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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Candidates' Barbs Examined; Clinton Looking to Rebound After New Hampshire Loss; Latest Information on Zika Virus. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 12, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:33:50] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Name calling and cheap shots, sadly all part of American politics.

Even Thomas Jefferson and John Adams played some pretty dirty tricks on each other back in the 1800s saying some really nasty things about each other's character and their mama's. I'm not kidding. It did happen, just go the Google. They didn't have Twitter though in 1800. So, today, it's a little different and you can read all about it moment by moment. Like, for instance, Donald Trump's moment by moment today.

"How can Ted Cruz be an evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?"

Yesterday, Trump was writing, "Lying Cruz put out a statement. Trump and Rubio are with Obama on gay marriage. Cruz is the worst liar, crazy or very dishonest. Perharps all three?"

Those tweets from Donald Trump didn't require a whole lot of planning, just typing, just 140 characters. This one took some more work, though, because I'm going to take you back to 2000. And if you can recall, probably sticks out like something in your craw.

[12:35:02] One of Senator John McCain opponents ran a fake survey, they call then push poll. And the question being asked of a voter who picked up the phone, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate Black child?"

This is what you call a whisper campaign. And this was just the beginning of it. They went after Cindy McCain, saying she was a drug addict. They went after all sorts of things. They said he was a traitor in Vietnam. It was nasty. And apparently that's not so unusual in South Carolina.

Tara Setmayer our political commentator.

Help me to understand, John McCain in 2000 was one instance. Nikki Haley had all sorts of folks coming out saying they've slept with her.

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yup.

BANFIELD: To which she answered, you say that, you give me proof and I will step down. Right, she won anyway in was given (ph) reelection. Mitt Romney, somebody sent out fake Christmas cards in his name with questionable quotes on it. None too flattering for him. What is with South Carolina?

SETMAYER: Well, South Carolina is the gateway forward. So it's after New Hampshire, after Iowa. And then you have South Carolina which comes before Super Tuesday. So, that's now where the gloves come off.

BANFIELD: I always hear the gloves come off. What is come up New Hampshire ...

SETMAYER: Yeah, but now -- not really -- now because as, with each passing election, you winnow the field then it backs more and more clear, OK, who's out, who's in, now who are setting our targets on now, our sights on now.

Well, because New Hampshire didn't really do anything to winnow the field, necessarily it means that Carly Fiorina is out, Christie is out, but that was obvious. You've got all of this in the middle. And I'm telling you this is insane. We were talking before I never thought that I would hear the word Softcore porn and Ted Cruz in the same sentence.

BANFIELD: And she's not kidding, folks. She won Ted Cruz.

I'm going to show you an ad right now that Ted Cruz put out and then quickly pulled back when he found out that the pretty lady who was in the ad was a Softcore porn actress. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has anyone else here struggled with being lied to?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I voted for a guy who was a tea party hero on the campaign trail. And then he went to D.C. And played pat-a-cake with Chuck Schumer and kind of deal an amnesty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that make you angry?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Angry? Makes me feel dumb trusting them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe you should vote for more than just a pretty face next time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guys, you have room for one more?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on in. Come on in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on in, you can have Frank's chair.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm Ted Cruz and I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Well, he might have approved it but I don't think he knew that pretty lady ...

SETMAYER: Who does so?

BANFIELD: ... can we say it's such a pretty blond hair. Was the won who -- they pulled the ad. She's mad because she says she's a conservative Christian. She wants that ad to be airing.

SETMAYER: But she also admitted she wasn't completely forthright about her total body of work, which includes some Softcore porn stuff, which doesn't bode well for Ted Cruz, an evangelical Christian guy. And you see that Donald Trump has jumped right on that. Even Trump had tried to define Ted Cruz now as a liar.

How many times did you hear the words lying, liar or some in relation of that in Donald Trump's tweet because that (inaudible) when planned w

BANFIELD: So Marco Rubio who was the target of that add, because clearly the guy walking in with the t-shirt had Marco Rubio on it.

When we talk about these whisper campaigns, nobody spice this up to actually doing them.

SETMAYER: Right.

BANFIELD: But there are lots of rumors within politicos and operate these (ph) to who is behind them. And the latest of the rumors is that folks who did these things back to John McCain and have been party to other awful whisper campaigns actually have all been hired up by Marco Rubio. Are you hearing that as well?

SETMAYER: You know, I've heard Rubio. I've heard that Cruz has some folks that are putting out push polls that are from the organization that's tied Ted Cruz's campaign manager. That's what happens in South Carolina.

That, you know, all of these anonymous groups and fliers and phone calls and no one was out, wasn't me, wasn't me, no fingers prints on it, which is what makes this so dishonest really ugly. This is the (inaudible) that is much in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Buy you know, in South Carolina, it's just seems so, because like I said it's the gateway into Super Tuesday. You know, it all comes there. And I mean, what they're doing now, I think you may see a backlash because I think the people of South Carolina are getting sick of it, which is a good thing, because this is not good for politics necessarily. It's very ugly. And it takes away from the actual policy differences instead of its mere campaigns. So that's the ugliest part of politics that I think turns a lot people off.

BANFIELD: Well let's hope. There is hope. We still got a race in that's to eternity.

SETMAYER: I'm still the optimist here.

BANFIELD: Come on back next week, Tara. SETMAYER: Not now, (inaudible)

Thank you. Tara Setmayer, nice to have you as always.

SETMAYER: You're welcome.

BANFIELD: Coming up next, we're not in Iowa and New Hampshire anymore. There is a whole different set of demographics awaiting the candidates in Nevada and South Carolina. So the wooing begins. If it hasn't already in earnest. But is that a sense of even to be suggesting they can be wooed. You're going to hear a great perspective on this next.

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[12:51:09] Hillary Clinton is getting ready for a town hall coming up in a few hours in Denmark, South Carolina. There is a Denmark, South Carolina. After her loss in New Hampshire her campaign is looking for a big win in South Carolina. The key part of that path to victory could in fact be African-American voters there, which may help to explain why she expressed her support for President Obama so vocally in last night's debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think President Obama has set a great example. I think he has addressed a lot of these issues that have been quite difficult.

President Obama succeeded in doing was to build on the health care system we have. I think under President Obama we have seen a lot of advances.

I understand what President Obama inherited. So, I think what President Obama did was to exemplify the importance of this issue as our first African-American president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I want to bring in Joe Johns, who is live for us in Denmark, South Carolina. So, look, it was very vocal, yes, but the attack on Bernie, Clinton and his allegiance or lack thereof in her estimation for President Obama and his policies came fairly late in the debate.

[12:45:07] And I want to know from you, Joe Johns, if you have had a sneak peek at the stump speech today and if that attack on Bernie Sanders and his lack of allegiance in her estimation is going to be very early on in the stump speech going to South Carolina.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, this is actually, if you think about it, it's really a reflection of what's going on in the numbers, I think, Ashleigh, more than anything else wherever it came in the speech. Hillary Clinton has extremely high approval numbers here in South Carolina. Just to start with something like 71 percent according to a recent NBC/Marist poll.

Bernie Sanders is at about 17 percent. And then when you add on top of that, the sort of astronomical numbers in the African-American community of support for President Obama, 80 percent or so and even higher, then you'll see what's really going on here. So she wants to align herself with President Obama to sort of eke out just as big a win as she can especially coming out of New Hampshire where it was sort of a drubbing, if you will. The challenge for Bernie Sanders is to not get blown out, to try to make it close but it's going to be very difficult for him, because Hillary Clinton is well-known here and apparently still well-liked, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right Joe Johns keep an eye on things for us. We'll go live to your location as it gets underway. Thank you for that.

I want to talk more about this role of black voters in that very key demographic and a very large chunk of voters in South Carolina and then beyond as well.

Charles Blow is a CNN political commentator and an op-ed columnist for the New York Times.

I have read your piece and I have heard so many people talking about that key black of voters and how both of these candidates are going to have to work hard, as if it's a monolithic walk. I think everybody knows nothing is monolithic. But in that -- you can't argue with those statistics that Joe Johns put up there. And yet people keep saying once black voters in South Carolina get to know Bernie, to which you take great of sense, (ph) why?

CHARLES BLOW, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well I know -- listen getting to know a candidate is that what campaigning is about. Once people make up their mind about who they support and you then characterize that support as being naive, that is a kind of assumption (ph) that people do not appreciate, right?

BANFIELD: In what sense is it naive? What are you getting up?

BLOW: Well when people say, well, you don't know enough and that you can't accept the fact that a person does not like the candidate that you like and then you then keep saying to them, well, you don't -- you absolutely don't understand and you vote against your interests or whatever. I'm saying to people that the African-American community has accrued a tremendous amount of knowledge about politics over centuries of disappointment. And it has created in -- the African-American community a kind of functional practicality that says, we get betrayed by everybody. People promise things for every four years and don't deliver. We are trying to make the best choice we can and keep our feet on the ground, very often.

BANFIELD: So if that betrayal -- and I'll mark your words, I mean, you call it savior syndrome, paternalistic patronage, I mean, you're really strong about if you say that they've been promised so much and delivered so little. The devil you know versus the devil you don't when it comes to that but I'm curious about the Clintons because when it comes to the black vote in South Carolina, so many have said they know the Clintons. There's a deep, deep history. There are roots that the Clintons have made within the black community over decades. Bernie Sanders is a guy from the north that they're just starting to hear about and the numbers -- the polling numbers that many actually don't know much about them yet. 31 percent said, they haven't heard enough in a Quinnipiac Poll, I haven't heard enough, which is, you know, it's a fact. So the devil you know, versus the devil you don't. There are still those who support Hillary Clinton and yet blame her for the crime bill of her husband two decades ago and say she supported him back then, even though he's disavowed it. I'm not sure I understand that full notion.

BLOW: Right so the next line in that piece was, it is also a choice among the friend who betrays you, the stranger that entices you and the enemy who wants to destroy you. And it's -- so it's not just that either or like, oh we love Clinton and we load Bernie. I don't think that that's what people are saying in those polls at all. They're basically saying, we're making difficult choices among politicians who we know very often are not going to always follow through. And which of those are going to be the better for us and which is what we think that we know best and there's a familiarity thing which is what you're getting at which is really prominent. People do know the Clintons. They are southern. They, you know, he was the governor of Arkansas. They have roots in the south. They have made a bunch of friends in the south and that is not necessarily Bernie's history in politics.

[12:50:03] He is a northeastern politician, his home state is Vermont. He just hasn't had the chance to make those connections to the crowd.

BANFIELD: And the activism you mentioned in the commercial break -- we had a chance to talk very quickly. You mentioned that the activism that we're seeing, Black Lives Matter and these very, very powerful movements have been very northern. They have it in southern. How will that affect his rate?

BLOW: Well it is all of those (ph) -- work has made this fascinating operation which was that almost to a one, every one of the high profile police killings and protests we have seen are in places that black people fled to during the great migration from the south. None of those situations we have.

BANFIELD: Well Walter Scott. I mean, we're right -- we're in Walter Scott territory now.

BLOW: Yeah right, right, but -- it's a right, but for the most part then is the northern phenomenon and a lot of the activism is northeastern. And those -- but it's not Birmingham. It's not the conditional. It's not a Addison (ph). It was Birmingham. It's not Mississippi. It's not Louisiana. It's not Texas. It's not necessarily Florida. So it becomes a different kind of static that it doesn't resonate quite the same way, the activism part of it, in the south as it does in the north.

BANFIELD: Weill, I mean the more you read about it, the more -- I think it's a horse race all of a sudden. I think let's have it in South Carolina. And all of this is going to be boring one when it comes to black vote there and you know they're anything for Clinton. I don't know so much anymore. BLOW: I don't think that is true.

BANFIELD: It's -- and reading out there.

BLOW: And we should not discount the female part of that equation. Only 39 percent of the people who voted in the democratic primary in 2008 were men. So the rest of them in the Denver, there were women and most of those were black woman.

BANFIELD: A whole other story.

BLOW: It's a whole lot of story.

BANFIELD: Whole of a demo if you look at the northern state too, Charles Blow, great to have you and great writing. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

There are three more deaths right now that are being attributed to the Zika virus. And this time it's in Venezuela, not Brazil. There were three I talked about yesterday in Brazil. This is new. We're going to talk about the new warnings from the World Health Organization for pregnant women and the fears about what this virus might do as it spreads here in the U.S. And why even those who aren't pregnant have concerns too.

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[12:56:19] BANFIELD: There are some brand new concerns today about the spread of that Zika virus that you've been hearing so much about. Venezuela now says, three deaths in that country can be attributed to the disease. The country now has 319 confirmed cases. The World Health Organization says it has not seen the evidence showing that those patients died from the virus or from what's called Guillain-Barre Syndrome either which now maybe also linked to that virus. But it is now warning pregnant women not to travel to countries affected by the outbreak and has been doing so for several, several weeks now.

Art Caplan is with me now. He is the director of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center. I want to talk about this most latest development, that now it is being talked about that there are several case of Guillain-Barre, which affects your nervous system and this is grown up -- these grown ups who get Zika who then come down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome as a result of Zika.

I guess the New York Times has said 43 patients in 2015 as compared to 10-15 as shown before. Is that enough to make the assumption that, oh my god, you're not just going to get a fever and a rash, you could get this other symptom -- syndrome too.

ARTHUR CAPLAN, DIRECTOR DIVISION OF MEDICAL ETHINCS, NYU MEDICAL CENTER: almost, almost. Not quite there yet because we don't really know the background incidents of Guillain-Barre Syndrome that is people get it, you know, at some rate in the ordinary course of things or some. What happens is as your body sometimes fights viruses it makes antibodies to those viruses and those antibodies sometimes attack your own nerve cells. It's called an autoimmune disease. BANFIELD: And this is a paralyzing disease effect of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, very, very serious.

CAPLAN: Yes. It's a serious disease. And, you know, it's at least raising another red flag here saying, it isn't just pregnant women who have to worry about this. Now maybe you wanted to be concerned because this virus could be causing this condition.

BANFIELD: So if you travel to one of those countries -- and by the way we're just showing now states that we have confirmed cases of Zika. These are potentially people who have returned from different states (ph).

CAPLAN: They were all travelers in that case.

BANFIELD: Travelers having returned to all of these different sates. Luckily, most of them are in very cold area where mosquitoes aren't fighting and transmitting but we don't even know yet about transmission.

CAPLAN: We don't know a lot so and we also don't really have a good test. So we hear that people have tested positive for Zika but you've got to send it off to a specialized lab. It takes a while to get an answer back. We have quick test for a lot of diseases. We don't have one yet for Zika so even if you wanted to know, then I get infected, it's hard to tell

BANFIELD: And so my friend and colleague Alison Kosik bumped into me in the hallway the other day. And she said, you're not going to believe the story that I have just written for CNN.com.

CHAPLAN: Yes I saw it.

BANFIELD: It's harrowing. She came back from a trip to Costa Rica which anybody could do. She had really bad sort of flu-like symptoms and did everything that she could as a smart reporter who knows how to make a lot of phone calls and get to places that she needs to get to. She went to her doctor. She went to her children's pediatrician. She went to an E.R. She called the CDC. She wanted to...

CAPLAN: And she went to the New York state health department.

BANFIELD: She sure did.

CAPLAN: She went to some other places of doctor.

BANFIELD: She asked everybody, I need a test for Zika. I'm very worried. I'm lethargic. I'm exhausted. I have fever, chills, sweating and never got it.

CHAPLAN: So it's two points...

BANFIELD: Never got a test for it.

CAPLAN: One, we'll not set up for the test.

BANFIELD: We are not tested?

CAPLAN: Two, the test that exist crumby so far. They are not great test, I think too.

BANFIELD: But it was -- for someone like Alison who has the resource of that and their result...

CAPLAN: Empower person...

BANFIELD: Empower patients and was able to make those calls and couldn't do it. What's the average person that they're supposed to do on?

CAPLAN: All right now, I don't think it's going to possible to do Zika test. So it's part of the reason I've been nervous about things like the Olympics. If you don't have a testing network in order to quick test, in order of the vaccine, you haven't killed though the mosquito and you sort of thinking do you want to bring everybody in the world in real.

BANFIELD: Scary. It's scary. We'll keep talking about it Art. Thank you for coming.

[13:00:01] CAPLAN: My pleasure.

BANFIELD: Appreciate it. Well we'll know more. We certainly need your guidance. Thank you everyone for watching. My colleagues Jim Sciutto was sitting in or Wolf that starts right now.