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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Obama Holds Press Event; GOP Divide over Trump Discussed; Shooting at Maryland Mall. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 06, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- making sure our borders are secured. But also that we continue to enjoy the credible boost that we get from attracting talent from all around the world, both candidates agree that we should be prudent in terms of how we use our military and that we should care for our veterans when they come home.

[12:30:21] So if you look at 95 percent of the issues, there's strong agreement there. You don't see the same kinds of divisions between the two Democratic candidates that remain that you've been seeing in some of the Republican debates.

Yeah?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, what did speaker Ryan's comments tell you about the state of the Republican Party and how would you advise fellow Democrats who appear to now have to run against Donald Trump as to how they can win?

OBAMA: Well, I think you have to ask Speaker Ryan what the implication of his comments are. There is no doubt that there is a debate that's taking place inside the Republican Party about who they are and what they represent.

Their standard bearer at the moment is Donald Trump, and I think not just Republican officials but more importantly, Republican voters are going to have to make a decision as to whether this is the guy who speaks for them and represents their values.

I think Republican women, voters, are going to have to decide, is that the guy I feel comfortable with in representing me and what I care about?

I think folks who historically have been concerned about making sure that budgets add up and that we are responsible stewards of government finances. They have to ask, does Mr. Trump's budgets work?

Again, those are going to be questions that Republican voters, more than Republican officials have to answer. And as far as Democrats, I think we run on what we're for, not just what we're against.

For the last 7.5 years, we've been pretty clear about what we believe will help working families who are struggling out there. And although it has been difficult to get through Republican Congresses to get those things done, the truth is that they continue to be prescriptions that would really help people. You know, making sure that families get paid sick leave and family leave and early childhood education. That would help families. Raise the minimum wage would help a lot of people. Rebuilding infrastructure would put back to work a whole bunch of guys in hard hats and gals in hard hats that, you know, need to work.

And those are good jobs that can be exported. Now is the time to do it. So I want Democrats to feel confident about the policy and prescriptions we're putting forward. And the contrast, I think, will be pretty clear. I'll leave it up to the Republicans to figure out how they square their circle.

All right, I'm going to take two more questions. Yeah, go ahead?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, what's your message to Democratic voters, of who have yet to cast their vote, who may be hesitant to vote for the Democratic front-runner because of ongoing e-mail scandal and investigation? And also, did you see Donald Trump's taco bowl tweet? And your thoughts on it.

OBAMA: I have no thoughts on Mr. Trump's tweets.

As a general rule, I don't pay attention to Mr. Trump's tweets. And I think that will be true, I think for the next six months. So you can just file that one.

In terms of the Democratic vote coming up, I'm going to let the voters cast their ballots, and not, you know, not try to meddling the few primaries that are remaining. Let the process play itself out. We'll know soon enough. It's not going to be that much longer.

[12:35:08] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to ask you on infrastructure. Not long before your nuclear summit, we have 50 world leaders here that D.C. Metro was closed for over 24 hours. You had a White House correspondent that are made (inaudible) sort of more ordinary district rather right now.

I'm wondering what that says of the nation's capitol they're on metro system closed for 24 hours and then as having a number of safety- related problems. And what can your administration do if Republicans are standing in the way of an infrastructure built specifically for the D.C. Metro to potentially provide more funding support -- any more support for such a critical service?

OBAMA: Well, first of all, I know that this is a somewhat self- interested question I assume because a bunch of folks here could take the Metro.

But it is just one more example of the under investments that have been made.

Look, the D.C. Metro historically has been a great strength of this region. But over time, we underinvested in maintenance and repair and the steps that are being taken now all refer to the Department of Transportation. But I can say that obviously safety comes first. And we want to make sure that if there's safety concerns, that they're addressed.

The broader issue is we've got bridges, we've got roads, we have ports, we have airports, we have water mains and pipes as we saw in Flint that suffers from neglect.

And in many parts of the country, we're still relying on systems that were built 30, 50, and in some cases a hundred years ago. And the reason we've been neglecting them is not because we don't know how to fix them. It's not because people haven't been aware of the need. We've known for years now that we're a trillion or $2 trillion short in terms of necessary infrastructure repair.

I talked about this when I came into office and sought to do more in terms of investing in our nation's infrastructure. The problem we have is that the Republican congress has been resistant to really take on this problem in a serious way. And the reason is because of an ideology that says, government spending is necessarily bad.

And I addressed this when I was in Flint. That mindset, that ideology, has led to us not investing in those things that we have to do together. You know, as you point out, this metropolitan area, the nation's capital economically is actually doing really well. But it doesn't matter how big your paycheck is, if you've been taking the Metro and suddenly it's shut down for a month. And now you're stuck in traffic trying to drive to work instead, you can't build your own metro system. You can't build your own highway. You can't build your own airport. And so we have a specific problem with under investing in infrastructure.

Now is the time, by the way, for us to do so. The interest rates are so low. And there's so many contractors and construction workers that are underemployed at the moment that you can actually get jobs done on time, on schedule. It would give a boost to our overall economy because we know that when we spend a dollar on infrastructure, then you actually get a bigger bang for the buck in terms of the economy overall. Surrounding businesses, suppliers, you know, food trucks, everybody does better. And it gives a huge boost to the economy and it lasts for a long time. Think about the investments we've made in things like the Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge or Metro. It's a good thing to do. And historically was not and should not be partisan.

But if we have a mindset that says, whatever government is doing must be bad, then these are going to be the results and it's going to continue to get worse.

It's already tough in poorer communities like Flint. But, you know, we're seeing these kinds of infrastructure problems spring up in communities all across the country. And it doesn't distinguish by race or by region. Everybody needs roads. Everybody needs airports.

[12:40:24] So hopefully this will prompt a conversation. The last thing I'm going to say about this. This is a good example of making sure that the candidates are speaking to this issue. As you go into the presidential election.

I put forward very specific proposals for how I would pay for additional infrastructure investment. The numbers add up.

And so the question is, how do the remaining candidates for the presidency intend to tackle this? How do members of Congress intend to tackle this? What's the Republican agenda for infrastructure? Do they have one? How do they pay for it? Do they pay for it by cutting Medicare or Medicaid? If they do, that needs to be fleshed out. And the consequences for working families needs to be explained, all right?

Thank you everybody.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And there he goes. And in about 26 minutes or so, the president just tackled enough topics for a four- hour program. I feel like I've got whiplash because we went into that news briefing expecting it to be all about a statement on the economy. We just had the jobs numbers so that was a lead story and then the announcement was supposed to be strengthening financial clarity and transparency and combating money laundering, enforcing Congress to help in corruption and tax evasion and then came the politics questions.

Which leads me to Suzanne Malveaux who is standing by live outside the White House on the North Lawn, Dana bash is also standing by live and Abby Phillip with The Washington Post is standing by as well and the guest list doesn't end there. But let me start with, Suzanne Malveaux.

I'm sure you expected me to come out at the president news conference and ask you about the financial announcements and the legacy and I'm not going to.

I am instead going to ask you through memory to help me walk through all of the issues that he just touched upon including the fact that the election is, "Not entertainment, not a reality show, and that he does not pay attention to Donald Trump's tweets nor will he ever," and it goes on and on from there.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, actually, I suspected you and I were going to talk about politics coming out of this because I know that the questions from the reporters will all going to be about politics, essentially.

But I do want to say that what we're seeing here is really kind of a precursor to the next six months from President Obama.

He was very typically understated as we know, in his personality. But make no mistake the people I talked to in this building behind me say that he's enthusiastic, he's excited, he's ready to go to get out there and essentially tick off some of the points that he mentioned. That first of all, file it away, he's not paying attention to Donald Trump's tweets. He doesn't want to respond to those.

But he will talk about that, yes, he doesn't believe Donald Trump is a serious candidate that this somebody who is not been fully vetted that reporters need to ask a tougher questions and taking a look at his background and that this is entertainment for the American people.

The other thing that he emphasized is that you can already see and hear in the language that he is trying to bring the Bernie Sanders folks and the Hillary Clinton people together. It's not happened yet. But he says, "Look, 95 percent of the issues are shared by both of these candidates and that there will be a time when he will get behind whoever is the presumptive nominee.

It struck me, however, too, Ashleigh, that one of the things that we heard from here, a very populist message coming from this president. We heard things like talking about people's fair share, having confidence, the need to have confidence in the system.

And he also talked about getting tougher on the banks. That is something that he has been hit hard. He talked about trade and not having foreigners necessarily be the ones who are benefitting beyond others Americans. And those are things that Donald Trump has been hitting, hitting very hard and it's the kinds of things that we've been hearing against Hillary Clinton on the road as well.

So I think he is kind of moving in the direction taking some of the Bernie Sanders points and incorporating it in what he wants to do in promoting the Democratic Party.

And finally, I will say, Ashleigh, that this is a president who is very concerned about keeping his policies and promoting his legacy. Is no mistake about the timing now that, yes, we came in talking about the numbers, the economy. But the first thing that came out of his mouth was the 700,000 jobs that were lost when we first started 7.5 years ago.

A lot of people believe he has not gotten the proper credit for turning things around after that recession and he has gotten some things done, yes, you know, immigration, health care reform.

[12:45:08] But a lot of these things he's looking at now is because of executive order and he knows that that could be completely turned on its head and he knows that that could be completely turned on its head if there's a republican in office. Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Interesting you said that because he actually started his news conference by saying this is the, I believe, 76th month of consecutive job growth, unemployment is falling and wages are rising. And that is not really what everyone is thinking when you see only that only 160,000 jobs were added last month.

Dana Bash, I want to turn this attention to you now. As you are so steeped in the election right now and clearly everyone else of your ilk in that White House briefing room is too. It was going to be pretty clear what Suzanne just said they're going to asked the questions about the race and what he thinks about, you know, what happened with Paul Ryan yesterday and Jake Tapper.

And it was fascinating to hear him say the American people need to be effectively informed, that policies have to be vetted, and that candidates are held to what they have said in the past. He didn't even need to say Donald Trump's name with that.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, absolutely. And it falls along the same vein and the message Suzanne was talking about at the beginning of her report. That, you know, wait a minute guys let just take a deep breath. Like remember what I have behind me, that's the Oval Office and downstairs is the situation room and this is the real deal here.

This isn't a reality T.V. show and it also dove tails, I'm sure not accidentally with what we heard from Hillary Clinton a couple days ago right here on CNN. Risky, loose cannon. It's that kind of thing you're going to hear over and over and over again to voters who are clearly angry, clearly not happy with the way Washington is, that's why they elected somebody to be the Republican nominee who has never served in Washington.

However, what you're going to hear more and more and, you know, he was actually speaking from the bully pulpit there from the Democratic leaders, from Barack Obama, once there is a nominee, to that nominee on down is, we your angry, but you have to weigh that versus the fact that this is the real deal here and this is a very serious, very tough job. And you have to take it seriously.

The one thing I will say and, you know, maybe this is just something that I keep hearing from Hillary Clinton and we heard it from Barack Obama is we have to ask the tough questions. Again, so far, at least in the Republican primary process, there were umpteen debates including look as, you know, six or so Republican debates at CNN, maybe more. Many other networks. So many interviews done with all these candidates but especially Donald Trump where we really did push on policy.

There certainly their susceptive of what we pushed on policy, push more specifics, often didn't get it. And you know what? He didn't get burned for it with voters. Voters were just, they didn't really care as much about the specifics and I was told that time and time again, from voters at Trump rallies that yeah, maybe he's not that knowledgeable about specifics on policy but they say he'll get there and the point is that he's not in the pocket of Washington.

So that is something we're going to hear again. But again, just as a journalist, push back a little bit to continue to do so because it has been asked.

BANFIELD: Yeah, Abby Phillip, if can ask you about this, the president was asked about what happened on Jake Tapper's show yesterday when Jake Tapper asked the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, who was going to be the chair of the Republican convention in July if he backs the Republican nominee, the presumptive nominee and jaws dropped all over this nation and overseas too when he said I'm just not there yet.

The President when asked to, you know, respond to that and you correct if I'm wrong. You're in D.C. I'm watching it on a T.V. monitor. He looked bemused and annoyed and frustrated in the same breath when he gave his response. But give me your assessment. ABBY PHILIP, NATL. POLITICAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: I think that's probably a pretty accurate description of what's going through the President's mind. I think that there's a sense that they want Republican leaders to speak out a little bit more to express what he believes is some concern about Donald Trump's rhetoric but I think that Democrats on the whole and president probably among them in this.

Also think there's a great opportunity for them here to convert Republicans into essentially Democrats for the purposes of this election. You've seen a lot of that rhetoric coming out this week especially from Hillary Clinton's campaign just a few moments ago tweeted, to Republican voters

[12:50:03] And tell us why you don't support Donald Trump. That's a direct message to them that they want to convert some of these people. It's very important to them to make a point that this isn't just about partisanship. But there are also Republicans who have concerns about Trump as well.

And I think President Obama and Paul Ryan's working relationship is just beginning, but I think they've always had a decent rapport but I think Obama probably saw some hesitancy in Paul Ryan and hoped a little bit for maybe a bit more of a forceful statement from him.

BANFIELD: Abby Philips, I appreciate it. Thank you. Dana Bash as well, thank you. And Suzanne MAlveaux for breathing the rain and till being able to catch all those messages from inside the briefing room, you're amazing without doing note taking. It's pretty impressive.

I want to thank all my quests, it's a long guest list. Longer than the White House correspondents invitation list. It seems we had Alison Kosik earlier who had to get back to the stock exchange and Michelle Kosinski also Paul Callan and Ronna (ph) (inaudible).

Coming up next, as the President was speaking to you live, something else was going on exactly 16 miles from the White House. And it's not something you like to hear about. It brought on the response from law enforcement. Three people shot and if you can believe it, this was not the only location. I'm going to give you the details of what's happened and why the scene looks like that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: And even more breaking news to bring your way right now. There has been a mall shooting outside of the Westfield Montgomery mall that says that in Bethesda, Maryland. And sad to say the shooter is still out there somewhere.

When the bullets stopped flying, three people, all adults, had been shot. Two of them men. One of them a woman. Local media reporting that that woman is now dead. And we're also getting reports of a second shooting in a different area where that woman died.

So one shooting at the mall where three people were shot. A second incident not far away a short time later where a woman was shot and killed and we're still waiting to find out motive if there's any. What it is and who, of course, it is. It is possible at this point though that we're talking about a person of interest to the police. But still at large.

Evan Perez joining me live now from Washington, D.C. along with senior CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes. I'm going to start with you Evan. What else are the police telling us at this early stage?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Ashleigh, this all began about just 90 minutes ago. Shortly after 11:00 at the Montgomery mall just outside of the mall in Bethesda, Maryland. As you mentioned there were three victims, two men, one woman. It appears the woman has now died.

[12:55:01] At this point, what the police say happened was that a person, a suspect, approached one victim, shot this person, two other people came to that other person's aid and they were also shot. Now a short time later, about 30 to 40 minutes after that first shooting, there was a second shooting outside of a giant super market and also in the same area in Bethesda, the Potomac area of Maryland.

This is not an area that sees this in types of incidents. Not a lot of crime, very affluent area that's one reason why it's very unusual. At this stage, the police are not connecting the two incidents but obviously because of the closeness in time and the distance, they are obviously checking all of that.

Right now, they say that they believe they have an idea of who the suspect might be. A person of interest that they have in mind but they have not arrested that person. They have not detained that person and I should make note that there's another couple of shootings yesterday nearby in Prince George's County there were also unsolved and deemed to be a domestic shooting. We're also checking to see whether or not there's any connection with all of these incidents both yesterday and today, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So Evan, I want to be really clear about that description that you just gave and I don't know if you know the answer to this, but outside of the mall, one person was shot. Two people came to the aid of that victim. Are they good samaritans? Are they friends of that? I mean, were they literally trying to help a victim and were shot themselves?

PEREZ: That's right. That's exactly what the police said at a press conference about 30 minutes ago, Ashleigh. According to the police, they said there was no indication that the suspect knew the victims. Now we don't know whether or not all of the victims, whether the police were talking about all of the victims. This is all preliminary information at this point. They're still rushing to try to figure everything out but at this point, what the police are saying is that they don't believe that the suspect or have no indication that the suspect knew the victim.

He approached one victim, shot that person and then two other people came to the aid of that victim and were also shot, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: My God. Evan, you mentioned they held this news conference in Montgomery police. It happened to be just at the same time the President was speaking. We didn't want to interrupt the President, but I'm going to rerack that. I want to play some of that right now. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARRYL MCSWAIN, ASSISTANT CHIEF, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: Ladies and gentlemen, about 11:00 a.m. today, MCP responded to a call for person shot at Montgomery mall. Upon arrival we did find three victims. Unfortunately here in a parking lot. All three have been transported to local area hospitals. At this point, the local location here of Montgomery mall, we have two males that have been shot and a female.

Unfortunately, we're also looking at another incident occurred in the Aspen Hill region, which were also responding to an individual who's also been shot there. Determined to be -- female in that particular case, and we hope also to put together different information from all things in question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What can you tell us about the suspect? The suspect, sir.

MCSWAIN: We have no one in custody at this point. We are looking at a person of interest. We'll also be working with local area apartments as well in hopes of specifically identifying the individual and hopefully capture the individual in the near future.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you not know the victims?

MCSWAIN: We have no reason to believe at this point the victims knew the suspect. We're certain to look at all angles and certainly ask for the public's help in any way or shape that they may be able to share information and maybe a benefit to this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened? What the motive, sir?

CAPT. PAUL STARKS MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND POLICE: You know what? This is still so fresh that we want to cut off the questions now. We did want to brief you and the public but to answer a number of questions that you folks have at this point, we're just not able to confirm all of that information at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is the public in danger?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is little (inaudible) one question. But any idea this guy is connected to what happened in high point yesterday? From high school?

STARKS: That would be something that investigators are looking at. But that's nothing that we can confirm at this point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you have any information just what happened? What the facts of what happened here?

MCSWAIN: Well, we just simply know there was confrontation here in the mall parking lot. One individual was shot. Two other individuals came to the person's aid potentially and they were also shot. Again, we're looking at all information that's been brought to our attention. This is all still preliminary so it hasn't been confirmed. But we are in fact just soliciting information both on the scene and also from anyone in the public.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anyone inside the mall in danger?

MCSWAIN: We don't have any reason to believe anyone else is going to be in danger, in the mall or even outside of the mall at this particular point.

[13:00:03] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said you have a person of interest. So you actually looking for someone right this minute.

MCSWAIN: We are working with investigators simply developing different leads. And we will obviously look at any --