphs, of the apostles and other key figures as Christianity bursts through the borders of Judea following the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Limbaugh particularly focuses on the crucial role that the Apostle Paul played in these historic events. Facing incredible adversities, from arrests to shipwrecks to violent mobs and murder plots, Paul overcomes countless obstacles as he travels far and wise to spread the Gospel. Limbaugh’s passion for the Bible is unmistakable and infectious as he recounts these stories. Replete with deep insights into the actions, arguments, and challenges of the world’s first Christian communities, Jesus Is Risen is a faith-affirming book for Christians at all stages of their faith walk.

8am – A         Rep. Jackson Lee intern arrested in doxxing of GOP senators during Kavanaugh hearing.

8am – B/C     The View Hosts Rip Trump for Automatic Alert Text, Say He Might Lie About a Terror Attack: Three out of the four hosts of The View were not happy that on Wednesday afternoon nearly all smartphones in America (some 225 million) will receive a text from President Donald Trump as part of the national Presidential Alert system. After announcing news of the alert system, “which you cannot opt out of,” Whoopi Goldberg ripped up her notes. “I don’t like that,” Sunny Hostin said. “He doesn’t have proper phone etiquette or Twitter etiquette. Why do I have to be subjected to that?” “You’re not getting his tweets, this is for like a terrorist attack or a hurricane or natural disaster,” Abby Huntsman contended. “I don’t need him to tell me, he’s the last one to tell me,” Goldberg replied.

8am – D/E     INTERVIEW – KURT SCHLICTER – lawyer, Townhall.com columnist, Army Colonel and author of new book “Militant Normals: How Regular Americans Are Rebelling Against the Elite to Reclaim Our Democracy”

• ABOUT BOOK: “Militant Normals: How Regular Americans Are Rebelling Against the Elite to Reclaim Our Democracy”: THE MILITANT NORMALS, written by one of the conservative movement’s wittiest commentators, is a no-holds-barred takedown of the preening elites who have all but made normalcy a crime in America. Donald Trump is only the beginning of a mighty disruption in American politics and culture, thanks to the rise of the militant Normals in America. They built this country, they make it run, and when called on, they fight for it. They are the heart and soul of the United States of America, They are the Normals, the regular Americans of all races, creeds, preferences, and both sexes who just want to raise their families and live their lives in peace. And they are getting angry… For decades they have seen their cherished beliefs and beloved traditions under attack. They have been told they are racist, sexist, and hateful, but it was all a lie. Their ability to provide for their families has been undermined by globalization with no consideration of the effects on Americans who did not go to Harvard, and who live in that vast forgotten space between New York and Santa Monica. A smug, condescending elite spanning both established parties has gripped the throat of the nation. Convinced of their own exquisite merit while refusing to be held accountable for their myriad failures, these elitists managed to suppress the first rumblings of discontent when they arose in the form of the Tea Party. But they were stunned when the Normals did not simply scurry back to their flyover homes. Instead, the Normals came out in force and elected Donald Trump.