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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Trump's Third Victory. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 24, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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


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[12:00:38] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

Six days out from Super Tuesday, Donald Trump is about to take the stage live at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. We're going to listen in live just as soon as he gets going. And we are guessing that we're going to hear at least a mention of the super Tuesday that Trump had yesterday. It was anything but for his rivals as Trump racked up more votes in the Nevada Republican caucuses than second-place finisher Marco Rubio and third-place finisher Ted Cruz combined. He captured 45.9 percent of the vote in a five person field. Rubio barely squeak by Cruz. Ben Carson didn't even crack 5 percent. And John Kasich did even worse than that. Trump carried most of the demographic groups, the subgroups that caucused last night as he happily reported in his victory speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated. We're the smartest people. We're the most loyal people. And you know what I really am happy about, because I've been saying it for a long time, 46 percent with the Hispanics! Forty-six percent! Number one with Hispanics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: And lest anybody still think that Trump supporters don't turn out when it counts, last night's turnout was more than double the 2012 numbers. All of this brings me to CNN's Phil Mattingly, who is live in Virginia Beach right now awaiting the speech, actually, for Donald Trump. Give me some of the parameters of what we're expecting today.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Donald Trump will be speaking at Regent University, as you mentioned, Ashleigh, and this is obviously an evangelical campus. A group of supporters that I think if you would have thought about it 10 months ago that nobody really expected Donald Trump to make headway in and yet in election after - sorry, in primary or caucus after primary or caucus, this is a group of people that he's winning 2-1, 3-1 over Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who most assumed would make headway here.

Now, Ashleigh, one key component here, Super Tuesday coming up, Donald Trump, after this event, will be heading on to a tour of the deep south. That was an area Ted Cruz was expected to dominate, really his firewall. In every single poll, Donald Trump up by double digits in most of those Super Tuesday states. So, Ashleigh, something to keep a really close eye on as people start to talk over and over again, is Donald Trump becoming inevitable? After last night's sweeping victory, you're hearing that a lot from GOP operatives, even those that don't want that, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: You're hearing it from him, too, because he pretty much alluded to that in a speech last night.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

BANFIELD: And you're in Virginia. He's got his sights set on that state. But you just mentioned it, Super Tuesday is coming, the debate that we're having for CNN Thursday night in Houston, it's got to be very critical for Donald Trump. He had a terrible debate performance by a lot of people's analyses last time around. And Texas, Phil Mattingly, I do not need to remind you, has 155 of those very precious delegates.

MATTINGLY: Yes, that's right, Ashleigh. And Texas Governor Greg Abbot is endorsing Ted Cruz today. That will help a little bit as well. One of the most interesting elements, Ashleigh, as you look ahead is, how is Donald Trump going to do in the home states of some of his competitors? Looks like he's got a small lead in some polling over Ted Cruz in Texas, has a small lead over Marco Rubio in Florida, even has a small lead over John Kasich in Ohio.

You talk about the debate tomorrow night. And, Ashleigh, I think the focus turns into, what is everybody else going to do now? How do you stop Donald Trump? Everything that's been thrown at him hasn't worked up to this point. Super Tuesday, Ashleigh, 25 percent of all delegates in the Republican primary will be up for grabs. If they can't figure out a way - if the competitors can't figure out a way to throw something in the way of Donald Trump right now, it may be over and it may be over quickly.

BANFIELD: All right, our Phil Mattingly standing by live for us.

And we are actually standing by live as well inside with the microphones, Phil. We're going to go live right to Donald Trump as he gets underway at Regent University.

The runner-up in the Nevada caucus, Marco Rubio, I think we can fairly say he is assessing his finish at this point. He was congratulating Donald Trump earlier today. He went to sleep last night. A lot of people said, "why would you do that?" Other people said it's because you get a chance to get up early on the morning shows and spin instead of staying up real, real late because Nevada didn't really wrap up until after midnight and a lot of the spin that happened was tiresome.

[12:05:08] Some criticism of Ted Cruz was that he was trying to do his spin last night and kind of didn't do well at it because not only was he tired but his audience was tired, too. So Rubio hit the sheets early and got up early and had his comments to make. He's doubling down and there's a lot of back and forth going on between the candidates, not necessarily against Trump, though, against each other. So listen to what he had to say this morning on the "Today" show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Here's the bottom-line fact. The vast and overwhelming majority of Republicans do not want Donald Trump to be our nomine. And that's evidenced by the fact that your own poll last week showed that if it came down to me and Donald Trump, I'd beat him by almost 16 points. So what we have now is a dynamic where as long as there are four people running, dividing up the non-Trump vote, you're going to get results like what you saw last night. And so the soon we can get this race narrowed down, I think the easier it's going to be to stop Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: OK. Rubio also criticizing Donald Trump for substituting anger for vision and he predicts a win during the Florida primary, which is set to take place in the coming weeks. OK, that's his state. But Trump's doing really well in Florida, too.

In the meantime, we're just one day away from CNN's Republican presidential debate. I mentioned it before. It's in the lone star state, in Houston. And as the candidates prepare for it, Senator Ted Cruz is about to get a major endorsement from Texas Governor Greg Abbot. The formal announcement is set to take place this afternoon. Governor Abbot will quickly become the most senior political leader to back Cruz's bid. In the meantime, the Texas senator spoke with his supporters following his third-place finish in Nevada and he maintained his outlook that there is still a clear choice for conservative voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you are one of the 65 percent of Republicans across this country who doesn't think Donald is the best candidate to go head to head with Hillary, who believes we do better in elections when we actually nominate a conservative, then the first four states have performed a vital function of narrowing this race and presenting a clear choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Republican Party chief, Reince Priebus, went on CNN live today. Of course, it's a great day to hear from him after last night's results. He told CNN today that the GOP will embrace whoever wins the magic number of delegates, but he is not going to call this race just yet.

I want to bring in Katrina Pierson now, national spokesperson for the Trump campaign.

Katrina, always great to see you. Thanks so much for taking the time.

KATRINA PIERSON, NATIONAL SPOKESWOMAN, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Hi, Ashleigh. Great to be here.

BANFIELD: OK, I know you heard that interview this morning, or if you didn't hear it, you read it, it's all over the interwebs. How does that - how does that go over in the Donald Trump camp because last night Donald Trump was effectively saying he's going to be the nominee?

PIERSON: Well, I mean, if we - if we look at what has happened over the last few elections, we kind of see Donald Trump has a very good momentum to win the nomination. I think Mr. Priebus was right to say that they would embrace the nominee. But I'll also say this. When I constantly hear about Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz saying that 60 percent of the voters don't want Donald Trump, when 80 percent of the voters don't want Cruz or Rubio. We're looking at an opportunity now to go into Texas, Senator Cruz's home state, where the gap is narrowing between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, this would be a true test because if Senator Cruz can't win his own state, it might be time for him to end his campaign.

BANFIELD: OK, I think it's a good point. We do keep hearing these statistics. We do keep seeing these numbers come out that if there were a general election, it wouldn't be Donald Trump that would do well. It would actually be Marco Rubio, with 50 percent of the vote for - from the GOP electorate. Trump would only have 33. That's a big trailing number. And clearly the Trump camp has to be looking ahead to the general possibilities if they're speaking so boldly now.

PIERSON: Oh, we absolutely are. And I'll also say, there have been also polls in the past that show Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton nationally, but these are all hypothetical matchups. We saw when Mr. Trump entered the race back in June, he was in the low numbers and they said, oh, he's got a ceiling at 20, 30. Just last week they were saying his ceiling was 30. We saw last night he was over 45 percent in one state with five people in the race.

I think we're going to see, as more people drop out, Mr. Trump is going to garner more support just as he did when Carly Fiorina dropped in the polls, Ben Carson dropped in the polls. Mr. Trump continues to rise because people get it. They don't want another politician. They don't want somebody beholden to the special interests that has destroyed the political system today.

BANFIELD: I'm going to do you one better. I'm going to give the actual number from last night. It was 45.9. So we're almost to 46 there.

PIERSON: Point nine.

BANFIELD: That was pretty impressive. And those numbers really matter when you start looking ahead to the Super Tuesday winner take all states. I know I don't have to explain this to you, but for anybody else who isn't mired and steeped in this stuff all the time, you have to hit a 50 percent threshold in, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six of those states in order to do the winner take all. Most people would say, 50 percent, not a chance when you've got five people in the race. And last night we just saw almost 46. [12:10:22] So, while I put those numbers up, those red states on the

screen, folks, show the number of delegates in those winner take all states. And if you do a big, grand total on them, look, if my math is right, it's about 355 delegates. Katrina, that's a critical, critical number of delegates to come out of Super Tuesday. Does he think he's going to pull those in given the results last night?

PIERSON: You know, I think so and I believe he believes so as well. I mean we've seen the support for Mr. Trump in the southern states and he's in double digits ahead of almost everyone there. And I think it's going to be amazing. What a great opportunity for America to really show the establishment on both sides, Ashleigh, that they don't want this anymore. They are tired of the special interests controlling everything. They are tired of the military being put last. They are tired of American families being put last. And these things matter. Specifically with regards to trade, we're in a position right now where we're talking about the Transpacific Partnership, which is worse than NAFTA, and that has eliminated millions of jobs in the south. And they don't forget that there. Mr. Trump is going to bring back jobs to this country, bring back companies to this country and make America great again.

BANFIELD: If he gets the - you know, if he gets the nomination and gets on and becomes president.

Let me ask you something, if he becomes president, that means his family becomes the first family. That means that Melania Trump becomes first lady. And she spoke with NBC earlier today. I want to play a little piece of that. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELANIA TRUMP, WIFE OF DONALD TRUMP: Do I agree all the time with him? No, I don't.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC HOST: OK.

TRUMP: And I tell him that. I tell him my - my opinions. I tell him what I think. Sometimes he listens. Sometimes he don't.

BRZEZINSKI: In what areas do you advise him?

TRUMP: I follow the news from a to z and I know what's going on. I - I'm on the phone with my husband a few times a day he calls me, I call him, I tell him what's on. He's on the road. And I give him my opinions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Listen, Katrina, there is no question Melania Knavs Trump is a very bright woman.

PIERSON: Yes.

BANFIELD: Speaks several languages. She's articulate. She's - she's lovely. But she also has done some pretty racy photo spreads in the past. I mean, "Maxim" magazine styled racy photograph spreads. And I think it's hard to get your mind around the first lady living in the White House with those photographs out there. Does that present a problem at all for the campaign?

PIERSON: No, not at all. I mean as you just heard, she's beautiful, she's smart, she's even funny, she's an entrepreneur. She was a model. That was her career. So, no, we don't feel bad about that at all. She is so strong as a woman and I believe, for myself, as such a role model, just talking to her you feel inspired. It makes you want to do more and be more because she is very strong. And she's right, she's always giving Mr. Trump advice. She might be the beauty and the brains behind the organization.

BANFIELD: You didn't mention the pictures and, you know, they've taken crowns off of miss state - name the state or Miss America for racy pictures in the past. This is first lady. This isn't a beauty queen.

PIERSON: Well, no. Yes, she was definitely a model in the past and I did mention that. And so, no, we're not concerned about that at all. She's going to make an amazing first lady.

BANFIELD: OK, Katrina, I always love having you on. I hope you come back.

PIERSON: Absolutely. Thanks a lot.

BANFIELD: Thank you, Katrina Pierson, joining us live.

And don't miss the final Republican debate before Super Tuesday on CNN tomorrow night 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

And just a reminder, we - top of the show, we showed you those live mics. We're waiting for Donald Trump to take the stage at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. We're going to take you there live just as soon as he starts speaking. He's expected to take questions from the university's founder and chancellor, Pat Robertson. That's not him at the mic. But he's also going to get some questions from the audience as well. So as they warm up that audience, we'll take a quick break, come right back.

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[12:15:45] BANFIELD: So, I want to give you something straight out of the Oval Office because earlier today a very high level meeting took place there with the king of Jordan, King Abdullah. Look, he's here to talk about some very critical foreign policy issues, not the least of which ISIS, what to do in the Syrian conflict, Iraqi refugees who are coming over the border into Jordan and the two state solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Those are some of the key issues that were on the agenda for the meeting.

And here they are in the Oval Office where they did something called a pool spray with the press. You get any kind of questions. Sometime they answer. Sometimes they don't. And the president fresh off the heels of writing a blog for SCOTUS blog about appointing a Supreme Court nominee, he spoke directly to that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the Senate exercises its constitutional role in advise and content. I'm going to do my job. We are going to go through a process, as we have done in two previous Supreme Court vacancies, to identify an outstanding candidate that has impeccable legal credentials and would bring the kind of ability and compassion and objectivity and legal reasoning to the court that, you know, the highest court in the land demands.

And once I've made a nomination, then Leader McConnell and all the members of the Senate are going to make a decision about, how do they fulfill their constitutional responsibilities. I recognize the politics are hard for them because the easier thing to do is to give in to the most extreme voices within their party and stand pat and do nothing.

But that's not our job. Our job is to fulfill our constitutional duties. And so my hope and expectation is that once there is an actual nominee, once this is no longer an abstraction, that those on the judiciary committee recognize that their job is to give this person a hearing, to show the courtesy of meeting with them. They are then free to vote whatever their conscience dictates as to whether this person is qualified or not.

In the meantime, the American people are going to have the ability to gauge whether the person I've nominated is well within the mainstream, is a good jurist, is somebody who's worthy to sit on the Supreme Court. And I think it will be very difficult for Mr. McConnell to explain how if the public concludes that this person is very well qualified, that the Senate should stand in the way simply for political reasons.

We'll see what happens. And I think the situation may evolve over time. I don't expect Mitch McConnell to say that is the case today. I don't expect any member of the Republican caucus to stick their head out at the moment and stay that, but let's see how the public response to the nominee that we put forward.

The one thing I think is important to dispel is any notion that somehow this is some well-established tradition or some constitutional principle that a president, in his last year of office, cannot fill a Supreme Court vacancy. It's not in the text of the Constitution. Ironically, these are Republicans who say they believe in reading the text of the Constitution and focusing on the intent of the Constitution. None of the founding fathers thought that - you know, when it comes to the president carrying out his duties, he should do it for three years and then on the last year stop doing it. There's an argument that, well, the president should don't this because he is a lame duck. Well, the truth of the matter is, is that traditionally the term "lame duck" refers to the two or three months after an election has taken place in which a new president is about to be sworn in.

[12:20:17] I've got a year to go. I don't think they would approve of me abdicating on my duties to - as commander-in-chief and to stop doing all the other work that I've got to do. Well, this is part of my job. There's been arguments that for 80 years this has been the tradition. Well, that's not the case. Justice Kennedy was approved after being nominated by Ronald Reagan in Ronald Reagan's last year of office. They say, well, that's different because he had been nominated in 1987, even if he was confirmed - or '85, even if he was confirmed in '86. Well, the notion that there's some two-month period in which suddenly it all flips and everything shuts down, that's not a credible argument.

What other arguments are they making? They suggest that while there have been a couple of times where Democrats said it would be wise for a president not to nominate someone. First of all, we know senators say stuff all the time. Second of all, these were comments that were made where there was no actual nomination at stake. So it has no application to an actual - the actual situation that we have right now.

I'm trying to think of any other leads that they're grasping here as to why they would not carry out their duties. And I can't really think of one. I recognize that this is an important issue for their constituencies and it's particularly sensitive because this was Justice Scalia's seat that is now vacant and that a whole host of decisions on the Supreme Court could turn on this ninth justice and their vote (ph). But that's how our democracy is supposed to work.

And what I do - last point I'll make. We have already seen a breakdown of the judicial appointment process that gets worse and worse each and every year, each and every Congress. It becomes harder and harder to get any candidates for the judiciary confirmed. We saw Senator Reid have to employ the so-called nuclear option because it was such a long (INAUDIBLE) in terms of getting judicial appointments through. If in fact the Republicans in the Senate take a posture that defies the Constitution, defies logic, it is not supported by tradition simply because of politics, then invariably what you're going to see is a further deterioration in the ability of any president to make any judicial appointments.

And appointments to the Supreme Court, as well as the federal bench, suddenly become a complete extension of our polarized politics. And at that point not only are we going to see more and more vacancies and the court systems break down, but the credibility of the court itself begins to diminish because it's viewed simply as an extension of our politics. This is a Republican judge, or this is a Democratic judge, as opposed to this is a Supreme Court justice who is supposed to be standing above the day to day politics that take place.

So I understand the posture that they're taking right now. I get the politics of it. I'm sure they're under enormous pressure from their base and their constituencies around this issue. I've talked to many of them and I've told them I'm sympathetic. And, by the way, there's not a lot of vigor when they defend the position that they're taking, that they wouldn't even (INAUDIBLE) Supreme Court nominee. They're pretty sheepish about it when they make those comments. So we'll see how - how this plays itself out. But I'm going to do my job. I'm going to nominate somebody and let the American people decide as to whether that person is qualified. And if they are qualified, let the American people decide whether there's enough time for the U.S. Senate to have hearings and have a vote. It's not as if, from what I see, the Senate calendar is so full that we don't have time to get this done.

All right, thank you, guys.

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[12:25:34] BANFIELD: Yes, that - that Senate calendar could be a big political chess match at this point as King Abdullah of Jordan and the president wrap up their bilateral meeting in the Oval Office. Here's what's at stake. The president says he's going to get busy and do his job to nominate - yep, the Constitution says he needs to do that. And then the Senate's leadership has already come out and said it will not grant hearings and it will not give any meetings to any nominees who come by for any kind of visit or hearing. That's not going to happen. So the next chess move would be the president could do the old recess appointment. If the Senate's in recess, Article II of the Constitution says he can appoint somebody. But guess what, the Senate can decide not to go into recess because in 2014 they saw recess appointments as a problem so there were some changes made. So, yes, a chess match could be in the offing.

And, by the way, the president was absolutely right in the fact that the election year in 1988 it was, not 1986, Justice Kennedy was appointed. That was an election year and that was a Reagan appointee. So there's just so much embedded in the conversation that's ahead with regard to this Supreme Court nominee.

I do urge you to go to SCOTUS blog, though, because the president did do this unusual guest writing today and wrote his opinions on SCOTUS blog. Plus, SCOTUS blog is just awesome, awesome reading.

Donald Trump, by the way, is on stage at Regent University. He's in Virginia Beach, Virginia, fresh off that big win in Nevada. We're going to take you live there. Big Q&A coming with Pat Robertson. Take you there in a moment.

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