Mornings on the Mall 04.30.19

Tina Ramirez, Grover Norquist, Charlie Spiering and Peter Doocy joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C BIDEN / TRUMP ON UNIONS:

• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 19h19 hours ago: I’ll never get the support of Dues Crazy union leadership, those people who rip-off their membership with ridiculously high dues, medical and other expenses while being paid a fortune. But the members love Trump. They look at our record economy, tax & reg cuts, military etc. WIN!
• Joe Biden‏ @JoeBiden 17h17 hours ago: I’m sick of this President badmouthing unions. Labor built the middle class in this country. Minimum wage, overtime pay, the 40-hour week: they exist for all of us because unions fought for those rights. We need a President who honors them and their work.

5am – D         Trump introduces sweeping changes to asylum in memo. Trump has called for a sweeping overhaul to an asylum system he has long said is rife with fraud — including a new fee to process asylum applicants, and the capacity to rapidly adjudicate applicants’ claims while also barring them from working in the U.S. in the meantime. In a presidential memorandum, Trump specifically told Attorney General Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan that the move was necessary to address a crisis at the border. Arrests along the southern border have skyrocketed in recent months, with border agents making more than 100,000 arrests or denials of entry in March, a 12-year high. Immigration courts that process asylum claims currently have a backlog of more than 800,000 cases.

5am – E         ROSENSTEIN RESIGNS: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein submitted his resignation yesterday after a two-year run defined by his appointment of a special counsel to investigate connections between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. His last day will be May 11.

 

6am – A         SYNAGOGUE UPDATE:

• FBI WAS TIPPED OFF TO SYNAGOGUE ATTACK BUT NOT WITH ENOUGH TIME TO PREVENT IT. (Buzzfeed) — Approximately five minutes before the shooting at Chabad Synagogue in Poway, California, the FBI received submissions through its online tip website and tip phone number regarding an anonymous threatening post on a social media site,” the official said. “The submissions included a link to the post, but did not offer specific information about the post’s author or threat location. Although FBI employees immediately took action to determine the post’s author, the shooting occurred before the suspect could be fully identified.”
• SHOOTERS PARENTS DISAVOW SON. (Fox News) – “Our son’s actions were informed by people we do not know, and ideas we do not hold,” the parents said in a statement, which did not include their names. The couple added that they are shocked and saddened that Earnest “is now part of the history of evil that has been perpetrated on Jewish people for centuries.” “How our son was attracted to such darkness is a terrifying mystery to us, though we are confident that law enforcement will uncover many details of the path that he took to this evil and despicable act,” the statement said.

6am – B         Pelosi, Schumer head to the White House for infrastructure talks. (Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders enter infrastructure talks on Tuesday already at odds over how to pay for the massive investments that American voters say their communities desperately need. Before their first White House meeting since January’s government shutdown, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made it clear in a Monday letter to Trump that they will push for a “substantial, new and real” source of revenue to pay for infrastructure projects. Others, including Schumer, say undoing part of the rate cut wealthy Americans received in the 2017 tax overhaul should be on the table to limit any increase in the 18.4 cent-per-gallon gas tax. Lawmakers who attended a closed-door meeting with Trump in February 2018 said he told them he’d support a 25-cent-per-gallon increase and take the political heat. But Republican leaders were opposed, and Trump never backed the idea publicly. Asked about fuel taxes on Monday, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said Trump “hadn’t made up his mind on any of that yet” and doesn’t have a specific dollar amount in mind for a package. “We’re feeling our way on this, and we don’t have anything in concrete,” Kudlow added. “We’re developing our own policies internally, but we very much want to hear what the Senate and House members, what the Democrats want to say, and then we’ll try to react to that.” While Trump has said he’s eager to work with Congress on infrastructure, Democrats say most Republicans won’t go along unless the president publicly endorses a plan, especially if it includes a tax increase.

6am – C         Chase yanks tweet offering advice on how to save money. (Fox News) – Chase bank was blasted on Twitter Monday following a #MotivationalMonday tweet that offered suggestions on how those struggling could save money, such as make your coffee at home, eat food in the fridge and take a cab when you can. Chase tweet asked, “Why is my balance so low?” The answers, according to the bank account, included, “make coffee at home,” “eat the food that’s already in the fridge,” and “you don’t need a cab, it’s only three blocks.” It was written as a back-and-forth between a customer and their bank account but was quickly criticized as being tone-deaf and out-of-touch. Critics claimed the tweet was guilty of “poor-shaming.” Three hours after the tweet was posted, it was removed. Chase released a follow-up statement later Monday, writing, “Our #MondayMotivation is to get better at #MondayMotivation tweets. Thanks for the feedback Twitter world.” The bank did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News.

6am – D         INTERVIEW – TINA RAMIREZ – Republican Running for Congress in VA 7th District @TinaRamirezVA

• Republican announces bid to unseat Rep. Spanberger in Virginia’s 7th District Tina Ramirez is a political newcomer who has worked on international religious freedom.
• ABOUT VIRGINIA’S 7TH DISTRICT: The district spans across much of Central Virginia including all of Orange, Culpeper, Goochland, Louisa, Nottoway, Amelia, and Powhatan. The district also includes large portions of Chesterfield and Henrico in the suburbs of Richmond. However, Richmond is not currently in the 7th. Spotsylvania also has a large portion in the 7th district just outside of Fredericksburg. From 2013 to 2017, the 7th District stretched from the west end of Richmond through the wealthier portions of Henrico and Chesterfield counties before taking in all of Goochland, Hanover, Louisa, New Kent Orange, Culpeper, Page and Rappahannock counties and a portion of Spotsylvania County.
• Before Rep. Spanberger was elected in 2018, the congressional seat was held by Republicans from 1971 to 2019 including Repiblicans J. Kenneth Robinson (71-85), D French Slaughter Jr (85-91), George Allen (91-93), Thomas Billey Jr (93-01), Eric Cantor (2001-2014), and Dave Brat (2014-2019).
• Republican announces bid to unseat Rep. Spanberger in Virginia’s 7th District. (Washington Post) – RICHMOND — A Hispanic single mother who leads an international nonprofit organization focused on religious freedom announced Monday she plans to challenge freshman Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) in Virginia in 2020. Tina Ramirez, 40, is the first candidate to seek the GOP nomination in the state’s 7th Congressional District. It is her first bid for elective office. “I’m not a politician. I’m a doer,” the Richmond-area resident said in an interview Sunday. “I like to unify people and get things done.” In a 90-second YouTube video, Ramirez describes herself as a single mother and former teacher who founded a nonprofit organization that has brought “freedom to persecuted communities worldwide.” She is shown on work assignments overseas and pushing her 4-year-old daughter, Abigail, on a swing. “I will fight to defend the sanctity of every life, to defend religious freedoms and to create jobs and opportunities for hard-working Virginians,” she says in the video. “I will work to improve a broken education system, find sensible solutions to our health-care crisis and reform a failed system for our veterans. And I support real immigration reform that includes securing our border.” Spanberger won the seat in November by defeating Republican Dave Brat in what had been a reliably red suburban Richmond district. As a little-known economics professor with tea party backing, Brat had won the seat four years earlier after beating then-Majority Leader Eric I. Cantor in the GOP primary — a stunning upset of an establishment figure that presaged the rise of Donald Trump. Brat faced a tough opponent in Spanberger, a former CIA agent whose national security credentials and moderate positioning appealed to suburban women who don’t like Trump. In several ways, Ramirez represents the sort of candidate GOP leaders say they need to stem their losses in the suburbs — Hispanic, highly educated and a woman. Her status as a single parent is considered something to play up, as a relatable bit of her biography. A native of the Richmond area, Ramirez grew up in Powhatan and earned an undergraduate degree in history and political science from Vanguard University in California, then a master’s degree in education from the school. She later earned a master’s in international human rights law from the University of Essex in England. She has held various positions in Washington promoting religious freedom, including as a staff member for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. She also worked for a bipartisan House task force on the topic. Six years ago, she started Hardwired, a nonprofit group that promotes religious freedom worldwide. She said the work has taken her to 30 countries and every continent.

6am – E         MAYOR PETE AND SHARPTON HAVE LUNCH:

• 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg steps up African-American voter outreach, met with Al Sharpton. 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg met with Reverend Al Sharpton in New York to talk African American outreach. Buttigieg, 37, and the 64-year-old civil rights activist, who founded the National Action Network, sat down to lunch on April 29 at the famed Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem, where Sharpton met with Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), another 2020 candidate, in February. Sharpton has met other candidates, including former President Barack Obama, at the venue.
• “It’s not rude to eat with my hands is it?” – Pete Buttigieg says as he grinds through a piece of fried chicken. “No, no, go ahead, eat chicken with your hands,” Al Sharpton replies.
• CHARLIE SPIERING: Appears that Pete Buttigieg did not realize lunch w/ Al Sharpton was broadcast live — “It would have nice to know that I was on the record, but I try not to ever say anything that I would be embarrassed to have repeated…”
• Charlie Spiering @charliespiering 14h14 hours ago: Sharpton notes approvingly that @PeteButtigieg took the subway to the lunch, and that he was the first candidate to ask the Rev to say grace over their meal together.

6am – F         BAYLOR WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM GO TO THE WHITE HOUSE:

• Trump Serves Chick-fil-A To Baylor Women’s Basketball Team. (Daily Caller) – President Donald Trump continued one of his White House traditions Monday when he served fast food to the Baylor University championship women’s basketball team. According to the Baylor team’s Instagram, the winning players were greeted with Chick-fil-A sandwiches, McDonald’s quarter pounders, Wendy’s burgers, and Burger King Whoppers. The tradition of serving fast food to the championship athletic teams who visit the White House started during the partial government shutdown earlier this year. President Donald Trump personally paid to have an event with the Clemson Tigers’ national championship-winning college football team catered with various fast food items. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders noted that much of the White House’s residence staff was furloughed at the time, making the logistics of internally catering the event rather difficult. Some members of the media mocked the decision to serve the players hamburgers, fries and pizza, but rather than shying away from the criticism, the president embraced his unique catering option.
• Charlie Spiering ‏@charliespiering 21h21 hours ago: The Baylor Lady Bears women’s basketball team celebrate their national championship at the White House today with Donald Trump and the Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball champions refuse to go
• USA TODAY: “I want everyone to say they went to the White House. Not many people can say that,” said Baylor coach Kim Mulkey.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – GROVER NORQUIST – president of Americans for Tax Reform @GroverNorquist – discussed President Trump’s Infrastructure meeting with Pelosi-Schumer and how raising the gas tax is on the table.

• Trump, Democrats Grasp for Funding Answers on Infrastructure. (Bloomberg) – President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders enter infrastructure talks on Tuesday already at odds over how to pay for the massive investments that American voters say their communities desperately need. Before their first White House meeting since January’s government shutdown, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made it clear in a Monday letter to Trump that they will push for a “substantial, new and real” source of revenue to pay for infrastructure projects. Others, including Schumer, say undoing part of the rate cut wealthy Americans received in the 2017 tax overhaul should be on the table to limit any increase in the 18.4 cent-per-gallon gas tax. Lawmakers who attended a closed-door meeting with Trump in February 2018 said he told them he’d support a 25-cent-per-gallon increase and take the political heat. But Republican leaders were opposed, and Trump never backed the idea publicly. Asked about fuel taxes on Monday, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said Trump “hadn’t made up his mind on any of that yet” and doesn’t have a specific dollar amount in mind for a package.
• AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM: Democrats Demand Gas Tax Hike for Obama-style “Stimulus” spending program.
  • Grover Norquist‏ @GroverNorquist 16h16 hours ago: Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer wrote a letter to Trump admitting that what most want from there conversation tomorrow on “Infrastructure” is –and I quote their letter “substantial, new and real revenue.”   Higher taxes. REmember the $800 billion “STimulus” bill. Lost of cash
  • Grover Norquist ‏ @GroverNorquist 16h16 hours ago: The Pelosi/Schumer letter to Trump about tomorrow’s “Infrastructure” meeitng does not include the following words: ROAD or ROADS. BRIDGE or BRIDGES. HIGHWAY or HIGHWAYS. The Pelosi/Schumer letter does call for “substantial” and “new” taxes.
  • Grover Norquist ‏@GroverNorquist 16h16 hours ago: Pelosi and Schumer do not want more roads. They want another $800 Billion stimulus bill like the one they organized with Obama. That might have fixed all the roads if they hadn’t spent it on their special interest friends
  • Not a single Republican voted for that “stimulus” scheme.

7am – B/C     SPORTS ILLUSTRATED TO FEATURE FIRST MUSLIM  MODEL IN A BURKINI: Halima Aden has made history by becoming the first Muslim model to appear in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue wearing a hijab and a burkini. The 21-year-old Somali-American was born in a refugee camp in Kenya, and she returned to her birth country for her first shoot with the magazine, which was photographed by Yu Tsai at Watamu Beach.

• Joe Pags Pagliarulo ‏@JoeTalkShow 9h9 hours ago: hey leftists, make up your mind.  Do you want me to believe in women’s liberation and feminism?  or do you want me to applaud the oppression of woman who are forced to cover up head-to-toe?  Let me know  #Burkini

7am – D/E     Two Whitman HS students posted photo in blackface, school says. (WTOP) – Two students at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, posted a picture of themselves to social media wearing blackface, school officials said. The N-word was also used in the photo description. The incident was reported to the Montgomery County Police Department, Principal Robert Dodd said in a letter to a parents on Monday. The school reported the event as a hate-bias incident, and police officials assisted with the investigation. “I want to emphasize as strongly as possible that this type of behavior will not be tolerated at Walt Whitman High School,” said Dodd in the letter. “Students who were involved will receive significant consequences under the Montgomery County Public School’s Code of Conduct.” The image was posted to a private social media account, officials said, but was circulated widely and viewed by a number of students. Dodd said the incident underscores the need to strengthen students’ cultural proficiency. He asked all parents to discuss with their children the importance of respecting others, the dangers related to social media and the serious consequences that follow racist statements and actions. “Racist incidents have a profoundly negative impact on how our students of color and their families perceive the safety, education, and support our school has to offer,” Dodd said in the letter. “Every student deserves to feel like Walt Whitman is their school.”

8am – A         INTERVIEW – CHARLIE SPIERING – White House Correspondent for Breitbart News – discussed the latest White House/2020 news:

• TRUMP MEETING WITH PELOSI/SCHUMER: Pelosi, Schumer pressure Trump on infrastructure. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer want President Donald Trump to use their White House meeting this week to discuss the thorniest aspect of a major infrastructure package: how to pay for it. A source close to Schumer said unless Trump considers rolling back some of the 2017 Republican tax cuts, the top Senate Democrat won’t even consider a proposal from the president to raise the gas tax.
• MAYOR PETE AND SHARPTON: 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg steps up African-American voter outreach, meets with Al Sharpton

8am – B/C     ‘Queer Feminist Mermaid’ Surfaces to Challenge Susan Collins. Bre Kidman is first Democrat to file in Maine senate election. (Washington Free Beacon) — Sensing the lack of a Democratic candidate willing to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), a “queer feminist mermaid” named Bre Kidman—politically mobilized by the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fight—has filed to enter the race. Collins has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997, and each of her three reelection fights have ended with double-digit margin victories. But Democrats responded to her deciding vote to confirm Kavanaugh by vowing to make her run for a fifth term a real challenge, expecting a crowded field of candidates to step up to the plate. That hasn’t materialized. The first Democratic candidate to file for the race is Kidman, currently a part-time attorney and active artist in the community, and it was a bit of an accident. “My launch came out from under me—I didn’t realize people were watching the filings so closely,” Kidman told the Washington Free Beacon after the filing was reported by the local Sun Journal. The first-time politician decided to run after training from the Victory Institute, which runs programs for potential LGBTQ candidates. Kidman hopes to be the first gender nonbinary queer elected to the U.S. Senate. On Facebook, Kidman is described as a “criminal defense attorney by day and radical fat queer/performance artist/model/musician/activist most other times.” On Spotify, Kidman is “Bee Kay Esq.” and the biography is the same. Five songs with collaborator Mr. Gadget use “inhuman instruments to give voice to human vulnerability with beats that invite just enough dancing to feel slightly less dead.” On the website for the Maine Educationalists on Sexual Harmony (MESH), Kidman is described as a “queer feminist lawyer, mermaid, writer, activist, and artist.” Mermaid is “an artistic identity, not a serious identity,” Kidman said. “I’m a playful person, I’m not going to pretend I’m all serious all the time, because I’m not. I’m mermaid-esque in nature.”

8am – D         INTERVIEW – PETER DOOCY – Reporter for Fox News Channel – discussed Joe Biden’s first campaign rally in PA on Monday. Peter was at the rally.

• Former Vice Pres. Joe Biden kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign with a rally in Pittsburgh, PA.
• Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden officially kicked off his White House campaign on Monday hosting a union event in Pittsburgh just hours after securing his first labor endorsement. President Trump tweeted that while leaders of the firefighters and other unions would endorse Democrats in the 2020 race, “the members love Trump.” Biden fired back, “I’m sick of this president badmouthing unions.”
• Joe Biden says he is launching his 2020 campaign in Pittsburgh because “if I’m going to be able to beat Donald Trump in 2020, it’s going to happen here.”
• Joe Biden: “By the way, I make no apologies. I am a union man. Period.”
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 13h13 hours ago: Pittsburgh jobless rate hits lowest point since the early 1970s (maybe even better than that) and Sleepy Joe just had his first rally there. Fact is, every economic aspect of our Country is the best it has ever been!

8am – E         Joe Biden campaign ad featuring Barack Obama. Former President Barack Obama is featured in a new Joe Biden campaign video that touts his former vice president as being “resilient, loyal, and a patriot.”  The new ad, titled “America: Anything Is Possible,” features footage of the former president delivering a speech during Biden’s Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony at the White House back in 2017. In it, he devotes his remarks to a glowing review of Biden’s storied political career.