Tim Carney, Steve Camarota and Matt Schlapp joined WMAL on Thursday!

Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, February 21, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C Warren Proposes Universal Child Care Plan Funded by Wealth Tax. (Bloomberg) —  Proposal would limit child care expenses to 7% of income.  Plan estimated to cost taxpayers about $70 billion annually. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren proposed a universal child care plan that would limit American families’ expenses to 7 percent of income regardless of how many children they have in care — paid for by a tax on the ultra-wealthy. The Massachusetts senator’s plan, unveiled Tuesday on Medium.com, would make child care free for families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level, or less than $51,500 for a family of four. Other families would pay up to 7 percent of income, depending on how much they earn. The proposal marks the latest policy entry into a 2020 contest that features scores of progressive Democrats competing over how best to mitigate income inequality and expand the economic safety net for working families. Americans pay nearly as much for child care as they do for rent, with the average cost of child care in the U.S. approaching $1,400 a month, according to a 2018 HotPads analysis of a Care.com state and metro area pricing index.

5am – D/E     Maryland Gov. Hogan not ruling out 2020 primary challenge to Trump. (Fox News) – Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said in an interview Wednesday he isn’t ruling out a Republican primary challenge to President Trump, saying he’s skeptical the president could pull off another general election victory. “I would say I’m being approached from a lot of different people,” Hogan said on CBS’ “This Morning.” “And I guess the best way to put it is I haven’t thrown them out of my office.” Hogan, the new leader of the National Governors Association who is headed to Iowa in the coming weeks, pointed out how he’s only the second Republican governor of Maryland, suggesting he could win over Democrats and independents in a general election. Still, Hogan also told CBS, “Nobody has successfully challenged a sitting president in the same party in the primary since 1884.” Hogan, speaking of Trump’s chances in 2020, said, “I’m not saying he couldn’t win, but he’s pretty weak in the general election.”

 

6am – A/B/C SMOLLETT UPDATE:

• Felony criminal charges against Jussie Smollett approved, Chicago police say
• Brothers in Jussie Smollett case ‘manned up’ and testified to grand jury, attorney says
• ‘Empire’ Producers Consider Suspending Jussie Smollett. Fox is considering removing Jussie Smollett from production on “Empire.” Sources close to the production told Variety that producers are weighing whether to suspend the actor after he was charged Wednesday in Chicago with filing a false police report.
• CNN’s Don Lemon: ‘Tucker Carlson is Going to Eat Jussie Smollett’s Lunch’
• Don Lemon doesn’t think it’s Jussie Smollett’s fault he’s already lost in the “court of public opinion.” Thinks maybe he got bad advice. He also says Robin Roberts did a “terrific” job interviewing Smollett. I wish, I wish to God, I was making this up.

6am – D/E/F MUELLER / MCCABE:

• Mueller probe ‘near the end game’ amid shakeup at DOJ, sources say
• CNN: Bombshell Mueller report may never be fully revealed
• Former FBI Deputy General Counsel Greg Brower is stunned by how loose-lipped Andy McCabe is being, and how flippant he’s being towards the DOJ inspector general.
• BOMBSHELL: McCabe Admits FBI Used Fake News To Justify Trump-Russia Investigation
• McCabe References Use Of Lester Holt Interview To Open Investigation
• “So you put all of those circumstances together and add to it the president’s own public statements indicating that he was thinking about Russia when he fired the director of the FBI, we felt it was our obligation to act in those circumstances which are undeniable.”
• If you haven’t seen this in awhile, or ever, watch this extended clip of Lester Holt’s much-cited interview with @realDonaldTrump about the Comey firing. “I want that thing” — the Russia investigation — “to be absolutely done properly.”
• 6-7-2017: @Comey tells @marcorubio that @realDonaldTrump wanted to see the FBI investigation fully play out to clear the air & “if some of my satellites did something wrong, it’d be good to find that out.”

7am – A/B/C             INTERVIEW – TIM CARNEY – American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Visiting Fellow and author of new book “Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse” (IN STUDIO)

• In Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse (HarperCollins, February 19, 2019), political commentator and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Visiting Fellow Timothy P. Carney reaches beyond the conventional thinking about what led to Trump’s rise. He also identifies and analyzes the factors behind the decline of the American dream. Economic decline, he says, is just a symptom of the problem. He argues that this deterioration is not purely the result of economics as some claim, but the collapse of the institutions that made America successful, including marriage, church, and civic life.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – STEVE CAMAROTA – Center for Immigration Studies’ Director of Research

• CAMAROTA: On Immigration, Trump Needs to Focus on the Numbers (National Review) — The president should always bring the discussion back to the numbers. Both the national interest and his political future depend on it. The reason numbers are by far the most important immigration issue is that all the effects of immigration stem directly from the scale of immigration — cultural, political, social, economic, and fiscal. And the scale of contemporary immigration is truly enormous. The latest data indicate that there are about 45 million legal and illegal immigrants — roughly 34 million of whom are legal. About l.7 million new legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year. The total number of immigrants (legal and illegal) in the country has doubled since 1990, tripled since 1980, and quadrupled since 1970. As a share of the population, about one in seven S. residents is now a legal or illegal immigrant — the highest percentage in 107 years. The Census Bureau projects the immigrant share will surpass the highest level ever in America history in eight years if we choose to continue current policy. Pew Research has estimated that since 1965 (when the law was liberalized) immigration has added 72 million people to the U.S. population. That’s post-1965 immigrants and their progeny. An analysis of the latest Census Bureau projections indicates that future immigration will add another 75 million by 2060. That means that future immigrants and their descendants will add a population the size of France in just four decades. There is no precedent for this in American history. The last great wave of immigration came to an end after about 60 years in 1914 due to World War I and then restrictive legislation in the 1920s.

7am – E         Kamala Harris gets scolding from father for pushing stereotype about Jamaicans smoking marijuana. Sen. Kamala Harris’ Jamaican father said he does not approve of his daughter’s comments perpetuating the stereotype of Jamaicans smoking a lot of marijuana. “My dear departed grandmother … as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,” Donald Harris, an economics professor at Stanford University, told the Jamaica Globe Online. “Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty,” Earlier in the month, Kamala Harris, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, referenced her family in Jamaica during an interview in which she called for the legalization of marijuana across the U.S. The senator quipped her views of recreational weed use stems from her experience around the substance. “Look, I joke about it and have joked about it,” she said on “The Breakfast Club” — a nationally syndicated morning radio program based in New York City. “Half my family is from Jamaica, are you kidding me?” 

 

8am – A         INTERVIEW – MATT SCHLAPP – chairman of the American Conservative Union – discussed the growing 2020 Democrat field and previewed CPAC coming up next week.

• Kamala Harris gets scolding from father for pushing stereotype about Jamaicans smoking marijuana
• Warren a distant fourth in Dem primary poll of New Hampshire, which borders her home state
• MICHELLE OBAMA AS POPULAR AS BIDEN FOR 2020 NOMINEE: A Hill-HarrisX poll released Tuesday found that 25 percent of Democrats said they would back Obama in the party primary over nine other declared or potential candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas)
• MD GOV. LARRY HOGAN NOT RULING OUT CHALLENGE TO TRUMP. Pres. Trump. Hogan has not ruled out running against Trump in 2020. “I would say I’m being approached from a lot of different people,” Hogan said on CBS’ “This Morning.” “And I guess the best way to put it is I haven’t thrown them out of my office.”

8am – B/C  NORTHAM:

• Virginia voters — including African-Americans — have Northam’s back. irginia Gov. Ralph Northam appears to have quelled any widespread public clamor for his resignation in the wake of his blackface scandal. Two new polls out Wednesday show pluralities say the Democrat should not quit or be forced out over a racist photo that appeared on his medical-school yearbook page 35 years ago. Most African-American voters agree that he shouldn’t go, according to one of the surveys. In a Quinnipiac University poll, 42 percent of voters say Northam should resign — but more, 48 percent, say he shouldn’t. White voters are split evenly — 46 percent say he should resign, and the same percentage say he shouldn’t — but a majority of black voters, 56 percent, say Northam should not quit.
• Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam Cancels Appearance At Civil Rights Forum. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has decided not to launch his “reconciliation tour” as planned on Thursday morning at Virginia Union University. The change comes days after the student government president of the historically black university urged the embattled Democratic governor to come another time. On Wednesday evening, Northam obliged, tweeting out a statement that said, “I appreciate the original invitation of VUU’s administration, but I will abide by the students’ wishes.” He said he accepted the student government’s “invitation for future dialogue and honest conversation on issues of race, reconciliation and equity.”
• Al Gore Says Ralph Northam Can Atone For Blackface Scandal By Opposing Gas Pipeline. Former Vice President Al Gore said Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam can fulfill his “racial reconciliation” pledge by opposing the Atlantic Coast pipeline, which he called a “racist rip-off.” “This is an ideal opportunity for him to say, ‘I’ve seen the light,’” Gore said at an anti-pipeline town hall in a historically black part of Buckingham County, Virginia, as part of an “Environmental Justice Tour,” the AP reported. Gore appeared on stage with his daughter Karenna Gore, Rev. Dr. William Barber II, environmental activists and residents of Union Hill, a historically black neighborhood, who oppose the Atlantic Coast pipeline. Gore and climate activists see Northam’s recent blackface controversy as a way to turn him against the Atlantic Coast

8am – D         BREAKING: Chicago police spokesman: ‘Empire’ actor Jussie Smollett turns self in on accusation of making false police report.

8am – E         Coast Guard lieutenant, dubbed ‘domestic terrorist,’ had hit list of media bigs and Dem lawmakers: prosecutors. (Fox News) — A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant arrested last week on weapons and drug charges is a white nationalist who apparently had a hit list of Democratic lawmakers and activists as well as prominent media personalities, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. In a motion for pretrial detention filed in federal court in Maryland, authorities said Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson, 49, was arrested Friday and charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and an opioid called Tramadol. However, the filing described the charges as “the proverbial tip of the iceberg,” and referred to Hasson as “a domestic terrorist” who meant to “murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.” The filing was first noted by researchers from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Prosecutors say Hasson regularly read a manifesto written by Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian far-right extremist who killed 77 people in a pair of 2011 terror attacks, and stockpiled weapons and ammunition. According to the documents, federal agents recovered 15 firearms and “conservatively” more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from Hasson’s “cramped basement apartment” in Silver Spring, Maryland.