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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

The 2016 Presidential Race; Massive Wildfire in Alberta, Canada; New Info on Prince's Death Investigation. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 05, 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] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: On this program, in fact, that Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. And yet, for all the newfound clarity descending on this year's race for president, it is less clear than ever whether Republicans will fall in line behind Donald Trump, and whether Democrats will fall in love with Hillary Clinton. The former is now a lock on the GOP nomination, and the latter, not yet a lock on the Democratic side, but pretty darn close. A point Trump, though, was happy to highlight in a conversation with our Wolf Blitzer. For her part, Clinton tells Anderson Cooper that she's ready for whatever Trump throws her way. Let's hear from both.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "THE SITUATION ROOM": Do you think the general election campaign has already started, you versus Hillary Clinton, that for all practical purposes Bernie Sanders is out?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think what has happened is there's been a little flip, and I'm even surprised by it. I thought that I'd be going longer and she'd be going shorter. She can't put it away. That's like a football team that can't get the ball over the line. I put it away.

ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "AC 360": He's made references to your you're your marriage, to -- to your husband. Are you prepared?

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, he's not the first one, Anderson. I just can't -- I can't say this often enough. If he wants to go back to the playbook of the 1990s, if he wants to follow in the footsteps of those who have tried to knock me down and take me out of the political arena, I'm more than happy to have him do that.

COOPER: You're ready for that?

CLINTON: Oh, please.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Well, that's a good thing, because in that same interview, Secretary Clinton sampled a new not so flattering label for the Republican nominee in waiting. See if you can pick it out. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLINTON: I don't think we can take a risk on a loose cannon like Donald Trump running our country. He's a loose cannon. I mean, he's somebody who has said so many things. And I'm sure he will be scrambling and his advisers will be scrambling.

I think it's a risk. I think he is a loose cannon and loose cannons tend to misfire.

Being a loose cannon doesn't in any way protect him, I hope, from being asked the hard questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Yes, yes, did you get it? Did you hear it? Because I think you're going to be hearing a lot of it in the next couple of months as are my panelists.

Mark Preston joins me here from CNN Politics where he's executive editor, CNN's senior political report Nia-Malika Henderson joins me live from Washington, D.C., and Bob Cusack, the editor in chief on "The Hill." They're all here to discuss.

While we're all sort of ruminating on those labels that Secretary Clinton started, but certainly hasn't finished with, I want to talk more about that while falling in line part, how we started the show, because yesterday there were names circulating for VP for Donald Trump and already the list of no thank you has become significant. Just take a look, Governor Nikki Hayley from South Carolina, Rob Portman, the Ohio senator, New Mexico's governor, Suzanna Martinez, Florida's governor, Rick Scott. All of them not interested in that kind of a fantastic job offer.

And then there's John McCain. No, we're not talking about him, guys, as an offer for VP, but he is very nervous, as you can hear him in his own words. I don't think he knew the mic was on, but he's worried about the down ballot race of which he will be involved in his state. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA (voice-over): But have no doubt that if it is Donald Trump at the top of the ticket here in Arizona, with over 30 percent of the vote being Hispanic vote, no doubt that this may be the race of my life. People are angry, they're upset, they feel that there's this disconnect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Mark Preston, unity's one thing, panic is quite another.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Yes, no doubt. Look, and I think that you're also going to have the same feelings for many senators right now that are up in states where they think that having Donald Trump at the top of the ticket is going to hurt them. You know, if you look at the state of New Hampshire, for example, you know, there's a very competitive race up there right now between the sitting senator, Kelly Ayotte, and the current Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan. So you have them running against each other. You have Portman, of course, in Ohio. He is a very competitive race right now as well. So, you know, not surprising to hear John McCain say that.

BANFIELD: OK. I want to read for you something that Ben Sasse just posted and it's pretty -- it's pretty strident stuff talking about the guys at the top of this ticket. It's the open letter to majority America. I'm just going to read a little piece of it. "I've ignored my phone most of today but the voicemail is overflowing with party bosses and politicos telling me that, quote, 'although Trump is terrible,' end quote, we, quote, 'have to,' end quote, support him because the only choice is Trump or Hillary. The open letter aims simply to ask, why is that the only choice?"

So, Bob Cusack, realistically, there are lot of people -- it's not just Ben Sasse asking about a third party here, another choice, another candidate, but, realistically, this late in the game, I mean we've missed deadlines already.

[12:05:10] BOB CUSACK, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "THE HILL": Yes.

BANFIELD: Could somebody really surface at this point? Could somebody make a difference and wouldn't it just basically destroy Donald Trump's chances and that person's chances?

CUSACK: In all likelihood, yes. Those conversations, though, are happening and it would have to be, you're right, Ashleigh, deadlines have been missed. It would have to be a write-in candidate. But there are a fair amount of people -- a recent poll had one in four -- that are not satisfied with either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. So I think those talks are going to go on, but certainly that's something that Democrats want, another Republican in the race, would certainly give her the presidency. And that's -- that's the rub there.

On the VP thing, I think one thing to keep in mind is that Joe Biden said he wasn't interested. And I think it is a unique situation with Donald Trump. But a lot of people say they're not interested, but then you can talk them into it.

BANFIELD: Yes. Well, we've seen that before, without question. It was just so fast. That was what maybe was so astounding.

CUSACK: Yes.

BANFIELD: It happened within a nanosecond.

Nia-Malika Henderson, I want you to contemplate this portion of Anderson Cooper's interview with Secretary Clinton. We're all waiting to find out what the strategy is going to be, right, in the general election against Trump. She's had the benefit of watching all those 16 people before her fall on the Republican side and what they did, maybe their Achilles heel. And I think we might have identified what she's not going to do. Have a listen to the question she was asked about what Elizabeth Warren said. Some really strident language about Donald Trump from Elizabeth Warren. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Elizabeth Warren tweeted out last night that Donald Trump has, quote, "built his campaign on racism, sexism, and xenophobia." Do you agree with that?

CLINTON: I think Elizabeth Warren's really smart.

COOPER: You agree with all those things?

CLINTON: I think that anybody who's listened to him and how he's talked certainly can draw that conclusion.

COOPER: Do you think he's a racist?

CLINTON: I'm going to let people judge for themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Nia-Malika Henderson, that door was wide open for her to go on the attack. She's not doing it. Should I add "yet"?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: You know, I think she learned a lesson from what happened before when she called Donald Trump a misogynist and a sexist, and he came back and brought up all of the dirt from Bill Clinton from the '90s. And you saw, in some ways, Bill Clinton go underground for a time after that. So I think this is a really smart template they have to essentially let surrogates and other Democrats make this case against Donald Trump.

Elizabeth Warren really did go on a Twitter storm once it was clear that Donald Trump would be the nominee on Tuesday night. I think you can expect others to make the same case that she was making. People like -- once this thing is finally decided, people like President Obama, people like Michelle Obama, Bernie Sanders, if and when he gets out of this thing, I think you'll have the whole Democratic establishment making this case so that Hillary Clinton doesn't have to, because I think when she gets into this, she makes herself too big of a target, as we've seen before with Donald Trump.

BANFIELD: Yes, you know, stay aspirational, so many people say.

HENDERSON: Right.

BANFIELD: It might be the best way. Don't get in the gutter. Don't get muddy. It's hard, though, when they start -- when someone goes after your dad or your wife or your husband, it's hard to do that.

Mark Preston, take a look at the map, because maps are fun.

PRESTON: Yes.

BANFIELD: And especially since we're heading toward the general.

PRESTON: Right.

BANFIELD: Two hundred and seventy electoral votes is the magic number. PRESTON: Right.

BANFIELD: To that end, if you look at the map, Donald Trump would have to win all of Mitt Romney's states and then a few more.

PRESTON: Right.

BANFIELD: And he has said he's going to win New York, Pennsylvania and Florida.

PRESTON: Right.

BANFIELD: Yes. Take a look at the colors. So yellow means swing state. Florida's yellow.

PRESTON: Right.

BANFIELD: And Ohio is yellow, swing state.

PRESTON: Right.

BANFIELD: Let's give him that for a minute. But Pennsylvania's leaning blue, right?

PRESTON: Right.

BANFIELD: And New York is really, really blue. These are critical states. You can't just, you know, demand your way to the presidency. What's he going to have to do to actually do this?

PRESTON: Well, he's going to have to change his messaging, no doubt. I mean, look, I think New York is a lark. The last time a Republican won New York was 1948, Ronald Reagan's re-election. If you look at Pennsylvania as well, the last time a Republican won that, 1988. Not saying that it's out of bounds, but even a state like Arizona, where we just heard John McCain talk about 30 percent of the voters there --

BANFIELD: The electorate of Hispanics.

PRESTON: Right, you know, being Hispanic. And, of course, Donald Trump is having a lot of problems given when he said about Hispanics and certainly the southern border. So it is a challenging map no matter how you cut it. But Donald Trump would really -- would have a narrow path to the nomination -- or, excuse me, to the presidency.

BANFIELD: To the presidency.

PRESTON: In any event -- I'm not saying it can't be done, because it certainly can be done. He might want to go through the rust belt, which he has talked a little bit about. That would include Pennsylvania. Could he pick up Ohio? Was there a shot at Wisconsin, which is trending Republican a little bit anyway? Does he have a shot at Michigan? You know, these are all questions that, you know, we'll see answered over the next couple months.

BANFIELD: And we want to know, I suppose, is Kasich going to help him in Ohio, because Kasich won Ohio. Kasich's got some sway there. And that state really, really matters.

PRESTON: Eighteen electoral votes.

BANFIELD: Mark Preston, thank you for that.

Nia-Malika Henderson, thank you as well. And, Bob Cusack, as always we appreciate your time and your expertise, all of you.

HENDERSON: Thank you.

CUSACK: Thanks.

[12:10:04] BANFIELD: Coming up next, pictures that you just have to see to believe. A wildfire so huge and spreading so fast that some of the tens of thousands of people who have been forced out of their homes and into shelters are having to pick up and flee all over again to outrun the flames and that monstrous smoke.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: An enormous wildfire is so big and moving so fast that every single person in a nearby town did the smart thing and got out of the way. Take a look. This is way up in northern Alberta. Canada's oil country. The town is called Fort McMurray. Officials are afraid that everything here is going to burn to the ground. Eighty-eight thousand people live in Fort McMurray. And entire neighborhoods, hundreds of homes and businesses and schools, are already in ashes.

I want to bring in CBC Reporter Evan Dyer, who's at an evacuation center in Lac la Biche, Alberta.

[12:15:01] Evan, it's just remarkable to here that everyone, absolutely everyone, had to flee. That's a pretty remote area. Where are they? Who's looking after everyone?

EVAN DYER, CBC REPORTER: Well, right now, they're spread over quite a wide area, actually. In fact, Fort McMurray is not the only community that has evacuated. We already had 88,000 people have to leave Fort McMurray. Now some neighboring communities were evacuated overnight as well. And some of the people leaving there are double evacuees. They're people who had already fled Fort McMurray, thought they had a safe place to stay in neighboring towns in the Wood Buffalo area. And then at 11:00, they were rousted out and told to get on buses and head south.

There's only really one major highway that goes through Fort McMurray, Highway 63. Some people essentially fled north to where the oil caps are, and we believe that there's about 10,000 people in that area. Now -- they're now separated by fire that has crossed the highway.

BANFIELD: Astounding.

DYER: And we have other people who have headed south, many of them as far as Edmonton.

BANFIELD: So, Evan, as I look at these pictures -- and, you know, these are pictures from people who were on the run. And, obviously, you know, picking up their camera phones and showing what appears to be a perilous escape. I have not heard one report of anyone injured. And I cannot believe it given what you just said, one routed egress. And the damage -- I mean the flames have been on both sides of these highways. Does it look like everyone is in --

DYER: Yes.

BANFIELD: Out of harm's way at this point? And what comes next?

DYER: Well, unfortunately, Ashleigh, we do have two deaths to report. This was actually in an accident during the evacuation on Highway 63. An SUV collided with a tractor trailer. It was not directly fire related, although that crash, believe it or not, actually started another small fire on that -- on the side of the road there.

Now, the fire has jumped the road in a number of places and there's a lot of evacuees who have stories and even dash cam footage showing these hundred foot flames, ambers falling all around them. Just apocalyptic stories and -- and people arriving here at this center have those stories. They've come through those flames, a lot of them.

BANFIELD: Oh, Evan, thank you for doing this and bring these stories to us, we appreciate it. Evan dyer with the CBC reporting for us.

And I'm now joined on the telephone by one of the people Evan is talking about. Alex Edwards. She's only 16 years old and she and her family had to pick up and evacuate from Fort McMurray. They are now living in their RV effectively on the run.

Alex, can you hear me OK?

ALEX EDWARDS, EVACUATED WITH FAMILY FROM FORT MCMURRAY (via telephone): Yes, how are you?

BANFIELD: How are you and your family doing?

EDWARDS: We're pretty tired. We got here at 4:00 a.m. last night. So we've only had a couple hours of sleep.

BANFIELD: I'm looking at the pictures from your hometown, and I used to live there. I used to live in Edmonton, so not too far away. So this is -- this is personal. What are you going to do? You and your family, all of your friends, your parents' friend, your colleagues, your, you know, your fellow Fort McMurrayians, what are you going to do?

EDWARDS: Well, I personally have family in Edmonton, so it's not the worst that could be for me. But like I'm worried about everybody else and I don't know when we're going to be let back into the city because like even after the fire is extinguished, they're still going to have to make sure it's safe for us to go back. So I honestly have no idea.

BANFIELD: So, Alex, when you were evacuating, a lot of the pictures we're seeing are actually shot during the day and they looks like it's the dead of night. It just looks pitch black even midday. Can you describe for me how you and your family got out, what things looked like as you were leaving?

EDWARDS: Well, as we were leaving, it was really dark. The police that were coming down the street -- like they were coming down the street telling us to leave. And the sky was like blood red behind them. And then like it was just black after that and I was so scared. Like I just -- I didn't know where the fire was coming from because the whole sky was just glowing. So it was pretty intense.

BANFIELD: Were you talking at that point to friends or -- I mean I'm assuming your mission was to get out of there. But at the same time, do you know where your friends are? Do you know if your school is still intact? What do you know?

EDWARDS: I don't really know much because they -- they can't report too much just because they don't -- they can't be in the city. They don't have the information. I know that my friends are safe. I've checked in with my family. But I don't know like about my house, about my school, about my job. Like it's all a mystery.

BANFIELD: Well, your mom, your dad, your friend and your dog, I understand, are with you. So I'm just wishing you the best as you all try to get through this. And then, of course, all of your, you know, your fellow, you know, your fellow towns people and everybody in the surrounding area that's just really trying to survive this. And I'm so sorry for you, Alex, and thanks for -- thanks for talking to us about it.

[12:20:03] EDWARDS: Yes, thank you.

BANFIELD: Just remarkable pictures that are coming in. And they continue to come in as well. We're going to keep you updated on what happens in Fort McMurray. If

you're familiar with it, this is where the oil sands project is. There's a lot of people who live up there who work in those oil sands.

We're moving to another story. Every detail of the investigation into Prince's death more tragic and more upsetting than the last. Coming up, Dr. Drew Pinsky and Dr. Sanjay Gupta are going to break down what we have just learned about the drugs and the musician's final hours and days. And why Prince's story is an epidemic.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:05] BANFIELD: This just in to CNN, federal investigators looking into the death of Prince believe that he indeed was taking Percocet, but they don't know if that contributed to his death yet. It's been two weeks since Prince died suddenly at his Paisley Park estate in Minnesota. And as we wait for the autopsy and the toxicology results, the feds are also getting involved. The U.S. attorney's office and the DEA joining the Carver County Sheriff's Office and the investigation into his death. This as we've learned through the attorney for two of his sibling, who are now deceased, that Prince had an addiction to Percocet. It was decades before he died.

Dr. Drew Pinsky, host of HLN's "Dr. Drew," joins me now, along with CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Dr. Drew, I want to ask you first about the very unique circumstances

that we learned about that Dr. Howard Kornfeld was contacted in California. In advance of him getting there, he sent his son, Andrew, with what appears to be a backpack full of medications to the compound to visit with Prince, but it was too late, Prince was already dead in the elevator. It all seemed very unusual and that the average person probably wouldn't have that kind of pathway to getting help. Tell me what's wrong with the picture.

DR. DREW PINSKY, HOST, HLN'S "DR. DREW": So the picture it that he lived four miles from the Hazelden Outpatient Treatment Center, one hour from the city center, which is the premiere addiction center in the United States. So rather than getting special treatment, having somebody who's a non-clinician shuttle medicines across the country to be deployed for unclear reasons, it is -- it is the setup for a bad outcome. That is number one. So the city center is an hour away. He should have been put in the car, taken to the treatment center.

Number two, Ashleigh, you said that he had a history of addiction to Percocet. We categorically do not know that. What the attorney said was that his sibling were procuring Percocet for him for abuse. He abused Percocet. No evidence that he had the life-long progressive illness we call addiction. More recently what we see is dependency in that he's needing more, he has something called hyperalgesia, where the pain medicine intensifies pain. He begins pursuing it. He looks like an addict, but I can't say that he's an addict per say, and I certainly can't say it based on what the attorney said about abuse years ago.

BANFIELD: You know it's interesting because I've heard it said at this point that, look, Dr. Howard Kornfeld is renowned in his field, but when you go off searching for your own tailored medicine like this, as an addict, it is a recipe for disaster.

PINSKY: Yes. Yes, there's two things.

BANFIELD: And Conrad Murray style, right?

PINSKY: Right. Have we learned nothing from Conrad Murray, number one? And, number two, whenever special people demand special care, in this case you have the person with the illness dictating care, not participating in care, dictating the terms of the care. That never turns out good. That never turns out well. Have we not learned from Conrad Murray the outcomes of special care for special people.

BANFIELD: OK, so, Dr. Gupta, I want you to sort of medically walk me through what happens to the body when you have a use, maybe an overuse, an addiction possibly to Percocet and you try to stop using it.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, when you think about Percocet, first of all it's a -- it's a sort of combination of two things, an opioid, something that comes from the opium sort of plant, something for pain. In addition to that, acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. That's what Percocet is, a combination of those two things. Here's the sort of important thing to keep in mind is that we had these opioid receptors throughout our body, throughout our brain, our spinal cord, and our gut. These drug, along with others, would come in there and sort of bind to those receptors. And that's what helps dull pain. In severe cases of overdose, for example, it can also take away someone's drive to breathe, which is why someone might die of an overdose. But the goal is to try and dull pain.

The problem is, to the second point of your question, once you remove that Percocet, if you've been taking it for some time, your body has been making its own natural opioids. That's what we naturally do. Once you remove the Percocet, the body has also stopped making its own opium and, as a result, you have no -- no opioids in your body. And you feel miserable. You get nauseated. You may feel very fatigued. You just feel awful. And that's typically what happens. That's the physical dependence Dr. Drew is talking about. And that's why people sometimes feel like they need to -- to take more.

PINSKY: Well, I would have to say, Ashleigh --

BANFIELD: And, fascinatingly, sure does mimics what the flu is like. And we sure did hear that -- that Prince possibly was having flu like symptoms.

So then the next thing Dr. Drew would be the sleep issues --

PINSKY: Right.

BANFIELD: Because often in this state that Dr. Gupta was talking about, you can't sleep, so someone might give you a benzodiazepine, which is really where problems start.

[12:30:00] PINSKY: Right. That's right. That's exactly right, Ashleigh. Now the -- the most of my patients, when they were coming off opioids would complain they feel like they have the flu, they feel desperation and a desire to pursue the drug and they can't sleep.