Midday

Today, another in our series of Conversations with the Candidates. Tom's guest for the hour is State Senator Jill P. Carter, one of the Democratic candidates running to fill the the vacancy in the 7th Congressional District created by the death of Representative Elijah Cummings. Twenty-four Democrats and eight Republicans have filed to run in a special primary election on February 4th.

Senator Carter represents District 41 in the Maryland Senate, a seat she’s held since April, 2018. Before moving to the Senate, she served in the MD House of Delegates for 14 years; she was only the third African-American female attorney to be elected to the Maryland General Assembly. She also served as the Director of the Baltimore City Office of Civil Rights during the Pugh Administration.


The special primary election will be held in three weeks, on February 4th. If you are not yet registered to vote, or if you want to change your party affiliation, you have until 5:00 pm today to register in order to be eligible to vote in the special primary. You have until January 28th to request an absentee ballot by mail, and January 31st for an on-line ballot. There is no early voting in the February 4th primary.


This conversation is being live streamed on WYPR's Facebook page. You can watch the video here.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings is a public policy consultant who holds a doctorate in political science. She’s the former head of the Maryland Democratic Party and she worked for several years on Capitol Hill. For a brief period, she was a candidate in the 2018 Maryland gubernatorial race.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

On today's edition of the Midday News Wrap, a look at three stories topping the news this week.

The U-S-Iran Crisis: The US and Iran have been teetering on the brink of war since a U.S. drone strike ordered last Friday by President Trump killed the influential Iranian general Qassim Soleimani and others near the Baghdad airport. After staging a massive public funeral for their assassinated general, Iran retaliated on Wednesday by launching ballistic missiles into two airbases in Iraq, causing no casualties and little damage. But four hours later, a Ukrainian airliner mysteriously crashed just minutes after leaving the Tehran airport, killing all 176 people aboard. Western leaders say an errant Iranian missile might have brought the plane down. Joining Tom on the line to sort out the complexities of the US-Iran crisis is Steven Simon. He’s an analyst at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, a professor of international relations at Colby College, in Waterville, Maine, and a former senior director on the National Security Council for both the Clinton and Obama administrations...

The Impeachment Impasse: More than three weeks after the Democrat-led House of Representatives' historic vote to approve two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has refused to deliver the articles to the Senate until, she has said, Republican leader Mitch McConnell provides certain assurances about the "arena" in which the President will be tried. Reports Friday indicated Pelosi might be ready to deliver the articles early next week, but it remains unclear what kind of trial the Republican-led Senate is ready to conduct for Mr. Trump. Tom talks with David Drucker, senior poltical correspondent for the Washington Examiner, and a contributor to Vanity Fair, about the political and legal strategies playing out in this high-stakes constitutional drama.

The Democratic 2020 Presidential Campaigns: As new polling data show surprising shifts in the standings of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates , Tom talks with Politico reporter Zach Montellaro about how the leading contenders are jockeying for position ahead of next week's televised debate in Iowa, and next month's start of the 2020 primary election season.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

On Wednesday, January 8, the 2020 Legislative Session of the Maryland General Assembly convened in Annapolis. For the next 90 days, state lawmakers will be deliberating over a daunting array of legislative measures, addressing everything from education reform to transportation initiatives, health care, crime reduction, ethics reform, and much, much more.

On Tuesday, Midday's Tom Hall spoke with the Assembly’s new leaders – Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones. Yesterday, we talked about the session’s number one legislative priority, funding major reforms in education, with two former County Executives.

Today, Tom focuses on some other matters that Maryland lawmakers will take up this year. Later this hour, he's joined by WYPR State House reporter Rachel Baye and Josh Kurtz of Maryland Matters.

But he begins with Keiffer J. Mitchell, Jr., the newly appointed Chief Legislative Officer for Governor Larry Hogan. Mr. Mitchell, a Baltimore native, served previously as Gov. Hogan’s senior advisor. He is a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates and the Baltimore City Council. Keiffer Mitchell joins Tom on the line from his office in Annapolis.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's Thursday, and time again for a visit with theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who regales us each week with her reviews of the region's rich thespian offerings. Today, she spotlights the new touring production of My Fair Lady, now on stage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The Kennedy Center show launches the national tour for the Lincoln Center Theater production of the much-beloved musical by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe, who adapted it from George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play and Gabriel Pascal's 1938 film, "Pygmalion." The story of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from phoneticist Henry Higgins so that she can pass as a cultured lady, was a major commercial and critical success when it opened on Broadway in 1956. Boasting such enduring songs as “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “The Rain in Spain,” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” My Fair Lady earned four Tony Awards and set a record at the time for the longest run of any show on Broadway. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous award-winning revivals.

The current touring revival by the Lincoln Center Theater in New York is directed at the Kennedy Center by Bartlett Sher, with music supervision by Ted Sperling and choreography by Christopher Gattelli. The show's 33-member cast is led by Shereen Ahmed as Eliza Doolittle, and Laird Mackintosh and Henry Higgins.

My Fair Lady continues at The Kennedy Center in Washington through Sunday, January 19th. For showtimes and ticket information, click here.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom sits down at the State House with Senate President Designate Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones for a preview of their priorities as the General Assembly begins a historic new chapter.

Senator Bill Ferguson is expected to be elected Senate President, succeeding Mike Miller, who held the job for longer than any senate president in the country.

Delegate Adrienne Jones will preside over her first full session as Speaker of the House of Delegates. She is the first woman and the first African American to be elected Speaker, succeeding Mike Busch, who passed away last April.

The central challenge of this year’s session: revamping the funding formula for MD schools. Can lawmakers find consensus on Kirwan?


This conversation was pre-recorded at the State House in Annapolis, so we were unable to take listener calls or comments.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Rushern Baker was the Prince George’s County Executive from 2010 until 2018 -- and before that, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. Don Mohler was appointed Baltimore County Executive upon the death of then-County Executive Kevin Kamenetz in May 2018, following a long career in county government and the public schools. They join Tom to discuss sweeping changes proposed for Maryland public education by the Kirwan Commission -- and how to pay for those changes.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today, we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates with people who are running to be the next Mayor of Baltimore City.

Tom's guest is City Council President Brandon Scott. Mr. Scott was elected President of the City Council by his fellow members eight months ago, when then Council President Jack Young became Mayor after Catherine Pugh’s fall from grace.



As the chair of the Council's Public Safety Committee from 2016 until last year, Mr. Scott has been an advocate for the reform of the city police department and a holistic approach to crime reduction.

If elected Mayor, Mr. Scott says he will aim to reduce homicides in Baltimore by 15%, in each year of his term in office. That would bring the number of annual murders to below 300 by December of 2021.


He was first elected to the Council to represent the 2nd District in 2011. Prior to that, his work experience included working in the office of then-Council President Stephanie Rawlings Blake as her representative in Northeast Baltimore.

In 2018, Jim Shea picked Scott as his running mate in their unsuccessful bid in the Democratic Gubernatorial primary.

A lifelong resident of Baltimore, he’s a graduate of Mervo High School and St. Mary’s College. He is 35 years old and single.

This conversation was live-streamed on WYPR's Facebook page. Watch the video here.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today, we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates who are running to be the next mayor of Baltimore City.

Tom's guest is former Mayor Sheila Dixon, who held the office from 2007-2010. She resigned in 2010 following a conviction for embezzlement and an Alford plea in a separate case in which she was charged with perjury. She is one of 15 Democratic candidates running in the April 28 primary. Ms. Dixon ran for mayor again in 2016 and narrowly lost the Democratic primary to Catherine Pugh.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today, we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates with the first of several conversations with people who are running to be the next Mayor of Baltimore City. Tom's guest for the hour is one of 15 thus-far announced Democratic candidates for Mayor, Thiru Vignarajah.

Mr. Vignarajah is a veteran city and federal prosecutor who’s spent most of his legal career in public service. He attended Yale University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He went on to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He later served as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore. He also headed the Major Investigations Unit in the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s office. In 2014, he was appointed Deputy Attorney General for Maryland, a position he left to work on the transition team for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016.

Mr. Vignarajah is currently a litigation partner at the law firm DLA Piper in Baltimore.

Thiru Vignarajah is 43 years old. He lives in Federal Hill. This is his second campaign for a city-wide office. He ran unsuccessfully for Baltimore State’s Attorney in 2018.

He is promising a dramatic reduction in the number of people murdered in our city, pledging that if elected, fewer than 200 people will be killed by the end of his first term in office.

That pledge seems all the more ambitious given that in 2019, our city suffered the highest per capita murder rate in history. 348 people, mostly African American men, were killed, mostly by being shot. More than twice that many were shot and injured.

This conversation was live-streamed on WYPR's facebook Page. Watch the video here.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.