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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

New Poll: Bernie Sanders Gains On Hillary Clinton In Iowa; GOP Presidential Hopeful Scott Walker Says It Is "Legitimate" To Discuss U.S.-Canada Wall; Chris Christie Suggests Tracking Illegal Immigrants Like FedEx; Kanye West Announces He Will Run For President In 2020; Pimps "Branding" Girls With Tattoos; France Won't Confirm Piece Of Plane Came From Malaysia 370; "Flaperon" Washed Ashore On Island In Indian Ocean; Grieving Parents Remember Murdered Daughter. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired August 31, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:32:52] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The brand new poll, are showing some really big gains for Ben Carson in the Republican primary race in Iowa.

Within the past hour, a Monmouth University poll is likely Republican caucus goers puts Carson a dead heat with Donald Trump. Take a look. We're not talking about, you know, the margin of error, we're talking about an actual number.

And all of this after the Des Moines Register had these numbers. A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll showing Carson gaining on Trump that still in second place and well within a margin too.

We're also seeing changes on the Democratic side in the Des Moines Register poll. Bernie Sanders now within seven points of the former senator, former first lady and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In fact given the poll's margin of error here, this is a virtual dead heat.

On CNN's state of the union, the Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders explained his appeal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're generating enormous enthusiasm. People do not understand why the middle-class of this country is collapsing at the same time as almost all of the new income and wealth is going for the top 1 percent. People do not like the idea that as a result of Citizens United, our campaign finance system has become corrupt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: CNN by the way, is going to host the next Republican debate it is set for September the 16th. The candidates will gather at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. Mark your calendar.

By the way, we're also going to host the first of six democratic debates, that's going to happen October 13th so while you're at the Republican calendar entry, mark October 13th for the Democratic one too, right here on CNN.

Got some other political headlines for you today as well and they're great.

Republican Presidential Candidate Scott Walker says a discussion about building a wall between the United States and wait for it, Canada. United States and Canada is "Legitimate."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R-WI), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: People have asked us about that New Hampshire. They've raised a very legitimate concerns including some law enforcement folks, that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that is a legitimate issue for this to look at.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:35:01] BANFIELD: And the reason I laugh is because I have to give you the disclaimer, I'm Canadian. I came over legally. So I want you to know that.

By the way if you're wondering about the numbers, the border between the U.S. and Canada is the world's longest border 5,500 miles. That is more than twice as long as the U.S. border with Mexico.

I will say, though, very nice people up there, very, very nice.

Another GOP candidate, Chris Christie, has a novel idea for keeping track of the immigrants. Tracking them like FedEx packages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R-NJ) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And at any moment FedEx can tell you where that package is. It's on the truck. It's at the station. It's on the airplane. It's back in another station. It's back on the truck, it's at our doorstep, she just signs for it.

Yet, we let people come to this country with visas and the minute they come in we lose track of them. We can't -- so here's what I'm going to do as president. I'm going ask Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, come work for the government for three months.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Kind of hard to keep those stickers on, though, I'll tell you they always peel off my skin.

Speaking to Fox News yesterday, the New Jersey governor tried to walk back those comments a little bit. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: What my point was, was that this is once again a situation where the private sector laps us in the government with the use of technology. Let's use the same type technology to make sure that 40 percent of the 11 million people here illegally don't overstay their visas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So Christie is also saying by the way that the debate over so-called anchor babies is making his party look hostile to immigration. And he says his party just wants immigrants to do it "The right way."

And apparently it is never too early to declare that you are running for president in 2020 already has a candidate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KANYE WEST, ENTERTAINER: And, yes, as you probably could have guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020 to run for president.

BANFIELD: Yeah, Kanye West says he's in. He's running for president in 2020 making the announcements live on last night's MTV video music awards. It's a good place to do it, you need young voters.

It's worth noting that West admitted he may have smoked "A little something" before declaring, seemed to go over very well nonetheless with the crowd. Can't wait for that, some speech.

Still ahead this hour. We've got a team working very hard on a CNN Freedom Project.

Innocent victims of despicable crimes scarred in more ways than one. Actual scars inflicted to identify people.

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[12:41:46] BANFIELD: I want to bring your attention to an eye-opening look at child sex trafficking. This is a part of our investigative series called, "The CNN Freedom Project" giving voices to the victims of modern day slavery.

You maybe aware this is a crime. It's taking place around the world. But do you know that it is perhaps even happening in your city?

Our Sara Sidner went on a police patrol in Los Angeles finding one girl after another literally branded with tattoos from their pimps.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON FISHERS, SERGEANT, LAPD VAN NUYS: There's two girls standing on the corner up here monitoring traffic so they're aggressively hitting up cars out here in the street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So over to, over to. They're there. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a good shot of it right now. Both of them can go so if we can all burn on this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, you heard it boys, let's go.

SARA SIDNER, CNN REPORTER: They've been called all sorts of names over the years, from ladies of the night to prostitutes. But when they're underage, police now have a different name for them.

LILLIAN CARRANZA, CAPTAIN, LOS ANGELES POLICE: We have come a long way in recognizing that these childrens are victims. They are not the suspects.

SIDNER: These days, one of the surest ways to tell that a person has been trafficked, the marks on their bodies.

FISHERS: The tattoos tell the story, if they've been around long enough.

SIDNER: On patrol with LAPD's Van Nuys vice unit, Sergeant Ron Fisher says, "It's common to see girls with brands that signify ownership."

FISHERS: The typical tattoos a pimp will use are dollar signs. They'll have a tattoo over the money bag. They'll have a crown that stands for the whole pimping thing.

SIDNER: Police say girls rarely come to them for help. Instead, it's when they get arrested that an intervention sometimes happens.

That is how this 15-year-old found a refugee from her trafficker. Vice cops getting her to a safe house called children of the night.

SIDNER: What were you afraid of?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was scared he might kill me or he might kill my dad because he always used threat like that and he takes gun with him. It was just gangs, gang relations. And -- so it was really hard to avoid him. I was scared.

SIDNER: At 13, when she should have been worried about home work, she was being branded, bought, and sold by a friend of her drug-addicted father.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't really know how to fix people because I was really young, and I had never had sex before.

SIDNER: So you were a virgin?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So -- and then he's like, he's going to teach you what to do and everything. And I just went with it. Because I thought, OK, this is the life-style I'm going to live for the rest of my life.

SIDNER: So she thought nothing of the tattoo he insisted on giving her -- his initials on her ankle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One day he was like "I tattoo all my girls." So they took out Indian ink and a needle and he just did it.

[12:45:02] SIDNER: The mark of slavery.

LOIS LEE, FOUNDER CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT: That's not the way kids see it. They belong to somebody. It's important to them. Someone is claiming me.

SIDNER: Anti-trafficking activist Lois Lee knows how they think. For more than 30 years, her organization, children of the night, has been a safe haven for sex-trafficked children. She says on the streets, new laws targeting sex traffickers have had some unintended consequences.

LEE: There's fewer children prostituting because the gangs control them and they can -- they serve less time for using them for other kinds of crimes so why would you use them for sex if you can get life in prison for 20, 40, 60, 80 years for torture and kidnapping. Go use them for a burglary, use them for carjacking, give them a gun. So you don't go to jail.

SIDNER: But the result is the same, the kids are stuck in a horrible life.

LEE: There should be a law that anyone who uses a child in any kind of crime suffers the same penalties as if they use them for human sex trafficking.

SIDNER: Lee says as horrible as that life may be, far too often the nightmare begins at home where girls are sexually abused or neglected, making life with a trafficker seem more alluring.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: CNN wants to help battle the scourge of modern-day slavery and you can read all about that effort. It's exhaustive, it's at cnn.com/freedom, just remarkable information for you there.

Remember how everyone was so hopeful to identify a piece of MH-370, that missing airliner, when part of an airplane wing washed to shore in the Indian Ocean about a month ago? And some people aren't quite so hopeful anymore. Why is that?

Richard Quest, joining me next with an update.

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[12:50:25] BANFIELD: It has been a month since what was believed to be a part of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 washed to shore on an island in the Indian Ocean. But some experts are now saying they can not confirm the piece of debris was actually from the missing MH-370.

The piece of the wing called the flaperon was taken to France for forensic testing and analysis. And while investigators have confirmed the piece is from a Boeing 777. They say more testing is needed to say with iron-clad confidence that this in fact, is a piece of MH-370.

CNN Aviation Correspondent Richard Quest is here with me now. It seems so strange to see this discrepancy when the officials in Malaysia were so confident just that almost upon hearing this flaperon wash to shore that they conclusively said it's a piece of evidence.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The Malaysian prime minister said according to the international experts, we can conclusively confirm that it's MH-370.

But almost within minutes the French prosecutor said -- he used the phrase "There's a strong possibility, strong likelihood."

And now, for the last month everybody's been trying to find an identifying mark that the usual word gives ironclad guarantee.

Now the actual serial number of the flaperon is not there, it's believed to have washed up. So what they've been looking at is other numbers, batch numbers, serial numbers within it relating to the Spanish company that manufactures it.

BANFIELD: Well okay, so, look, I'm a real novice when it comes to the intricacies of equipment and pieces manufactured all over the world. But wouldn't they have had plenty of time in the last month to find any of those other identifying marks and serial numbers, etc.?

QUEST: Well, the rumor is that this Spanish company doesn't have sufficient records. There is probably a number - there almost certainly there is a number in the flaperon. There's almost certainly a batch number in the flaperon.

BANFIELD: That will give us a definitive answer?

QUEST: And only if the Spanish company has a decent record. But the rumor is that the phrase that's around at the moment is insufficient evidence of record.

BANFIELD: So, you know, for everyone...

QUEST: This could be an embarrassing fiasco in terms of why the company who manufactured it does not have a decent paper trail that's enabling them to say, yes, that's where it came from.

BANFIELD: It was an embarrassing fiasco when the plane went missing with no trace. I mean it was embarrassing and was tragic and apart from the fact that the world followed the mystery, grippingly followed this mystery moment to moment.

There is still the whole notion that there are families out there who have no final answer on their mother, their brother, their daughter, their sons, their cousins, their loved ones, is there something to this apart from the emotional conclusion of this? The legal ramifications of linking this with absolute concrete hard evidence?

QUEST: No, because the treaty, the Montreal treaty which goes into the whole aspect of damages is quite clear-cut on this. There are allegations that you can get greater damages as a result of all of these. And -- but so far, this flaperon wouldn't tell them what happened anyway. This flaperon wouldn't tell them where and it wouldn't tell them why or how.

BANFIELD: It would tell it's crashed.

QUEST: And that's the significance.

BANFIELD: ... anything that we can tell these poor families at this point would be I mean who knows what they're going through at. We can never imagine what it's like to be in their shoes.

Richard, thank you for that keep us posted.

So, their daughter murdered live on television, ambushed along with her photographer as they worked.

Coming up, CNN exclusive, Alison Parker's parents on a young woman who was driven to be the best.

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[12:57:56] BANFIELD: We have heard from her father. But now the mother of Alison Parker is also speaking out in an exclusive interview.

They are remembering an ambitious and accomplished young woman who loved life. She is of course Alison Parker, 24-years-old, when she was gunned down on live television on Wednesday morning.

She along with photographer Adam Ward were just out covering the a story for WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia, something they did every morning, when the brutal ambush happened and riveted the nation and left her mother and her father with these horrible memories and indelible one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY PARKER, ALISON PARKER'S FATHER: Everything that she did, everything she touched, everything she -- every activity she picked up, you know, she excelled at everything.

I mean, she, you know, she wanted to be the best. I mean, she was just extremely competitive and whatever she did and maybe she, you know, I'm like her maybe she got that from me, from her dad because, you know, if I pick up a sport or if I pick up an activity and is you, you know, we'll talk about later.

You know, now with this mission, you know, I want to be the best and I always been that way and it just sort of was instilled in her that, you know, you go at it and, you know, thankfully she was just gifted, I mean she -- beyond belief. And she...

BARBARA PARKER, ALISON PARKER'S MOTHER: She was.

ANDY PARKER: She tutored calculus at James Madison University and, you know, how many journalism majors can tutor calculus? I mean it; it was that kind of thing. I mean, she was an incredible athlete. She was an incredible white water kayaker. But she was -- she just was not satisfied with just, you know, doing something. She wanted to be the best. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: She had a million-dollar smile. And so did Adam Ward. Look at that. He's going to be remembered tonight at a special gathering. His funeral is scheduled to take place tomorrow.

Thanks for watching, everyone. It's been nice to have you with us this hour.

Brianna Keilar, going to step in for Wolf, she gets started right now.

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