Return to Transcripts main page

Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Dow Plunges; Obama Gun Action; Clinton on Campaign Trail; Trump Campaign Ad; Protesters Seize Federal Building. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 04, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] MO ELLEITHOE, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, DNC: In the midst of impeachment, I don't think it's going to hurt him all these years later or hurt her.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Mo Elleithoe, Mike Shields, thanks so much. Great to have you with us, guys.

MIKE SHIELDS: Thank you.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, guys.

And thank you all for joining us "AT THIS HOUR."

BERMAN: LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

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

And we're going to begin with the financial folks, breaking news in the world of the financial markets. The stock market is taking a bath, an absolute plunge. Look at the numbers. The Dow Jones Industrial average now down 423 points plus. And you can blame some brand-new fears over economic slowdowns, as well as some unrest in the Middle East. The sell-offs starting in China and now hitting here, the U.S. markets.

CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans up all night watching this.

And you predicted it. You said everybody buckle up this morning when that market opens up.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Fear and pain to start the new year for trading. And it starred in China, you're absolutely right. There was a manufacturing number that was weak there. And, look, this is the second largest economy in the world. When China sneeze, everyone gets a cold. So that's what we're watching here. That weak manufacturing number really hurting the Chinese market. And the Chinese stock market was halted. It plunged 7 percent. They stopped the trading. First time that has ever happened.

And then look what happened, it spread around the world, to Tokyo, to Frankfurt. In Germany, stocks down 4 percent. That's about double what we're looking at here in the U.S. right now. Paris and London all down sharply. Mercifully, those European markets have closed now and we're left with U.S. trading that is still very, very soft here.

You mentioned international unrest in the Middle East.

BANFIELD: Yes.

ROMANS: That's also in here. Very big concerns about Iran, Saudi Arabia, further destabilization in the Middle East, proxy wars and what that means for - for stability, and that's also weighing on here too.

BANFIELD: So as we watch these numbers, look, we were down south of 450 -

ROMANS: That's right.

BANFIELD: Earlier, which took the Dow below 1,700.

ROMANS: Below - yes, we're there again.

BANFIELD: You can see the numbers there. What is the - the mental significance, the psychological significance of going below 1,700.

ROMANS: It is only a psychological mark.

BANFIELD: 17,000, yes.

ROMANS: So we had an ugly day like this back in September. We had two ugly days like this pretty much back-to-back when we lost more than 500 points in August. That was also China fears. So last year's big fear of a big economy that's slowing down and potentially having a crash landing -

BANFIELD: Yes.

ROMANS: That is still a new fear here. We're seeing people buying gold, buying bonds, the scaredy cat investments people are making, they're selling stocks (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: So I have to wrap it, but not before I ask you this because when it looks doom and gloom and awful, I always say, isn't this a great time to buy?

ROMANS: Yes.

BANFIELD: Isn't the stock market on sale today?

ROMANS: If you are a periodic investor, you want stocks to go down every now and then so you can get them cheaper. If they just go straight up, you don't make very much money, do you?

BANFIELD: This is me.

ROMANS: Yes.

BANFIELD: I watch every day. I set up the automatic buys.

ROMANS: Good for you.

BANFIELD: And I just wait and I watch and then I sell some really pickles (ph).

ROMANS: Don't buy a - don't buy a lottery ticket.

BANFIELD: Don't buy a lot, yes.

ROMANS: Buy a - don't buy a lottery ticket.

BANFIELD: Yes.

ROMANS: Put your money in a 529 and in your 401(k).

BANFIELD: Yes. Yes. OK. Well, keep an eye on things. Jump back on and let us know if anything else begins to - to plunge.

ROMANS: I will. I will.

BANFIELD: Christine Romans for us, thank you for that. I appreciate it.

ROMANS: You're welcome, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And then we've got this, the first full week in his last full year as - in the office of the president of the United States, President Obama now addressing what he calls the biggest disappointment of his presidency, a failure to tighten the gun laws in the wake of mass shootings that happen every day. I did say it, every day in this country.

We literally mean it because apart from San Bernardino and Aurora and all of those stories like Newtown, this country actually does average more than one shooting that kills or injures four or more people every day. So that's a mass shooting, folks. And there's a mass shooting- plus every day.

About two hours from now, the president is on this. He says he's due to meet with the U.S. attorney general, among others. Says he's planning some actions that he can take by himself without having to deal with Congress to keep guns away from people who should not have them. White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski joins me now with that.

Can you run me down some of the meetings that he's having today because it would seem if you're on the - the heels of a big executive action, you'd have been having those meetings long before now?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, he has been. I mean this has been a long time in coming. Remember a couple of months ago, after another mass shooting, the president announced that he and his team were going to be looking at ways, laws, areas of the law where they could work to take additional executive action because, remember, he did this three years ago, dozens of executive actions on gun control, but did a lot of Americans really notice it? Ah, no, not necessarily. His critics said that those actions didn't have any teeth. The White House said, well, as president, there's only so much we can do without Congress.

So, today, the president is preparing to take additional action. We know that. He's meeting with his attorney general, with the FBI, the ATF, as well as a number of Democrats who are in the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. So he's meeting with people who have been advocating this, who have been working on this, and so it's really imminent. The big question is, how far is this action going to go, is it going to have teeth, and then if it goes far enough, is that just going to generate lawsuits that could then hold up that same executive action, which is what we've seen with other actions the president has taken.

[12:05:20] We know that he's looking at background checks. That's something that's been talked about for a long time. So what we expect is for him to expand background checks involving gun seller that are currently considered just sort of part-time or private sellers. How many people that will encompass, how far it will go, that is what we're waiting to see. And there could be other areas, too, that he'll touch on. Things like maybe people who have been convicted of domestic violence. That could be expanded. Expanded funding for enacting - for enforcing existing laws. So we'll wait and see on that.

BANFIELD: OK, Michelle, keep an eye on things and report back to us when there's something to report on. Thank you for that.

There's also this White House briefing, Michelle is going to go in and get ready for that. It's scheduled for a little later on this hour, about 25 minutes or so. We do expect the press secretary, Josh Ernest, to be asked about this executive action on guns. So there should be some interesting things that come out of that and we're going to bring that to you just as soon as it happens.

Meantime, there's a poll that's been done, it happened just before Christmas, and it showed hugely lopsided public support for increased background checks on gun buyers, in effect closing the gun show loophole. Nevertheless, Republicans, especially those running for president, are dead set against the new executive orders.

Donald Trump was in a phone-in interview on "New Day" this morning. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES (voice-over): It's supposed to be negotiated. You're supposed to cajole, get people in a room. You're supposed to deal with them. You have the Republicans, you have Democrats, you have all these people, they get elected to do this stuff, and you're supposed to get together and pass a law. He doesn't want to do that because it's too much work, so he doesn't want to work too hard. He wants to go back and play golf.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BANFIELD: I wonder to veer out of the political part of it with these two guys, for the legal view, CNN's legal analyst Joey Jackson and Danny Cevallos.

Joey, let me start with you.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Sure.

BANFIELD: There's federal law that exists already and it governs background checks for gun buyers, now covers federally licensed dealers only, OK.

JACKSON: That's right.

BANFIELD: It exempts, and I'm going to quote this here, "a person who makes occasional sales -

JACKSON: Yes.

BANFIELD: Exchanges or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms." So what can the president actually do with an executive order?

JACKSON: It depends who you ask, OK. Now let's keep a couple of things in mind. The first of which is that presidents since George Washington, 1789, have been issuing executive orders, and it's not something that's specifically stated in the Constitution, but the president's the executive, and executive orders are quite common.

Now, where you get into trouble, Ashleigh, is whether the president is treading upon congressional type of authorities that are not vested in the executive. What am I talking about? We know that the Congress passes law. And if the Congress passes the law, and the president merely enforces and administers the law, to what extent that the president issues an executive order should that be deemed a usurpation, a taking of congressional authority.

So if you're looking in your - on the president's team, you're saying that the president, as an executive, as wide ranging powers to enforce federal law, to administer federal law. And him issuing a broadened background check would just be another directive to state agencies to tighten existing background checks as they currently exist. If you're on the congressional part of things you'll say, oh, that's too broad, he can't do that. You have to come to us. You did in 2013. We said, no. And if you try to take the power, we're going to take you to court. Similar to what happened with the immigration fight.

BANFIELD: So Donald Trump has said that he doesn't want the president to be - and I'm going to just paraphrase what he said, doesn't' want the president to be changing the Second Amendment. Let's be really clear, an executive order doesn't change an amendment.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, it doesn't. The problem with executive orders is that there is virtually no statutory or constitutional authority for them. So the argument is that they are limitless. Their - when a president issues an executive order, it's not subject to the traditional administrative law processes which would allow for opposition to the law or even judicial review. So the problem is, we really don't have a well-defined power in the executive power.

So then, if the argument is that it might undo the Second Amendment. Well, of course, an executive order does stop at the wall of the Constitution, but the question arises, can an executive order change rights that sort of swirl around the Second Amendment? And the best example of that is this current debate. Can he provide for increased restrictions without actually striking the Second Amendment and the right to own guns? Can you increase the requirements for sales? Can you increase background checks?

And that's the issue because, ultimately, executive orders are issued without that sort of - that representative government process. So that is Donald Trump's main argument against it. Can Obama issue this executive order with almost no review and no repercussions?

[12:10:12] BANFIELD: And there's, of course, that issue that many bring up, and that is that a lot of these mass shooters are not the types of people that would have had a problem with a background check. They would have passed it with flying colors, if they didn't already, and buy their guns legally, so it wouldn't prevent those kinds of things. But Donald Trump also said, Joey, I'm going to un-sign it. I don't know how you un-sign something, but how do you un-sign something like that?

JACKSON: What you do, as the executive, it's the executive's prerogative. We have an electoral system, Ashleigh, and that electoral system provides for, if you're the elected president, you do what you think is necessary and appropriate as the elected representative of the people. And so, therefore, it would not be uncommon when a president comes into office to issue broad policy pronouncements that shift or break with the - their predecessor. And so that's what I think, looking forward, you might see. Of course it depends who gets into the White House, Hillary Clinton, Barry (ph) Sanders, President Trump, whoever may be elected, we'll see what they do in terms of the future.

BANFIELD: Yes. Last (INAUDIBLE).

CEVALLOS: Executive orders have tremendous power, but they're only as powerful as the current sitting president who issues them.

BANFIELD: Right.

CEVALLOS: On the first day of office, the new executive can rescind them, can strike them, can do whatever he or she wants with them.

BANFIELD: OK, guys, I have to leave it there, but I don't want you to go too far, I've got a lot of other things on the menu for you. It's 2016, so a whole new year to start tackling. Thank you both.

And, by the way, if you're very excited about the State of the Union Address that's coming up, well, you don't have to wait, because you're going to see this president this Thursday right here live on CNN. President Obama is going to join my colleague Anderson Cooper for a live audience town hall on this issue, "Gun in America." Yes, I said live. I don't know that this has happened before. We're fact-checking to find out if a sitting president has ever had a live town hall cable news channel. It's going to be at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Make sure you tune in for that. Anything can happen.

Coming up next, a couple of big firsts in the race for 2016, and it is sure to get a lot of attention. Bill Clinton making his first solo appearances on the trail. And Donald Trump launching his first big TV ad blitz. The effect of all of that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:41] BANFIELD: Twenty-eight days to go, four weeks today, Iowa caucuses get underway. And a familiar face is entering the fray. Drum roll, please. It is former President Bill Clinton. He is on the stump for his wife Hillary, sans (ph) Hillary, too. He's doing this on his own. It's a first in this campaign. This is the key primary state of New Hampshire, where he is, and he spoke just a few moments ago about this race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Sometimes I follow this debate in the presidential elections, especially when I watch the other guys debating, and I think, you know, I don't fit anymore. First of all, I'm a happy grandfather. I'm not mad at anybody. And, secondly, I thought an election was supposed to be a job interview.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Here now with more is CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash, along with CNN's Brianna Keilar, who's following the Clinton camp today.

Brianna, if I could begin with you and this very, you know, significant event that the former president, going out on his own for his wife, he's been taking it on the chin from those who will - think they'll eventually run against his wife. And a lot of it has been very personal. Did he bring any of that stuff up?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, he didn't. And he certainly has been coming under fire, certainly from Donald Trump, who has called him a great abuser of women, saying that Hillary Clinton opened up this criticism by saying that Donald Trump has a penchant for sexism. We didn't hear any direct acknowledgment of that, Ashleigh, but what I thought was interesting, especially from that bit that you just played, was that Bill Clinton seemed to be giving this veiled commentary of Donald Trump and also of the tone of the Republican race for the nomination. He did sort of allude to that idea that anger is motivating a lot of people. And also something else, he highlighted a couple examples during his speech of Muslims doing heroic things, both here in the U.S. and then also overseas. And he ended his remarks by talking about qualities that he thinks his wife has that will serve her well as president, and he stressed temperament. So it seemed like he was sort of addressing some of the tone that we're hearing coming from Donald Trump and Republicans.

Another thing that was really interesting, though, was that he didn't focus really on women's issues. He focused on what Hillary Clinton has achieved as a woman, being a lady lawyer, as he put it, he was quoting, as he said, an old crusty judge in Arkansas who had said that pejoratively to Hillary Clinton. He talked about what she's done for children and for the middle class and for minorities instead of really focusing on women's issues, which, obviously, would have opened him up to some criticism perhaps as he - or really just some sort of, I guess, contrast between what's being said about him and maybe what he had said today, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: If you could just quickly wrap this one up for me too because he, in the comments that we just aired, talked about how he was sort of a political - that he was a grandfather, that he doesn't have any anger against anyone. It's a very different time for him, a very different dynamic for him to be up on a stage like that. But he may seem apolitical off the top of these - these speeches, but make no mistake, it was very political, wasn't it?

KEILAR: Oh, it was very political. And that is what the campaign wants from Bill Clinton. That's why they consider him an asset. They think and, you know, a lot of observers, both Democrats and Republicans agree, that he is someone who can take a message and sort of wrap it up and maybe it doesn't seem so blatantly political, it has more of a narrative to it, but certainly there was a lot of politics in his speech today.

BANFIELD: All right, hold that thought for a moment. If I can just get Dana Bash in as well on this. Other the other side of the coin, Donald Trump doing something he hasn't done until now, and that is spending money on television ads, and it's a doozy, too. I want to play for our audience, before I ask you the question, Dana, the first of the campaign ads to air. Take a peek.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): The politicians can pretend it's something else, but Donald Trump calls it "radical Islamic terrorism." That's why he's calling for a temporary shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until we can figure out what's going on. He'll quickly take the head off ISIS and take their oil, and he'll stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for.

[12:20:10] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We will make America great again!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: All right, so, Dana, I think our audience is probably thinking, well, hold on a second, I've seen plenty of Donald Trump on TV. What do you mean he's only now just launching ads? Can you explain?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is so hard to believe, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Yes.

BASH: Yes. I was told by a Trump source that they had $25 million set aside in 2015 to run ads like this. And they didn't spend a dime. Not one dime.

BANFIELD: Wow.

BASH: Why is that? Cable news, the network news, the Internet, the, what, 140 characters on Twitter that he uses to communicate with 5 million Twitter followers that he has, he didn't have to do it. So the question is, why now? And, you know, the obvious answer is, we are only four weeks out and he wants to get his message out in the most simple, controlled, concise way. And it really doesn't get more simple and kind of, you know, focused than what you just heard in that particular ad.

BANFIELD: Yes. I sprained my teeth on the word Trump over the last three months, honestly, so I concur with you 100 percent.

So, Dana, really quickly, just on the strategy of what he's doing, how much of the gobs and gobs of money that he's going to spend on these ads are going to be in Iowa and New Hampshire right out of the gate, and how much of being reserved, or do we even know, for the end of the race, and when it could get really tight and sticky towards the summer?

BASH: That's a great question. You know, the answer is, because he says that he's self-funded, we don't know how much he has reserved from his own bank accounts. But I do know from talking to Trump sources that they are prepared to counter attack. You know, he likes to say he's a counter-puncher, he's not a puncher. And they are preparing to, as we get closer and closer to the actual voting, having the other candidates really go after him pretty hard. So far he has been able to use his, as we say in the business, you know, earned media, or free media to go back and hit the other candidates. For this last run, he's planning on potentially using paid media, TV ads to do that if he gets hit very hard. That's what I'm told by people inside the Trump camp.

BANFIELD: All right, Dana Bash for us in Washington, thank you for that.

BASH: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Brianna Keilar, thank you as well. Got their work cut out for them, those two. No vacation till June - actually July. Thanks, ladies.

Coming up next, there is an armed protest that is going on right now in Oregon. And if you don't know about this, there is a government building under siege, schools have been closed, a community is on edge, and it is bringing to mind other actions like Ruby Ridge and Waco. Those turned out terribly. So what is in store for those in Oregon? That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:26:25] BANFIELD: Schools are shutdown, neighbors are on edge in Harney County, Oregon, where a group of armed anti-government protesters has taken over a federal building there. They occupied a national wildlife refuge building near Burns, Oregon, on Saturday to protest the sentence of two ranchers who were convicted of arson. But the root of their anger against what they call government land grabs goes back many years. And what they hope to gain, well, is really not clear yet. Sara Sidner is there.

And you've had a chance to actually speak to the leader of this protest about what he and the others are doing. Did they clarify anything to you?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's interesting. Basically Ammon Bundy is headed up this group and his father has a history coming after the federal government, an argument over land basically. And basically what they're saying is they feel that the government has overstepped its bounds and gone past what the Constitution allows in taking and buying up lands from the state or from locals. And they talked about ranchers. And they're here to support ranchers. They're here to support farmers, they say, including the two ranchers who were sentenced for arson, who went to prison, spent time in jail, came out of prison and then were told, because of a court case in an appeal that they had to go back to prison and serve more time for the crime. They were very angry about that. They came here. They encouraged others to come here.

But then they did something that was not in line of the Hammonds, who are the people who are going to turn themselves back into prison today. Basically what they decided to do is to take over this headquarters here. And we are about 30 miles from anywhere. The closest town is Burns. It's 30 miles from here. This is the wilderness. This is a wildlife refuge run by the federal government. And they decided to take it over. And they said, look, we're not hurting anybody, but we're trying to make a stand here because we feel the federal government's overstepped its bound. The federal government, of course, doesn't see it the same way and saying this is public land but you can't take over one of our buildings.

And then we talked with him a little bit about what people are saying on social media, because there is a big argument about what to call this group. Are they patriots? Are they terrorists? Are they militia? What are they?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: There's a lot of social media discussion about what you all are doing out here. They've used words like y'all-qeda (ph) and vanilla-ISIS. And while they sound like funny names, they are basically calling you terrorists. How do you respond to these kinds of accusations?

AMMON BUNDY, ARMED PROTESTER: Well, I would just encourage that they - and one is, I think that is the minority, but I would encourage people to look into what's really happening and to find out who is truly doing the terrorizing, who's been taking ranches. This - this refuge alone, over 100 ranches have been taken and so that they can make this park, this refuge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And what do they want? They want to take this land and give it back to the local government, like the county, so that the ranchers and farmer can take it back and start working the land and raising their families.

The last thing, Ashleigh, I want to give you an idea of what's going on here. This is the first pictures in daylight and you're seeing the flag, they've covered the sign here with the flag. But up there on that tower, there is someone up there who is looking down and surveying anybody who comes in and out of here from that group. There's also a couple of guys right in front of the entrance where you drive down to that building that they have taken over. And at this point they're saying, we're going to be here for as long as it takes.

Ashleigh.

[12:30:00] BANFIELD: Be careful. That's disconcerting to hear that. And just make no mistake, I want to be really clear here, Sara, no police have shown up. So there's no standoff. This is just them and a building and arms at this point, correct?

SIDNER: That