Joe diGenova, Tim Burt, General Jack Keane, and White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, February 5, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

5am – A/B/C Memo Released: News and Update

 House Intelligence memo released: What it says:

• The Steele dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page.

• Andrew McCabe confirmed that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele dossier information.

• The four FISA surveillance applications were signed by, in various combinations, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and Rod Rosenstein.

• The FBI authorized payments to Steele for work on the dossier. The FBI terminated its agreement with Steele in late October when it learned, by reading an article in Mother Jones, that Steele was talking to the media.

• The political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials, but excluded from the FISA applications.

• DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to DOJ information about Steele’s bias. Steele told Ohr that he, Steele, was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming president.

 5am – D/E     Paid Family Leave News

•  Rubio on push for paid family leave: ‘We still have to work on members of my own party’ (The Hill) — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is working with Ivanka Trump to craft a paid family leave plan that will appeal to fellow Republicans, Politico reported Sunday. “We still have to work on members of my own party. I think there will be significant initial resistance to it, because it’s just not an issue that’s been identified with the Republican Party,” Rubio told the news outlet. Rubio is reportedly considering a plan that would allow people to dip into Social Security benefits to take time off. Such a proposal would address concerns of Republicans who don’t want to raise taxes to pay for family leave. Rubio is still in the early stages of crafting a paid family leave package, according to Politico. Rubio and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) have sought feedback from the president’s eldest daughter on their ideas for a family leave program, Politico reported. Trump, who serves as a senior adviser to the president, outlined her support for paid family leave in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal last month. She argued a national paid-leave program would be “an investment in America’s working families” that would spur the economy and benefit women in particular. Members of both parties have recently put forth legislation to provide paid family leave, but they have been unable to reach consensus on the details of such a bill.

• Rationalize the safety net with this simple paid family leave reform

(Washington Examiner) — Just as Social Security allows both early and deferred retirement benefits, which are compensated for with an adjustment in the size of benefits, policymakers should recognize that some people have a far greater need for support at other times — such as after giving birth. Daniel Payne is concerned that allowing people to access a share of their Social Security benefits after the birth or adoption of a child, in return for delaying their retirement benefits to fully offset those costs, would open the door to an expansion of the federal welfare state. That’s a legitimate consideration. Yet there is also reason for optimism that the approach outlined in this Independent Women’s Forum policy brief could encourage people to consider how to more efficiently and effectively use the government programs that we already have, rather than creating or expanding new ones. The principle behind the Social Security parental-leave approach is that people ought to have the option of accessing Social Security benefits during their working lives, rather than being stuck with the one-size-fits-all payment schedule that begins at the government-designated retirement age of 67. Just as Social Security allows both early and deferred retirement benefits, which are compensated for with an adjustment in the size of benefits, policymakers should recognize that some people have a far greater need for support at other times — such as after giving birth. This would help people (particularly cash-strapped millennials) who really need it, prevent them from taking other forms of public assistance, but also require that people make a trade-off to receive this support, encouraging a sense of responsibility.

6am – A/B     Super Bowl News:

• The Super Bowl’s Patriotic Start. Pink performed the national anthem beautifully, and American heroes took the field to roaring applause. (LifeZette) — As if in response to fan backlash against national anthem kneelers, the NFL gave this year’s Super Bowl quite a patriotic start. No kneelers could be seen while musician Pink sang the national anthem.
• Philadelphia Eagles Win!
• Philly Fans Lose Their Minds and… Eat Horse Poop

6am – C         Jimmy Kimmel: Talk Show Hosts Are Liberal ‘Because It Requires a Level of Intelligence’ (Breitbart) — Comedian and ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has claimed the reason so many of his fellow late-night hosts are liberal is because the job requires a certain “intelligence” that conservatives apparently lack. “It just so happens that almost every talk show host is liberal and that’s because it requires a level of intelligence,” Kimmel said during a live event for progressive podcast show Pod Save America. The line was tweeted out by Emily Favreau, the wife of the former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, who was hosting the event. The line was quickly ridiculed by Twitter users, who accused Kimmel of being arrogant. Throughout his career, Kimmel has been a staunch defender of Democrats, and regularly attacks conservatives and Donald Trump supporters on his show Jimmey Kimmel Live. However, Kimmel is just one of the many late-night talk-show hosts known for their liberal beliefs, with other prominent figures such as Seth Meyers, Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert, and James Corden regularly making left-wing political statements. Academics have undertaken extensive research to determine whether people are more or less intelligent based on their political beliefs, but no scientific consensus has ever been reached

6am – D         Memo Update

 6am – E         No progress on ‘Dreamers’ as another US government shutdown looms.  (CNBC) – The House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday to keep federal agencies operating beyond Feb. 8, when existing funds expire, according to an aide. Congressional negotiators are fighting over defense and non-defense spending levels for the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30, as well as other unrelated matters.The U.S. Congress made no notable progress toward a deal on the status of 700,000 “Dreamer” immigrants, with President Donald Trump saying on Friday that one “could very well not happen” by a deadline next month. The U.S. House of Representatives plans to vote on Tuesday on legislation to keep federal agencies operating beyond Feb. 8. Whether the lack of progress signaled the possibility of another federal government shutdown next week was unclear, but it worried the Dreamers, young people who were brought illegally into the United States as children. Trump said last year that he would end by March 5 a program that was set up by former President Barack Obama to protect the Dreamers from deportation, and he urged Congress to act before that date. No action has resulted. “We want to make a deal,” Trump said at an event in Virginia with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. And he blamed Democratic lawmakers for the impasse. “I think they want to use it for political purposes for elections. I really am not happy with the way it’s going from the standpoint of the Democrats,” he said. Democrats have said repeatedly that they want protections written into law for the Dreamers, who were given temporary legal status by Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which lets them study and work in the United States without fear of deportation. Republicans, who control Congress, are undecided on what to do about DACA and the Dreamers. They ended a three-day retreat at a mountain resort in West Virginia on Friday not much nearer to consensus than they were a week ago. The partisan standoff caused a partial shutdown of the federal government for three days last month after Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending measure needed to keep the lights on at federal facilities across the country. The House of Representatives plans to vote on Tuesday on legislation to keep federal agencies operating beyond Feb. 8, when existing funds expire, a senior House Republican aide said.

 6am – F         Super Bowl Ads:

•  Diet Coke Twisted Mango Ad:

Tall skinny blonde girl stands in front of a lemon-colored wall, Diet Coke Twisted Mango in hand. When she takes a sip from the skinny, revamped can, and she dances awkwardly

• TIDE Ad with the Old Spice Guy on a White Horse
• Kerry Washington’s sanctimonious ad for TMOBILE

7am – A/B/C INTERVIEW — JOE DIGENOVA – legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia – analyzed the Nunes blockbuster memo.

 7am – D/E     TIM BURT – Advertising guru, global marketing expert and advertising coach – recapped the top Super Bowl ads.  www.advertisingseminar.com/ and www.CommercialProfessor.com

8am – A         INTERVOEW — GEN. JACK KEANE – retired 4 star general, former Vice Chief of Staff of the US Army, the chairman of the Institute for the Study of War and  Fox News Senior Strategic Analyst. @gen_jackkeane – discussed North Korea.

•  Trump weighs barring U.S.military in South Korea from bringing families. (NBC News) – WASHINGTON — Soon U.S. service members deploying to South Korea may not be allowed to bring their families with them. Top Pentagon officials are considering changing the policy that allows service men and women to deploy on accompanied tours to the Korean Peninsula, according to three U.S. defense officials. An accompanied tour is when a service member’s family can accompany them, traveling at the military’s expense. In a statement, the Pentagon said that no change in policy is imminent. “The U.S. Department of Defense currently has no plans in place to modify the policy authorizing U.S. military dependents to to accompany service members on orders to, or currently stationed in, the Republic of Korea,” said a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Rob Manning. The idea of making all tours in Korea unaccompanied is not new, but gained new traction when President Donald Trump saw retired Gen. Jack Keane comment about the issue on FOX News, arguing the Pentagon should stop sending families there to allow the troops to prepare for possible war with North Korea, according to two U.S. officials.
• President punts on North Korea until after the Olympics as his White House’s frustration with the Pentagon over the lack of military options for confronting Kim is revealed (Daily Mail) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he’d wait until the Winter Olympics are over to make an assessment on North Korea. Exasperated, the U.S. president said ‘we have no road left’ and this month’s Pyeongchang Games will hopefully bulldoze a new pathway to peace on the Korean Peninsula. ‘We ran out of road. You know the expression, the road really ended,’ Trump said in an Oval Office meet and greet with North Korean defectors. ‘But in the meantime we’ll get through the Olympics.’ The White House’s frustrations with the Pentagon over a smaller than desired list of military options to confront North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un had been revealed the evening before in a New York Times report.

• Winter Olympics: North Korea presses ahead with military parade (BBC) – North Korea has defended plans for a large-scale military parade scheduled for the day before the Winter Olympics in South Korea. Pyongyang’s annual military parade to mark the founding of its armed forces has taken place in April for 40 years. From 2018, however, it has been changed to 8 February – when athletes will gather in Pyeongchang for the opening ceremony the following day. North Korea said that no-one had the right to take issue with its plans.

• North Korea brushes off criticism of military parade before Olympics (NY Post) – North Korea is giving a gold-medal brush off to those criticizing its plans to stage a giant military parade the day before the Winter Olympics begin. The Rodong Sinmun newspaper dismissed as “malicious” allegations that the parade is intended to ruin the atmosphere of the Olympics opening the following day in South Korea. “Nobody has the right to take issue” with the parade, which will mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of North Korea’s military, the newspaper said.  “This amounts to arguing that we knew 70 years ago the Olympics will take place in the South on Feb. 9, 2018,” said Rodong Sinmun, the official paper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party.

 8am – B/C     INTERVIEW – RAJ SHAH – Principal Deputy Press Secretary for the White House – gave the White House’s reaction to the bombshell Nunes memo.

8am – D/E     SUPER BOWL RECAP AND HIGHLIGHTS:

• The Super Bowl Kicks Off with a Patriotic Start
• No players kneel during Super Bowl national anthem
• Pink channels Whitney Houston while battling the flu for the Super Bowl 52 National Anthem
• Justin Timberlake Performs with Prince Projection After Widespread Criticism at Super Bowl

Philly Fans Lose Their Minds and… Eat Horse Poop