CEI’s Myron Ebell and ACU’s Matt Schlapp joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, July 6, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C Have You Ever Switched Political Views?

• ED SCHULTZ DEAD AT 64: Political pundit Ed Schultz has died at age 64, his employer RT America announced on Thursday. “We at RT America are sad to announce the passing of Edward Andrew Schultz. Ed Schultz passed quietly early morning on July 5 at his home in Washington, D.C. This announcement comes as a shock to all of us here at RT America,” the network said in a statement.
• OCASIO-CORTEZ USED TO BE AGAINST TAXES. Ocasio-Cortez appeared to have a different outlook on capitalism and taxes in 2012 when she was running a business of her own, Brook Avenue Press, an incorporated publishing firm for children’s books set in the Bronx. As a business owner, she came out in support of a bill that would provide tax deductions for business start-up costs, arguing that taxes directly impacted her business profits. “You don’t really make a profit in your first year,” Ocasio-Cortez told the now-defunct DNAinfo when she was 22. “To get taxed on top of that is a real whammy.”

5am – D         SCOTUS ANNOUNCEMENT ON MONDAY:

• Trump narrows Supreme Court shortlist, aiming for Monday primetime announcement (ABC News) — President Donald Trump has narrowed his Supreme Court shortlist, according to sources familiar with his interview efforts, and is planning a prime-time event to announce his eventual pick to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy. According to the sources familiar with the process, Trump has wrapped up the interview process and current frontrunners include Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Raymond Kethledge, all of whom met with Trump Monday. Another official also said Judge Amul Thapar remains under consideration and left open the possibility the president could always expand the list.
• President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will announce his nominee for a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday at 9 p.m. EST.
• WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he has narrowed down — to two or three — the list of contenders he’s considering to fill the vacancy for the Supreme Court seat held by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. “I think I have it down to four people. And I think of the four people I have it down to three or two,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
• ABC NEWS: ABC News confirmed Wednesday that Republican Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Tom Cotton of Arkansas both called the president earlier this week to express concerns about Kavanaugh, according to a source close to the process. Paul expressed concern over Kavanaugh’s position on the Fourth Amendment, including a past opinion in which he ruled in favor of bulk metadata collection and a separate 2011 decision where he declined to rule the Obamacare health insurance mandate as unconstitutional.
• Washington Post’s ROBERT COSTA: KAVANAUGH continues to rise in the SCOTUS search process, even as some Rs gripe about various rulings, Bush ties. He met privately with VP Pence on Wed. at the VP residence, per 2 Rs briefed on the mtg. And that meeting went well, they said.
• Schumer urges Trump in private call to nominate MERRICK GARLAND for SCOTUS, while shortlist is winnowed down to three.

5am – E         Guardian writer blames Trump for skipping gym: ‘Now I can’t open jars’ (Fox News) — Trump Derangement Syndrome is even worse than anyone thought: It has now made it impossible for one woman to open a jar of pickles. The Guardian published a column Wednesday by a woman who blames President Trump for keeping her from the gym, leaving her too weak to carry groceries or open jars. The outlandish commentary headlined, “I stopped going to the gym because of Trump. Now I can’t open jars,” was written by Brigid Delaney, who is a senior writer for Guardian Australia. She explained that after losing a wager on the 2016 presidential election to the owner of her gym, she was forced to pull a sled in an event that appears to have been equal parts show of strength and humiliation. “I pulled the sled like a human oxen while being filmed and the gym staff cheered. I did it. But the Trump victory soured my successful show of strength,” Delaney wrote. “Yeah, I could pull a pretend sled. But how was that going to help me when the world had been destroyed by nuclear weapons or climate change?” Delaney then complains of a bad meal she ate while sulking about Trump defeating Hillary Clinton and decided that she wouldn’t work out any more – somehow blaming Trump for her decision.

6am – A         EPA chief Scott Pruitt resigns amid scandals, citing ‘unrelenting attacks.’ Scott Pruitt has resigned as head of the Environmental Protection Agency after a string of controversies involving his leadership, President Trump announced Thursday on Twitter. “Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this,” tweeted Trump, who added that EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler would take over as acting administrator effective Monday.

TRUMP: I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this…

6am – B         Michael Cohen hires Clinton scandal veteran Lanny Davis (Politico) —

President Donald Trump’s embattled former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who has dropped hints that he may cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating his former boss, has hired an attorney and PR man who led former President Bill Clinton’s public defense against multiple scandals in the 1990s. Lanny Davis, who spent countless hours defending Clinton more than two decades ago, said on Thursday that he’s now representing Cohen in the tightening federal probe. “Like most of America, I have been following the matter regarding Michael Cohen with great interest,” Davis said in a statement. “As an attorney, I have talked to Michael many times in the last two weeks. Then I read his words published on July 2, I recognized their sincerity. Michael Cohen deserves to tell his side of the story — subject, of course, to the advice of counsel.”

6am – C         Teenager says man threw drink at him then stole his ‘Make America Great Again’ hat (The Hill) — Texas police are reportedly investigating allegations that a man took a 16-year-old boy’s Make America Great Again hat and threw a drink at him at a fast food restaurant in San Antonio. “So went out for a 2am snack and my friend (wearing a MAGA hat) had his hat stolen and a drink thrown in his face (and mine, you can see my arms on the left of the video),” one of the boys believed to be in the video shared on Twitter early Wednesday morning. The video shows a man throwing a drink before making a profane remark and then walking off with a red hat that appeared to belong to one of the teenagers.

6am – D         DERSHOWITZ RESIGNS:

• “Morning Joe” bursts out laughing over Alan Dershowitz being “shunned” at Martha’s Vineyard
• Professor Alan Dershowitz Says He Received Death Threats, Challenges Morning Joe To A Debate

6am – E         UK TRIP:

• The mayor of London gives the green light for a giant “Trump baby” balloon to be flown close to the UK Parliament during US President Donald Trump’s visit
• The Mayor of Sheffield, the UK’s third biggest city, banned President Trump from entering.

6am – F         AZAR / SEPARATED KIDS:

• Government will meet court deadlines. (Washington Post) — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says the government will meet court deadlines to reunite migrant children who were separated from their parents by immigration authorities. But reunited families may well remain in the custody of immigration authorities. Azar told reporters on Thursday that officials have identified “under 3,000” children potentially separated from parents. Of those, about 100 are under 5 years old. A federal judge in California has ordered the youngest children reunited by Tuesday and the rest before the end of this month.
• DNA testing used to reunite undocumented parents and children, HHS secretary says
• Aid group worries about possible surveillance. (CNN) — RAICES, a nonprofit in Texas that offers free and low-cost legal services to immigrants and refugees, called the move deplorable because collecting such sensitive data would allow the government to conduct surveillance on the children “for the rest of their lives.” “This is a further demonstration of administration’s incompetence and admission of guilt. This further drives home the point we’ve been saying: They never registered parents and children properly,” RAICES communications director Jennifer K. Falcon said. Falcon also said it’s not possible the migrant children — some as young as two months old — are giving their consent to DNA testing.

7am – A         STATUE OF LIBERTY CLIMBER:

• Statue of Liberty climber charged with trespassing. Court papers also charged Therese Okoumou with resisting arrest by refusing to leave her perch by the bottom of the statue’s robes, about 100 feet above ground. Police were forced to scale the statue to pull her down. Okoumou allegedly “staged a dangerous stunt that alarmed the public and endangered her own life and the lives of the (New York Police Department) officers who responded to the scene,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in a statement. Okoumou, 44, of Staten Island, was expected to appear in federal court in Manhattan later Thursday. If convicted, she would face up to six months behind bars on each count.
• Trump mocks ‘clown’ protester who climbed Statue of Liberty
• Theresa Patricia Okoumou: “Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high. And I went as high as I could.” The Statue of Liberty climber speaks out for the first time since her protest.

7am – B/C     INTERVIEW — MYRON EBELL – Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment  @myronebell @CEIdotorg – discussed his thoughts on Scott Pruitt resigning as EPA chief.

7am – D/E     MT RALLY

• Trump takes fight to bitter rival Jon Tester’s home turf in Montana rally
• Trump launches revenge attack in home state of Montana senator who shared dirt on White House doctor the president picked to run the VA
• Trump in MT on Tester blowing up nomination of Ronny Jackson to be VA Sec: Tester doesn’t share your values. He showed his true colors with shameful, dishonest attacks on a friend of mine..Tester said things about him that weren’t true.
• Trump mocks Elizabeth Warren: “I’m going to get one of those little DNA kits… and we’ll say, ‘Pocahontas, I’ll give you a million dollars if you take the test to show you’re an Indian!’”
• Elizabeth Warren fires back at Trump over DNA test: “Focus on fixing the lives you’re destroying”
• Trump asked if the audience saw “that clown on the Statue of Liberty?” He said the law enforcement officials were brave. “I wouldn’t have done it … just get some nets.
• Trump:  “I’m meeting with President  Putin next week… And let me tell you, getting along with Russia and getting along with China and getting along with other countries is a good thing. It’s not a bad thing.”
• Trump: “I’m gonna tell NATO, ‘You gotta start paying your bills. The United States is not going to take care of everything.’”

 

8am – A         INTERVIEW – MATT SCHLAPP – chairman of the American Conservative Union @mschlapp

• Matt Schlapp: With Brett Kavanaugh, America will have a bold, brilliant Supreme Court justice
• Trump narrows Supreme Court shortlist, aiming for Monday primetime announcement

8am – B         JIM JORDAN ACCUSATIONS:

• President Donald Trump defends Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan amid OSU sexual abuse investigation. TRUMP: I ‘100 percent’ believe Jordan’s claims he didn’t know of Ohio State abuse
• Jim Jordan’s Accusers Have A Sketchy History, Raising Questions About Their ‘Authenticity’

8am – C         Mike Pompeo to give Kim Jong-un ‘Rocket Man CD’ during nuclear talks. Secretary of state will also present letter from Donald Trump, who famously called North Korean leader ‘little rocket man.’ When Mike Pompeo meets Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, he will reportedly attempt to smooth a path towards denuclearisation with a gift that playfully references a low point in relations between the North Korean leader and Donald Trump: a CD of Elton John’s Rocket Man. The US secretary of state will present Kim with the CD along with a letter from Trump, who memorably turned the song’s title into an epithet after the North stepped up its ballistic missile tests last year.

8am–D     Federal judge strikes down ‘troubling’ California sanctuary state law, upholds two others. (Fox News) — A federal judge halted enforcement of a “troubling” California law protecting illegal immigrants on Thursday, even as he allowed two other so-called “sanctuary state” provisions to remain on the books for now. The mixed ruling by District Court Judge John Mendez was largely a win for Democrats in the far-left state, where Gov. Jerry Brown has accused the Trump administration of “going to war” by filing the lawsuit that led to Thursday’s ruling. Mendez, an appointee of President George W. Bush, agreed with the Trump administration that California can no longer enforce a law prohibiting employers from allowing immigration officials on their premises unless the officials have a warrant. Calling that provision a “troubling” restraint that places employers in a “precarious situation,” Mendez said the state had overstepped its authority by “impermissibly discriminat[ing] against those who choose to deal with” federal authorities. The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause precludes California from actively interfering with federal immigration authorities, and Mendez said the workplace provision crossed that line.

8am – E Vince tells the story of his experience with Fairfax Rescue.