KT McFarland, Ken Cuccinelli, Susan Ferrechio, and James O’Keefe joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C Beto O’Rourke plans “war tax” on families without military members. (The Hill) — Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke on Monday unveiled an expansive program aimed at helping veterans. The plan focuses on ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating a “state-of-the-art” Veterans Affairs health care system, ensuring that veterans receive equal treatment regardless of gender or sexual orientation and helping veterans once they return from service.O’Rourke also seeks to establish a veterans health care trust fund that would support veteran medical care and disability compensation. Other parts of his plan would restore military service as a pathway to citizenship and devoting government resources to preventing veteran homelessness.

5am – D         Pelosi: ‘What’s the Point?’ of Interior Enforcement on Immigration. While discussing immigration at a town hall on Monday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) asked her audience, “what’s the point?” of enforcing immigration with the United States’ bounds. “When I saw the president was going to have these raids, it’s so appalling, it’s outside the realm of civilized human behavior, just kicking down doors and splitting up families in addition to the injustices that are happening at the border,” she said. “We have legislation to go forward to address those needs. But in terms of interior enforcement, what’s the point?” Pelosi went on to say that she would not pursue the question further, as this was not a “political event.”

5am – E         WOMAN DISCOVERS NJ REST STOPS:

• Woman discovers NJ rest stops, food courts and how lazy NJ people are in not pumping their own gas… This should be on Animal Channel like she found a new species to observe.
• FACEBOOK POST: This is my first time in New Jersey. And my first time driving in New Jersey
• Kristen Hampton from WBTV Good News films herself standing outside a NJ rest stop mystified by the experience of driving in Jersey and stopping at a rest stop

6am – A/B/C WEDDING RING UPGRADE: MEGHAN MARKLE HAS CHANGED HER ENGAGEMENT RING. Eagled-eyed royal fans first spotted Markle’s modified ring during her appearance at last weekend’s Trooping the Colour celebrations, where she also debuted a new diamond eternity band assumed to be either a “push present” or anniversary gift from Harry.

6am – D/E     SANDERS AND AOC PUSH TO CANCEL ALL STUDENT LOAN DEBT:

• Sanders wants to cancel all student loan debt, even for the wealthy (Politico) — Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday proposed eliminating all of the nearly $1.6 trillion in outstanding student loan debt owed by Americans, raising the stakes on an issue that has increasingly animated the progressive base of the Democratic party. Sanders is the latest 2020 presidential contender to propose a one-time cancellation program that would forgive large portions of student loan debt, which is owed by some 45 million Americans. His plan follows one released earlier this year by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, (D-Mass.), who called for forgiving $640 billion of student loan debt. Sanders’ call for completely eliminating existing student loan debt is sure to rekindle divisions among progressives and Democratic primary voters more broadly over whether sweeping new government benefits should be available to all — or targeted to low- and middle-income families.
• “We have to both make public colleges tuition free and forgive all student loan debt at the same time,” AOC said Monday, introducing legislation with Bernie Sanders.
• “She got into her dream college but her dream college offered her no scholarships, just loans.” Rep. @AOC shares story of young woman she mentored who faced $250,000 of debt in order to attend her dream college
• “What a beautiful day to liberate ourselves from student debt. What a beautiful day to liberate our future generations from the scourge of for-profit education, & by that we also mean for-profit student loan debt.” Rep. AOC’s full remarks about bill to eliminate student debt.
• AOC: “It was literally easier for me to become the youngest woman in American history elected to Congress than it is to pay off my student loan debt.”
• AOC campaign spent $1.67 million getting her elected, and her student loan debt is less than $50k
• AOC: “It was literally easier for me to become the youngest woman in American history elected to Congress than it is to pay off my student loan debt.”
• “Now people are in their 30s and older that have taken on insurmountable amounts of debt because we have sold them an empty bill of goods. And what we need to do is make it right.”
• AOC calls student debt a “systemic threat that is grinding the U.S. economy to a halt”

6am – F         Chicago Police Release Bizarre Footage of Jussie Smollett in His Kitchen With Prop Noose Around His Neck. The Chicago Police Department has released a trove of investigative files and 70 hours of video related to Jussie Smollett’s hoax hate crime — including body camera footage of police having to ask him if he wants to remove the prop noose from around his neck. The body camera footage of police arriving at Smollett’s home following the staged “attack” is unintentionally hilarious. Smollett is hanging out in his kitchen with the noose swinging from his neck like a necklace, prompting police to ask him if he wants to remove it. The police had been called by Smollett’s manager. He asked the officers if their body cameras were recording and asked that they be turned off. “The dozens of hours of video have been released by police after an open records request from the I-Team and ABC News, among others. The video includes many surveillance camera recordings of the areas where Smollett claimed he was attacked by two men sporting Make America Great Again hats,” ABC 7 reports. Smollett was charged with one count of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report and indicted on 16 counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report by a Grand Jury. All charges were ultimately dropped by the prosecutor’s office in exchange for community service and forfeiture of his $10,000 bond — prompting many, including police, to call shenanigans. The dropped charges are now subject to a separate investigation by the inspector general.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – KT MCFARLAND – Former Deputy National Security Adviser for President Trump and she also worked in Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.  KT discussed the U.S.’s strategy with Iran: cyber attacks and sanctions.

• SANCTIONS: Iran blasts new US sanctions, says channel for diplomacy is closed ‘forever.’ A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a tweet Tuesday that the new U.S. sanctions that target Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other officials close any channel for diplomacy between the two countries “forever.” President Trump signed an executive order Monday issuing “hard-hitting” financial sanctions against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his associates. The U.S. and Iran have seen tensions increase exponentially in the past few weeks after an initial U.S. sanctions squeeze that Washington said led to the attacks on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. The situation became increasingly dire last week after Tehran admitted to downing a $100 million U.S. Navy drone. Trump said the sanctions “will deny the supreme leader and the supreme leader’s office and those closely affiliated with him and the office access to key financial resources and support.”
• Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump says he has signed an executive order imposing “hard hitting” sanctions on Iran that will deny Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others access to financial instruments
• US CYBER ATTACK ON IRAN:
  • US cyberattack reportedly knocked out Iran missile control systems
  • Iran denies being hit by US cyberattack. “The media are asking about the veracity of the alleged cyberattack against Iran. No successful attack has been carried out by them, although they are making a lot of effort.” – Iran’s telecommunications minister

7am – B/C     TRUMP’S HILL INTERVIEW:

• Trump: I would fill Supreme Court vacancy before 2020 election
• Trump vehemently denies E. Jean Carroll allegation, says ‘she’s not my type’
• Trump accuses Biden of lying about Obama’s lack of endorsement
• Trump: I do not need congressional approval to strike Iran
• Trump on reparations: ‘I don’t see it happening’

• Trump says it’s not appropriate for Megan Rapinoe to protest during national anthem
• Trump declines to say he has confidence in FBI director

7am – D         INTERVIEW – KEN CUCCINELLI – New Acting Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services

• Trump Delays Immigration Raids, Giving Democrats ‘Two Weeks’ To Change Asylum Laws. President Trump delayed immigration raids that were set to begin last weekend, saying he will give Congress two weeks to make changes to asylum law before dispatching Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents around the country to deport undocumented immigrants.Immigration rights advocates had been preparing for the planned sweep of recently arrived migrants, which, according to sources familiar with the planned raids, were set to begin as soon as Sunday in 10 cities around the country. A source familiar with the president’s decision told NPR that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Trump on Friday night and urged him to back off the raids. Pelosi had been sharply critical of the planned raids. She called them heartless and said the president needed “to stop this brutal action which will tear families apart and inject terror into our communities.”

7am – E         LIVE MUELLER REPORT PERFORMANCE: Actors Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mark Hamill, Annette Bening, Sigourney Weaver, Jason Alexander, John Lithgow, Alyssa Milano, Kyra Sedgwick and more are performing a live play based on the Mueller Report, titled The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in 10 Acts. It’s written by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning writer Robert Schenkkan. The dramatic reading was organized by Law Works Action and the Mueller Book Club.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – SUSAN FERRECHIO – chief congressional correspondent for the Washington Examiner

• Trump Delays Immigration Raids, Giving Democrats ‘Two Weeks’ To Change Asylum Laws. President Trump delayed immigration raids that were set to begin last weekend, saying he will give Congress two weeks to make changes to asylum law before dispatching Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents around the country to deport undocumented immigrants.
• Top lawmakers: Trump’s deportation delay won’t lead to immigration deal in Congress. (Washington Examiner/Susan Ferrechio) — Top lawmakers in Congress aren’t negotiating a deal to reform the nation’s asylum laws despite President Trump’s demand that they work out an accord after he agreed to delay the mass deportation of illegal immigrants for two weeks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who had urged the president to postpone the deportations, told the Washington Examiner the additional time won’t be used for working out a deal with Republicans, but rather it will provide activists and the religious community more time to speak out against the deportations. Congress won’t be working on reforming any asylum laws, she said.
• Trump admin threatens to veto House Democrats’ border bill (The Hill) — The White House on Monday threatened to veto House Democrats’ proposal on how to meet its request for $4.5 billion in funds to address the influx of migrants on the southern border. The House and Senate are considering competing bills this week to meet the Trump administration’s request.  While the Senate version is bipartisan, House Democrats are still trying to round up the votes for their bill amid concerns from Hispanic and progressive lawmakers wary of funding the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Members of the Progressive and Hispanic caucuses are meeting Monday night with House Democratic leaders to discuss the proposal, which was unveiled Friday. House Democratic leaders are hoping to bring the bill to the floor as soon as Tuesday. In a statement on Monday, the Office of Management and Budget called the House measure a “partisan bill that underfunds necessary accounts and seeks to take advantage of the current crisis by inserting policy provisions that would make our country less safe.” It cited the House bill’s provision requiring the Trump administration to use money that Congress already provided for aid to Central American countries, as well as its restrictions on the Department of Health and Human Services policies regarding unaccompanied migrant children. The veto threat signals a difficult path ahead for both the House and Senate to reach an agreement by the end of the week before lawmakers depart for the July 4 recess.
• Pelosi: ‘What’s the Point?’ of Interior Enforcement on Immigration. While discussing immigration at a town hall on Monday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) asked her audience, “what’s the point?” of enforcing immigration with the United States’ bounds. CUT 1: “When I saw the president was going to have these raids, it’s so appalling, it’s outside the realm of civilized human behavior, just kicking down doors and splitting up families in addition to the injustices that are happening at the border,” she said. “We have legislation to go forward to address those needs. But in terms of interior enforcement, what’s the point?” Pelosi went on to say that she would not pursue the question further, as this was not a “political event.”

8am – B/C     TRUMP ACCUSER:

• E. Jean Carroll responds to Trump saying she’s “not my type”
• E. Jean Carroll: “I love that I’m not his type. Don’t you love that you’re not his type?”
• Anderson Cooper cut straight to a commercial after she makes strange rape comment
• Trump says E. Jean Carroll is “totally lying” about rape allegations: “She’s not my type” // Trump claims E. Jean Carroll is “lying” about alleged rape. “I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Trump tells the Hill

8am – D         INTERVIEW – JAMES O’KEEFE – Project Veritas

• Project Veritas Exposes Google as a Political Warfare Instrument
• Insider Blows Whistle & Exec Reveals Google Plan to Prevent “Trump situation” in 2020 on Hidden Cam
  • Insider: Google “is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again.”
  • Google Exec Says Don’t Break Us Up: “smaller companies don’t have the resources” to “prevent next Trump situation”
  • Google Head of Responsible Innovation Says Elizabeth Warren “misguided” on “breaking up Google”
  • Insider Says PragerU And Dave Rubin Content Suppressed, Targeted As “Right-Wing”
  • LEAKED Documents Highlight “Machine Learning Fairness” and Google’s Practices to Make Search Results “fair and equitable”
  • Documents Appear to Show “Editorial” Policies That Determine How Google Publishes News
  • Insider: Google Violates “letter of the law” and “spirit of the law” on Section 230