Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

Charlie Spiering, Julio Rosas, Susan Ferrechio, and Pat Webb joined WMAL on Tuesday!

5am – A/B/C Poll: Overwhelming majority say news media making US more politically divided (The Hill) The survey of 1,001 registered voters found that 75 percent believe that the way news is reported increases the political divide, compared to only 7 percent who say it has made the county less politically divided. Seventeen percent say that the news media has had no effect one way or the other. The issue found strong majority support among both Democrats and Republicans. Eighty-four percent of GOP voters and 74 of Democratic voters believe the news media has contributed an increase in political polarization throughout the nation, as did 69 percent of independents.

5am – D MLK DAY RECAP:

• President Trump and Vice President Pence made a surprise visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in DC
• TRUMP TWEET: It was exactly three years ago today, January 20, 2017, that I was sworn into office. So appropriate that today is also MLK jr DAY. African-American Unemployment is the LOWEST in the history of our Country, by far. Also, best Poverty, Youth, and Employment numbers, ever. Great!
• Clarence Thomas says in new documentary: I was ‘the wrong black guy’ and had ‘to be destroyed’

5am – E PRESIDENT TRUMP IN DAVOS:

• President Trump is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where he plans to urge investment in the S. by business executives while meeting with world leaders. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham told reporters, “The president’s work doesn’t stop just because of the impeachment sham.”
• Trump and Greta Thunberg are set to cross paths again at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

6am – A/B/C VIRGINIA GUN RALLY:

• Authorities said an estimated 22,000 people attended Monday’s gun rally, which ended uneventfully despite fears that far-right extremists were planning to hijack the event.
• Approximately 6,000 people entered the weapon-free zone within Capitol Square and another 16,000 people stood on the streets outside the gate.
• Police reported just one arrest in the vicinity of the rally. Police said they arrested 21-year-old Mikaela E. Beschler of Richmond, for allegedly violating the state’s anti-mask law in the 800 block of East Broad Street. Police said Beschler was arrested after she continued to wear a bandanna after an officer warned her twice to uncover her face. […]
• The rally’s official program included about an hour of speeches on Capitol Square from elected state officials and other gun-rights supporters before demonstrators filed out peacefully into the streets. Many thanked police on the way out.
• Two Virginia law enforcement officers — Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins and York County Sheriff Danny Diggs — were also included in the speaker lineup. Jenkins reiterated his vow to deputize thousands of Culpeper residents if necessary to protect them from new gun laws and urged attendees to pressure their local officials to go beyond passing symbolic pro-gun resolutions.
• Mother of left-wing activist Heather Heyer, who was run down and killed by a white supremacist at the Charlottesville race rally in 2017, says she is a gun owner and the Virginia Democrats are going TOO FAR with their firearms restrictions
• TWEET FROM GOV. RALPH NORTHAM – We are all thankful that today passed without incident. The teams successfully de-escalated what could have been a volatile situation. I will continue to listen to the voices of Virginians, and will do everything in my power to keep our Commonwealth safe.

6am – D/E IMPEACHMENT NEWS:

• In a surprise move Monday night, a detachment of high-profile House Republicans announced that they would formally join the president’s legal team, including Reps. Doug Collins, Mike Johnson, Jim Jordan, Debbie Lesko, Mark Meadows, John Ratcliffe, Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin. The last-minute show of force underscored the fluid nature of the Senate trial, which is also set to feature full-throated arguments against impeachment from constitutional scholar Alan Dershowitz and Bill Clinton independent counsel Ken Starr.
• Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, unveiled ground rules on Monday for President Trump’s impeachment trial that would attempt to speed the proceeding along and refuse to admit the evidence against the president unearthed by the House without a separate vote.
• In a 110-page brief submitted to the Senate the day before Mr. Trump’s trial begins in earnest, the president’s lawyers advanced their first sustained legal argument since the House opened its inquiry in the fall, contending that the two charges approved largely along party lines were constitutionally flawed and set a dangerous precedent.
• House impeachment managers will have 24 hours over two days to make their opening arguments when they begin to present their case against President Trump to the Senate Wednesday, according to a resolution circulated by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
• President Trump’s team similarly will have two days to present their arguments and then senators will have a chance to ask questions and consider subpoenas of witnesses.
• The resolution, as expected, does not require additional witnesses to be subpoenaed and does not allow House prosecutors to admit evidence into the Senate trial record until after the opening arguments are heard.
• Even the polls are popping for President Trump. With the constant barrage of negative media coverage and the looming threat of an impeachment trial hanging over Trump’s head, his poll numbers should be tanking. But quite the opposite is happening, much to the frustration of his Democrat and media detractors.
• Romney says he’d oppose efforts to vote on impeachment witnesses before opening arguments

6am – F  Tired Nation: Americans Now Averaging Less Than 6 Hours Of Sleep Per Night (StudyFinds.org)   Annual survey reveals adults are sleeping a staggering 47 minutes less than they did in 2018. Respondents had 105 “terrible” nights of sleep on average in 2019 — up from 99 in 2018. Perhaps the most stunning result of all is the drop in total average sleep time for Americans. It seems logging six hours is a struggle for many. Consider this finding: In 2018, the average respondent reported about six hours and 17 minutes of sleep per night. By 2019, however, that average shrunk to only five-and-a-half hours each night. If the trend continues, 2020 will be even worse for many in search of some shuteye. Those numbers are a far cry from the recommended eight full hours of sleep, but apparently these disturbing dips in sleep patterns aren’t for a lack of trying; respondents said they do their best to attain the “perfect night’s sleep” whenever possible. In fact, in 2019 the average respondent said they would pay $316.61 for just one night of perfect sleep. That’s quite an increase over the $290 respondents said they would be willing to pay in 2018.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – CHARLIE SPIERING – White House Correspondent for Breitbart News

TOPICS:

• Recap President Trump’s MLK activities
• preview President Trump’s Davos trip
• preview impeachment trial while he’s overseas

7am – B/C ‘Strong’ paper trail has John Durham investigating the months before Mueller appointment (Washington Examiner)  A trail of documents has reportedly led Attorney General William Barr’s handpicked federal prosecutor to focus his inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation on the first several months of President Trump’s tenure. John Durham, a U.S. attorney from Connecticut, is zeroing in on the period spanning from January 2017, when Trump took office, to May of that year. A “strong” paper trail, as CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge put it on Friday, has led the investigation into possible misconduct by federal law enforcement and intelligence officials to that time frame. Durham’s office declined to comment for this report.

7am – D INTERVIEW – JULIO ROSAS – Townhall Senior Writer

TOPIC: Recap the Gun Rally in Richmond

7am – E Avenatti allegedly took settlement money from football fans (Fox News) It’s alleged that Avenatti, currently behind bars awaiting trial in New York on unrelated charges, directed up to $1.3 million in settlement funds – intended for approximately 170 clients – to cover his own expenses. It’s the latest example of alleged malfeasance by the lawyer who was once a fixture on cable news and flirted with a presidential run. In May 2017, Avenatti, representing the ticket holders, entered into an agreement with the NFL for a settlement of about $1,550,000 and a dismissal of all legal claims. But, in a request for a search warrant of Avenatti’s computers and phones seized following his March 2019 arrest, IRS Special Agent Remoun Karlous told a federal judge that Avenatti paid out only a small fraction of that settlement. “Avenatti used the remainder of the approximately $1.31 million dollars [he] and his law firm received from the settlement of the Super Bowl Litigation for [his] own personal and business purposes,” Karlous wrote.

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

TOPIC: preview impeachment trial on Tuesday

8am – B/C     2020 NEWS:

BIDEN:

• Former Vice President Joe Biden maintained his lead in Iowa ahead of the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, according to a new poll that also shows former South Bend, , Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) gaining ground on Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who finished second.
• Sanders has been going after Biden. He said the former vice president has — on numerous occasions — supported making cuts to the popular entitlement program.
• In a tweet fired off last week, Sanders said he is proud to have fought to protect and expand Social Security. He linked to an article from The Washington Post on Biden’s history of supporting cuts.

WARREN:

• Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) no longer wants to talk about her own allegations that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), her Democratic primary rival, is sexist after her claims last week backfired. A reporter asked Warren in Iowa about Sanders’ recent comments to NHPR about whether gender is an obstacle for female politicians. Sanders said: “Look, I, th- the answer is yes. But I think everybody has their own sets of problems. I’m 78 years of age. That’s a problem.” Warren refused to respond to Sanders statement, saying: “I have no further comment on this. I have no further comment on this. I have been friends with Bernie for a long time. We worked together on many, many issues and I’ve said all I’m going to say on this.”
• Wealth taxes of the sort proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) will have little impact on economic inequality, one of the pioneers of wealth taxation wrote in a recent paper. Edward Wolff, an economist at New York University whose 1995 book Top Heavy was one of the first to float the idea of a tax on wealth, argued in a recent paper that Warren’s wealth tax would have a “minuscule” effect on wealth inequality. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, Wolff examined the effects of both Warren’s tax and a Swiss-style wealth tax, finding that both would have minimal impact on America’s Gini coefficient, a standard economic measure of inequality.

BLOOMBERG:

• Michael Bloomberg’s big-spending, shock-and-awe TV ad campaign has made politicking more expensive for everyone from his 2020 rivals to Senate, House and state legislative candidates around the country. Eight weeks into his presidential campaign, Bloomberg has already spent more money on advertising — $248 million — than most candidates could spend in years. That amount has squeezed TV ad inventory in nearly every state, lowering supply and causing stations to raise ad prices at a time of high demand, as candidates around the country gear up for their primaries.
• The billionaire business exec and former New York City mayor told NBC’s Craig Melvin on the “Today” show that he believes he’s a better option than the other Democratic contenders because he is “more acceptable to middle-of-the-road Republicans.”
• “[I] know him better than anybody else,” he said of President Trump. “I would be more acceptable, I think, to the middle-of-the-road Republicans who don’t like him, but do want somebody fiscally responsible. It’s that. It’s knowing how to deal with him. It’s being tough enough to deal with him at a practical level.”

BUTTIGIEG:

• “No question,” the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, 38, said Monday when asked by a moderator about whether Trump is hurting the psychological well-being of minority children in the country. “When you believe the leader of your own country doesn’t see you or doesn’t want you to succeed, of course it is bad for your health.

8am – D  INTERVIEW – PAT WEBB – Treasurer, Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL)

TOPIC: Pat’s group VCDL organized the gun rally/lobby day in Richmond on Monday. She can recap how she thought it went. She was there for all of it.

8am – E Top 5 Girl Scout cookies