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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Carter Reveals Cancer Diagnosis; David Sweat In Court; Trump Talks Economy, Immigration and Military. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 20, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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


[12:00:08] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

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

We're going to begin with breaking news about President Jimmy Carter. He's lived a long life in the public eye, and President Carter sees no need to change that now. This morning, the 39th president of the United States held a news conference unlike anything you've seen before, laying bare his diagnosis of melanoma on the brain, professing his ease at starting cancer treatments at the age of 90, recalling the best thing he ever did - and here's a hint, it is not politics - and declaring his hopes for doing more for the Carter Center and for Habitat for Humanity. The former president was unabashed, personal, sometimes emotional and sometimes even funny despite the news. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: In May I went down to Ghana (ph) to help monitor an election. And I had a very bad cold. And I left down there and came back to Emory. So they checked me over. And in the process, they did a complete physical examination and an MRI showed that there was a cancer or growth, a tumor, on my liver. And they did a PET scan, and that kind of lights up a bad place, and it lit up. So they were pretty sure that there was a cancer before they operated on August the 3rd and removed it.

The tumor was only about two and a half cubic centimeters but they removed about 85 cubic centimeters, which is about a tenth of my liver. And they did a biopsy and found out it was indeed cancer and it was melanoma. And they had a very high suspicion then and now that the melanoma started somewhere else on my body and spread to the liver. The doctors tell me that about 98 percent of all the melanoma is skin cancer, and about 2 percent of the melanomas are internal.

So then I came back up here after that and they did a biopsy and found that - I think they did an MRI and found that there were four spots of melanoma on my brain. They are fairly small spots, about 2 millimeters, if you can envision what a millimeter is. And I'll get my first radiation treatment for the melanoma in my brain this afternoon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So the president said that he's never despaired, even when his liver surgery proved not to be the cure that he was hoping for. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: At first I - I felt that it was confined to my liver and that they had - the operation had completely removed it. And so I felt quite relieved. And then that same afternoon we had an MRI of my head and neck and it showed up that it was already in four places in my brain. So I would say that night and the next day, until I came back up to Emory, I just thought I had a few weeks left. But I was surprisingly at ease. You know, I've had a wonderful life. I've had thousands of friends and I've had an exciting and adventurous and gratifying existence. So I was surprisingly at ease, much more so than my wife was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: That wife he's talking about, Mrs. Carter. The former president certainly couldn't help speaking about Mrs. Carter, especially when the questions turned to legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: Well, the best thing I ever did was marrying Rosalynn. That's the pinnacle of my life. And we've had 69 years together. Still together. And so that's the best thing that happened to me. But I think getting involved in politics and going up, you know, as a state senator, then governor, and then president of the United States is, obviously a glorious event. So - and we have a growing family. We have 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, 12 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren now and they're coming every year. So - so we have a good, harmonious family. And I would say the haven for our lives have been - has been in Plains, Georgia. I plan to teach Sunday school this Sunday and every Sunday as long as I'm, you know, physically and mentally able in my church. And we have hundreds of visitors who come to see the curiosity of a politician teaching the Bible. So - so I'll continue that. So I've just had a lot of pleasures.

[12:05:07] QUESTION: And anything you wish and sorry that you had not done or that you'd done differently?

CARTER: I wish I sent one more helicopter to get the hostages and we would have rescued then and I - I would have been re-elected, but that may have - and that may have interfered with the foundation of the Carter Center. And if I had to choose between four more years and the Carter Center, I think I would choose the Carter Center.

QUESTION: Thank you.

CARTER: It could have been both.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I love the fact that he said, could have been both, at the end. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta is with me live. And I'll remind you, Sanjay is a brain surgeon himself, practicing. He's at that news conference. He's at the Carter Presidential Center now in Atlanta. Dr. Gupta, I want you to help me sort through what I think has a lot

of people confounded, and that is these four spots of melanoma, and as the president said, on his brain. I think a lot of people think melanoma is on the skin, but can you sort this out?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, this is - it was a bit of a surprise. And I should point out that nobody really knew this until President Carter said that. No one besides his doctors and his family. What - what it really means is that the melanoma, which likely started on his skin, although can sometimes start elsewhere within - inside the body, had spread. It spread to the live. That was the operation he had back on August 3rd. And as he revealed today, it has spread to his brain.

He said they are very small lesions on the brain. Four very small lesions. He said he's going to get radiation therapy for them. I will tell you, Ashleigh, the size of the lesions really don't matter that much. It's just a question of the fact that the melanoma has now spread and that - that's going to be the focus of the treatment, to try and kill this melanoma wherever it is in his body.

BANFIELD: He's - he's going to be 91 in October. And I heard you earlier on CNN explaining that the mask like treatment - because it's targeted radiation, as I understand it, almost like radiation surgery, so to speak. But he - you know, at 91, look, he is remarkable. We can see him. He's like no other 91-year-old I know in that news conference. But 91 is 91. How will he be, do you think, in terms of dealing with the aggressive kinds of treatment that you have to deal with when it's cancer?

GUPTA: Yes, you know, it's an important question, Ashleigh, a tough one to answer. You come to the news conference, he looked good. He's wearing jeans. You know, he sits down, makes a few jokes, starts answering questions, doesn't look at a note. And I bring that all up to basically say, look, there - you know, there's 90 years old in terms of your chronological age. That's important. But I think what doctors and everyone sort of think more about is physiological age, what kind of shape is he? There are 90-year-olds who are more like 60- year-olds and vice versa.

So it's going to be a tough treatment. In addition that radiation treatment on his brain, he's getting a type of chemotherapy drug, a new one that was just approved in September of last year, that basically helps boost his immune system to allow his immune system to better fight this cancer. He already started that treatment. He said he had some side effects from that, including a little bit of shoulder pain, joint pain is common with this. These are the details that he's going to be dealing with, I think, over the next several months.

But look, you know, I'll tell you, Ashleigh, he wanted to go to Katmandu this fall, fly to Katmandu, take a puddle hopper than to a southern place in Nepal and build houses. And he said, you know, I'm still planning on doing this unless the radiation therapy is happening at the exact same time of my trip. So that gives you an idea of sort of the optimism he has around this. But it's going to be tough on him, like it would be on anybody, even somebody much younger. BANFIELD: I took that trip when I was 23, and I'm telling you right

now, it was arduous for me. It would be almost impossible for me now. He is just a - he's a remarkable person, a remarkable former president. And just the amount of grace, Sanjay, I'm sure you felt -

GUPTA: Yes.

BANFIELD: It even more profoundly than we did on - you know, watching it on television.

Sanjay, thank you.

GUPTA: Yes, Ashleigh, thank you.

BANFIELD: Always good to have Sanjay Gupta and his expertise.

Coming up next, he is already serving a life sentence, so how on earth does David Sweat pay the price for an escape from a New York state prison. Let's not forget, I guess they're saying he's not yet guilty either, right? Because that's not adjudicated. Nonetheless, he was hauled into court just a few minutes ago to find out. We'll update you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:12:38] BANFIELD: Well, he certainly didn't have much to lose when he pulled that Hollywood-style prison break back in June, but after 22 days on the lam, a hospital stay for a gunshot wound and a transfer to a brand-new, different New York prison, Mr. David Sweat is just beginning the process of payback. A little while ago, Sweat appeared in an upstate New York courtroom to be arraigned on a number of charges arising from that escape with fellow convict Richard Matt, who did not fare so well. He's dead. Here is the Clinton County district attorney on the whole matter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW WYLIE, CLINTON COUNTY, NY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: The maximum sentences that the court could impose for David Sweat on these charges is a three and a half to seven-year indeterminate sentence, on the promoting prison contraband, all three are class d felonies, so it is, once again, a three and a half to seven-year indeterminate sentence. Those sentences, the escape and promoting prison contraband could be imposed consecutive to each other. The sentences then whole (ph) would have to be imposed consecutive to the sentence that Mr. Sweat is currently serving. We all know that's a life without parole sentence at this point in time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So if they do the math, if you go max, seven, and then consecutive another seven, that's 14. And you add the 14 to the consecutive life, that's life plus 14. Life plus 14.

Alexandra Field is live in Plattsburgh, New York, right now. I want to get to the whole weirdness of tacking 14-ish years potentially onto a life without parole sentence. But first, the elephant in the room. He walked in there with his right arm in a sling, and it made me wonder if that's a new injury or if that's a two-month-old injury from that escape.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we were actually told that that did happen during the capture. We know that he took two gunshots to the torso when he was captured walking near the Canadian border. And we're told that his arm was in the sling and also in that brace because he is still recovering from those injuries. But at the same time, his wrists were definitely shackled, he had a shackle around his waist, around his legs, under very close watch, Ashleigh, as he made his return for the first time to Clinton County, the very county that he had escaped from.

And I know you raised this good question, why go through this process? Why, you know, issue these charges? Even if he's convicted, he would serve this concurrent to the life sentence. What's the point of all this? Well, that's the question we've been asking the district attorney and he says it pretty simply. He says it's his jurisdiction. The crime was committed in his jurisdiction. It's his responsibility to prosecute those crimes.

[12:15:13] But to get more to the point here, this really has a lot to do with what David Sweat's life will be like. He's only 35 years old. We know that he's been sentenced to serve life in prison. But what he's doing right now is very different from the way that he was living over on the honor block. Remember, when he had the hot plate and the privileges and the jobs, things like that.

BANFIELD: Sure do.

FIELD: Well, right now he's being kept in solitary confinement. And, Ashleigh, the D.A. says that these convictions could help the Department of Corrections to continually ensure that Mr. Sweat is being given the most maximum and serious conditions of confinement as he serves out his term.

BANFIELD: Oh, I think the actual euphemism is this, and I'm going to quote D.A. Andrew Wylie when he said, "this could result in the Department of Corrections treating him in a more severe way." But do we know effectively how long he could end up in that kind of special housing, which is another euphemism for stuck in a box for 23 hours a day for years and years on end?

FIELD: Right, they call it special housing or shoe, this small box, 105 feet, something like that, that he's in 23 hours a day. This can go on for years and years and years and years, Ashleigh. This is something that the Department of Corrections can continue to evaluate, they continue to monitor, and they continue to ensure that somebody is sentenced for that kind of time. So there is no time limit on how long he would be in this special housing.

We know that separate from the criminal charges that are happening in this county, there has also been the internal disciplinary process, which is happening at Five Points Prison, where David Sweat is staying now, and that's when they review the incidents, the escape that has happened here, and they try to determine the appropriate conditions of confinement.

BANFIELD: Yes.

FIELD: So certainly, again, you can't underscore it enough. We know that his life at Five Points is quite different from the way that he was incarcerated in Dannemora.

BANFIELD: He's probably going to have some trouble cozying up to guards from here on in too because two of the former ones are dealing with their own nice legal troubles after, you know, falling victim to his friendliness.

Alexandra Field, thank you. Nice to see you. A windy day for Alexandra out there.

Coming up next, just when you thought that you'd heard it all from Donald Trump, a CNN interview taking on the issues that you want to hear about and a few unexpected topics, too.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:59] BANFIELD: Donald Trump keeps on gaining in the polls and now he's even leading in the state of Florida. Yes, Florida, which, you know, happens to be Jeb Bush territory, also Marco Rubio territory. Home states, in fact. Businessman turned reality star turned politician is on the cover of "Time" magazine and on the cover of "The Hollywood Reporter" and CNN's Chris Cuomo has a brand-new interview with Donald Trump where he tackles the economy and immigration and the military.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, ANCHOR, CNN'S "NEW DAY": When you think about ISIS and what you do to stop them, how much of it for you is about the military? How much of it for you is about doing other things, political things, to strengthen the regions that they're preying upon?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think a lot of it is about the military. And I think one of the things I noticed in your poll, I came out way, way ahead of everybody on the economy and a lot of people weren't surprised to see that. But I also came way out ahead on the military. And I think -

CUOMO: And ISIS specifically.

TRUMP: And ISIS. I think that I will be a great sleeper on the military, because people wouldn't think it's my strength, but I think it would be one of my strengths. I want to build up our military. I want to have such an incredible military that nobody is going to play games with us, nobody is going to mess with us, and hopefully we won't ever have to use our military.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BANFIELD: Joining me now to talk about CNN's latest interview with Donald Trump is his former senior political adviser Roger Stone, who was also an adviser in a couple of other famous campaigns, Nixon and Reagan.

Welcome. Thanks so much for joining me.

ROGER STONE, FORMER SENIOR POLITICAL ADVISER TO DONALD TRUMP: It's nice to be here.

BANFIELD: I want to ask you a little bit about this last comment on the military.

STONE: Sure.

BANFIELD: It's not the first time Donald Trump has talked about taking the oil, putting boots on the ground to circle those oil fields that - that America takes (ph). He added to that saying, I would give the soldiers, the fallen soldiers' families lots of money in order to accommodate for the boots on the ground which may not go so well. Everybody knows you, Donald Trump, everybody out there knows there is little to no appetite in this country for sending American people, in boots, over to those places anymore. Is this part of a script? Is this Donald making it up as he goes along? Why on earth would anybody suggest for a moment that this is good policy, going into debates where they're going to pick him apart on it?

STONE: Well, but you're talking about politics and he's talking about policy. In other words, this is the concept of peace through strength. A military so strong, so dynamic, so capable that our adversaries will have to think twice about challenging the United States. The last time we had that was under Ronald Reagan.

Secondarily, he is not talking about doing what's politically popular, he's talking about doing what is right. Many Americans are ready for a muscular foreign policy that projects American power in a more appropriate and more efficient way. So Trump recognizes the dire danger of ISIS. He's not going to telegraph for them to see what his strategy is. It's like -

BANFIELD: He just did.

STONE: Well, no, but -

BANFIELD: We're going to take the oil fields. We're going to circle them with our soldiers.

STONE: Well, but in the Obama administration, we actually announce that we're going to start the bombing on Tuesday -

BANFIELD: Yes.

STONE: It will go until Wednesday afternoon. And we're only - we're only going to deliver so many bombs. I don't think he's going to telegraph his punches. I have no doubt about this, Donald Trump chooses excellent people. He will find his George Patten. He will find the very best people in our military and he'll rebuild our strength.

BANFIELD: Let me play another quick sound bite in Chris' interview with Donald, and it was about this notion of the birthright citizenship, the revocation, the challenges to the 14th Amendment in the Constitution.

STONE: Yes.

BANFIELD: We'll have a listen and talk about it on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Number one, the 14th Amendment is very questionable as to whether or not somebody can come over, have a baby and immediately that baby is a citizen, OK?

CUOMO: I know. The court has pretty much said that it reads in (ph) immigrants there -

TRUMP: You're right. Well -

CUOMO: This is a minority legal opinion you're talking about.

TRUMP: Chris, there are many people that totally feel that -

CUOMO: They may want it that way.

TRUMP: Because I don't - look, amending is too big a deal. It's going to take - it would be two terms. I'd be in my second term, on my eighth year by the time, assuming everything went smoothly, because to amend the Constitution -

CUOMO: It takes a long time, especially on a very divisive issue.

TRUMP: Look, I believe - I believe you can win it legally, OK? I believe you can win it legally. And, in any event, the parents have to leave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:25:05] BANFIELD: I'm looking at you as you're listening to that while - and you were smiling. You were grinning ear to ear when he made the comment about, it would happen in my second term, in my eighth year.

STONE: Yes, well that's - that' - that's the Trump confidence.

BANFIELD: Yes.

STONE: I mean, first of all, he's not wrong about the 14th Amendment. It was written -

BANFIELD: I beg to differ with you on that.

STONE: Well, I understand that but there -

BANFIELD: Without question. Subject to the jurisdiction whereof, very vague.

STONE: Different - different - right, differing legal interpretations at a minimum. But the politics of this are brilliant. Here's why. First of all, we now know that el Chapo sent his wife here to have a baby in the United States so he has an anchor baby. The famous Mexican drug lord. A perfect example of why this has to be dealt with.

America cannot afford the social costs of this influx of illegals who come here to have a baby so they become a citizen, they're now eligible for Social Security, and welfare and so on. So Trump has identified a hot button issue. It's why, by the way, that he is first in the polls and gaining.

BANFIELD: Can I ask you something?

STONE: Certainly.

BANFIELD: I'm always confounded by this. Donald Trump seems to be popular among people because he says it like it is. He's not like every other politician who has a script -

STONE: Yes.

BANFIELD: That goes by the talking points, that adheres to the conservative principles and needs the backing of the conservative party, and yet he's just like all the other politicians in over delivering these wild promises that are not necessarily feasible, in flip-flopping certain opinions a lot. How is that not - I mean this is incongruous, it seems.

STONE: Yes, I - well, I agree with the first part of what you said and I disagree with the second part. The truth is, I think voters see in Trump someone who, like Reagan, speaks to broader themes and bigger picture issues. He's not going to get down in the weeds with a 40- point plan like, say, President Gingrich did. That didn't work out very well.

In Trump's case, he is - he is expressing what people think, particularly the people within the Republican Party, where there is an enormous frustration with the system. Voters think the system is broken. They think the system is controlled by special interests and lobbyists. They're right about that. And they see in Trump someone with the passion and the can-do attitude. What they don't like is politicians who say, oh, it can't be done. You can't build the wall. You can't build a veterans health care system. You can't revive the economy. It's too complicated. We can't get back manufacturing jobs. Trump says, yes, we can. We can do all of those things.

BANFIELD: Well, wait a minute, that was another campaign promise, "yes, we can." Are you saying he's adopting that one?

STONE: Well, you know what I'm saying.

BANFIELD: Gotcha. Roger Stone, always good to have you. Will you come back?

STONE: Certainly.

BANFIELD: And I love your suit.

STONE: Thank you.

BANFIELD: I absolutely love it. Thank you.

Coming up next hour, Republican presidential candidate and former New York governor, George Pataki, is going to sit down with Wolf Blitzer for a brand-new live interview.

And just a reminder, CNN is going to host three Republican debates. The first one taking place this September. Mark your calendar. Then in October, we're going to host the first Democratic presidential debate. Stay with CNN for the very latest on the race for the White House.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)