James Carafano, Steve Emerson and Joe Concha joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C             JUSSIE SMOLLETT’S STORY COLLAPSES: What Does This Say About America Today?

• “We are not racist…we are not anti-Trump” Jussie Smollett’s alleged attackers release statement and announce they’re continuing to cooperate with police, meanwhile Smollett denies police requests for a second interview.
• Brothers implicated in attack on Jussie Smollett tell police the ‘Empire’ actor was upset that earlier threatening letter didn’t get enough attention, sources tell ABC News.
• Al Sharpton says Jussie Smollett should ‘face accountability to the maximum’ if attack was orchestrated
• Jussie Smollett Gets Renewed Support From ‘Empire’ Showrunner Over Attack
• TMZ: Jussie Smollett ‘Empire’ Role Slashed … In Wake of ‘Attack’ Scandal. Production sources tell TMZ … Jussie was supposed to have 9 scenes and a big musical number in the second to the last episode — which is being shot now —  but, 5 of his scenes have been cut, and his musical number has been 86’d. As for the remaining 4 scenes  … we’re told he’s no longer the focus. The scene features an ensemble, meaning he’s flanked by a number of cast members.
• AWKWARD: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) on her tweet saying the Jussie Smollett case was an “attempted modern-day lynching”: “Which tweet? What tweet? … [laughs] Um, ah, ah, uh, okay, so I will say this about that case, I think the facts are still unfolding and um, I’m very, um, concerned”

5am – D         Maryland, Virginia are among the 16 states challenging Trump’s national emergency declaration. 16 states file lawsuit to stop Trump’s national emergency declaration. (CNN) — Sixteen states on Monday evening filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration. The group of states, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. “We’re going to try to halt the President from violating the Constitution, the separation of powers, from stealing money from Americans and states that has been allocated by Congress, lawfully,” Becerra told CNN’s Kate Bolduan Monday. The attorneys general from Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia joined California in the lawsuit. It’s the latest challenge to hit the Trump administration, which already faces a litany of lawsuits over the national emergency declaration. Over the weekend, the Center for Biological Diversity, Border Network for Human Rights, which marched with Beto O’Rourke in El Paso, Texas, last week, and the American Civil Liberties Union all announced lawsuits. At the core of each lawsuit is the argument that Trump is circumventing Congress to fund the wall along the US-Mexico border by declaring an emergency. “The Constitution assigns Congress the power of the purse, and no prior president has ever tried to use emergency powers to fund a chosen project — particularly a permanent, large-scale domestic project such as this — against congressional will. This is obviously improper,” said Dror Ladin, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project.

5am – E         Illinois State Police acknowledge it wrongly issued a gun license to Aurora shooter

6am – A         Ex-Russia probe overseer Rod Rosenstein ‘to step down by March.’ Rod Rosenstein, the US deputy attorney general who oversaw the inquiry into alleged Russian meddling, is to step down by mid-March, US media say. Reports emerged last month that Mr Rosenstein planned to quit once incoming Attorney General William Barr took over. Mr Barr’s appointment was confirmed by the Senate last week. Mr Rosenstein has frequently been the target of President Donald Trump’s criticism. A justice department official quoted by Reuters said Mr Rosenstein’s decision was not linked to renewed claims that he had once suggested secretly recording Mr Trump. In a TV interview on Sunday, former-acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe said talks had been held in 2017 about invoking the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution that could remove a president deemed unfit. He said Mr Rosenstein had held discussions on the number of cabinet members and others needed to invoke the clause.

6am – B         Trump tells Venezuela military to back Guaido or ‘lose everything.’ Miami (AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Monday urged Venezuela’s military to accept opposition leader Juan Guaido’s amnesty offer, or stand to “lose everything,” as a crisis deepened over President Nicolas Maduro’s refusal to let in desperately needed humanitarian aid. Bringing in humanitarian aid is crucial to the viability of Guaido, who has denounced Maduro’s re-election last year as fraudulent and in January declared himself interim president, a move recognized by some 50 countries. He has given the Maduro government until Saturday to let shipments of mainly US aid into the country, which is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis due to shortages of food and medicine exacerbated by hyperinflation. Addressing supporters and Venezuelan expatriates in Miami, Trump said he had a message for officials helping keep Maduro in place. “The eyes of the entire world are upon you today, every day and every day in the future. “You cannot hide from the choice that now confronts you. You can choose to accept president Guaido’s generous offer of amnesty to live your life in peace with your families and your countrymen.

6am – C         Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is on the move again … and it’s a big deal. (TMZ) — We got RBG Monday in D.C. at Reagan National Airport and she answered the question on the minds of millions of worried Americans — how’s she doin’? Justice Ginsburg walked slowly but steadily and with purpose as she arrived from a flight. She’s flanked on all sides by security who kept a watchful eye on the woman who tilts the balance of power on the Supreme Court. As you know, RBG missed 2 weeks of oral argument at the High Court after going under the knife for lung cancer. She’s doing markedly better than January 9, when she was seen getting in her car after surgery, and since that time she’s been given a clean bill of health. She’s 85, and has said as long as she can approach her job with full steam, she’s not going anywhere.

6am – D         TUESDAY SPECIAL ELECTION:

• A special election on Tuesday to fill a vacant seat in the Virginia House of Delegates could be the first sign of how much the scandals in Richmond have hurt Democrats. (Washington Post) – In an increasingly blue district where Gov. Ralph S. Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark R. Herring carried nearly 70 percent of the vote in 2017, Democrat Ibraheem Samirah, a 27-year-old dentist, entered the election as a heavy favorite. But that was before Northam, Herring and Fairfax — all Democrats — became embroiled in allegations of racial or sexual misconduct, and before the same right-leaning website that broke the news of those scandals aired old social media posts by Samirah that are critical of Israel. Now, Republican Gregg Nelson, 63, is calling attention to Samirah’s online comments, and trying to link him to the political chaos in Richmond, writing on his own Facebook page: “Racism has no place in our Commonwealth. Especially from individuals in office or seeking office.”
• Virginia Democrat running for state legislature under fire for past anti-Semitic remarks. (Fox News) — A Democratic candidate who has apologized after once saying that giving money to Israel was worse than donating to the Ku Klux Klan is looking to win a seat in the Virginia state legislature on Tuesday. Ibraheem Samirah, a dentist and Chicago native who bills himself as a “second-generation Palestinian refugee,” recently made headlines when he denounced what he called a “slander campaign” that exposed a series of old social media posts that were viewed as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. “This slander campaign is using five-year-old Facebook posts from my impassioned college days, posts that upon my reflection and with the blessing of time, I sincerely regret and apologize for,” Samirah said in a statement on Friday. “I am so sorry that my ill-chosen words added to the pain of the Jewish community, and I seek your understanding and compassion as I prove to you our common humanity. Please do not let those who seek to divide us use these words out of context of time and place to accomplish their hateful goals.” In addition to the remark about the Klan, Samirah has also said the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would burn in hell. In another post, he charged Israeli teenagers were using Tinder to “cover up the murders in their names.” Samirah is running in a special election for a vacated seat in Virginia’s 86th district, a suburban area in Fairfax County. The conservative website Big League Politics first reported the story, which has been picked up by Israeli media. Samirah’s apology hasn’t been accepted by critics who say he remains virulently anti-Israel. They note in particular that he has advocated on social media for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS supports Palestinian rights and opposes Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Israeli officials say the BDS movement is anti-Semitic.Samirah’s opponent in the race is Gregg Nelson, an Air Force Veteran whose campaign took up the issue after the story of the past posts broke.

6am – E         He’s In For 2020: Bernie Sanders Is Running For President Again. (VPR NEWS) — Sen. Bernie Sanders has confirmed to VPR that he is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. His official announcement video is expected to stream online Tuesday morning. “I wanted to let the people of the state of Vermont know about this first,” Sanders told VPR’s Bob Kinzel. “And what I promise to do is, as I go around the country, is to take the values that all of us in Vermont are proud of — a belief in justice, in community, in grassroots politics, in town meetings — that’s what I’m going to carry all over this country.” Sanders said he is running to oppose President Donald Trump, and to enact many of the progressive ideas — including universal health care coverage, a $15 minimum wage and reducing student debt — that he championed in 2016. “I think the current occupant of the White House is an embarrassment to our country,” Sanders said. “I think he is a pathological liar… I also think he is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, somebody who is gaining cheap political points by trying to pick on minorities, often undocumented immigrants.” Sanders said his campaign hopes to enlist one million people in a “grassroots movement of people prepared to stand up and fight.”

6am – F         AOC:

• AOC compared the Wall to the Berlin Wall (which was built by socialists)
• AOC goes on and on about spies in DC on Periscope

7am – A         INTERVIEW – JAMES CARAFANO –  vice president of foreign and defense policy studies  The Heritage Foundation. @JJCarafano.

• Trump tells Venezuela military to back Guaido or ‘lose everything’ / Miami (AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Monday urged Venezuela’s military to accept opposition leader Juan Guaido’s amnesty offer, or stand to “lose everything,” as a crisis deepened over President Nicolas Maduro’s refusal to let in desperately needed humanitarian aid. Bringing in humanitarian aid is crucial to the viability of Guaido, who has denounced Maduro’s re-election last year as fraudulent and in January declared himself interim president, a move recognized by some 50 countries. He has given the Maduro government until Saturday to let shipments of mainly US aid into the country, which is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis due to shortages of food and medicine exacerbated by hyperinflation. Addressing supporters and Venezuelan expatriates in Miami, Trump said he had a message for officials helping keep Maduro in place. “The eyes of the entire world are upon you today, every day and every day in the future. “You cannot hide from the choice that now confronts you. You can choose to accept president Guaido’s generous offer of amnesty to live your life in peace with your families and your countrymen. “Or you can choose the second path: continuing to support Maduro. If you choose this path, you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything.” Guaido has set a target of signing up to a million volunteers to help bring in the aid, with 600,000 already registered.

7am – B         He’s In For 2020: Bernie Sanders Is Running For President Again. (VPR NEWS) — Sen. Bernie Sanders has confirmed to VPR that he is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. His official announcement video is expected to stream online Tuesday morning. “I wanted to let the people of the state of Vermont know about this first,” Sanders told VPR’s Bob Kinzel.

7am – C         Second Justin Fairfax accuser calls for public hearing into assault allegations. (Fox News) — A woman who has accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of raping her while they were undergraduates at Duke University nearly two decades ago called Monday for the state’s general assembly to hold a public hearing into her allegations and those of another woman against the Democrat. Meredith Watson wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece that she was “frustrated by calls for an investigation rather than a public hearing” into the allegations brought against Fairfax by her and Vanessa Tyson. “Such ‘investigations’ are secret proceedings, out of the public eye, leaving victims vulnerable to selective leaks and smears. And we all know how such investigations end: with ‘inconclusive results,'” Watson wrote. “My privacy has already been violated, yet I am still willing to testify publicly under oath. Tyson has made the same offer. Our plea to the Virginia General Assembly to require the same of Fairfax has been met with inaction.” Watson has said that Fairfax raped her in 2000, but that she did not report it because of how Duke officials responded to her earlier claim that she was raped by basketball star Corey Maggette. An attorney for Watson has claimed that Fairfax was one of the people she told about the alleged assault by Maggette and that the future lieutenant governor “used this prior assault against Ms. Watson” when he allegedly raped her. The attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, claimed that Fairfax told Watson at a campus party after the alleged assault that “I knew that because of what happened to you last year, you’d be too afraid to say anything.” Last week, Fox News obtained Facebook messages from Watson in which she commented on Fairfax’s 2017 candidacy for Virginia lieutenant governor and told contacts about the alleged rape.

7am – D/E     JUSSIE SMOLLETT’S STORY COLLAPSES

8am – A         INTERVIEW – STEVE EMERSON — executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a non-profit group that investigates the threat of radical Islam

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW — JOE CONCHA – media reporter, The Hill – discussed the media coverage of the Jussie Smollet scandal and the fawning coverage of Kamala Harris.

• CNN’s MAEVE RESTON GUSHING OVER KAMALA’S OVERSIZED RAINBOW JACKET AS THEY SHOPPED TOGETHER OVER THE WEEKEND
• BRIT HUME: This is just embarrassing. So now journalists are going shopping with Harris, helping pick out clothes and then putting out glowing tweets about it.
• MAEVE RESTON DOUBLES DOWN ON SUCKING UP TO HARRIS: Dear America  – I will never apologize for encouraging a presidential candidate to try on a vintage rainbow sequin jacket #2020
• AWKWARD: Kamala Harris on her Jussie Smollett ‘modern day lynching’ tweet… a.k.a. What it looks like when you’ve been out shopping with your new BFF reporter girlfriends then a real journalist asks you a real question…
• On Monday, CNN’s Brian Stelter said, “There was a rush to judgment” in the case of Jussie Smollett’s alleged hate crime, but it did not come from media outlets. “I think it was mostly in the celebrity press and among activists and among Twitter people. I think it was a really careful reporting by news organizations. But it all gets lumped in together at the end of the day,” he said.

8am – D/E     Ex-FBI official McCabe responds to ‘lying’ Trump attacks, calls them ‘horrific.’ The former acting director said on NBC’s “Today” that he told congressional leaders about the probe into the president and no one objected. Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe told NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s public blasting of him has been “horrific” for him and his family. “I can’t tell you how horrific it’s been to have to endure the threats, the taunts, the bullying of the president of the United States in such a public way,” McCabe said. “I try not to take it personally, but it’s very hard. It’s been incredibly tough on my family.”