The Hill’s Joe Concha, Daily Caller’s Kevin Daley, Washington Post’s Craig Timberg and Judicial Crisis Network’s Carrie Severino joined WMAL on Thursday morning!
Mornings on the Mall
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese
Executive Producer: Heather Hunter
5am – A/B/C NY Times publishes op-ed from anonymous Trump official: “I am part of the resistance”:
- WH official pens anonymous NY Times op-ed calling Trump ‘anti-democratic,’ ‘petty and ineffective’
- Trump slams The New York Times’ anonymous op-ed, calls it a “disgrace.”
- President Trump demands that the ‘gutless’ author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed article be revealed. The newspaper claims the writer was a “senior administration official” inside the White House.
- ‘THE RESISTANCE’ WITHIN TRUMP’S RANKS: The New York Times on Wednesday published an explosive opinion piece that the paper says was written by an anonymous senior White House official who described a “two-track presidency” in which top officials were “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of [President Trump’s] agenda and his worst inclinations” … The piece quickly triggered anger from inside the White House, as President Trump called it “gutless,” and press secretary Sarah Sanders demanded the unnamed author “resign.” In the piece, titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” the author wrote that the alleged actions by White House officials were not part of “the popular ‘resistance’ of the left.” Trump responded by questioning whether the anonymous senior White House official even existed, tweeting: “Does the so-called ‘Senior Administration Official’ really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!” By late Wednesday night, Trump lamented in a tweet that he was “draining the Swamp” but the “Swamp was trying to fight back.” However, the president vowed, “We will win.”
5am – D INTERVIEW – JOE CONCHA – Media Reporter, The Hill – reacted to the anonymous NYT op-ed from a Trump official.
5am – E Donald Trump ran for president after learning Gwen Stefani got a $10M Voice contract from NBC which topped his Apprentice deal, claims Michael Moore.
Michael Moore tells The Hollywood Reporter that President Trump announced his presidency after learning about Gwen Stefani’s $10M Voice contract. He was making less money for his hosting duties on The Apprentice and thought the news would prove his popularity to NBC claims Moore. (Daily Mail) — Michael Moore claims Donald Trump decided to run for president because he was bitter over Gwen Stefani’s $10million NBC pay check. The filmmaker, who will premiere his latest documentary Fahrenheit 11/9 at the Toronto Film festival this week, says that Trump decided to announce his candidacy after learning the network was paying the pop star the huge amount to appear on The Voice. Trump was negotiating his own contract with NBC regarding whether or not he would appear on season 15 of The Apprentice in the weeks before he entered the Republican primary on June 16, 2015. ‘He’d been talking about running for president since 1988, but he didn’t really want to be president. There’s no penthouse in the White House. And he doesn’t want to live in a black city,’ said Moore. ‘He was trying to pit NBC against another network, but it just went off the rails.’ One of the first things that Trump did after announcing he would be seeking office was reveal how much money he made on The Apprentice. The then-Republican hopeful stated that his net worth was $10 billion, and he personally claimed that a little less than $215 million of his fortune came courtesy of The Apprentice. That would mean Trump averaged approximately $15 million for each of the show’s 14 seasons up to that point, which is 50 percent more than Stefani. Unlike Stefani however, Trump also served as the executive producer on the show and played a far larger role in behind the scenes. Financial disclosure forms he released soon after did not provide any real support for these claims, however, showing less than $5 million in revenue from the show. It still remains unclear if Trump has an ownership stake in the show, which ultimately cast Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace the host-turned-politician.
6am – A/B/C LOCAL KIDS NOT GOING TO SCHOOL OVER A/C:
- As sweltering heat closes Maryland schools, Ben Jealous blames Gov. Larry Hogan. (Baltimore Sun) — As sweltering weather forced the closing of 10 Baltimore County schools Tuesday, Gov. Larry Hogan blamed local officials for the hot buildings while his Democratic challenger in this year’s election said the Republican governor should take responsibility. The first day of classes became an occasion for political finger-pointing over the continued lack of air-conditioning at dozens of school buildings in the county and Baltimore city, where schools without adequate cooling systems closed three hours early. Hogan, who held a State House news conference on accountability in education, said in response to a question that the failure to equip all schools with air conditioning was “disgraceful.” Ben Jealous, the former NAACP president challenging Hogan, said the lack of air conditioning speaks to Hogan’s “failure to lead.” “This is not a time for a governor to be casting aspersions and throwing local leaders under the bus,” Jealous said. “This is a time for a governor to be on the ground, putting leaders together and figuring out how to fix this once and for all.” Jealous vowed that as governor he would ensure that all schools have the funds they need for modern heating and cooling systems.
- BALTIMORE COUNTY: Gov. Hogan blasts Baltimore schools CEO, says she broke commitments on air conditioning. Larry Hogan publicly rebuked Baltimore schools CEO Sonja Santelises on Wednesday, accusing her of failing to live up to her commitments on a timetable to provide air conditioning to seven schools where students have been dismissed early this week as a result of the heat. The governor opened a regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Public Works with a broadside against what he called the “completely unacceptable” level of progress by Baltimore city and county in cooling their public schools. Amid this week’s “code red” heat wave, 10 county schools that lack air conditioning have remained closed, while more than 60 schools in the city closed three hours early on Tuesday and Wednesday — and will again Thursday.
- PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY: ‘They can’t possibly shut down early every time it’s going to be hot.’ (Washington Post) — Temperatures again surged above 90 degrees across the Washington region Wednesday, and Maryland’s second-largest school system was forced to send more than 134,000 students home early because of the hot weather and concerns that its aging air-conditioners weren’t up to the task of keeping students and teachers cool. Over 40 of more than 200 public schools in Prince George’s reported air-conditioning problems this week — evidence of long-standing repair needs in a system with schools that are, on average, nearly a half-century old. District officials said they opted to dismiss students two hours early Wednesday to ensure student safety during what are typically the hottest hours.
- In the District, Seaton Elementary in the Shaw neighborhood dismissed students early Wednesday when the air conditioning malfunctioned. The principal said the air conditioning was working again by the afternoon and that classes would resume Thursday.
- In Virginia’s Prince William County, outdoor extracurricular activities at some schools, including football practice, have been canceled during the past week and a half, according to the school system. In Loudoun County, athletic practices were moved inside because of the heat.
6am – D/E TECH HEARINGS:
- Facebook and Twitter testified before Congress. (By Tony Romm and Craig Timberg/ Washington Post) – Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey told lawmakers on Wednesday that they are better prepared to combat foreign interference on their platforms, even as Democrats and Republicans alike expressed doubts that the social media giants had fully cleaned them up ahead of the midterm elections. Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, and Dorsey, the leader of Twitter, conveyed their message in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, almost a year after their companies told the same panel of lawmakers that Russia used inauthentic accounts to spread divisive political messages around the 2016 election. This time, though, lawmakers on the committee came equipped with a roster of fresh complaints — from the proliferation of fake video online to the heightened need to protect privacy and combat hacking.
- GOOGLE IS A NO-SHOW AT SENATE SOCIAL MEDIA HEARING: Top Democratic Sen. Mark Warner: There’s uniform frustration from both parties about Google’s absence at election meddling hearings
- ALEX JONES vs MARCO RUBIO: >> Marco Rubio hallway confrontation with Alex Jones: ‘Don’t touch me again, man.’ “Look at this little frat boy, he’s so cool. Go back to your bathhouse. There goes Rubio, little punk,” the Infowars conspiracy theorist said.
- TWITTER STOCKS GO DOWN: Twitter Shares Fall While Dorsey Addresses Bots, Regulation
6am – F House Republicans confident there won’t be a government shutdown. (The Hill) — House Republicans said they’re confident they will avert a government shutdown before a Sept. 30 deadline, despite President Trump acknowledging the possibility on Wednesday. “If it happens it happens. If it’s about border security, I’m willing to do anything,” Trump said during a meeting with GOP leadership from both chambers Wednesday. Republicans lawmakers have largely expressed reluctance to shut down the government — particularly as they fight to hold on to the majority in November. “That’s not in anyone’s interest, and he knows that,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said at a press conference Wednesday morning.
7am – A INTERVIEW — KEVIN DALEY – Daily Caller News Foundation’s Supreme Court reporter @KevinDaleyDC — recapped Day 2 of the Kavanaugh hearing and preview Day 3.
- Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faced a second day of grilling on Capitol Hill, with Democratic senators questioning him on topics ranging from the Mueller investigation, to his alleged ties to the president’s inner circle, to racial profiling.
- COMBATIVE EXCHANGES AT KAVANAUGH HEARING: The second day of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings boiled over into a series of tense exchanges late in the evening Wednesday, as high-profile Democrats lined up to hammer the appellate judge with thinly veiled accusations that he was hiding ties to President Trump’s inner circle and harbored sympathies for racist policies … In an especially combative moment late in the day, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., pointedly asked Kavanaugh whether he ever had discussed Special Counsel Robert Mueller or his Russia probe with anyone at Kasowitz Benson Torres, the law firm founded by Marc Kasowitz, a former personal attorney to President Trump.In another dramatic exchange, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., implied Kavanaugh had been open to racial profiling tactics, citing an email exchange between Kavanaugh and a colleague. However, Booker did not provide Kavanaugh a copy of the emails to review while questioning him about it, prompting an objection from Sen. Mike Lee, who charged that it was inappropriate to “cross-examine” Kavanaugh about documents that he “can’t see.” Testimony in Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. ET Thursday.
7am – B OBAMA THREATENS TO CANCEL TAXPAYER-FUNDED SPEECH IN DENMARK IF HIS CONTRACT IS RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC (Daily Caller) — Representatives for Barack Obama have threatened to cancel the former president’s upcoming paid speech at a Denmark university if details of his speaking contract are released to the public. Obama will participate in a moderated question and answer session on Sept. 28 at the University of Southern Denmark before local business leaders, university students and local dignitaries, according to Business Kolding, the event’s organizer. But the event has already sparked criticism from citizens of Denmark’s Kolding Municipality, which is providing 750,000 kroner, or $117,000, in taxpayer funds to support the behind-closed-doors event titled “A Conversation with President Barack Obama.” Kolding currently faces a deficit of 100 million kroner in its next year’s budget. The town’s mayor, Jørn Pedersen, justified using taxpayer dollars to fund Obama’s invite-only talk, claiming the event is effectively a marketing opportunity for the town, according to Danish news outlet JydskeVestkysten. “At this event, current and future leaders will have an opportunity to experience President Obama first hand. Everyone can expect to be inspired. And we have every reason to be proud,” Kolding Mayor Jørn Pedersen said. But Pedersen said he has been kept in the dark by the event’s organizers regarding the total cost of hosting Obama’s talk. When pressed by a local news outlet for more information, Business Kolding said the Obama team would cancel the event outright if details surrounding his speaking contract were released to the public. Despite efforts to keep the media in the dark, JydskeVestkyn estimates Obama will rake in up to two million kroner, or $312,000, for partaking in the event. The University of Southern Denmark anticipates that Obama’s visit will “boost” the university’s prestige.
7am – C Airport security trays carry more germs than toilets, study finds. (CBS News) — Next time you go through airport security, you may want to wash your hands afterwards. A new study finds airport security bins are a hotbed for germs that can cause illnesses in humans, such as the flu and the common cold. Researchers from the University of Nottingham in England and the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare collected samples from frequently touched surfaces three different times at Helsinki-Vantaa airport in Finland during peak flu season in 2015 and 2016. Half of the trays at security check points tested positive for germs that can make humans ill, including influenza A and rhinovirus, the predominant cause of the common cold. None of these germs were found on the surfaces of toilets at the airport, the report found. The results were published last week in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases. The researchers say the results make sense given that the security process is mandatory for all passengers and the plastic security trays are “rapidly recycled and potentially touched by several hundred passengers per day.” “We found the highest frequency of respiratory viruses on plastic trays used in security check areas for depositing hand-carried luggage and personal items,” the scientists wrote. “These boxes typically cycle with high frequency to subsequent passengers, and are typically seized with a wide palm surface area and strong grip.” Additionally, plastic security trays are made of non-porous materials, allowing viruses to live longer.
Vanilla Ice was a passenger on quarantined jet from Dubai to New York. An Emirates airline Airbus A380 superjumbo jet was briefly quarantined at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport after numerous passengers fell ill on a flight arriving from Dubai early Wednesday. One of the passengers was ’90s rapper Vanilla Ice. As many as 100 passengers, including some crew members, “complained of illness, including cough and some with fever,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vanilla Ice, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, tweeted: “This is crazy. Apparently there is over 100 people sick on the bottom floor, so happy I’m up top, it’s a double-decker plane 380.”
7am – D INTERVIEW – JOE CONCHA – Media Reporter, The Hill – reacted to the anonymous NYT op-ed from a Trump official.
7am – E KAEPERNICK / NFL:
- Nike will broadcast its Colin Kaepernick ad during the opening game of the NFL regular reason. Nike is scheduled to debut a “Just Do It” commercial during the NFL’s regular-season opener featuring the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles on NBC on Thursday night. The ad is voiced by Kaepernick and features him, along with NBA star LeBron James, tennis champion Serena Williams, New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., marathoner Eliud Kipchoge and skateboarder Lacey Baker, and inspirational athletes such as NFL linebacker Shaquem Griffin, wheelchair basketball player Megan Blunk, boxer Zeina Nassar and legless wrestler Isaiah Bird.
- Nike’s Favorability Drops Double Digits Following New ‘Just Do It’ Campaign with Colin Kaepernick. Real-time brand tracking data reveals a sharp drop in favorability and purchasing consideration, including among key demographic groups
8am – A INTERVIEW – CRAIG TIMBERG – national technology reporter for The Washington Post @craigtimberg – recapped the big tech hearings on Capitol Hill yesterday.
8am – B Jack Ryan’s DC Commute To Work Makes Absolutely No Sense. His supposed commute defies just about every law of physics, logic, and geography (Mashable) — If you think your commute’s bad, you don’t know jack. Jack Ryan that is. The action hero at the center of the new Amazon Prime series takes viewers through a monumental montage – past the U.S. Capitol, Jefferson Memorial, and even past the Lincoln Memorial on a Potomac workout. But the route the fictional CIA analyst takes from the Key Bridge boathouse to the agency’s Langley headquarters makes no sense.We first see Krasinski-as-Ryan rowing underneath the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge on the Potomac River. He drops off his boat at the Potomac Boat Club, an actual rowing club that faces the Potomac on one side and K Street NW on the other. Then the camera cuts to Ryan biking through Georgetown (you can see a street sign that reads 35th Street NW). This is already starting to not make sense. According to Google Maps, it is indeed possible to bike from the Potomac Boat Club to Langley—it’s a six-mile ride that would take about 37 minutes via the Capital Crescent Trail. Instead, we see Ryan cycling deeper into the city via Georgetown. Yes, the Potomac Boat Club is in that neighborhood, but Ryan is presumably trying to go in the opposite direction. But the nonsense didn’t stop there. Ryan — a man of peak physical condition but apparent mental insufficiency — bikes along the Tidal Basin where he zooms past the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Inexplicably, he’s then biking away from the Capitol Building. At that point, Ryan’s commute to Langley goes even more rogue. When next he appears, he’s in a suburban neighborhood — which is at least warmer to where real-world Langley is located. But apparently, after Googling one of the shops seen in the background, Delgadillo found that Jack Ryan had somehow biked his ass all the way to Easton, Maryland. Now, we’ll happily see evidence otherwise, but we feel confident in stating that the District of Columbia is not Maryland. But after his casual roundabout tour of the entire city of D.C., Ryan finally arrives at the CIA HQ. And to his credit, he looks pretty fresh for a guy who just effectively cycled enough miles to clock in a marathon.
Errors in geography in the Angelina Jolie film “Salt”:
- In one of the Washington DC scenes, Angelina Jolie’s character Salt is seen entering the Archives/Navy Memorial Metro station, and emerging from the L’Enfant Plaza station, without ever boarding a train.
- Before the action moves to New York, while the scene is still supposed to be in Washington, DC, there is a scene which supposedly takes place in Washington, but is recognizable as Riverside Drive near West 156th St. in New York City. In the background, a wrapper has been placed over a New York City street sign that reads “C Street” or “G Street” to make it appear as if it was in Washington.
8am – C ‘Guac,’ ‘Zoodle,’ ‘Marg’ and ‘Hangry’ added to Merriam-Webster dictionary. (Fox News) — With the hashtags #food, #foodie and #foodphotography boasting over a combined 418 million posts on Instagram, it’s clear that our cultural obsession with culinary fads is not going out of style anytime soon. Keeping up with the times, Merriam-Webster has just added over 840 new words to its online dictionary, and over a dozen of them are food-related. With inevitable entries like “avo” for avocado, “guac” for guacamole and “marg” for margarita earning mentions, foodies won’t be surprised that “hangry” (the state of being simultaneously hungry and angry), “zoodle” (the so-called term for spiralized zucchini) and “hophead” (beer enthusiast) are now verified by Merriam-Webster as well. More exotic terms including “quaffable” (enjoyable to drink), “iftar” (the Ramadan meal taken at sundown) and “Wagyu” (certain strains of a breed of black or red Japanese cattle noted for highly marbled meat” have also earned respective places. Strangely, “mise en place” (a French term and culinary school 101 lesson, to prepare one’s ingredients before cooking), “dragon fruit” and “mocktail” are new terms, too.
8am – D INTERVIEW – CARRIE SEVERINO – chief counsel and policy director at the Judicial Crisis Network @JCNSeverino — recapped Day 2 of Kavanaugh hearing and preview Day 3.
- Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faced a second day of grilling on Capitol Hill, with Democratic senators questioning him on topics ranging from the Mueller investigation, to his alleged ties to the president’s inner circle, to racial profiling.
