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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

CNN Town Hall Reviewed; Trump and Cruz in Wisconsin; GOP Loyalty Pledge; Trump Campaign Chief Charged. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 30, 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] JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Wisconsin has an open primary here. So that's why the Clinton campaign feels better about New York. It's a - it's a Democratic primary for Democrats who always vote here.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Guys, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for keeping an eye on that event. Jeff, Jackie, Angela, thank you.

And thank you all so much for joining us "AT THIS HOUR." LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.

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

Right now we've got serious politics for you. Donald Trump speaking live in De Pere, Wisconsin. Ted Cruz at an even in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife Heidi and also alongside Carly Fiorina. Bernie Sanders, for his part, also live in Wisconsin. And Hillary Clinton about to speak live in New York. Just so we're clear, Donald Trump is a unifier, so long as Republicans nominate Donald Trump. And he hates nuclear proliferation but he thinks Japan and South Korea might need nukes of their own. A week before the next GOP contest, the Wisconsin primary, Trump and his two surviving opponents address issues, huge and small, weighty and petty at last night CNN's town hall. My colleague, Dana Bash, hits all the high points.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, MODERATOR: Nice to see you.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Things have gotten so ugly, all three remaining Republican candidates went back on their promises to support the party nominee.

COOPER: Do you continue to pledge, whoever the Republican nominee is?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, I don't anymore. Look -

COOPER: You don't?

TRUMP: No.

BASH: That came after Ted Cruz refused to back Trump, despite being asked three times.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family. I think that is going beyond the line.

BASH: Trump said he understands if Cruz won't support him.

TRUMP: I don't want his support. I don't need his support. I want him to be comfortable.

BASH: And then renewed a warning to party leaders.

COOPER: Guarantee that you will support the Republican nominee.

TRUMP: I have been treated very unfairly. Look, I won the state of Missouri, right? No, I have. Awe, a few Cruz people. I've been treated - I've been treated very unfairly. I'll give you an example. I won -

COOPER: Unfairly by who?

TRUMP: I think by basically the RNC, the Republican Party, the establishment.

BASH: John Kasich even went so far as to say he never should have made the pledge in the first place.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If the nominee is somebody that I think is really hurting the country and dividing the country, I can't stand behind them.

BASH: Donald Trump came to CNN's town hall eager to defend his campaign manager, charged earlier in the day with simple battery against a reporter.

TRUMP: Based on what I heard, I don't think he really even knew who she was.

BASH: On another issue he calls a distraction, the ugly back and forth about their wives, Trump was vintage Trump.

TRUMP: It's just a - I didn't start it. I didn't start it.

COOPER: OK, that's - but, sir, sir, with all due respect, that's the argument of a five-year-old.

TRUMP: I didn't start it. No, it's not the - it's the argument of -

COOPER: Yes, the argument of a five-year-old is, he started it.

TRUMP: Excuse me. You would say that. That's the problem with our country.

COOPER: Every parent knows a kid who says, he started it.

TRUMP: That's - that's not a five year old. Excuse me. No, no, no. That's the problem. Exactly that thinking is the problem this country has. I did not start this.

BASH: Cruz, once again, denied knowing anything about the anti-Trump super PAC ad featuring Melania Trump and doubled down on blaming Trump for planting a tabloid report accusing Cruz of infidelity.

CRUZ: You know "The National Enquirer," in its history, has never endorsed a presidential candidate until Donald Trump.

BASH: This week Trump rattled world leaders by suggesting a nuclear Asia, which the west worked for decades to avoid, may be OK. At CNN's town hall, he went further.

TRUMP: Can I be honest with you? Maybe it's going to have to be time to change because so many people - you have Pakistan has it, you have China has it. At some point we have to say, you know what, we're better off if Japan protects itself against this maniac in North Korea.

BASH: Cruz defended his own controversial national security idea, to patrol Muslim communities in the U.S.

CRUZ: Listen, if you want to stop radical Islamic terrorism, the answer isn't to go hang out in random neighborhoods. It is instead to focus on communities where radicalization is a risk.

BASH: Later, Kasich called that ridiculous.

KASICH: If we polarize the entire Muslim community, how are we going to get the information we want?

BASH: But what may have been the most revealing moment of the night where seemingly simple question that candidates had trouble answering.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What would you regard as your greatest personal failure and what did you learn from it?

CRUZ: You know, those are always - whether in political campaign or a job interview, those are always tricky questions.

COOPER: When was the last time you actually apologized for something?

TRUMP: Oh, wow. No, I do - I don't know. I'll think. Can I think? I apologized to my mother years ago for using foul language.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[12:05:00] BASH: Eventually Trump thought of another time he apologized, when apparently more recently to his wife for not being presidential enough here on the campaign trail. Now, where I am in Wisconsin, this is the next political battleground. Six days from now, on Tuesday, 42 delegates are up for grabs on the Republican side, which is crucial when every single delegate matters right now as Donald Trump tries to seal the deal before the convention and his two opponents try to stop him.

Ashleigh. BANFIELD: Dana Bash in Wisconsin.

And, you know, Wisconsin is a battleground because look where everybody is today. In De Pere, there's Donald Trump on the left and Heidi Cruz is speaking for her husband Ted Cruz in Madison on the right-hand side. Both Trump and Cruz are holding dueling rallies in this state because it is worth a whopping 42 Republican delegates. Those to be award next Tuesday. CNN's Phil Mattingly is following Trump on the outskirts of Green Bay. Sunlen Serfaty is with Cruz in Madison.

So I'm going to start with you, Phil, if I can. I'm guessing there might be some cheese heads in the audience. But any fallout from what happened last night?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think what you saw last night was, look, there's no shortage of issues for Donald Trump to get into. And the Republican all deciding not to back one another is certainly an interesting development. But I think what has happened here has actually been kind of strange, Ashleigh. He's had a very decidedly different tone. Actually almost sounding like he's making a commencement address to the students (INAUDIBLE) today, not flipping into politics and, once again, focusing on foreign policy. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Just with one example, NATO, the billions of dollars that we spend, all of that money that we spend and other countries are taking advantage of us. They're just taking advantage. They're not putting up their fair share. You look at the United Nations, same thing. I mean, what do we ever get out of the United Nations? Do you ever hear that the United Nations solved a problem? It's become a political hornet's nest. We spend a fortune on it, disproportionate. Always disproportionate. You know, it's never disproportionate in our favor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: NATO, the U.N. What we've seen over the last five or six days, Ashleigh, has been Donald Trump really challenging corner stones of U.S. foreign policy and international norms in foreign policy continuing to do that today. But also unsolicited, just a few minutes ago, Donald Trump going into what happened with his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, again making the point that he defends him. He does not believe he did anything wrong. And nothing is going to change with Corey Lewandowski's standing within this campaign, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: I'm going to talk about that later on. Thank you for that, Phil. We're going to dig a lot deeper into what the prosecutors might actually have to decide on next. I'll let Phil get back to covering.

And, Sunlen, I'm going to pull you out of your rally for a moment. I know you have to keep your voice low. But I do want to know what Ted Cruz is doing because last night he made his mention about his respect for strong women and it just so happens this morning the event I think is called "Women for Cruz." So, take me there.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well, this is absolutely an event to try to woo women voters, Ashleigh. Ted Cruz coming out here on stage and declaring that this is a celebration of strong women. And he's touting, he's trotting out strong women that he sees in his life, his mom, Eleanor Cruz, his wife, Heidi Cruz. He had his daughters up there on stage briefly, and Carly Fiorina, a former rival, of course, who has endorsed him and campaigning with him throughout here in Wisconsin. So certainly trying to highlight women's issues.

We've heard a kind of round table discussion of sorts among them on state about balancing work and family and issues that are important to the women in his life. We've heard some personal stories from his mom, as well. So really trying to roll out almost a softer side to him and his family.

But it certainly is interesting, this event coming after, you know, a fierce back and forth last week between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz over their spouses and this discussion about Donald Trump's treatment of women. And I asked the Cruz campaign about that timing. You know they say it does serve as a very clear contrast between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. So very interesting going forward how they're trying to use certainly members of his family to demonstrate and to potentially provide an opening to demonstrate that he's a candidate that cares about women.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Sunlen Serfaty, thank you. I'm going to let you get back to covering the event. It will be busy, those events all day long. So stay with CNN as we continue to bring these events to you.

I want to bring in Ron Brownstein now, who's the senior editor of "The Atlantic" magazine and CNN's senior political analyst.

And I'm going to emphasize the senior now because I want you to dig way deep down into that political acumen of yours, if you would, and try to help me get my head around this notion that these Republican candidates are not going to honor this pledge to support - well it appears that way, if you, you know, listen to question after question that won't be answered, whether they'll honor the pledge to actually endorse one another if he does not get the nomination. They're not doing that.

[12:10:01] RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BANFIELD: Do you recall anything like this in recent history, in Republican politics?

BROWNSTEIN: Not to this extent and not this explicitly. I mean often during the primaries there's a lot of heated speculation during the heat of the competition about whether the parties can come together in the end and almost always - really always they do, especially in kind of modern politics where the polarization is so wide between the two sides that there's just enormous pressure to kind of line up with your team against the others. But what we - what we saw last night, I think, was pretty remarkable because not only did you have Trump, Cruz and Kasich not explicitly commit to supporting the others, but you had Donald Trump affirmatively saying he didn't necessarily want or need the supporters of the others. That, I can tell you, I think is unprecedented, to have Donald Trump say that, I don't need Ted Cruz and implying I don't need Scott Walker, I don't need Jeb Bush, and really underscoring the extent to which his candidacy is an insurrection within the party that is aimed as much at its leadership as against the - as against the Democratic Party.

BANFIELD: So the insurrection he often talks about how loyal his followers are. I think we're all getting a pretty clear picture of how loyal his followers are. But, Ron, when it comes down to, you know, brass tacks, it's critical to get your facts right. His supports think security is very important. I get that. But when he talks about NATO and last night saying the actual, quote, "NATO doesn't cover terrorism," that's just plain wrong. I mean let's just go to September 11th. You know, at this point, September 11th, NATO countries sided with the United States. It was the genesis for the coalition of the willing to fight against terror. And there are several examples patrolling the Mediterranean after that. So I guess the question I have is, what is off the table? Like what does matter to his supporters? If the - the things they care about, he flouts and makes egregious errors in very public settings.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, I think Donald Trump is in what I - what I've often called the Trump treadmill. He has basically identified a piece of the Republican coalition. And his piece is bigger, Ashleigh - you know, his portion of the coalition is bigger, no question, than any of his rivals, but it is not a majority. And that's the important point here. I think he has - he is attracting a group of Republican voters who are deeply alienated from many of the trends in modern American life, both economic and cultural, who feel that they are somewhat both culturally marginalized, economically marginalized and ignored by elites in their parties. And the more outrageous Trump gets I think for those voters, the more he convinces them he will do whatever it takes to advance their concerns, which they think have been ignored at the national level. The problem is, that same behavior that deepens his whole on his own supporters I think causes enormous resistance and backlash among other voters. I mean he is looking at historically high negatives in the general electorate.

BANFIELD: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: In the CNN poll, over 70 percent among millennials, over 80 percent among minorities, over 70 percent among women. So you have a candidate who is basically a plurality frontrunner who has not grown into being a majority frontrunner and thus you see the resistance kind of deepening rather than dissolving as this process goes on.

BANFIELD: Then a recent poll had 60 percent of Republican primary voters saying they were embarrassed about their campaign.

I want to play something last night that transpired. I think it was very telling. It was a great question from one of the audience members for Donald Trump about the priorities of the federal government. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We - if you look at that far as security for our nation. I would also say health care. I would also say education. I mean there are many, many things. But I would say the top three are security, security, security. We have to have security for our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, Ron, I said it before, Trump supporters care a lot about security, they care a lot about terror. But he went even further and he said, the three things that he thinks are the top priority for him, for the federal government, were security, education and health care.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BANFIELD: The last I checked, those two were not in the Republican platform as being a priority for the federal government.

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

BANFIELD: They were to be states issues. And now I'm trying to figure out, are his supporters Republicans or are they Re-Trump-licans and are there enough of them to carry a Republican to the White House?

BROWNSTEIN: It was just a reminder on how many different fronts he shatters the orthodoxy of where the party has been. I mean essentially the adimating (ph) principle of Trump's agenda is a blue collar populism or economic nationalism. It's skeptical of both foreign influences and domestic elites. So that leads him to be, you know, very harsh on immigration, very tough on trade. But also, again, in contravention to where Republicans like Paul Ryan have been, to oppose retrenching entitlement programs for the elderly, 80 percent of American seniors today are white. And those voters, the conservative side of that electorate, is very resistant to changes in Social Security. So in all of those ways he's been in touch with what his base has been, which are these white, working class voters, I mean the core of his support in the Republican primary.

[12:15:00] To go a step further, though, on education and health care really, I think, takes him, to some extent, in conflict with those own voters and I think it is just a reminder of how much of this seems to be happening on the fly, whether on the domestic policies that you mentioned or the foreign policies we talked about a minute ago.

BANFIELD: I think you're right. There's a lot of on the fly because he's in conflict with his own statements, as well. And, again, it does not seem to matter to his very, very fierce supporters.

Ron Brownstein, always good to have you. Thank you, sir.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Coming up next, Donald Trump not backing down today either, defending his campaign manager against charges of grabbing a reporter. Is Trump right, insisting that the charges won't stick, or is there more to this case than you have seen yet? We're actually going to lay out the evidence. The same evidence that the prosecutors have on their desk right now as they decide whether the man on the left of that screen is going to have to face a trial for this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Donald Trump says that firing his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, would have been the easier route, and still he is defending him instead. This is a day after Lewandowski was charged with simple battery in Florida. And it all stems from this video. We showed it to you yesterday. And, believe me, Trump has had a good chance to take a look at it, too. And he says what happened is so minor, Lewandowski should fight this charge.

[12:20:15] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think he should. I told him, I said, you should never settle this case. You should go all the way. I think they've really hurt a very good person. And I know it would be very easy for me to discard people. I don't discard people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: After the initial incident, Lewandowski tweeted this, "Michelle Fields, you are totally delusional. I never touched you. As a matter of fact, I have never even met you." Never met, maybe. Never touched, absolutely false. In fact, one of his attorneys, Bradford Cohen, conceded that issue on NBC's "Today" show this morning, that Lewandowski did, in fact, touch Michelle Fields.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRADFORD COHEN, LAWYER FOR COREY LEWANDOWSKI: The video shows contact. What I'm saying is, in Corey's mind, the next day, if someone says, hey, I was pulled - almost pulled to the ground and you don't even recall that incident, you don't recall that individual, if you look at the video, Corey isn't even looking at her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The fact that Lewandowski actually touched her is a big deal because here's the legal definition of battery in Florida statute. The offense occurs when a person actually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of that other person. It's a misdemeanor in the first degree. And if Lewandowski's convicted, he could get up to a year behind bars and up to a $1,000 fine.

So, what are the odds? For the legal view I want to bring in Judge Alex Ferrer, former host of "Judge Alex," and CNN legal analyst Paul Callen, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor.

All right, you guys, as you well know, police do their job and then they hand it over to the prosecutors. Then those guys sift through it and they decide a couple of things. Number one, do we have enough to meet our burden and, number two, is there a possibility we could actually get a conviction here. So to that end, we decided to put together a little list of what's sitting on the desk down in Jupiter, Florida, at this time. They've got the video that we just saw. They have witness testimony of Ben Terris, who was there at the moment. They've got Corey Lewandowski's tweets immediately after where he says I never touched her. They've got pictures of Michelle Fields' bruises that were sent out immediately. And then maybe most significantly, they have audiotapes of Michelle Fields initial reaction as told to Ben Terris, who happened to be rolling tape as a "Washington Post" reporter. And that tape is pretty significant. I'm going to play it in a moment. But just looking at that list, Paul Callan, to you first, you don't typically get a list like that in a simple battery case.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, no, you don't. And I'm thinking, what, are they running out of crime in Jupiter, Florida? When I started out as a prosecutor in New York City, we used to have something - we called it the 20-stitch rule. If an assault resulted in 20 stitches or less, we generally reduced and dismissed the case at arraignments.

BANFIELD: Wow.

CALLAN: Now, admittedly, the crime rate was three times higher than it is now. It was a violent time. However, simple battery cases are rarely brought in the criminal justice system because nobody really gets hurt and usually it's resolved individually. It's very, very rare that you see one. And here, with this compilation of evidence being - you know, it's being prosecuted like a serious felony. So, I don't know, it just - it strikes me as technically they can prove it, but should they be prosecuting?

BANFIELD: So, Judge Alex, the initial response from the Trump campaign was that she probably made it up. And even Donald Trump himself reiterated that, that she's probably making it all up. So the critical issue here is the immediate reaction. And that is caught on tape. So I want to play the audio that Ben Terris recorded the moment that this had happened, after Michelle Fields had been pulled backwards. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE FIELDS: Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

BEN TERRIS: Yes, he just like threw you.

FIELDS: I can't believe he just did that. That was so hard. Oh, my - was that Corey?

TERRIS: Yes, it was like, what threat were you?

FIELDS: That was insane.

TERRIS: Yes.

FIELDS: You should've felt how hard he grabbed me. That was insane. Oh, my gosh. I've never had anyone do that from a campaign. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So as a - you know, if you're - if you're a prosecutor and you're looking at that moment and you have that moment actually recorded, is that significant to you or do you default back to what Paul just said, and that is, hey, come on, it was a couple of bruises. No big deal. Let's all move on.

ALEX FERRER, FORMER HOST, "JUDGE ALEX": Well, I mean, let's put it this way, battery in Florida is defined as unlawful touching of another person without their consent. That ranges from grabbing their arm and pulling them or even tapping them on the shoulder, which would never be prosecuted, to punching them in the face. All of that falls under that category. So prosecutors have to make a decision whether to prosecute.

That evidence is very powerful evidence because it's what we call presence sense impression. It goes beyond the heresy rule and is admitted and it shows, this is not something she made up after the fact. She was feeling it and responding to it at the time.

So if a - if you have an individual, a victim, who says, hey, I was hit, take it out of this context and put it in the context of a domestic violence. Police show up at the house. The woman has a bruise on her face or on her arm and she says, my husband hit me. He's getting arrested. He's getting arrested and he's getting taken to jail. They have evidence. They have the bruise. And they have her complaint that some physical contact happened.

[12:25:16] CALLEN: Yes, but he had -

FERRER: Now, in this case, it probably never would have happened, it probably never would have gone any further had Corey just picked up the phone and called her and said, I'm sorry, and the -

BANFIELD: I overreacted.

FERRER: In the heat of the moment, I saw you and pulled you to one side.

BANFIELD: Yes. There are the bruises, by the way. And, by the way, whenever I see bruises, I'm not happy about it. I don't think it's simple and I know your 20-stitch rule and I get what it means, but bruising someone in the context of a campaign (INAUDIBLE) -

CALLAN: Well, let me ask you this, when - when -

FERRER: It's - it's a (INAUDIBLE) case but - as far as -

CALLAN: When have you ever seen a reporter in a situation like this prosecuting a candidate's campaign manager in any other presidential campaign ever?

BANFIELD: Yes, never.

CALLAN: I mean I remember - you know, Dan Rather being beaten by the Chicago Police into submission.

BANFIELD: But, you know what, Donald Trump - yes, Donald Trump did suggest -

CALLAN: He didn't prosecute anybody.

BANFIELD: Donald Trump did suggest in I think in a tweet or a comment yesterday that he might actually look at pressing - do we have that photograph of the hand of - Michelle Field's hand. He said she grabbed me. But if you look up close, you can see her - her - it's - I think it's almost her ring finger, the back of her ring finger.

FERRER: Yes.

BANFIELD: And, again, the back of her hand brushing up against his arm. That's just a far cry from a grab.

FERRER: He needs - he needs to stay away from this.

BANFIELD: That's what the TSA does so that they can't be accused of grabbing or groping, they use the back of their hands.

FERRER: Yes. He needs to stay away from this. He just needs to say, let the legal system handle it. The reality is, a battery like this in really - in the grand scheme of crime we try in Florida -

BANFIELD: Do you think this is going to get prosecuted?

FERRER: No, I think it's going to become a - what's called pretrial diversion. I think they're going to offer him a program. I - he may not take - he may say he's going to fight it all the way just until he gets to the election because he doesn't want to concede anything. But I think, at the end of the day, they drop it because he does a program or something, because it really isn't that much. It probably wouldn't have been filed had he just called her, apologized and said, you know -

BANFIELD: Yes. And, Paul, just real quickly, do you think the prosecutors will go ahead with this given the list that they have?

CALLAN: If they do, they're going to lose the case because jurors hate the -

BANFIELD: He'll lose it?

FERRER: No.

CALLAN: Yes, they hate - jurors hate the press.

BANFIELD: With that evidence, they'll lose it?

CALLAN: Jurors hate the press and this guy's going to come in and say that the death threats against Donald Trump and maybe I over reacted a little bit. I thought she was going to do him harm.

BANFIELD: Yes. CALLAN: Because I saw the back of his - her hand (ph).

BANFIELD: So you think the prosecutors, then, not the jury, you think the prosecutors will punt?

CALLAN: I think the prosecutors - I think they're going to punt in the end on it unless - but I agree with the judge, he'll be offered pretrial diversion.

BANFIELD: We'll watch.

CALLAN: Maybe he'll take that and make it go away.

BANFIELD: Thank you both for your insight. Appreciate it.

CALLAN: Yes.

FERRER: OK.

BANFIELD: Paul Callan, Judge Alex, as always.

Coming up next, the truth, the whole truth. If you heard some things in last night's town hall that did not seem to add up to you, guess what, you're not the only one. The candidates had our fact finders working overtime. And we can't wait to show you how many truth and falsies we came up with.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)