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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Plane Debris Washing Ashore; First Republican Presidential Debate Tonight. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 06, 2015 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Studio on earth today. Thanks so much, Brian.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Great to see you, Brian. He's going to try to get a seat inside. I know he is. I know he is.

BERMAN: He knows people.

BOLDUAN: He does.

Thanks for joining us "AT THIS HOUR," everybody.

BERMAN: LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield, and welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

It is the mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Some highly placed people are now saying that that plane debris definitely, definitely belongs to that missing Boeing 777. Strangely enough, though, not everyone is as convinced as others. We're going to have more on that in just a moment because now there is even more debris that is washing up onshore, possibly even as we speak.

Reunion Island out in the Indian Ocean, the same place that wing piece appeared last week, a Malaysian government official saying that the pieces of airplane windows and seat cushions apparently, as well as chunks of aluminum material have been turning up on those beaches. And now those pieces will be sent to the same lab in France where the wings, that flaperon, is being tested.

Australian investigators say they're being cautious about drawing conclusions, saying there's just no early indication that these new items absolutely came from that Boeing 777. And so we wait and we wait.

We're still more than 500 days of waiting. And the people who are waiting and having the toughest time with it are the families of those 239 people onboard that airliner when it vanished from ground contact nearly a year and a half ago.

Mary Schiavo is our aviation analyst and forensic scientist, Professor Larry Kobilinsky, is also with us to hopefully try to piece together this mystery and take us back to the crash site because effectively that seems to be the biggest question unanswered. Mary, if I could start with you about this, what are the odds that

this other material that is now appearing on these beaches comes from the same place that that flaperon came from?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, at this point, since we don't have any hard evidence yet, it's, you know, it's 50/50. But, you know, the people that need to look at that are the people who need to look at the flaperon, which is Boeing, because airline seats have to meet flammability standards, they actually have - have to pass U.S. standards because the plane was made in the United States. And that one piece, I will say the window piece, does look like - looks like but there will be Boeing can tell - their engineers could tell by taking measurements, but it does look like a window panel from a 777.

BANFIELD: You know, the other issue, Mary, that seems so confusing to many is that the Malaysian officials were very definitive yesterday when they said, look, we've got it. This is the piece from our plane. And yet the French, perhaps because they are prosecutors and they may be dealing with millions and millions in liability, so they need to cross every "t" and dot every "i," they're not entirely convinced. And yet, Mary, from your perspective, with your background, we have a serial number, we have matching paint, and we have a Malaysian Airline seal on this flaperon. Is it really still in question?

SCHIAVO: No, it is not. And, frankly, it wasn't in question once Boeing said it was a flaperon from a 777 because aftermarket flaperons just simply aren't available. You know I - there's a big global market for aftermarket parts and replacement parts and used parts and there's a shortage of 777 parts because only four have crashed. So as soon as Boeing said it's a 777 part, to me any - any question left my mind.

BANFIELD: So, Larry Kobilinsky, take me into the mystery solving aspect that still remains. Look, we've now at least been able to determine we know that the plane crashed and it is in pieces. Will we be able to learn anything more from the new material, if it is also linked to this plane, about where that plane went down?

LARRY KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Well, the answer is, yes, I do believe so. I think this is being handled as a criminal investigation. There is an indication that a human being was responsible for the flight path. Therefore, any kind of material that we find on Reunion Island or any place else is considered physical evidence and, therefore, it's going to be handled that way. We have an array of different kinds of analytical instrumentation that can look at metals and plastics. There's chromatic graphs, spectrometers. There's x-ray, elemental detection. Whether or not there are maintenance seals or serial numbers, I think the analysis of plastics, for example, will tell us if that panel, if it did indeed come from 370.

I think there's a lot of information we may be able to rule out, fire or explosion. There's different kinds of microscopy that can be applied to these different parts. There's a lot of forensic analysis that can be done, that can be revealing.

[12:05:09] BANFIELD: So - KOBILINSKY: But, ultimately, what we know is the plane disintegrated. Whether it disintegrated in the air or whether it disintegrated on impact, we don't know. But the fuselage busted open.

BANFIELD: The microscopy that you're talking about is exactly where I'm going with this and that is sort of the flora that has attached, those barnacles, that biological matter that has attached at least to what we saw with the flaperon and perhaps maybe these other pieces. Will that forensically help trace anyone back to an actual site of impact, which then, Larry, could get us closer to black boxes, which then might get us more actual detail about crime?

KOBILINSKY: Yes, I totally agree the black boxes will tell us what happened, but I do think that the marine life on the flaperon, perhaps on other parts, will tell us a lot. There are different species of barnacle, for example. Some prefer to grow in one part of the Indian Ocean and others in different parts. So we could do an analysis through DNA and examine what the species are of these marine creatures and that will give us some indication of when they attached to these objects. In other words, how long was this debris in the water? And it may tell us the general area. Now, it does look like they're searching in the right area based on water currents.

BANFIELD: Well, you know, for the sake of the families alone, I mean, to heck with the rest of us who just want to, you know, get answers to this bizarre mystery. But those families, they desperately need any kind of answers they can get.

Mary Schiavo, Larry Kobilinsky, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

KOBILINSKY: Sure.

BANFIELD: Coming up next, mayhem at the movie theater. It has happened again and again. Another attack, this one in Nashville. So, what about the theater and how about you going to crowded places? Are things going to change? We'll ask that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:10:30] BANFIELD: Once again, a deranged man, hell-bent on violence, has gone into a movie theater in an effort to inflict it. This time, though, no one was killed or even seriously hurt except for one, the attacker. He was shot to death by the police in Nashville yesterday afternoon.

He has now been identified positively as 29-year-old Vincente David Montano who apparently was homeless and reported missing by his mother in Texas just this week. His mother says he was schizophrenic and police say he'd been committed to mental hospitals on four different occasions. Montano's weapons were a hatchet and what turned out to be a pellet gun that looked terribly, terribly real. He also doused the theater in pepper spray. He had a fake bomb in a satchel.

One of the seven other people in the theater to see the matinee showing of "Mad Max Fury Road" made this call to 911.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

911 CALLER: So I was in the movie theater, like literally a minute or two ago, and this guy, this shady looking guy, stood up with like two bags and he walked toward the back of the theater and he pulled out a - like a hatchet and started attacking this family and then he pulled out a gun and we all ran out of the theater.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: One man suffered a minor hatchet wound. Three people were treated to a face full of pepper spray. They were treated and they were unharmed otherwise.

Of course, though, this all comes in the wake of the Aurora theater massacre three summers ago and the deaths of two moviegoers plus a gunman in Lafayette, Louisiana, just two weeks ago.

My next guest has some insights on all of this kind of violence. Jonathan Gilliam is a former police officer, U.S. air marshal, Navy SEAL, and FBI special agent. So there's probably no one better versed in security and targeting than you.

These are soft targets. They're jammed with people.

JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Right.

BANFIELD: You can open fire in a movie theater and it's real hard for people to get away quick.

GILLIAM: Right.

BANFIELD: So it makes me wonder, are we on the verge of seeing big changes in soft target locations, much like we had big changes after 9/11 at airports?

GILLIAM: We should be seeing that, but we've been - so after I left the air marshals, I went to work for one of these private security contractor and it was an incredible place to be. All these SEALs and special forces guys, we were going all over the country doing threat assessments. This was in 2004. And we were doing that for Homeland Security. We were already suggesting back then malls, theaters, schools, tall buildings, stadiums and arenas -

BANFIELD: What, magnetometers and pat downs or what?

GILLIAM: Just - well, there needs to be an change in awareness in the way that things are done there. You know, if you have a security guard, they have to be aware of who's going in, where the - where the soft areas are.

You know, a movie theater in itself is a soft target, but where do the people congregate in the theater that's inside these areas where you actually watch the movie? At a stadium or arena, I've talked about on this station before, a stadium is a hard target. But when you leave, everybody leaves at the same time and that creates a soft area outside of the stadium. These are things that we need to start looking at differently. We need

to start looking at the way we respond to these things. I was reading a report that said law enforcement, the first three officers went there and engaged the individual. The next officers that arrived, they stopped at the door to help people get out. But they have to stop thinking that it's just one person. There could be multiple people in there. And everything that we're getting attacked now has already been attacked overseas by terrorists. This is a deranged individual, but terrorists are identifying these things and have made threats to these as well.

BANFIELD: Hey, look, it doesn't matter who's behind the gun -

GILLIAM: That's true.

BANFIELD: A terrorist or a mentally disturbed person with a gun and a hatchet and a fistful of pepper spray can do just the same amount of damage.

I just want to get your assessment, in the business you're in, are we different? Are we handling things different? Are we going into theaters different? Are we looking for exits and making sure we know what to do if the inevitable or the awful possibility ever arose? Are we behaving differently because of these?

GILLIAM: I think we are but it's after the incident occurs. And what I'd like to see is a shift in - the American public, we're kind of rebellious because we're free. We have this freedom and we want to have the freedom without the oppression of these types of attacks. But we have to realize that the possibility is there now.

We live in a different day and age. And just like when you go home at night and you lock your door, your lock your window, you get out of your car, you lock your car. You don't just leave it wide open. You do that for a reason, because you know somebody may break into it. So it's the same thing, when you go to a theater, a football game, a mall, you have to realize the potential is there and you just need to be aware, not scared. It's different.

[12:15:14] BANFIELD: Jonathan Gilliam, I always love talking to you. And you're the guy I want on the wall, you know, you're that guy. Thank you so much.

GILLIAM: Yes. Thank you.

BANFIELD: Appreciate it.

All right, coming up next, don't bet on Donald Trump being the only wildcard in tonight's dueling debates. Any one of them in the top 10 or even the bottom seven could be a big winner or a huge loser. Why? How? Oh, count the ways. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: it's time for some politics. Oh, it's been announced that CNN's going to host the first Democratic presidential primary debate on October 13th in Nevada. So, make your meeting maker, send it to your friends. The site has not been picked yet, but it will be pretty. CNN is also going to host three Republican debates leading up to the election as well. So, buckle up.

And the excitement is already building for tonight. I know you know what's happening. It's not the Jon Stewart thing. It's a full 15 months before the presidential election. Tonight's first Republican debate on Fox pretty much has everybody gripped with riveting excitement. Is that an overstatement, because I don't think so? Typically a debate this early might produce a bit more of a yawn than all the hoopla surrounding what's being called a bit of a circus. This, however, seems more like a political super bowl tonight mainly for one reason and it's the one sort of in the middle, that guy, one man, one reason, Donald Trump, brash, bombastic, and very TV savvy. He is, of course, leading the pack of GOP rivals at this very early stage.

[12:20:12] So the challenge for the other nine candidates sharing that squishy stage is how to contain that man, that larger than life fellow, that character, and how to emerge from his very big shadow. Like any heavyweight fight, there's an undercard, too, the seven who did not make it into the prime time debate on Fox. They're going to square off anyway. But they'll do it at 5:00 p.m. Eastern in what's being dubbed the happy hour debate. I love that. I'm not so sure they're all going to be so happy throughout that whole hour, though.

But covering it all is our MJ Lee and she joins me now live.

So, the big question really, MJ, is, well, there are so many ways to phrase this, but effectively with Donald Trump showing up and the guy who's sort of been caught on the mike as he walks by with all kinds of reaction, which Trump is going to show up? A statesman who wants to be taken seriously among all of these other politicians, or the guy we've been seeing all the way along, the TV savvy reality show guy who's tough and brash and does not care what anybody thinks?

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS: I think that's a great way of putting it. Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen this side of Donald Trump where he is happy to go on the attack, on the offensive and go after some of his rival candidates. Some of the most colorful moments from the 2016 cycle so far have been centered around Donald Trump. You remember very well that he read an opponent's cell phone number out loud on stage just to sort of spite him and because he wasn't happy with some of the comments that he made. We don't know if that's going to be the Donald Trump that shows up on stage tonight or if he'll refocus and try to present himself as a more presidential and mature candidate.

BANFIELD: All right, well, it will be exciting nonetheless and I have a feeling everyone's going to turn in just to see those first few minutes and then they'll be riveted for the rest of the several hours to follow.

MJ Lee, thank you for that.

One of the folks relegated to the earlier debate, former Senator rick Santorum, he's got a lot to say, a lot to criticize about the way this whole process went down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The fact that we're arbitrarily limiting that debate is, I just think, a disservice to the American public. And - and, you know, if I was the Republican Party, I'd be boasting about our riches not trying to cull the field by debate rules.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Ah-ha, there you go.

Want to debate the debate, because that's truly what we're doing at this point, this early on, 15 months to go, because anything can happen. I want to bring in CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Tara Setmayer, and Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman, both of them smiling because this is your season, folks. This is where you get to weigh in and you matter because those people up on stage are dying for you to say great things about them.

So, Tara, I'm going to begin with you. A lot of people are saying, this is the kind of debate where you can't really win it but you sure as heck can lose it. Who do you think has the most at stake and how might they lose big?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, that's absolutely true. When you have 10 people on the stage with about an average of maybe nine to 10 minutes over the entire period of the debate to actually make your mark, say what you have to say, it's really difficult to actually stand out unless you make a mistake.

You know, I think Jeb Bush has a lot to lose here. The spotlight has been on him. He's supposed to be the adult in the room. He was supposed to be the one that was going to come in and have solid policy positions and bring the party together and - but he's had some gaffes as of late coming into this debate in particular with comments he made about women's health. So people are going to look at him and look at his disposition, particularly standing next to Donald Trump on the stage, how he's going to come across, what he's going to say. I think a lot of the spotlight is on Jeb Bush for sure.

ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think it's an important point -

BANFIELD: OK. Yes, well, Robert, you know, bring that up because the spotlight might be for you - you wonky-wonks on Jeb Bush, but you know that so much of the viewership is going to be because they want to see an apprentice-styled debate. But I really wonder, what's going to happen, Robert, if Donald Trump shows up and is more muted and doesn't give that material that everyone's looking for.

ZIMMERMAN: Well, you know, I - I'm willing to predict he'll play against type initially in this debate, whether he's disciplined enough to stay that way is another issue. But I think the bigger point is this, there's a very big distinction between playing to the Republican electorate and speaking out to the country at large. Right now Donald Trump has so inflamed the rhetoric that you have now Mike Huckabee threatening to bring in federal troops to block women's rights to get - to make their own health care choices. You've got Rand Paul using a buzz saw to go through the tax code. Ted Cruz using a machine gun with bacon wrapped around it as a new way to cook bacon. I mean they look like an infomercial for anger management therapy.

SETMAYER: Well -

ZIMMERMAN: Now, that may play very well with the right-wing base of the Republican Party that chooses the nominee, but it's way out of step with the American people.

[12:25:12] BANFIELD: Well, and that's the big thing.

SETMAYER: Well, here's what I - here's -

BANFIELD: It's like how do you get through the primaries and make your point and beat those guys at a very, very strategic game and then ultimately do that etch-a-sketch thing that we all talked about years ago and try to appeal to the - to the general public for the general election.

Tara, what about this issue of just not speaking ill, the 11th Commandment for President Reagan, don't speak ill of your fellow fellas on the stage and instead focus on the other guy, that would be a girl, Hillary Clinton? Are we going to hear a ton about her tonight?

SETMAYER: I would hope so. I mean the 11th Commandment's kind of been thrown out the window with the entry of Donald Trump, unfortunately, and what - exactly what Robert said, how some of the candidates have felt that they need to say some things that may be a little more shock value than necessarily substantive to get attention. I hope that that does not happen tonight. I really hope that everyone is comfortable, they're relaxed, they are conversational and they don't look overproduced.

I think you run into a problem with that on these kinds of debate stages. Because you have to remember, this is basically the first time the American people are really seeing a lot of these candidates for the first time in prime time. And this can be - make or break a situation. I mean Robert may remember. He might have been there in 1960 when Kennedy and Nixon debated. The difference of that - that the visuals can - can make in a debate like this. I mean Nixon was sweaty, he was underweight, he was sickly compared to Kennedy, who was calm, cool and collected and handsome. At people who watched TV at the time, 88 percent of Americans had television then, people who watched that debate thought that Kennedy won. The people who listened to the debate thought that Nixon won.

BANFIELD: Ha-ha.

SETMAYER: So the (INAUDIBLE) in how you present (INAUDIBLE) present can make a difference.

ZIMMERMAN: I was a - I was a little young for - I was a little young for that debate, Tara.

BANFIELD: I wasn't at that debate, but I can tell you, there was a lot about makeup.

SETMAYER: I don't know, you might have had a front row seat.

BANFIELD: Makeup was an issue. Nixon wouldn't wear makeup and Kennedy did and that made a big difference.

SETMAYER: Yes. But the point is - right.

ZIMMERMAN: But this is so much bigger than makeup and appearance and -

SETMAYER: But - absolutely. But that was the first debate. But, unfortunately, it's a - because it's a visual medium, like I said, how you present can matter.

BANFIELD: Ys.

SETMAYER: A lot of people, because there's so many of them, people are going to remember how they felt, how people looked, more than what they necessarily say unless we have an oops moment like Rick Perry had.

BANFIELD: So -

ZIMMERMAN: Well, you know, I think - I -

BANFIELD: Go ahead, Bob.

ZIMMERMAN: I think - I think it's much bigger than that. Sure you have to have the right appearance and you've got to - you've got to be presentable. And, yes, they're going to be attacking Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. What will be interesting to see is, can they move beyond their advocating legislation to deport undocumented workers, propose - they're proposing ideas to discriminate against the gay and lesbian community, they're opposed to the middle income - raising the minimum wage. But what are they for? That will be the question. It's not enough to say that you're going to have Mexico build - build a wall and they're going to thank you for it. You have to get - I think the American people are demanding real answers from these candidates and real alternative ideas.

BANFIELD: I have to - I have to leave it there, but I love you both.

SETMAYER: I hope so.

BANFIELD: And this is going to be fun.

ZIMMERMAN: Great.

BANFIELD: You hope I love you or you hope - we're on delay. That was cute, Tara.

ZIMMERMAN: I hope you both love me.

BANFIELD: Tara and Robert, have fun tonight. I know you will.

SETMAYER: Of course, Robert.

ZIMMERMAN: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: And we're going to talk to you tomorrow.

SETMAYER: Thanks.

BANFIELD: Both of you, thanks so much.

Hey, by the way, for the latest on the debate, you can just check on our website, cnnpolitics.com. There's just a plethora of everything that you'll love there.

But coming up next, can Donald Trump take a joke? Because if he can't, a very well-timed zinger could actually score a knockout for one of his rivals. So what do you suppose some of those punch lines might be in the drafting room right now? I've got a sneak peek for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)