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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Discussion Of Donald Trump's Proposed Ban On Muslims; Trump's Call For Muslim Ban Sparks Outrage; CNN Presents: Killing John Lennon. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 08, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:33:48] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: this furor over Trump's call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States raises a fundamental question. It may be an incendiary idea, and certainly a radical one, but that's not necessarily legal or illegal. Is it legal?

I want to talk about that with Paul Callan, our CNN legal analyst and Avery Friedman who is a law professor and civil rights attorney.

So I know that you both have different views on whether this is legal or not, whether it's constitutional and there's everything has been raised from the 5th amendment to the 1st amendment to the equal protection clause 14th amendment.

I'll start with you Paul, layout the case and whether Donald Trump legally could institute a ban on all Muslims coming to the United States.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you know, I want to make it clear first of all that I think it's an idiotic proposal, and that frankly, it would never accomplish what he wants.

How do you know what a person is thinking, and really, and what their religion is. However, if you want to look just at the question of constitutionality, there's nothing in the constitution that doesn't says the U.S. doesn't have the right to regulate its borders.

Now, I'm not talking about American citizens coming back into the United States, I'm talking about nationals of other countries they get screened for a wide variety of purposes. And the courts have generally given administrations a pretty free rein on how screening of people coming into the country is handled.

[12:35:10] So I'm not sure, and frankly, you're not going to find case law on this because nobody has been crazy enough to make a proposal that we would screen out particular religions. And you can go back by the way...

AVERY FRIEDMAN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: bingo. CALLAN: To the Chinese Exclusion Act, there was an 1903 act in which you couldn't let imbeciles idiots and polygamists into the United States.

Now that was held to be constitutional in 1903. However, we're now in a very different age. So I don't know what the court would do, OK. I rest my case.

BANFIELD: Being an idiot is not a religion. It's just how some people call politicians idiots in fact.

So Avery, jump in on this argument, and I'm just noticing a few things that you said with regard to this.

Look -- you can make an argument, you can make an argument that when you are on the other side of the customs and border patrol, you're not on American territory, and you do not enjoy the constitutional liberties and freedoms of this country.

FRIEDMAN: Yeah, yeah the difficulty is that in all of the precedents that exist in interpreting the constitution of the United States, no court has ever held that you can bar people based on their religion, their place of origin, their national origin for example. But based on religion, it is wildly unconstitutional, and let me tell you something in the unfortunate event that Donald Trump ever became president and we saw an executive order like this, that executive order would be shutdown so fast, Ashleigh, that it would make your head spin.

And I sound like Donald Trump using an expression like that. But a temporary restraining order would be granted immediately, because you cannot employ under the first amendment considerations of religion in governmental authority, there is no way an executive order like that could ever be held to be constitutional.

CALLAN: Well the first amendment has been applied to people in other countries. And just to give you an example is to how complex this field is, the U.S. has something called the visa waiver program where certain countries on the list they can get in if they just have a passport from that country.

Now, if that country, let say Australia bans you from coming to the U.S., the U.S. has to honor that even if it would be unconstitutional in the U.S. So it's a very complex field of law in the United States.

BANFIELD: I have to leave there guys unfortunately, I wish I had more time. But, you know, this is a whole year of Conlaw, I wish I taken it.

FRIEDMAN: We got plenty to go.

BANFIELD: Paul Callan, Avery, I wish I had gone to law school in fact.

Paul Callan, Avery Friedman...

CALLAN: There's still time.

BANFIELD: It's good to have you both thank you so much appreciate it.

FRIEDMAN: Thanks Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And Donald Trump's Muslim ban is not going over so well in the United States. And you've heard a lot of that reaction. But as you can imagine, the global community is even louder, there is a lot of outrage. And some of the outrage is actually just total and utter surprise.

People don't think it is true because it's so off the rails. Here what they're having to say, next.

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[12:42:30] BANFIELD: Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from temporarily entering the United States is certainly triggering a lot of strong are reaction here in the United States but also overseas as well from Egypt to Indonesia.

People say his comments are dangerous that they are divisive and that they are down right disgusting.

Here is some reaction from people in the United Arab Emirates.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is racist, yes. They are saying that Muslims are racist, no? They refuse other religions. He is refusing a religion, so he is himself a terrorist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you will ban all Muslims that mean in my mind that religion of the Muslim, and the Muslim people they are all bad.

And this -- and they are not. Of course, of course not.

BANFIELD: I want to bring in our Global Affairs Analyst Bobby Ghosh, he's also managing editor at Quartz.

I want to get your reaction to this, but first and foremost, because if Donald Trump's supporters don't care when Americans are outraged they're certainly not going to care when folks overseas are outraged?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: No, they're not. But it is instructive to look at the eyes of the rest of the world, because America matter so much in the affairs of the world.

And during of course of these past few months, I've had the opportunity to travel to many places around the world. And pretty much most conversations I have with people once they know I'm from New York is, what's the deal with Donald Trump.

And for the longest time it was out of sort of amused or bemused curiosity, is this guy for real? Surely, you can't be serious, this is just a kind of the sort of clown or court jester, and he'll go away once the political process got seriously. But more recently, it began to get much more serious, and people have gone from being amused to being concerned, anxious and a little worried.

I was just in Iran, I just got back from Iran and I can tell you almost every conversation I had with Iranians, as soon as, you know, I finished interviewing them, they turned around and started interview me.

And the first question was always some variation of what is the deal with Donald Trump? Can it possibly be true that that man has this poll numbers, is it possible that that many Americans support his views and might vote for him?

BANFIELD: So does it seem like that, I mean because a lot of people...

GHOSH: ... from outside.

BANFIELD: ... it's a core group with small supporters that definitely support him, and yet you have these poll numbers.

GHOSH: That's right.

BANFIELD: So does the international community think that the entire country is going out to these rallies and supporting this sort of ideology?

[12:45:02] GHOSH: They are looking at the images, they're looking at the numbers and they are seeing the numbers grow. And they're seeing that it's not just Donald Trump, they're looking at numbers that say, you know, I don't know, 70-odd percent of the -- of Republicans believe that Islam is not compatible with American value.

You know, those kinds of numbers taken on top of Donald Trump paint a very scary picture. And if you're looking from a distance you might not have the sophistication, you might not have all the information to know that this is not the majority view in the country. He is the one shouting the loudest, and therefore he gets heard most.

I mean a couple of people in Iran, and I'm not being snarky here, this is a real quote and a couple of people, different people in Iran said to me, "That guy makes Ahmadinejad look like an intellectual."

And I laughed at the time. But this was before the most -- his most recent report.

BANFIELD: I mean these are the kinds of things that so ironic that, you know, people living in Iran suffer under these kinds of demagoguery.

GHOSH: That's right. They know from demagoguery.

BANFIELD: They know what it is like to be, you know, have a hood thrown over your head and be thrown into the gulag so that you can be questioned. So the fact that they don't sort of identify or the fact that they find it amusing, has it switched from amusement to concern, fear, and then perhaps backlash. I mean will this create a lot of enemies?

GHOSH: Well they'll be a backlash, if he actually gets elected.

BANFIELD: But perception is reality, and if they think most Americans feel this way, will this create more enemies?

GHOSH: Well, I'm sure, again, you pick up anecdotally from friends, American friends who live abroad. They're getting more and more questions now. They're not yet encountering hostility from people, because they are -- there's still a perception that ordinary Americans are different from the political hint.

Thank goodness for that. But the more people start seeing these giant rallies with Donald Trump and people are cheering him on, perceptions will change.

BANFIELD: I'm glad that you made it back from Iran safely, not all reporters do.

GHOSH: I'm afraid that's true.

BANFIELD: And it's a sign of the times when reporters can be roughed up, or can be jailed, and, you know, that's a very sad statement. But I'm glad you're here. And thanks your perspective on that, Bobby. Appreciate it, as always, Bobby Ghosh.

GHOSH: Thanks Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Thirty-five years ago today, hard to believe it, John Lennon was murdered right here down the street from where I'm sitting, New York City.

I got a preview of a CNN special report that's in -- that shed some chilly new light on his killer, next.

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[12:51:48] BANFIELD: A single word can evoke the memory of one of history's foremost singer/song writers, imagine. It can only John Lennon, nobody else. And it is hard to imagine that he was murdered 35 years ago today, gunned down in front of his New York apartment by Mark David Chapman. The demons that led Chapman to kill Lennon are explored in the CNN special report "Killing John Lennon" airing tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern time. Have a look.

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KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Would Mark play the same song over and over again?

VANCE HUNTER, MARK DAVID CHAPMAN BEST FRIEND: Yes, sometimes. One evening I came up to see him after dinner, and he was in his room, and the strangest thing is that he had the volume cranked up all of the way, and he was laying on the floor with the two speakers by each ear, turned up as loud as it could go.

PHILLIPS: And as the Beatles started to get into drugs, so did Chapman, and eventually LSD. His hallucinations so intense that Vance says, at one point mark said that he was John Lennon.

HUNTER: He was psychotic. He had become a complete areally different person.

PHILLIPS: Chapman became delusional.

HUNTER: Jesus had talked to him.

PHILLIPS: And what did Jesus tell him?

HUNTER: And Jesus told him to change his ways.

MILES MCMANUS, MARK DAVID CHAPMAN BEST FRIEND: And he change and he decided, you know, on religion, he didn't go to church on Sunday and try to live a better life, he just became a what he call the "Jesus freak."

PHILLIPS: But that became a problem says, his high school friend Miles McManus when Chapman discovered an old quote by John Lennon famously proclaiming the Beatles are more popular than Jesus.

MCMANUS: He was very mad about it, and he would not listen to Beetles records anymore, and he destroyed the record album, and even changed the words of "Imagine" to say imagine if John were dead.

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BANFIELD: I love this woman.

PHILLIPS: Their feeling is mutual.

BANFIELD: You show up with the greatest stuff.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

BANFIELD: You bring it and you have brought it in this one. I think even if you are not a Beatles fan, the tapes that you got your hands on Mark to David Chapman owns words, not only his voice that is writing his inner most spot. This stuff is incredible.

PHILLIPS: Well, it was chilling because you're hearing him talk about killing John Lennon and why he killed John Lennon and his obsession, but here's what interesting is that he just wanted to be famous. He wasn't just fixated on John Lennon, he talked about killing Johnny Carson, Elizabeth Taylor and George C. Scott, but when he went through that "Jesus freak" stage as you heard, you know, high school friends mentioned.

He heard John Lennon say that at one point the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

BANFIELD: And that was the trigger. PHILLIPS: And that was the trigger point. He was obsess, he though he was a phony, he hatted him, he was angry and boy he focused on killing John Lennon and he did everything he needed to do to reach that point.

BANFIELD: So here we're 35 years later, and it still -- I mean, look, you can go over the Strawberry fields and they'll be somebody of there taking a photograph right now, right?

PHILLIPS: Oh, yeah. It's phenomenal.

[12:55:04] BANFIELD: The fixation of the public on all things related to not just his life, his marriage, his music but his dead, and his killer. It's pretty remarkable.

PHILLIPS: Everybody with whom I interviewed cried or teared up. The doctor in the emergency room that saw his lifeless body and had to tell Yoko Ono that her husband was dead, and the woman who did the last interview with him, you know, just days before he died. The police officer that came to the scene saw him bleeding out, knew that an ambulance wouldn't make it there in time, threw him over his shoulder and throw him in the back of the police car to try and get him to the hospital to save his life. It's still impacts, not only fans but those that were there.

BANFIELD: It was amazing. It so great and I think it's up for parole ever so often and it's always.

PHILLIPS: He gets denied.

BANFIELD: Not a chance. Kyra Phillips, thank you so much. Special report "Killing John Lennon" airs tonight. Like we said 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Kyra Phillips knows her stuff. Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Thanks for watching everyone. John Berman is filing in for Wolf Blitzer who's coming up after the break. Wolf's on assignment, you're going to be in great hands with Berman. We'll see tomorrow.

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