Guest hosting ⁦@WMALDC⁩’s Mornings on the Mall tomorrow from 5-9 am! Tune in for your morning dose of news, politics, and fun with me and ⁦@TheDCVince⁩ 😎 pic.twitter.com/s21A7RUeMC

— Amber Athey (@amber_athey) January 27, 2019

Roger Stone, Joe diGenova, Matt Schlapp, Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas, National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar and guest co-host Amber Athey joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, January 28, 2019

Hosts: Vince Coglianese and Amber Athey

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C        What should President Trump do next in the border funding fight? *The government reopens but the clock is ticking. Lawmakers have until February 15 to devise a bipartisan resolution to their impasse over the president’s demand for a border wall.  Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on “Face the Nation” that the president would have no problem doing it again. “He is willing to do whatever it takes to secure the border.  He does take this very seriously. This is a serious humanitarian and security crisis.”

• SHUTDOWN DRAMA FAR FROM OVER: As furloughed federal workers prepare to return to work on Monday, President Trump says he doubts he could accept any deal from lawmakers that give him less than his requested $5.7 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, fueling the possibility that there could be another partial government shutdown in a few weeks … In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, the president also was skeptical on whether a bipartisan group of lawmakers chosen to negotiate a budget deal could reach an agreement before funding for most government agencies runs out on Feb. 15, saying, “I personally think it’s less than 50-50, but you have a lot of very good people on that board.” On Friday, Trump signed a short-term spending bill reopening the government and ending the 35-day shutdown without any funding for his long-promised border barrier, a reversal from last month when he refused to sign any funding legislation that did not provide wall money. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney strongly suggested on “Fox News Sunday” that Trump will construct a border wall using his emergency powers if Congress cannot agree on a compromise to fund the construction in the next three weeks.

5am – D         Another Side of #MeToo: Male Managers Fearful of Mentoring Women (NY Times) — DAVOS, Switzerland — Men attending the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year were worried about a lot of things. A global economic slowdown. Threats to cybersecurity. Populism. War. And, several acknowledged at the meeting this past week, mentoring women in the #MeToo era. “I now think twice about spending one-on-one time with a young female colleague,” said one American finance executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the issue is “just too sensitive.” “Me, too,” said another man in the conversation. The #MeToo movement, which burst into the spotlight in the fall of 2017, bringing down powerful figures in Hollywood, the media, politics, sports and more, continues to reverberate 15 months later. It has empowered women to speak up about harassment in the workplace and forced companies to take the issue more seriously. More than 200 prominent men have lost their jobs, and nearly half of them were succeeded by women. But in one unintended consequence, executives and analysts say, companies seeking to minimize the risk of sexual harassment or misconduct appear to be simply minimizing contact between female employees and senior male executives, effectively depriving the women of valuable mentorship and exposure. “Basically, #MeToo has become a risk-management issue for men,” said Laura Liswood, secretary general of the Council of Women World Leaders, an organization for former and current female political leaders.

5am – E         Roger Stone indicted on charges brought by special counsel.  (CNN) Longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone has been indicted by a grand jury on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. He was arrested by the FBI Friday morning at his home in Florida, his lawyer tells CNN. Stone was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia on seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.

 

6am – A/B/C DEMS 2020:

• HOWARD SCHULTZ ON CBS 60 minutes: Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says he’s considering independent run for president. The lifelong Democrat tells 60 Minutes both parties are not doing what’s necessary on behalf of the American people.
• KAMALA HARRIS kicks off 2020 campaign with rally in hometown of Oakland: Kamala Harris officially launches White House bid: ‘America, we are better than this.’ Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., excoriated President Trump without mentioning him by name during the official launch of her 2020 presidential campaign on Sunday. Harris, 54, speaking at a rally attended by 20,000 outside Oakland City Hall in her Northern California hometown, told the crowd that her “For the People” tag line was more than a campaign slogan. Instead, the one-term senator said it was the “guide” to her life’s work as a lawyer, San Francisco’s district attorney, the state’s attorney general, and potentially as  the country’s next commander in chief. “We are here because the American Dream and our American democracy are under attack and on the line like never before. And we are here at this moment in time because we must answer a fundamental question: Who are we, who are we as Americans?” she said. “So, let’s answer that question to the world. To each other. Right here. Right now. America, we are better than this.”
• Extramarital affair with Kamala Harris? Former San Francisco mayor, 84, admits it happened. Willie Brown Admits He Boosted Kamala Harris’s Career: Brown goes on to address the fact that he appointed Harris, who was just a few years out of law school and working at the Alameda County district attorney’s office, to two well-paid posts on California state commissions and later helped her in her first election. “Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker,” he writes. “And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco.” The two reportedly broke up in December 1995 just before he became mayor, but he remained a political ally. Brown is credited for connecting Harris with the donors who boosted her successful 2004 campaign for San Francisco district attorney, during which she outraised her incumbent opponent. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Brown’s “stamp of approval was crucial in raising money from the San Francisco establishment.”
• BERNIE SANDERS: Bernie Sanders set to announce 2020 presidential run
• HILLARY 2020: Hillary reportedly not ruling out 2020 presidential run. CNN White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny said Sunday on CNN’s “Inside Politics” that Clinton told people “as recently as this week” that she isn’t “closing the doors to the idea of running in 2020.” “I’m told by three people that as recently as this week, she was telling people that look, given all this news from the indictments, particularly the Roger Stone indictment, she talked to several people, saying ‘look, I’m not closing the doors to this,’ ” Zeleny said. “It does not mean that there’s a campaign-in-waiting, or a plan in the works,” he continued…. “Most losing presidential candidates never totally close the doors to running for president, something that’s really hard to do. So I put this in the category,” Zeleny said.

6am – D         INTERVIEW – FRED LUCAS – White House correspondent at The Daily Signal – discussed what’s next on the wall showdown. The government reopens but the clock is ticking. Lawmakers have until February 15 to devise a bipartisan resolution to their impasse over the president’s demand for a border wall.  Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on “Face the Nation” that the president would have no problem doing it again. “He is willing to do whatever it takes to secure the border.  He does take this very seriously. This is a serious humanitarian and security crisis.”

6am – E         MELANIA GETS AN APOLOGY FROM THE TELEGRAPH:

• President Donald Trump slams Daily Telegraph over Melania Trump story. (Fox News) — President Donald Trump slammed Britain’s Daily Telegraph on Sunday after the newspaper apologized for publishing an unflattering article about first lady Melania Trump. The paper issued the apology Saturday for  an article titled “The mystery of Melania,” stating it paid “substantial damages” to the first lady, including her legal costs. The newspaper did not disclose the size of the settlement with Trump, though the publication admitted that the story “contained a number of false statements.” President Trump wasn’t entirely satisfied with the outcome, replying to a tweet from Brit Hume, who wrote, “One wonders how so many falsehoods could be crammed into a single article. Proof, if any were needed, that bias makes journalists reckless.” Trump commented, “Thank you to Brit. This is a very big deal in Europe. Fake News is the Enemy of the People!” The Telegraph claims that the story falsely reported the reasons Melania left an architecture program as well as falsely reporting that her career as a model was unsuccessful before she met Donald Trump. “Mrs. Trump was not struggling in her modeling career before she met Mr. Trump, and she did not advance in her career due to the assistance of Mr. Trump,” the apology read.

6am – F         REDSKINS NEWS:

• Daniel Snyder’s new $100 million purchase is the first superyacht with a certified Imax movie theater. Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has already made his first major offseason acquisition. It’s a new $100 million superyacht, the Lady S, complete with an Imax theater. The Guardian reported that the 305-foot ship launched in the Netherlands in October and Snyder will take delivery in the spring. The yacht features a helipad, four VIP suites and athletic facilities “to cater to a huge variety of sports including golf, basketball, volleyball and soccer,” according to manufacturer Feadship. The Imax theater is thought to be the first on a superyacht. “He wanted an Imax, that was his main request,” Jan-Bart Verkuyl, chief executive of Feadship’s Royal Van Lent shipyard, told the Guardian of the yacht’s owner. An architect at the firm that helped design the ship said adding the Imax theater, which added an additional $3 million to construction costs, made building the yacht “much more complicated,” the Guardian reported. Builders had to construct the theater, then the rest of the boat around it.
• Elizabeth Warren @ewarren This billionaire NFL owner just paid $100M for a “superyacht” with its own iMax theater. I’m pretty sure he can pay my new #UltraMillionaireTax to help the millions of yacht-less Americans struggling with student loan debt.
• Redskins believe Alex Smith (leg) will miss all of 2019. Alex Smith’s gruesome leg injury already robbed him of a full first season in Washington. It could cost him another one in 2019. NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported the Washington Redskins are planning as if they won’t have Smith in 2019, according to sources informed of the situation. Washington believes Smith will miss the entire season with issues stemming from the compound fracture suffered in Week 11. If Smith ends up being ready for the season, the Redskins will be pleasantly surprised, Rapoport added.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – JOE DIGENOVA – legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia – discussed Roger Stone’s indictment and the president’s legal options for securing border wall funding.

• Roger Stone indicted on charges brought by special counsel.  (CNN) Longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone has been indicted by a grand jury on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. He was arrested by the FBI Friday morning at his home in Florida, his lawyer tells CNN. Stone was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia on seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
• Should Trump declare a national emergency and if he does, will it be legally thwarted? If Trump declares a national emergency, could Congress or the courts reverse it?
• Will Trump use a national emergency to end the shutdown?  The possibility that President Donald Trump might declare a “national emergency” so that he could gain access to the funds he’d need to build his border wall without a new appropriation from Congress has set off a debate over the troubling scope of the National Emergencies Act of 1976. Earlier in January, Trump claimed he was tabling that idea, but a new report from CNN on Thursday suggests he may yet declare an emergency.

7am – B/C     INTERVIEW — MATT SCHLAPP – chairman of the American Conservative Union – discussed the latest on the border funding fight and how more Dems are jumping into the race for 2020.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — ROGER STONE – Former Trump adviser

• Roger Stone indicted on charges brought by special counsel.  (CNN) Longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone has been indicted by a grand jury on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. He was arrested by the FBI Friday morning at his home in Florida, his lawyer tells CNN. Stone was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia on seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
• FBI’s show of force in Roger Stone arrest spurs criticism of Mueller tactics
• Stone’s attorney added that the arrest was a “spectacle.” “A SWAT team, searching the house, scaring his wife, scaring his dogs—it was completely unnecessary,” Stone’s attorney said. “A telephone call would have done the job, and he would have appeared. Mr. Stone has nothing to hide.”
• The arrest operation drew scrutiny on social media—even from President Trump, who said “Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better,” and questioned “who alerted CNN to be there?”

7am – E         NBC News’ Tom Brokaw apologizes after comments on Hispanics spark backlash. (Fox News) — NBC News special correspondent and former “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw apologized Sunday evening for remarks he made on “Meet the Press” earlier in the day about Hispanic assimilation, after the comments triggered backlash. During a panel discussion about the fight for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Brokaw said: “On the Republican side, a lot of people see the rise of an extraordinary, important new constituent in American politics, Hispanics, who will come here and all be Democrats.” He continued, “Also, I hear, when I push people a little harder, ‘Well, I don’t know whether I want brown grandbabies.’ I mean, that’s also a part of it. It’s the intermarriage that is going on and the cultures that are conflicting with each other.” He did not explain who had told him this. Brokaw went on to say: “I also happen to believe that the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. That’s one of the things I’ve been saying for a long time. You know, they ought not to be just codified in their communities but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English, and that they feel comfortable in the communities. And that’s going to take outreach on both sides, frankly.” PBS correspondent Yamiche Alcindor replied: “I grew up in Miami, where people speak Spanish, but their kids speak English. And the idea that we think America can only speak English, as if Spanish and other languages wasn’t always part of America, is, in some ways, troubling.” The backlash was stronger online.

 

8am – A         DEMS 2020:

• Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says he’s considering independent run for president. The lifelong Democrat tells 60 Minutes both parties are not doing what’s necessary on behalf of the American people.
• KAMALA HARRIS kicks off 2020 campaign with rally in hometown of Oakland
• Extramarital affair with Kamala Harris? Former San Francisco mayor, 84, admits it happened.
• BERNIE SANDERS: Bernie Sanders set to announce 2020 presidential run
• HILLARY 2020: Hillary reportedly not ruling out 2020 presidential run

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW — JOSH KRAUSHAAR – political editor for National Journal

• What should President Trump do next in the border funding fight? *The government reopens but the clock is ticking. Lawmakers have until February 15 to devise a bipartisan resolution to their impasse over the president’s demand for a border wall.  Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on “Face the Nation” that the president would have no problem doing it again. “He is willing to do whatever it takes to secure the border.  He does take this very seriously. This is a serious humanitarian and security crisis.”

• KRAUSHAAR: More NBC/WSJ poll: Pelosi’s negatives shot up during government shutdown more than any pol // now the most unpopular politician tested in the survey.
• DEMS jumping in the race for 2020: Kamala, Bernie, Schultz, Hillary
• KRAUSHAAR: Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf, in intro-ing Harris, says she’s an “Oakland progressive.”  Is being a San Francisco Democrat (or Oakland progressive) a viable brand for a 2020 general election?  Times have certainly changed since 1984…

8am – D/E     ROGER STONE APPEARED ON WMAL THIS MORNING:

• Roger Stone indicted on charges brought by special counsel.  (CNN) Longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone has been indicted by a grand jury on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. He was arrested by the FBI Friday morning at his home in Florida, his lawyer tells CNN. Stone was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia on seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
• STEVE MARTIN plays STONE on SNL
• CNN’s Jake Tapper on Roger Stone potentially going to prison: “He might like it”
• CNN White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny said Sunday on “Inside Politics” that Clinton told people “as recently as this week” that she isn’t “closing the doors to the idea of running in 2020.” “I’m told by three people that as recently as this week, she was telling people that look, given all this news from the indictments, particularly the Roger Stone indictment, she talked to several people, saying ‘look, I’m not closing the doors to this,’ ” Zeleny said.