Mornings on the Mall 09.21.17

Dan Bongino, Shimon Prokupecz, Ron Meyer and former DC Mayor Vincent Gray joined WMAL on Thursday!

Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C   Is DC One Big Speed Trap? One Councilmember Wants to Know.

WASHINGTON – (WMAL) D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh has sent a letter to the District Department of Transportation, looking to receive more information about the city’s highest-grossing speed cameras, and whether there is adequate signage and fairness in the speed limit itself around those cameras. The city’s most active camera, on 295 just north of National Harbor, generated $13 million in fines in 2016. Last year was the highest-grossing year yet for the city’s speed camera program. “We think this probe is long overdue,” AAA Mid-Atlantic’s John Townsend told WMAL.. Some speed cameras located in neighborhoods with high pedestrian traffic are useful, Townsend said, but on highways like 295, speed limits are artificially low, so much so that he thought it constitutes a speed trap.

5am – D/E     MUELLER / MANFORT / RUSSIA

• CNN: Mueller’s team is reaching back 11 years in its investigation of former Trump campaign chairman Manafort. Washington (CNN)Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team is reaching back more than a decade in its investigation of Paul Manafort, a sign of the pressure Mueller is placing on President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman. The FBI’s warrant for a July search of Manafort’s Alexandria, Virginia, home said the investigation centered on possible crimes committed as far back as January 2006, according to a source briefed on the investigation. The broad time frame is the latest indication that Mueller’s team is going well beyond Russian meddling during the campaign as part of its investigation of Trump campaign associates. Manafort, who has been the subject of an FBI investigation for three years, has emerged as a focal point for Mueller.
• Paul Manafort: Justice Department Should ‘Immediately’ Investigate Wiretapping by Obama Administration. Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for President Donald Trump, called on the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate leaks after CNN reported that the FBI conducted separate wiretap investigations of him before and after the election last year. The network said Monday that a secret court order authorized a wiretap of Manafort between 2014 and early 2016 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the FBI obtained a second FISA court order extending into early this year. The FBI is investigating ties between Russian officials and the Trump campaign, and whether Trump or any of his associates colluded with Moscow or committed any crimes. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed to oversee the probe this year, has obtained details of the communications, CNN said. “If true, it is a felony to reveal the existence of a FISA warrant, regardless of the fact that no charges ever emerged,” Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni said in a statement on Tuesday. The Justice Department’s inspector general “should immediately conduct an investigation into these leaks and to examine the motivations behind a previous administration’s effort to surveil a political opponent.”
• Report: FBI Agents Entered Paul Manafort’s Home With Guns Drawn. FBI agents entered former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s Alexandria, Virginia home in July with their guns drawn and searched his wife for weapons, CNN reports. According to the report, Manafort and his wife were still in bed when agents with a “no-knock” warrant picked the lock to his front door. In a separate report, The New York Times claims that after entering the Manaforts’ dwelling, agents seized documents, copied computer files, and photographed Manafort’s expensive suits. Manafort is under investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team for allegedly assisting the Russian government in meddling with the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s team told Manafort that they plan on charging him with tax and financial crimes, a source told CNN, indicating the scope of Mueller’s probe has moved beyond Russian meddling. The FBI’s warrant for the search of Manafort’s home said “the investigation centered on possible crimes committed as far back as January 2006,” the CNN report states.
• Former Spy Chief James Clapper on CNN: ‘It’s Possible’ President Trump’s Voice Recorded in Paul Manafort Wiretap
• CLAPPER IN MARCH: ‘No such wiretap activity mounted’ on Trump

6am – A/B/C Regulation Under Review After DC Cracks Down on Dogs at Bars. (NBC 4) — Pets at bars, coffee shops and restaurants is a growing trend, but it’s not legal everywhere, and a D.C. regulation is under review after a crackdown at a beer garden that serves food. At The Midlands in northwest D.C., which is co-owned by the son of News4 reporter Tom Sherwood, Andy Pants the dog was as much a part of the business as the beer until a D.C. health inspector ordered Andy and all dogs off the patio Tuesday. “Nobody is in the kitchen with their dogs,” dog lover Andrew Zukosky said. “It’s an outdoor venue anyway. There are birds in there. It seems like they’re way dirtier than domestic animals.” Many businesses encourage customers to bring their dogs. Some restaurants and bars host yappy hours. But the D.C. Department of Health says it’s against the law. It’s been telling establishments to keep the dogs out or face a $500 fine.

Woman seen screaming at veteran over service dog speaks out. DELAWARE CITY, Del. (WTXF) – Video of a woman verbally berating a veteran for having his service dog inside a local restaurant has gone viral. Now, the woman at the center of it all says she and her family are being harassed and reached out to FOX 29 to tell her side of the story. The video starts with the woman screaming at a group of people after she was apparently upset by the presence of that veteran’s PTSD service dog, a Great Dane. “The dog’s body was about the same height as the table. Basically, the butt was sitting in front of me at the table,” Ciara Miller, the woman seen yelling in the video, explained. Miller says she went with her family to Kathy’s Crab House in Delaware City last week and was unable to eat comfortably with the veteran’s Service Dog right there. In the aftermath of the incident, she claims a staff member and others immediately made the situation racial.

6am – D/E     MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell unleashes f-bomb laden meltdown on staff. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell is seen yelling obscenities at staff members during eight minutes of outtakes in recently surfaced footage from an August broadcast. During the outtakes, O’Donnell screams at staff over loud noises coming through his earpiece from the control room, for hammering coming from another room, and the editing of a news package set to air on the show. The longtime news anchor apologized on Twitter Wednesday night, saying a “better anchor” and “better person” would have had a different reaction. O’Donnell has been host of “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” a weeknight MSNBC opinion news show since October of 2011.

6am – F         MELANIA NEWS:

• Melania gave speech on social media, bullying. First lady Melania Trump spoke at the United Nations on Wednesday, condemning bullying and urging world leaders to teach “moral conscience” by example. “We must teach each child that they are at the core of the kindness, mindfulness, integrity and leadership, which can only be taught by our own example. By our own example, we must teach children to be good stewards of the world they inherit,” Melania Trump said, addressing the international body in New York City. Melania Trump, who on the campaign trail in 2016 indicated interest in leading anti-cyberbullying efforts as first lady, said in the speech that her focus as first lady is teaching the next generation.
• Melania threatens to sue over ‘a little English’ billboards. (NY Post) — Billboards showing Melania Trump and reading “Just imagine how far you can go with a little bit of English” were taken down in Croatia’s capital city Tuesday after the first lady’s lawyer threatened to sue, a report said. The billboards were part of a private English language school’s marketing campaign in Zagreb to convince Croats to learn the language using the example of Trump’s success, the Associated Press reported. Her lawyer, Natasa Pirc-Musar, demanded the school — the American Institute — remove the billboards, which show the first lady delivering a speech before an American flag. “I’m satisfied with the fact that the school admitted that they violated the law and that they are ready to remove the billboards,” Pirc-Musar told ​the wire service​. “We are still analyzing possible further legal steps.” ​Trump, who was born in neighboring Slovenia, hired the law firm to protect her image, which has been linked to cakes, underwear and tourism in her native country.

7am – A         Interview – DAN BONGINO – former Secret Service agent and author of new book “Protecting the President”

• Discussed new book “Protecting the President”
• Thoughts on the Mueller-Manafort investigation

7am – B         Jimmy Kimmel continues fight with Sen. Cassidy’s new health care bill. Jimmy Kimmel was ready for the second round of his fight with U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, saying on Wednesday night that the senator “either doesn’t understand his own bill or he lied to me.” “Last night on our show I took a senator from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, I took him to task for promising to my face that he would oppose any health care plan that allowed insurance companies to turn people with pre-existing conditions away,” Kimmel said opening his ABC broadcast on Wednesday night. “He said anything he supported would have to pass what he named the ‘Jimmy Kimmel Test,’ which was fine… but unfortunately, and puzzlingly, he proposed a bill that would allow states to do all the things he said he would not let them do.”  Kimmel then said that Cassidy made “a total about face” and that meant that “he either doesn’t understand his own bill, or he lied to me.” The comedian then showed a clip of Cassidy telling CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day” Wednesday morning that Kimmel “does not understand” the bill. “Oh, I get it. I don’t understand because I’m a talk show host, right?” the host said before breaking down the bill in detail. “Could it be, Senator Cassidy, that the problem is that I do understand, and you got caught with your GOPenis out?”

7am – C         Maxine Waters pushes Trump impeachment — during eulogy! Donald Trump is living rent-free in the head of Maxine Waters. The California congresswoman went on a stem winder of a eulogy during comedian Dick Gregory’s funeral on Saturday, quickly turning it political and attacking the president of the United States, instead of remembering her friend. “I’m cleaning out the White House,” Waters declared. “We’re going to sanitize the White House. We’re not going to take what is happening in this country. “Haven’t you taken enough?” she yelled to the crowd. “And then comes along this person,” she said with a sneer, referring to Trump.

7am – D         Interview – SHIMON PROKUPECZ (Proke-u-pez) – Crime and Justice Reporter on CNN

• TOPIC: Latest on Manafort investigation:
• CNN: Mueller’s team is reaching back 11 years in its investigation of former Trump campaign chairman Manafort
• Paul Manafort: Justice Department Should ‘Immediately’ Investigate Wiretapping by Obama Administration. Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for President Donald Trump, called on the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate leaks after CNN reported that the FBI conducted separate wiretap investigations of him before and after the election last year.
• Report: FBI Agents Entered Paul Manafort’s Home With Guns Drawn. FBI agents entered former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s Alexandria, Virginia home in July with their guns drawn and searched his wife for weapons, CNN reports. According to the report, Manafort and his wife were still in bed when agents with a “no-knock” warrant picked the lock to his front door.
• Exclusive: US government wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman. _{Washington (CNN)US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe. The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump. Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive.}

7am – E         ENTERTAINMENT NEWS:

• Barbra Streisand would only be photographed from her “good side” at the Harvey telethon. Barbra Streisand only wants to be shot from her “good side” — even when it comes to charity. The singing diva joined other A-list celebrities such as Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake, Kerry Washington and Diddy at the “Hand in Hand” relief benefit in LA last week, but made sure fotogs shot her best side (which we’re told is the left side of her face). “There were a ton of celebrities on the red carpet, but she wanted to walk the carpet in reverse order, so the cameras would only shoot her good side. It was as if she was a salmon swimming upstream,” a source quipped. Streisand is famous for insisting on being shot from the left; she even swapped seats with Fallon as a guest on his “Tonight Show.”
• NFL ratings are down again this season. Is it time to panic yet? The NFL’s TV ratings are down so far this season and if that news isn’t distressing enough for the biggest ratings driver on TV, the latest slump follows a 2016 season marked by unstable ratings that had pundits and analysts scratching their heads. NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” in the first two weeks of the regular season is down 7% in viewership compared to last year; ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” is down 5%; and the averages of Sunday afternoon games on Fox and CBS are down 11% and 19% respectively, according to Nielsen data. Also, CBS hasn’t yet had a 4:25 p.m. national game this season, which usually brings in the biggest viewership of the weekend. But the league could still stage a ratings comeback like it did last year when the election ended and the playoffs approached.

8am – A         Interview – RON MEYER – is a Washington Examiner columnist, editor of Red Alert Politics (a sister publication of the Washington Examiner). He’s also a supervisor of Loudoun County, Va. (R-Broad Run). (@Ron4VA)

TOPICS:

• RON MEYER: Rand Paul’s Obamacare absolutism shows why libertarians are still irrelevant. (Washington Examiner) – Usually, reading President Trump’s tweets can be a bit jarring for a morning commute. However, Wednesday morning, Trump is right about Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and the last-ditch effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. I’m generally a Rand Paul guy. I frequently say that my ideal president would be Rand’s policies with Marco Rubio’s communication skills. I was one of the guys that wanted Rand to run for office before anyone knew him as anything other than Ron Paul’s son. He’s always been a more pragmatic version of his father, and the libertarian movement needed that. But unfortunately, he may be taking a step back toward his dad. His latest stand on Obamacare repeal demonstrates exactly why libertarians can’t have nice things and why so few have advanced in national politics. Absolutism clouds their ability to solve problems and to make substantive impacts on policy. Those who oppose the good and demand only utopia expose themselves as philosophers instead of leaders. Many libertarians, apparently now including Rand, won’t make deals and won’t take partial victories even when it advances their principles. That’s why they don’t move up in local politics; they don’t play well with others and negotiate.
• I-66 Bikeshare, Bus Plans to Be Announced. Car drivers are not the only people slated to benefit from the adoption of Express Lanes on Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia later this year. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe will be in Falls Church, Virginia, on Wednesday to announce a series of transit projects that will accompany the launch of I-66 Express Lanes inside the Capital Beltway. The projects, already approved by the state, include enhanced regional bus service in the Northern Virginia suburbs and expanded bikeshare options. Beginning in December, solo drivers will, for the first time, be allowed to use I-66 inside the Beltway during rush hour, though they must pay a toll. Carpoolers can still use the lanes for free.

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW – VINCENT GRAY –  Former D.C. mayor and current City Council member, and DC Council’s Health Committee Chair

• TOPICS:
• PETS / DC RESTAURANTS: DC Health Department Cracks Down on Dogs on Bar and Restaurant Patios. Pets at bars, coffee shops and restaurants is a growing trend, but it’s not legal everywhere, and a D.C. regulation is under review after a crackdown at a beer garden that serves food. At The Midlands in northwest D.C., which is co-owned by the son of News4 reporter Tom Sherwood, Andy Pants the dog was as much a part of the business as the beer until a D.C. health inspector ordered Andy and all dogs off the patio Tuesday. “Nobody is in the kitchen with their dogs,” dog lover Andrew Zukosky said. “It’s an outdoor venue anyway. There are birds in there. It seems like they’re way dirtier than domestic animals.”
• (Washingtonian) –After hearing from a number of constituents, Councilmember Brianne Nadeau is working on emergency legislation with health committee chair Vincent Gray to address dogs on patios. “There aren’t any details to share yet,” says Tom Fazzini, Nadeau’s deputy chief of staff. “The earliest it could be up would be the Oct 3 session.”
• New smoking cessation proposal: Earlier this week: On Tuesday, September 19, Councilmember Gray will hold a press conference with the DC Tobacco Free Coalition and the American Cancer Society to announce new smoking cessation legislation he will introduce on September 19th titled the “Department of Health Smoking Cessation Fund Amendment Act of 2017” aimed at helping residents quit smoking and to kickoff DC Calls It Quits! Week.  Councilmember Gray will discuss the importance of smoking cessation in DC and his proposal for a plan to help DC residents quit smoking and support smoking cessation prevention and resources across the District.

8am – D/E     COMEDIAN ROB SCHNEIDER DEFENDS KAEPERNICK: IN AN INTERVIEW WITH SPORTS ILLUSTRATED: Rob Schneider thinks it’s ridiculous that Colin Kaepernick is not at least an NFL backup. Do you agree? Rob Schneider was talking to Sports Illustrated because he’s promoting his new show “REAL ROB” on NETFLIX, premiering on Sept. 29th.  His show is an exaggerated depiction of Rob Schneider’s real life mixed with clips of his stand-up performances.