CEI’s Marc Scribner, FDD’s Mark Dubowitz, Fox’s Bret Baier, and guest host Mercedes Schlapp joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, April 1, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Mercedes Schlapp

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C  Rove: Scrap Trump, Cruz And Kasich And Go With A ‘Fresh Face.’ Karl Rove says that instead of nominating Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich “a fresh face might be the thing that could give us a chance to turn this election and win in November against Hillary.” In an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, Rove weighed in on the 2016 election and called on Trump to start “acting in a presidential manner” in order to turn his high unfavorable ratings around.  Rove then said, “I think, though, that let’s say this. If we have somebody who we think has, has been battle tested, and has strong conservative principles and the ability to articulate them, and they are nominated at this convention, there will be a lot of acrimony from the people who were seeking the nomination. But if it’s somebody who has, you know, has those convictions that they can express in a compelling way, we could come out of the convention in relatively strong position, because we do have, you know, look.” “Donald Trump excites a lot of enthusiasm,” Rove said. “But he also excites a lot of anger within the Republican Party and outside of the Republican Party. And a fresh face might be the thing that could give us a chance to turn this election and win in November against Hillary.”

5am – D         Hillary’s Email News:

• AJAM’s David Shuster Exclusive: Hillary Clinton to be Interviewed by FBI Director Comey in Coming Days. Al Jazeera America may be shutting off the lights permanently soon, but that doesn’t mean reporters like David Shuster aren’t continuing to go about their business until the final gun sounds. Wednesday night, Shuster just reported on the 7:00 PM EST AJAM nightly newscast that the FBI has completed its examination of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton‘s private email server after an investigation lasting nearly one year. The former Fox News and MSNBC reporter states investigators are nearing a verdict whether to seek criminal charges against the Former Secretary of State, Senator and First Lady.
• NSA Chief Refuses ‘To Get Into’ Whether Hillary’s Email Server Was Hacked. National Security Agency (NSA) director Michael S. Rogers adamantly refused on Thursday to say whether Hillary Clinton’s private email server was ever hacked. “It’s something I’m just not going to get into,” Rogers told Yahoo! News’ Michael Isikoff when asked in an interview if Clinton’s server was ever compromised.
• One shot at the queen’: FBI, AG intensify focus on Clinton email probe. (Fox News) – As the FBI enters the final phases of its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of an unauthorized email server for government business, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey are meeting frequently to discuss the progress and handling of the highly sensitive case, a source told Fox News. Among the issues discussed in the meetings, which have been taking place several times per week, are who will be interviewed and in what order, according to an intelligence source close to the ongoing case. Emails released by the State Department have already shown Clinton and several key aides used the personal, unsecured network to send more than 1,000 messages which have been deemed classified.

5am – E         Move stalls to change Maryland state song from Civil War era. ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A bill to revise the state song of Maryland to remove Civil War-era references to “Northern scum” and other phrases deemed offensive has stalled in the state House, a leading lawmaker said Thursday. Democratic Del. Peter Hammen of Baltimore said he won’t bring the bill to a vote in the committee he chairs because colleagues told him they need more time to consider what to do with the song “Maryland, My Maryland.”  The song was written in 1861 at the outset of the Civil War and was adopted by Maryland in 1939. “Everybody has a different opinion on what it should be, and I think some would like to really look at different options,” Hammen said Thursday of the decision to stall the bill that recently passed in the Senate. The Frederick News-Post first reported the decision Wednesday. Set to the traditional seasonal tune of “O Tannenbaum,” the song refers to then-President Abraham Lincoln as a “despot” and exhorts Maryland to “burst the tyrant’s chain” and secede from the Union — at a time when Maryland was a slave state divided in sympathies between North and South. The song was written by James Ryder Randall, then despondent over the death of a friend who was shot while protesting against the presence of Union troops in Baltimore early in the conflict. The lyrics speak of the need to “burst the tyrant’s chain” and also say the state “spurns the Northern scum.”

6am – A/B/C Donald Trump’s rock-bottom ratings with women. (Politico) – ‘Historically, I can’t imagine anyone having worse numbers with women,’ says one pollster. Just how bad are Donald Trump’s problems with women? Bad enough that roughly seven out of 10 women voters in recent polls say they have a negative impression of him. And that was before the news coverage of his threat to “spill the beans” about Ted Cruz’s wife and his talk about punishing women who have abortions. Trump is already so dangerously underwater with female voters — who represent a majority of the electorate — that it raises questions about whether a GOP ticket led by the billionaire could lead to a historic gender gap and blowout defeat. The percentages of women who had an unfavorable or negative impression of Trump in recent public polls are staggering: 67 percent (Fox News), 67 percent (Quinnipiac University), 70 percent (NBC News/Wall Street Journal), 73 percent (CNN/ORC) and 74 percent (ABC News/Washington Post). “Those are stunningly unfavorable numbers. It would be tremendously difficult for Donald Trump to win the general with those kinds of numbers,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll. “Historically, I can’t imagine anyone having worse numbers with women. But historically, there’s never been anyone like Donald Trump.”

6am – D         APRIL FOOLS DAY: What are the best pranks you’ve ever done or ever heard of?

6am – E         Hundreds of people lining up to reserve new Tesla.  DETROIT (AP) — The promise of an affordable electric car from Tesla Motors had hundreds of people lining up to reserve one. Tesla planned to unveil its Model 3 Thursday night at its Los Angeles design studio. It doesn’t go on sale until late 2017, but potential buyers could reserve one with a $1,000 deposit at Tesla stores starting Thursday morning. Long lines, reminiscent of the crowds at Apple stores for early models of the iPhone, were reported from Hong Kong to Austin, Texas, to Washington. At a starting price of $35,000 — before federal and state government incentives — the Model 3 is less than half the cost of Tesla’s previous models. The car is expected to have a range of at least 200 miles when fully charged, about double what drivers get from competitors in its price range, such as the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – MARC SCRIBNER – Competitive Enterprise Institute research fellow, focuses on transportation issues. These include infrastructure investment and operations, transportation safety and security.

• Should the DC metro be privatized? Has there ever been a major city that privatized their metro? Would privatization make the metro better?
• LATEST NEWS: Metro could shut down entire rail lines to do extended maintenance, board chair says

7am – B/C     Taking calls on privatizing the metro.

7am – D         Unrelatable to voters? John Kasich ate pizza using a fork. (USA Today) – Look, this country is divided — like, more than ever. But if there’s one final thing on which we can all agree, it’s this: Pizza is awesome. (Also: If you don’t like pizza, please leave America. Get out. We don’t want your negativity.) So it seemed a safe bet when John Kasich tried to connect with voters by grabbing a slice at Gino’s Pizzeria in Queens on Wednesday. Everyone loves pizza. It’s non-partisan. What could go wrong? John Kasich ate pizza with a fork, that’s what went wrong. And everyone is freaking out about it. The Ohio governor somehow managed to alienate everyone amid the universally beloved act of eating pizza. It’s almost impressive. You kind of have to respect, it right? As with any politician’s scandal, Kasich had to answer to the media. “Look, look, the pizza came scalding hot, OK? And so I use a little fork,” Kasich told Good Morning America today.

7am – E         SCOTUS News:

• George Mason University Renames Law School After Justice Antonin Scalia. Change comes after school received two donations totaling $30 million. (WSJ) — George Mason University School of Law, named after a founding father known for his refusal to sign the Constitution, is renaming itself after a man famed for a strict adherence to its words: Justice Antonin Scalia. George Mason University’s Board of Visitors, who are appointed by the Virginia governor, voted in favor of the renaming Thursday afternoon. The new full name of the Arlington, Va., school will be the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, school officials said. The school unveiled the name change Thursday afternoon, along with an announcement that it has received two donations totaling $30 million, including a $10 million grant from the Charles Koch Foundation. The change still needs a final go-ahead from Virginia’s higher education oversight agency, which is expected to give its blessing. The school’s dean expects that people will call it Scalia Law School for short. By July, all the school’s signage and marketing materials will bear the late justice’s name, school officials said.
• SCOTUS justice gets her own coloring book. WASHINGTON— There’s a Ruth Bader Ginsburg coloring book. Local coloring book artist and illustrator Tom F. O’Leary’s latest work is “The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Coloring Book: A Tribute to the Always Colorful and Often Inspiring Life of the Supreme Court Justice Known as RBG.” O’Leary calls it a homage to Ginsburg’s surprising ascendancy to pop culture stardom. Silver Spring-based Gumdrop Press, which published the coloring book, says it highlights many of Ginsburg’s achievements during her life, both as a private woman and as a public champion of women’s civil rights. Facing each coloring page is a description of the accomplishment, biographical event, or personality trait depicted. “Although publicly Ginsburg absolutely embodies the sober and respectable attitudes and behaviors we expect from a Supreme Court Justice, her fancy lace jabots, tongue-in-cheek admission of public intoxication, and revelation of potentially embarrassing personal details have all humanized her, and in my opinion are exactly the reason we find her so accessible as a pop culture icon,” O’Leary says. Some of the Ginsburg coloring pages include her championing of female reproductive rights in the 1960s and 1970s, her hugging President Barack Obama after his first speech to Congress in 2009, her dozing off during Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address and her performance in full costume as an extra in an opera.

8am – A         INTERVIEW — MARK DUBOWITZ — executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)

• Mark Dubowitz is the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan policy institute, where he leads projects on Iran, sanctions, and nonproliferation. A former venture capitalist and technology executive, Mark heads FDD’s Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance. He co-leads The Iran Task Force and is co-chair of the Project on U.S. Middle East Nonproliferation Strategy.
• Discussed the goals and purpose of the Nuclear Security Summit in DC:
• With ambitions tapered, Obama opens his last nuclear summit
• US, allies seek to put pressure on North Korea at nuclear summit
• Russia’s absence means nuclear summit likely to end in anticlimax for Obama

8am – B         Trump meets with RNC chief in DC, days after backing out of pledge. (Fox News) — Donald Trump met with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus Thursday, just days after the Republican frontrunner backed out of a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee. Trump was in Washington D.C. to meet with his recently-formed team of foreign policy advisers, and met with Priebus at RNC headquarters in an unscheduled meeting behind closed doors. Trump said in a tweet that he had a “very nice meeting” with Priebus and that he looked forward to bringing the party together. The RNC called the meeting “productive.” “The Chairman and Mr. Trump had a productive conversation about the state of the race,” Lindsay Walters, RNC national spokeswoman, said in a statement. “Meeting and phone conversations with candidates and their campaigns are common and will increase as we get closer to November.” In an interview Thursday night with on Fox News’ “On The Record” with Greta van Susteren, Priebus said he could not say exactly what he talked about in the meeting with Trump, but that candidates aren’t “going to get the data and tools of the RNC, run to be our nominee, and tell me they’re not going to support the party.”

8am – C         Wendi Deng dating Vladimir Putin: Has Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife moved on with Russian leader? Rupert Murdoch recently tied the knot with former supermodel Jerry Hall in a star-studded affair, but it looks like he may not be the only one moving on. According to Us Weekly, the media mogul’s ex-wife Wendi Deng is seeing Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The article claims the pair have been close for years and the rumours have been “circulating around corridors of power — from Washington, DC, to Europe and Asia”. It quotes one unnamed source allegedly close to the Russian leader calling the alleged romance “serious.” In April 2014, Putin, 63, announced his divorce from Lyudmila Putina, who he had been married to for 30 years and whom he shares daughters Maria, 30, and Yekaterina, 29. Murdoch, 85, ended his 14-year marriage with Deng, 47, back in June 2013.

8am – D         INTERVIEW — BRET BAIER – Anchor, Special Report, Fox News Channel, weekdays at 6 pm

• HOUR SPECIAL TONIGHT at 10PM: RISING THREATS and SHRINKING MILITARY
• SPECIAL WISCONSIN COVERAGE FOR NEXT TUESDAY
• KARL ROVE: Scrap Trump, Cruz And Kasich And Go With A ‘Fresh Face’
• Trump meets with RNC chief in DC, days after backing out of pledge
• Donald Trump’s rock-bottom ratings with women
• Unrelatable to voters? John Kasich ate pizza using a fork

8am – E         Hillary’s Email News:

• AJAM’s David Shuster Exclusive: Hillary Clinton to be Interviewed by FBI Director Comey in Coming Days.
• NSA Chief Refuses ‘To Get Into’ Whether Hillary’s Email Server Was Hacked.
• One shot at the queen’: FBI, AG intensify focus