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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Obama Leads Tribute to Fallen Troops; Iraqis, Allies Push to Retake Falluja; Outdated U.S. Airports in Dire Need of Funding. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 30, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: -- zoo opens.

[12:30:01] This is a very first breach inasmuch as a child getting into an enclosure, right, with the actual gorilla.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Thirty-eight years with no breaches. It's called Gorilla World. No breaches.

JACKSON: No breaches. But now, how is it designed such that a child could gain breach? And I don't care how minimal and this is the first instance but how are you as a parent to anticipate that the design would be such that a child can get into that enclosure and thereby exposing the child and the gorilla to great risk and that's a problem.

BANFIELD: So, do you think there is some kind -- first of all, to the parents, if you watch that video imagining you're the child's mom, you have suffered. You have suffered horrifically. I can't even put myself in those shoes. She says very calm, mommy loves you, stay calm.

To the zoo on the other hand, are they exposed? Is there liability? Do you see that this could be --

JACKSON: Well, here's how I think you analyze that. The first thing when you look at liability issues, there's a saying. It says the risk perceived is the duty defined. Meaning, what is the risk and what then would be the duty on the part of the zoo?

If you're going to have an exhibit like this and again, not casting blame or aspersions on anyone, but you have to design something such that it's full proof. No parent under any circumstance should be put in a situation, whether they are negligent and they didn't -- you know, see that their child or not, whether the child can get into that enclosure. How long it took, I don't know, what the child was doing to do that, I don't know, but I think it's going to fall on, did the zoo notice this could have occurred and this could potentially be a risk, number one, and number two, was it designed structurally sufficient and safely enough such that a breach would not occur? One is too much as we obviously saw right now.

And then, Ashleigh, you could get into the issues that a lot has been discussed. Should they have used tranquilizers? That is the rescue them as opposed to something --

BANFIELD: It's too slow.

JACKSON: It's too slow. The gorilla could react in a very violent way and then you have an instance where a child could potentially be dead and then what are we talking about?

BANFIELD: And then what are we talking --

JACKSON: So, we'll talk Monday morning quarterback.

BANFIELD: Wrongful death, et cetera. And then, there's that reasonable standard. How reasonable was the zoo in ensuring the safety, isn't that part of it?

JACKSON: It is, but I mean, '78. This is the only breach that ever occurred and I also want to know, whether they have protocols in place? Do they practice this incase a child would have gotten into this. A lot of questions will come up and I tell you this. The design features are going to be different when this opens up again so this does not happen.

BANFIELD: Such a tragedy. Again, Jeff Corwin said it. The gorilla did nothing. The gorilla was living a gorilla's life in an enclosure he didn't choose and he did nothing that he wasn't on a rampage.

JACKSON: And now, he's dead.

BANFIELD: Tragic.

Joey Jackson, thank you.

JACKSON: Pleasure, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Coming up next, the true meaning of this Memorial Day holiday. We are live at Arlington for you. Some pictures here live from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall where a special ceremony is planned for just about a half from now, but 1:00 Eastern Time. Back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:37:20] BANFIELD: It is Memorial Day. This is a live picture of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the Washington, D.C. -- a time to honor military service members past and present who gave their lives for our country.

And in keeping with the tradition, President Obama placed a wreath last hour at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery and afterwards, he talks about the debt owed by the many to the relatively few.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Less than 1 percent of our nation wears the uniform. So few Americans see this patriotism with their own eyes or know someone who exemplifies them. But everyday, there are American families who pray for the sound of a familiar voice when the phone rings, or the sound of a loved one's letter e-mail arriving.

More than 1 million times in our history, it didn't come and instead, a car pulled up to the house and there was a knock on the front door. The sound of "Taps" floated through a cemetery's trees. For us, the living, those of us who still have a voice, it is our responsibility, our obligation to fill that silence with our love and our support and our gratitude and not just with words but with our actions.

Truly remember and truly honoring means being there for their parents and spouses and children, like the boys and girls here today wearing red shirts and burying photos of the fallen. Your moms and dads would be so proud of you and we are too. Truly remembering means after the fallen heroes give everything to get their battle buddies home, we have to make sure our veterans get everything that they have earned from a good health care to good job. And we have to do better, our work is never done. We have to be there not only when we need them but when they need us.

Thirty days before he would be laid to rest, a short walk from here, President Kennedy told us the nation reveals itself not only by the people it produces but those it remembers. Not everyone will serve. Not everyone will visit this national sanctuary, but we remember our best in every corner of the country from which they came.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:40:01] BANFIELD: Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is at that National Sanctuary. She's at Arlington Section 60, which is the final resting place of American troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And I can see a lot of families have shown up behind you, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh, they have indeed. We've been seeing this go on for the last five, six hours since the cemetery opened up this morning. Every year, the families, friends, battle buddies, they all come to pay respects and their love to their fallen hero. Here, we are seeing to tell you there's a 90- year-old grandmother that's been sitting in the sun for hours, graveside. There are battle buddies, there are toddlers jumping around running around.

People like to call this "The Saddest Acre in America" because so many young troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan have been laid to rest here. I don't like to call it the saddest acre. I think this is an acre absolutely full of love and respect from Americans and from family members to those who serve.

What happens here is so extraordinary because this is really the history of the last many years of war and if you just let the camera pan over a little bit, you could see when we first started coming to Section 60, much of this was an empty green meadow. There were no graves. It was planned for the future. Well, the future is here. This is a place, again, so many who fought in places like Falluja, Ramadi, Baghdad in Iraq, the Korengal, Jalalabad, Kandahar, other places in Afghanistan. This is their final resting place along with 400,000 who have also

been laid here to rest over the last 150 years. Those from Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I dating back to the Civil War -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: It's distressing you show us how much it has filled in over the years you've been covering the story, Barbara. I've seen the people behind you who just seem, I don't know what to say. I mean, it's just such a moment that we're witnessing on the screen right now behind you, Barbara.

I don't know if you can see over shoulder, but there is obviously one of those perhaps battle buddies that you were talking about paying tribute to one of those fallen soldiers. Among the 400,000 grave markers, these are the most recent, folks.

And it is for that reason that the president uttered those words and re-uttered them from JFK, that a nation reveals its but by the people it produces but by the people that it remembers. It looks like he might be saying a prayer.

Our Barbara Starr is continuing to do the coverage from Arlington National Cemetery as we honor those as well who have fallen as well.

And not only the words in Iraq and Afghanistan not over, but a major offensive is, in fact, under way right now and it's just west of Baghdad. Iraqi troops and Shiite militias supported by 5,000 America's best and brightest and most brave are pushing to retake the town of Falluja, because ISIS forces have been holding that important city for more than two years and it is critical to that enemy.

I want to bring in CNN military analyst and retired air force colonel, Cedric Leighton.

Colonel, thank you so much for being with us.

As we see those scenes at Arlington and see those battle buddies, as Barbara Starr reminds us remembering the fallen, we have to be, you know, acutely aware of the thousands of troops. I think it's somewhere around 14,000 -- 10,000 in Afghanistan, 4,000 in Iraq and Syria who are a stone's throw from front lines every day right now.

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That's absolutely right, Ashleigh. And these stone's throws are distances that measured sometimes in yards and in feet and in some cases, inches. And what we're looking at here is really the ultimate price that people have paid.

When policies sometimes don't work out as intended, and we also have to look at it as a factor of preparedness. Are we going to be prepared for the next event that might happen that might require our men and women in uniform to do something and something extraordinary? And that's one of the things that I think we see with Section 60 and we see with so many different things that we're celebrating this Memorial Day and honoring this Memorial Day. BANFIELD: Colonel, I want to play one of your colleague's comments

early this morning on "NEW DAY". It was Colonel Steve Warren who had to say this about what's happening with ISIS in Iraq and Syria now as compared to say a year ago. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COL. STEVE WARREN, SPOKESMAN, OP. INHERENT RESOLVE: A year ago here in Iraq, the barbarians were at the gate. Baghdad was threatened and in theory, it was in direct danger of being invaded by the animals we call ISIL.

[12:45:01] Now we've driven back them and lost 45 percent of the territory they once held here in Iraq. They lost 20 percent of the territory that they once held in Syria.

So, we are seeing the Iraqi security forces that in 2014, quite frankly collapsed under the pressure that ISIL put on them. We're seeing them begin to rebuild.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: It's good to hear that, but at the same time, you hear the terror attacks in the Arabian Peninsula, in Africa, and one has to wonder if the next administration is going to have to consider deploying new and fresh troops to different regions because ISIL doesn't seem to be holding back in its growth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEIGHTON: That's true. And actually, when you look at it, every time that something happens, it's going to be something that occurs in a place we've never heard of before and that's one of the biggest challenges that you have is because when you don't know of the places where, for example, ISIS is going or another group, a future group of some type, don't know where the places are, you have a very hard time finding the intelligence that you need in order to minimize casualties and in order to maximize the operational effectiveness that we have to have in order to prosecute missions of that type. We're talking specifically really of counter-terrorists and counterinsurgency type missions.

BANFIELD: Colonel Leighton, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for your service as well on this Memorial Day. It's a pleasure to have you today.

LEIGHTON: Thank you, Ashleigh. Thanks for having me.

BANFIELD: My pleasure.

Coming up next, back in the United States, this is also a big holiday weekend for so many families and that, of course, means this scene playing out all over the country. Total travel chaos. Thanks to a computer glitch at one of the country's busiest airports, this was none too pleasing a scene for hundreds and hundreds of people. We're going to see things that started moving again after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:48] BANFIELD: One of the country's largest airports was brought to a virtual crawl during one of the busiest travel holidays of the year. It was a server apparently crashed at JFK Airport in New York, stalling that all important check-in process at Terminal 7 and it went on and on for hours yesterday.

The agents apparently forced to manually do the job of checking in passengers and at one point, they numbered 1,500 sitting there waiting. And it looks like patiently as well. The problem's now fixed but it did create a lot of headaches.

CNN's Rene Marsh is covering the topic of deteriorating infrastructure right across this country and this time, she happens to be talking about airports. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESONDENT (voice-over): Long lines.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were insecurity for almost two hours.

MARSH: Missed flights.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three and a half hours early, so it wasn't enough time.

MARSH: And frustrated passengers. It's become the standard at airports nationwide.

But the trouble facing America's airports goes far beyond the security checkpoint.

KEVIN BURKE, AIRPORT COUNCIL INTERNATIONAL: People going through airports built in the '50s, '60s, '70s. So, the airport structures can't accommodate.

MARSH: Decades ago when the airports were built, there were 62 million travelers. Today, that number has grown but capacity has not. More than 750 million passengers are expected to fly this year. Presidential candidates on both sides agree the nation's airports are not ready for the 21st century.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm tired that we don't have a single airport in our country that's considered at the top 25.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You look at some of our airports, it's third world.

MARSH: Also in need of updating, the FAA's air traffic control system.

Doug Parker is the CEO of American Airlines.

DOUG PARKER, CEO, AMERICAN AIRLINES: Our flight times and what we schedule our times to be are longer than they would be if we had a more efficient air traffic control system.

MARSH: Airports like LaGuardia and LAX in Los Angeles have ranked as some of the country's worst in the past because of outdated terminals.

MARY GRADY, LOS ANGELES WORLD AIRPORTS: These terminals are old, kind of falling apart, and we really need to upgrade them, but that's difficult to do when you're constrained for space.

MARSH: Funding is finally coming through in some major cities, but at smaller airports like Kansas City which lacks amenities and space for passengers, they're still looking for the cash.

BURKE: We have new aircraft, for example, that are now flying in the United States, where gates don't accommodate an A380. Somebody has to pay for that.

MARSH: In the U.S., funding comes airlines, states, local municipalities and the federal government. But it is a simpler funding process in other parts of the world.

In South Korea, Incheon International consistently ranks as one of the best in the world. It's heavily funded by the government. There's entertainment, high end retail and computer stations, showers, spas, an on-site hotel, full stage performances, and terminals are massive.

Congress regulates a tax cap at $4.50 on passenger air fare and $9 tax for round trips.

That money goes to airports for construction projects but the fee hasn't been raised to account for inflation in 16 years.

BURKE: It's not a fair fight. Their governments recognize the importance of airports, our government says it does, but they didn't show it by increasing funding for us and looking at us as economic engine for local communities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: And Rene joins me now live from D.C.

I was -- I heard Hillary Clinton loud and clear when she said airports in the U.S., they don't even rank among the top 25. Ick, I wasn't aware of that. But how bad are they? Which are the worst here in the U.S.?

MARSH: Well, Ashleigh, the major airports like LAX and LaGuardia in New York City, they're finally investing billions of dollars to renovate the airports, but the problem is those smaller and midsized airports that aren't hubs.

[12:55:00] They may not have the support from the airlines or they may not have access to a lot of local funds.

They're still struggling with that old airport infrastructure not meeting capacity needs, not only for passengers but for aircraft as well. Many airports have been pushing to increase that passenger tax that's baked into your airfare.

But raising that tax has been controversial. Airlines don't like the idea because it makes their ticket prices look much higher. Congress has power to raise the tax but so far, they have not -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: You know what else raises that ticket is those baggage fees and it makes it longer too. So, they're not out of this picture entirely, the airlines that continuously charge us to carry our stuff on and put it under.

Rene Marsh, thank you. Nice to have you on this Memorial Day. Appreciate it.

MARSH: Sure.

BANFIELD: On this day, as America remembers the fallen military members at Arlington and across the United States, a ceremony is about to get under way at the Vietnam Memorial better known as the Wall and got more on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)