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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Race for the White House; Battle for Wisconsin. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 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] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.

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

The campaign trail heating up as we count down to the Wisconsin primary. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz holding competing town halls right now, in fact. They're there today. John Kasich holding town halls in Trump's home state of New York, which votes in two weeks' time. Forty- two GOP delegates are up for grabs in Wisconsin. And that's not chump change. And all three candidates spoke just moments ago. Have a listen to what they said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If we do well here, folks, it's over. If - if we don't - if we don't - if we don't win here, it's not over, but wouldn't you like to take the credit in Wisconsin for ending it? Give Wisconsin the credit for ending it. And then we can focus on Hillary instead of these two guys.

I was interviewed by Bob Woodward and Bob Costa at "The Washington Post." Two great reporters. And they did a story. And it was - I thought it was a pretty good story. It was pretty accurate. I don't know where they had this (ph), but somebody came out that I said we are going - we're in a bubble, big bubble, could be a really ugly bubble. You know what that is, right, bubbles. Bubbles aren't pretty. We've had bubbles. And when they burst it's not a good thing. And what I said is, we're going to go into a massive recession, but I also say, if I'm president, that's not going to happen because I'm going to straighten things out before it happens. It's going to be a mess. And, you know, you cannot continue to lose the kind of billions and billions of dollars on every single thing we do.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I believe the same dynamic we're seeing here in Wisconsin will play out at the convention, which is that our campaign will unify the Republican Party. It is doing it every day. We are seeing the full ideological range. We are seeing coming together, Republicans, and independents, and libertarians, and Reagan Democrats, unifying behind this campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Everybody wants those 42 delegates in Wisconsin and beyond. But as for the Democrats, a whole other story. Hillary Clinton hitting the stage at an event in New York City. And we're going to bring you those remarks just as soon as she heads to the podium after her introduction.

And joining us now on the trail live with the Trump campaign is CNN's Jason Carroll, who has been hopscotching along, trying to keep up, and that's no small fete, Jason Carroll. So let's talk Wisconsin. Does Trump really think that he can win that state?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I can tell you that Trump, right now, has just wrapped up his speech here addressing the crowd here at Lacrosse. The crowd here really fired up. He hit on some of the same themes. Themes we've heard him talk about before. But he also took a moment to really go after Governor Kasich, telling him - telling the crowd it's really time for him to drop out, saying that he's one for 30, saying it's time for him to get the hell out.

Also making a prediction about the state of Wisconsin. As you know, Ashleigh, he's behind in the polls here, behind by some 10 percentage points behind Ted Cruz. It's Trump's belief that some of those votes are from Kasich that are going to Kasich should be going to him. He also is saying that, look, what's happened - what's happening here in Wisconsin is the same thing that happened in South Carolina. He said I was in the - behind in the polls there. The very popular governor, Nikki Haley, came out in support of Senator Marco Rubio and I still won. He said that's going to happen again. Listen to what he had to say just a little earlier.

BANFIELD: I don't think we have that sound bite, Jason, I'm so sorry. But we just played some sound from Donald Trump. So while we're digging that one up, and I know it's hard for you to hear, Jason, I also actually want to get something queued up that happened a little - a little bit ago, which I'm going to get you to respond to, Jason, because I know that this is getting a little nasty in the Trump circle.

John Kasich has been a target of Donald Trump. Donald Trump has gone so far as to say why isn't the RNC forcing John Kasich out. he's not getting any votes. He's going to go to the convention without enough votes. And John Kasich has turned that around saying, ironically, you're not going to have enough votes either, so I welcome you dropping out of the race. Let's listen to what he had to say just a few minutes ago about playing in the sandbox.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And Trump said Kasich needs to get out. I mean think about what this guy said. He said, he needs to get out because he's getting my votes. And I want to have my votes. He's - this is not fair. I thought we got out of the sandbox years ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:05:06] BANFIELD: Oh, wow, that's getting down and dirty in the sandbox, Jason, if I do say so. And I can't imagine that Donald Trump doesn't hear about these things the minute they happen. And that was just moments ago. So what do we expect from Trump as a back at ya, Kasich?

CARROLL: Well, I - well, I can tell you one thing, I mean, you know, when you have two people playing in a sandbox and one person won't get out, you might want to say one person is being really stubborn. And that's basically what Trump is saying about Kasich. Kasich is saying that this is someone - this is a man who is stubborn. He's saying this is a man who does not belong in the race.

But you heard there from Kasich, I mean, Kasich has no intention of getting out of this race anytime soon. So it's definitely a thorn in Trump's side. One that doesn't seem to be going away.

But, one again, he really took this moment to get out to these voters, to try to impress upon them the need to get out and vote tomorrow. Kasich is still in the race and he wanted to make a point to these voters that, look, if you go out and you go out in large numbers, we can still pull off a win here.

BANFIELD: I feel like I'm at the club watching jump around (INAUDIBLE) behind you here. You can't always get what you want by The Stones Star (ph). I love it. You have the best job, Jason. Thank you for that. I'm going to let you get back to covering the event.

Meantime, I want to break down this race with our panel. The CNN delegate analyst that we have anointed is Mike Shields. He's a CNN political commentator. He's joining us live today, along with Errol Louis. And also with us is Trump supporter and CNN political commentator Kayleigh McEnany.

Thank you to all three of you.

If I can begin with you, Mike, this is - the delegates and the scraping away at the corners and edges and troughs to dig out enough delegates here and there, that's going to be critical, but all of that is lost on a day like Wisconsin. At 42 delegates, Donald Trump said, let's end it here. That's not possible, is it?

MIKE SHIELDS, CNN DELEGATE ANALYST: No, it's not possible. It certainly will help him. I think really what he's more worried about is that if he doesn't win Wisconsin, then he knows he's really in for a long haul and it's very likely that we're going to have an open convention. And I think it's very interesting to hear the messages from him versus what Ted Cruz is saying. You're starting to hear Ted Cruz really appeal, not only to voters, but actually directly to the delegates. And he's running a delegate operation. And so some of the things that Trump says on the trail, as very interesting, criticizing John Kasich and going after Ted Cruz, he's got to, at some point, start thinking about the message he's going to get to the delegates when he gets to the convention because if Wisconsin doesn't go his way and we continue on the same path, we're going to be in Cleveland and he's going to have to start appealing to the actual delegates themselves who are going to vote on whether or not he's going to be the nominee. BANFIELD: So, Kayleigh, to that point, it is interesting to hear this

back and forth between your guy, Donald Trump, and now John Kasich, who is saying, I'm not going to take any of this. I'm going to send it right back at him on this whole business of dropping out of the race if you don't have enough delegates. Everybody knows Donald Trump has a lot more delegates than John Kasich does. But if the idea is you don't have enough to get to the convention, well, neither does Donald Trump.

And now we're seeing that Wisconsin is an open primary. Does Donald Trump think that this open primary business is going to be enough to pull him over the 10-point deficit he's in, in that state, to perhaps get even closer to being able to convince John Kasich that he's going to win it before the convention?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Perhaps. You know, he's certainly relying on the open primary scenario and courting independents. I'm not sure if it will be enough. We do see this gap, this wide, double-digit gap between Cruz and Trump. So, you know, there is a good chance that Cruz pulls this off.

But, you know, as for the Kasich-Trump back and forth, ordinarily I don't like calls for candidates to get out of the race. I say, let it play out. Let the democratic process play out. But it's worth mentioning with regard to John Kasich, it is statistically impossible for him to reach the 1,237 number. It would take winning roughly 120 percent of the delegates, which obviously is not possible. So John Kasich is really banking at going to the convention and taking the nomination from either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, who are garnering well and above a great number of delegates.

So you have to ask yourself, you know, John Kasich is that really democratic to go to a convention and deny the top two people their spot as the nominee? So I think that's where these calls are coming from and it makes sense when you put it in that context.

BANFIELD: You know, the whole business about the top guy, the top guy, there is a political process and it is very arcane state to state that determines the top guy. And, Errol Louis, to that end, we just watched three states in North Dakota, Colorado and Tennessee with that arcanity playing out in earnest and the good political machinery actually determining the top guy. North Dakota looked real good in its designation of delegates. It wasn't a vote, it was a designation of delegates. Ted Cruz went there. He was able to scrounge up the ones that he thinks will be, you know, in his favor, even though they're open. Twenty-five Republican candidates. He was able to get a very solid group of those in his column. Whether they'll actually vote that way at the convention or not remains to be seen.

[12:10:15] The same with Colorado. He was able to get in there early and scoop up the early ones. We've still got to determine some towards the end of this week. And Tennessee, same issue again, it's the machine that is working in Ted Cruz's favor. Is Donald Trump going to realize this eventually and get into the machinery and will it be too late at that point?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well there's certainly been enough reporting that Donald Trump personally I'm sure is aware of this and the people around him, some of whom are old political hands also know this. But I think you put your finger on it a minute ago, Ashleigh, that if he's going to go out and antagonize the process and the establishment and the machines, if he get - if he wants to do that, that's fine. But when he gets to Cleveland, that's all he's going to be dealing with, really. He's going to be dealing with the product of multiple state conventions, some pretty arcane number counting. I salute Mike for even trying to sort of figure this out. I've seen wildly different counts about what just happened in North Dakota. So we don't know who's bound and who's leaning one way or another.

Donald Trump says that he's a great negotiator, he's a great coalition builder. He'll have to put that to the test. But I think as his speech has indicated, he would rather not have to do that. He'd rather go in with strength and he's kind of taking a chance by possibly alienating a lot of the delegates because if there is a second ballot in Cleveland, everything - well, much of it goes out the window and it becomes a - kind of a negotiating free for all.

BANFIELD: So, Mike Shields, the negotiating and the free for all, I think we're starting to really see that, at least in the headlines anyway, what it actually takes to dig into those troughs and find those delegates. And, look, I've never been a part of this process and I know this is your bread and butter, but there's this amazing piece out today talking about how voting laws do not tell you that you can't buy yourself some delegates. You can't grease the wheels of delegates. And you're smiling. I love the fact that you get it right away. Can you help me to understand, if I'm a delegate in North Dakota, are you seriously offering me like patio furniture or a place in your administration? What exactly does this mean? What - how far can you go to grease the wheels of delegates along the way?

SHIELDS: Well, look, I think you've got to appeal to them. You've got to build relationships with them. And I think what you see in the other campaigns doing, and it looks like the Trump campaign, to their credit, is also doing the same thing, they've hired someone specifically to now go and work with these delegates. You've got to go to appeal to them. This is an election and you've got to explain to them why you should be the nominee.

You know, there's been ten times in history that the Republican Party has gone to its convention without someone reaching 50 percent of the delegates without knowing who it was. Seven times out of those ten, the person who was leading didn't get the nomination. And most of the time the delegates at the convention -

BANFIELD: I'm looking for the grease. I want you to get right to the nitty-gritty. Is it a case of crevasse (ph)? I mean is it that sort of down and dirty?

SHIELDS: Well, look, I - you've got - every state's different. You've got to get - these are real people. These are local activists that have gotten elected. First of all, some of them are running as Trump delegates on a slate and they're trying to get elected by the - to the convention from the state party. I think you've got to go negotiate. You've got to run a campaign. Just like you're running a campaign for voters in these states, you've got to get down at the local level with the delegates and start campaigning at these state conventions to get your delegates elected. That's - that's what it's all about.

BANFIELD: I want to - I want to be like Antman. I want to get into these rooms and hear what these conversations actually offer. It would be phenomenal. I love your work.

Kayleigh McEnany, Mike Shields and Errol Louis, as always, thank you to all three of you. Appreciate it.

LOUIS: Thank you.

MCENANY: Thanks, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: I want you to stay with us because as we're building up to Wisconsin, our special coverage of the presidential primaries will take place all day today, Tuesday, right here on CNN. Comprehensive coverage you will not miss a thing, I promise.

Ah, and as promised, you're looking live right now at a picture of that campaign event that I showed you a little earlier in New York for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She is due to take the mike after that guy. I know you recognize him, not because he looks like Chris Cuomo, because he's Chris Cuomo's brother, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. He's speaking now, introducing Hillary Clinton. We'll tap into her in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:18:16] BANFIELD: So Donald Trump says that he can erase America's staggering debt in the span of two terms in the White House. That is a lot of money in two terms. In fact, it's more than $19 trillion. Trillion with a - yes, trillion, "t." Is this campaign rhetoric or is it actually possible? Well, there's only one person who knows the answer to that and that's CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans with a fact check.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh, Donald Trump making some bold economic predictions. He says he could pay off the national debt in eight years in office. It's a great idea, paying down the national debt, but pulling it off in eight years, impossible. It's kind of like a magical mystery tour of math. Here's why.

The national debt is $19 trillion. Just to show you how huge this is, every man, woman and child in America would need to chip in $59,784 to pay it off. Now, for Trump to erase that debt in eight years, he would first have to maybe balance the budget so no more new debt is tacked on and that would have to take help from Congress, right? Good luck with that.

Then you've got to pay down something like $2.3 trillion a year. Here's some perspective. The entire amount the government is spending this year, less than $4 trillion. Now, Trump claims he could do it by renegotiating trade deals. Something economists say could have disastrous consequences if it starts a trade war with countries like China and Mexico. Trade wars cause recessions, lost jobs, higher deficits when tax revenue plunges. Complicating Trump's sensational claims, he wants to cut tax rates. So that could lower the amount the government brings in, making the deficit surge. How can you give tax cuts at the same time you're trying to pay down the national debt to such a high degree. He says he won't touch entitlements either.

[12:20:02] Supporters have also said he may sell the government's real estate holdings or maybe oil reserves. Even with that, Ashleigh, the math on the national debt claim just does not add up.

BANFIELD: And presidential contests do involve math, 100 percent.

I want to turn now to the Democrats. Hillary Clinton expected to take to the microphone any moment now. Bernie Sanders hoping to keep his winning streak alive, especially in Wisconsin. And, of course, the Clinton campaign has something to say about that and a lot of other things, too. Boy, there's a lot going on between these two. It's not as friendly as it used to be. We're going to listen in after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:07] BANFIELD: Bernie Sanders is making his final push in Wisconsin today. A win there tomorrow would be his sixth in the last seven contests. The Vermont senator held a rally in the city of Janesville just a short while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When you want to think about the kind of administration a Bernie Sanders would have, kind of think about Scott Walker in reverse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So Hillary Clinton is still looking ahead to New York. That is one heck of a big delegate prize. That's coming up on the 19th of this month. This is her rally in New York, actually in the city. And New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, is by her side. He's doing an intro for her. We're going to tap into that in just a few moments so we can listen in. Two hundred and forty-seven Democratic delegates are what's at stake in New York state two weeks from tomorrow. It is a biggie. I think that's an understatement.

Brian Fallon is here. He's the press secretary for Hillary for America. He's the former spokesperson for the Justice Department.

So she is doing well in New York. She's ahead in New York. But you never take these things for granted.

BRIAN FALLON, PRESS SECRETARY, HILLARY FOR AMERICA: That's right.

BANFIELD: And it's also Bernie Sanders' home and he has a lot of popularity. What does she need to do, other than holding these fantastic rallies with the governor of New York, what does she need to do to keep that spread and maybe grow that spread? And, in fact, before you get that answer out, I just want to listen in really quickly to her speak.

FALLON: There she is.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This - this is - this is such a great day for our state. This is a real watershed. Just as you heard the governor say, it's a result of what is best about New York and best about America. And I know that it's going to sweep our country because a budget is more than just numbers on a page. What was accomplished here reflects our values and our priorities. It shows the world what kind of community we are, and what we can get done when we work together. And what you have heard - what you have heard is a perfect example of building a coalition, sticking with it, convincing people it was right and achieving the goal.

I have to thank everyone, everyone who was a part of this. Up here, on the stage, you've got labor leaders, legislative leaders, and the governor. That's how this works. It started with a movement. The fight for 15. Fast food workers marched for higher wages and a union. Rank and file laborers from the public and private sector, everyone from home care workers to airport workers stood together with a very simple but profound message - we have to do better for New York families, because when families are strong, New York is strong, and America is strong.

And this movement built a strong foundation. But you and I know that a movement alone, as the governor just said, talk alone, even marching alone, may not get it done. And what the fight for 15 did was to build that base even broader and deeper.

Now, I wish I could have been in that RV with the governor and George. I think you could chart its progress across New York by just mapping out the Dunkin Donuts stops. But think about what they did. They went on the road, outside of New York City. They went across this state, making a case, a fundamental fairness and equity and justice case. And they began to convince people, and they began to broaden one more time the fight for 15 movement.

[12:30:03] BANFIELD: You may notice that Secretary Clinton began her address with "our state." She's a New Yorker, folks. This is her state. And that is a good strategy, to start a speech off saying "our state," "I'm at home,"