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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Markets Plummet After U.K. Vote; U.K. Vote Analysis; Trump on U.K. Vote. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 24, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:03] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW. It is Friday, but not everyone is saying thank God.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNY WATSON, U.K. ELECTORAL COMMISSION: The total number of votes cast in favor of leave was 17,410,742. This means that the U.K. has voted to leave the European Union.

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I will do everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months. But I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination.

BORIS JOHNSON, PRO-"BREXIT" CAMPAIGN: This does not mean that the United Kingdom will be in any way less united, nor indeed does it mean that it will be any less European.

NIGEL FARAGE, U.K. INDEPENDENCE PARTY: We've done it. It's independence day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Well gobsmacked is a term we all seem to be looking for, utterly floored by the verdict from the U.K. voters to bolt from the European Union, to pull up the drawbridge, as one analyst put it. It won't happen fast, but the repercussions have been immediate. And they've been harsh as well. World markets, including right here in the United States, plunging over the prospect of generations of economic political and diplomatic bonds dissolving, or at the very least changing in ways that are very much unknown at this early stage.

A certain politician from America just happening to be in Scotland today for the opening of one of his golf courses. Having harnessed the same sort of U.S. against the world dynamic that Brexit seemed to all be about, Donald Trump is finding himself in a position, saying things are a lot like the outcome of yesterday's vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think it will be a good thing. You're taking your country back. You're going to let people that you want into your country. And people that you don't want or people that you don't think are going to be appropriate for your country or good for your country, you're not going to have to take.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: You don't need me to say it, but the last thing that markets like is a big surprise. And this was a doozy. So now is probably not the best time to log on and take a look your 401(k), because the Dow plunged more than 500 points in the first 20 minutes of trading or so. And right now it ain't doing a whole lot better, down 450 and change. And it just keeps on ticking.

CNN Money business correspondent Alison Kosik is live at the New York Stock Exchange, CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is live for us in London, Jeff Kleintop is a chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab. He's live for us in Boston. And here with me in New York, CNN global economic analyst and "Time" assistant managing editor Rana Foroohar is here, and economic analyst and author Ali Velshi joins me as well.

Alison, first to you at the markets. Set the tone, set the mood, because the first minute of trading, I nearly lost my lunch and I haven't even had it yet.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN MONEY BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, here's the good news, Ashleigh. You know, the market certainly has come back quite a bit since the opening bell. We did see the Dow down as much as 539 points. It is a very calm selloff. It's - this is not anywhere near a panic selloff because we didn't see the bottom fall out of this - of this selloff just yet. The day is still young.

You know, but most traders telling - are telling me that they think this is - this is more of a reactionary selloff. You know, one of those knee jerk reactions to the unknown, you know, the uncertainty of what could happen now that the U.K. is not part of the E.U. You know, a country leaving the European Union, which, you know, just so happens to be the world's fifth biggest economy, you know, it's leaving a lot of question marks for investors about how U.S. companies and the market will be affected. How could the U.S. economy be affected? You know, especially after you hear the IMF saying, well, guess what, now the U.K. could dip into a recession. Oh, yes? Well, then the fear becomes, contagion. You know, would Europe be next and then the U.S.?

So, you know - so the worry is real, though many say this - that they think this is, you know, a one-day event. The selloff is a one-day event and that the thinking is that the market will wind up recalibrating and settling down over the next few sessions. But until then, you can expect a lot of volatility.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Jeff Kleintop, I'm going to go out to you if I can, and the great minds at Charles Schwab. What are you thinking as we watch, you know, the toggle between 450 and 500 every couple of minutes?

JEFFREY KLEINTOP, CHIEF GLOBAL INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, CHARLES SCHWAB: Right. Look, this is a big one-day move in the market. But actually I'd have to point out that it only takes us back to where we were about six or seven days ago on the S&P 500 in the Dow. We've had a big rally on expectations that there would be no Brexit. That, in fact, the U.K. would remain in the European Union. So we're giving back those gains now.

[12:04:58] Now that being said, there may be more in the way of selling to come. But I think it's important to put some perspective around this event of a Brexit. This is not a Lehman Brothers type of event, for example, that comes at the end of a long period of expansion and overinvestment in the economy. Instead, we have a relatively soft economic backdrop and this is another one of the shocks. I'd liken it to maybe the 2011 debt crisis in Europe, or maybe even the 2011 debt debacle here in the U.S. We've seen a number of shocks that have caused a big one-day reaction in the markets and indeed a further decline into the double digits by the markets. But within three or four months, markets had come back and healed because it didn't structurally change the direction of the overall global economy, which remains one of slow, global growth.

BANFIELD: Well, I know a lot of people over the age of 65 who are really hoping that this is just a blip and that it's not going to be something that completely destroys their retirement. And to that notion, Nic Robertson, I wanted to get your perspective on the fact that this is not just one vote that gave us some results overnight. This is going to be a detanglement that is going to last for years. So give me some perspective on what last night's vote meant and how long it's going to take to actually realize what we're in now.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It opened up for British people to see the divisions within society here, a division that focuses around the issue of immigration. It has opened up, for British people now to see that there is a real economic impact to this. How long it will last, how long the pound sterling will be suffering the tremors of the market and now it's entering unexpected unchartered territory in many ways, how long the disentanglement from Europe will take. The best estimates have that, that perhaps a couple of years. Other estimates say maybe even longer. Maybe five, maybe towards 10.

What is the reaction from European capital going to be? Is it one to punish Britain so others don't try to break out of the European fold? We've already heard from French nationalist Marine Le Pen saying it's time for a vote there, for France to leave the European Union.

So what is the punishment, if you will, that will be handed out by the European Union? All of this is unknown at this stage and it's perhaps too reactionary to put it in those kind of terms. But when the - when the markets, the global markets, try to judge in advance of the referendum, they were up. They felt comfortable going into this yesterday. They felt comfortable coming out of it when the polls closed. And look what happened in the meantime. The financial capitals of the world have seen a great divide between their understanding of Britain and the understanding of so many British people of Britain.

So to try to gauge - for them even to gauge at this time what may - what the future may hold for financial markets, what it may hold for Britain, is a bit of a stretch I think for a lot of people in this country to fully embrace at the moment. There's more uncertainty here than there may be outside and it may ripple through to the outside yet.

BANFIELD: Yes, and my colleague, Chris Cuomo, said it this morning, markets don't like uncertainty and they don't like surprise.

And, Ali Velshi, they got a big dose of both of them.

ALI VELSHI, ECONOMIC ANALYST: Yes.

BANFIELD: The British prime minister stepping down overnight.

VELSHI: Yes.

BANFIELD: And most of us had turned our iPhones off to have a couple of hours of sleep -

VELSHI: Right.

BANFIELD: And woke up to that big wallop as well.

VELSHI: Yes.

BANFIELD: But bring in Nic's reporting, into looking ahead, for people who are looking at their 401(k)s and saying, I can't sweat this out.

VELSHI: Yes. I have to agree with what was said earlier, that, don't worry too much about your stocks today.

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Right. Yes.

VELSHI: They'll be - they'll be OK. If you have money, today might be a day to buy. Think about it, after 9/11, after Lehman -

FOROOHAR: Yes.

VELSHI: After the - after the whole recession, markets do bounce back. There are other reasons to worry about markets. This probably isn't it today. This is a reaction about the unknown.

What's more important here is this big disentanglement, the us versus them -

FOROOHAR: Yes.

VELSHI: That went on in the U.K. is very much the same discussion that's going on here in the United States.

BANFIELD: I'm going to get to that.

FOROOHAR: It is. VELSHI: Yes.

BANFIELD: I'm going to get to the politics of it all -

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BANFIELD: And how we are mirroring what happened in the U.K. in a moment.

VELSHI: Right.

BANFIELD: But first I'm more concerned about those downward arrows. Can we pop up all those indices again so I can just take a peek at how significant this is as a global mess.

VELSHI: So the thing you have to worry about is, look, you see earlier, right, as we're digesting this, those markets were open, Frankfurt and Paris. Germany and France, the two biggest economies in Europe, they're the ones most affected. You can see as you get further away from it, a little less affected. And one thing to remember here is, keep in mind the velocity of this market. We have four more hours of trading to go. If it starts ticking downward toward the end of the day, you start getting worried because then it falls back into Hong Kong and Tokyo.

At this point, after the recession, after everything we've been through, I don't look at this market and say, something to worry about. Certainly if you haven't sold your stocks yet, don't sell them today.

BANFIELD: Well, and I'm a big buy on the dipper -

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BANFIELD: But I'm also looking at this - what Nic was reporting -

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BANFIELD: It's going to take two years. You don't - by the way, it was just a vote yesterday. it didn't happen.

FOROOHAR: It's going to take two years.

BANFIELD: And it's not going to be a pretty process. No one knows what the process is going to look like to actually disentangle from the E.U.

FOROOHAR: That's right. That's right.

BANFIELD: All the other contagion, as you heard, doesn't that spell ugliness for investment?

[12:10:01] FOROOHAR: There's - oh, absolutely. I mean the hot core of this is going to be in continental Europe in many respects. You know, there's a Spanish vote on Sunday, so the action isn't over. The French are calling for a - calling for a vote. There's going to be polarization - political polarization on the continent.

But what this really reflects is actually a global trend. Certainly a trans-Atlantic trend, which is, if there is a trust divide between the elites and the mass population, and that's due to the way in which the post-financial crisis era of the last eight years have been handled. I mean I write about this in my new book, "Makers and Takers." We have had a genetically modified recovery.

VELSHI: Yes.

FOROOHAR: It's been modified by central banks. They've dumped a bunch of money in. Politicians have been totally gridlocked. I mean just look at the floor of Congress this last week here -

VELSHI: The sit-in.

FOROOHAR: Yes, the sit-in. You know, you've got politicians that are not taking actions to grow main street -

VELSHI: Right.

FOROOHAR: So central bankers have had to put a Band-Aid on this. Well, the Band-Aid is breaking now and that's what you're seeing in this vote.

BANFIELD: All right, Jeff Kleintop, jump in, if you will, for a minute here because there's one thing that businesses likes, and that's open markets. And the U.K. just put a big closed sign on effectively. So walk me through how that kind of a notion will affect the U.K. and how that could have any kind, or not, of ripple effect on the rest of us out here.

KLEINTOP: Certainly the idea of countries becoming more insular as it relates to trade can certainly raise some questions about what sales growth might be like. I mean there are companies even in Europe, for example, German companies have about 10 percent sales exposure to the U.K. French companies, about 9 percent exposure. So certainly there is - there's some impact there.

But what I want to - the point I want to make is, I think that we've been so dependent on central bankers for so much of the last five to ten years to be the ones to bail us out when we get - when we find ourselves in scrapes on finance. This is - this is a politically born challenge and I think the solution lies with politicians. It may not initially make you feel better, but politicians have a much more flexible range of tools they can use than the mandates of central banks. And I think if they acknowledge some of the challenges, some of the questions about immigration, some of the challenges around the haves and have nots, I think we can move forward. And that's when investors are worried not to be making any changes to their asset allocations here and stay focused on diversification.

VELSHI: But they - they got us into this, Jeff. The problem is that - the problem, Jeff is right, but that's what got us into this. David Cameron never needed to have this referendum.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

(CROSS TALK)

VELSHI: (INAUDIBLE) called for a referendum.

KLEINTOP: (INAUDIBLE) action by the politician.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

VELSHI: He was, you know, he was being pressured by the right, the euro skeptics in his own party -

FOROOHAR: Yes.

VELSHI: And to placate them he said, you know what, in a couple of years, we're going to have a referendum.

BANFIELD: Let's put this to bed.

VELSHI: And I remember the day it happened and I thought, what did you just do?

FOROOHAR: Yes, yes, yes.

VELSHI: He just opened up a can of worms that did not need to be opened.

FOROOHAR: Yes.

VELSHI: Well, he looked for a can of worms and opened it up.

FOROOHAR: Yes, for sure.

BANFIELD: Well, he got back into it and he closed that can today.

VELSHI: So politicians have messed this ting up and the leave campaign was horrible about it.

BANFIELD: Yes.

VELSHI: The things they said were going to happen if you didn't vote leave, they scared Britains into doing it.

BANFIELD: Well, and speaking of campaign -

FOROOHAR: Yes.

BANFIELD: There is so much to compare between what happened overseas -

FOROOHAR: Totally.

BANFIELD: And what's happening here right now. Donald Trump even over there right now making comments. We're going to talk about that in a moment.

In the meantime, Alison, thank you. Rana, Jeff, Ali, thank you all. I'm going to have some of you stick around for this next political part of it all because the distinct similarities between the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union and the groundswell of support for Donald Trump's vision for America, is the Brexit win a harbinger of the U.S. presidential election? We're going to spell out just why it is so similar and why it may be very different, next.

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[12:17:12] BANFIELD: So far, at least, it is hard to find a world leader or would-be world leader who's openly applauding the British divorce from the European Union, aside from this one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's about them. It's their country. But my opinion is that what happened should have happened. And I think they'll end up being stronger for it and they'll control their country and they'll control everything about their country. People want to take their country back. They want to have independence in a sense. And you see it with Europe, all over Europe. You're going to have more than just, in my opinion, more than just what happened last night. You're going to have, I think, many other cases where they want to take their borders back, they want to take their monetary back, they want to take a lot of things back. They want to be able to have a country again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: President Obama, who told the Brits back in April that they'd go to the back of the queue in trade negotiations with the U.S. if they ditched the E.U., is predictably more measured today and more chagrined. He put out a statement saying in part, "the people of the United Kingdom has spoken and we respect their decision. The special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is enduring. So too is our relationship with the European Union. The United Kingdom and the European Union will remain indispensable partners of the United States." The president is due to speak, actually, next hour.

Hillary Clinton, for her part, she's saying, and I quote, "we respect the choice of the people of the United Kingdom and what they've made. Our first task has to be to make sure that the economic uncertainty created by these events does not hurt working families here in America. This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House to protect Americans' pocketbooks and livelihoods to support our friends and allies and to stand up to our adversaries and defend our interests."

I want to bring in a lot of very smart people who know a thing or two about all of this to talk about the impact of Brexit on the United States' presidential race. CNN political reporter Sara Murray is traveling with Donald Trump. He's live in Scotland for us. John Avlon, a CNN political analyst and editor in chief of "The Daily Beast" is with us live. Ryan Lizza, CNN political commentator and Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker" is joining us live. And Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News with me as well. Joining us again, economic analyst and very familiar face to CNN viewers, as a former "CNN Money" anchor, Ali Velshi.

All right, I'm going to start with, of all these wonderful guests, I'm actually going to go to Tony Blair first, because Tony Blair said something -

VELSHI: I didn't hear you introduce him.

BANFIELD: It would be nice to have the booking, but "New Day" got him. All right, so Tony Blair said a little earlier on today that there's a lot of similarity between what's happening in the United States and what just happened in the U.K. Let's listen.

[12:20:08] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BLAIR, FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Look, who you elect as president is up to you. I mean let me just put it - put it like that. But what I do think is that there is a strange coming together of populism from the left and the right that you would think that populism of left and right doesn't have much in common. And, curiously, they have a lot in common, thinking that isolating ourselves or shutting our borders is the way to deal with it. It's not. There are solutions for the future that we've got to put forward before people and the danger is there's so much anger at the moment that the anger displaces what are, frankly, the more rational answers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So you're going to hear a lot more of that interview, in fact, on "Wolf" coming up next hour as well.

So, John Avlon, first to you. He makes, you know, a cogent point and a lot of people agree with him and a lot of people don't. Where is the disconnect?

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICS ANALYST: Well, I - look, I think he makes an incredibly important point because if you look at the flow through, a lot of the challenges we face right now, it's a reaction to globalization, whether it's fundamentalists or populists, globalization meets change. That means a lot of folks feel threatened by that change. And the danger is to try to lash out from a defensive crouch and the reality is that the notes you hear, certainly in the United States, from populism on the left and the right do have common threads. There's a frustration of what they perceive to be a rigged system, special interests, often an issue of porous borders, economy - folks getting squeezed, particularly in the middle class.

And those anger - that anger has been reflected by some of the folks for leave in the U.K., from U.K. (ph) and others. And when it gets tied up in ethnic nationalism, that's an ugly side to democracy. And there are going to be a lot of unintended consequences to this election that aren't simply sticking it to the man, they're going to end up creating huge complications and further dislocation for some of the folks who felt that this vote might strengthen their hand. They may find, unfortunately, it does the opposite. BANFIELD: Well, Donald Trump didn't seem to think so.

Sara, I want to go out to you, if I can, in front of the lovely new golf club and course that he's opened in Scotland, but not before I give some parameters. A little contour here for the words that Donald Trump spoke this morning. It was only within the last week that he was approached by "The Hollywood Reporter" and an interviewer asked him these questions, and phrased it like this, "And Brexit? Your position?" Donald Trump's response was, "Huh?" And the reporter said, "Brexit." Effectively, "the Brits leaving the E.U." And Donald Trump's response was, "oh, yeah, I think they should leave." Only two days ago, Sara, this was Donald Trump on Fox Business talking about his knowledge of the Brexit situation. Two days ago. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (voice-over): I think I might be inclined to do that. I don't - I don't think that that unusual, though. It's been done before, hasn't it, Hugh?

HUGH HEWITT (voice-over): No, I don't think ever - we've ever had a cabinet member named. There was a hit that Colin Powell was going to be W's secretary of state, but it was just a hint. I mean if you appear with these guys -

TRUMP: Well, did they wait until after at the election and then the cabinet -

HEWITT: Yes. Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, unfortunately, that was not the sound bite I was looking for. That was something about - it made big news yesterday as well, naming cabinet members before he even gets to a convention and names a VP. But let me read for you exactly what happened on that Fox Business interview.

He said, "I'm right in the middle of it. I don't think anyone should listen to me because I haven't focused on it very much, but my inclination would be to get out because go it alone. It's a mess." Two days before this monumental vote, Donald Trump said, I don't think anyone should listen to me because I haven't focused much on it. And yet he seemed to be an expert on it this morning. Characterize what he said this morning from your spot.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, Ashleigh, obviously, we got a very different sentiment from Donald Trump at his press conference today. And what we've seen from Trump throughout this campaign is he really is a master of the media cycle. And he's clearly decided that this is the kind of thing that works in favor of his presidential campaign. He say - he said today that he saw a lot of parallels between the angst and anxiety over the economy and also over immigration here in the U.K. and he says he's hearing the same thing from voters back in the U.S., and that's part of what's been propelling his presidential campaign. But it was interesting. At one point he was asked, did you consult with any of your foreign policy advisors in the wake of this vote? And said, you know, I chatted with a couple, but there's not really that much to talk about, which I think would not be a response you would hear from many past presidential candidates in this situation who would want to know, what are the ripple effects of this decision, what does this mean for the economy in the U.K.? What does it mean for the economy and trade deals in the United States. And Trump brushed aside many of these questions today, but he did weigh in on the economic impact in the U.K., essentially saying, look, if the pound takes a hit, that's good news for my golf courses here, like Trump Turnberry, which I'm sure would not be good news in the eyes of many citizens here in the U.K.

[12:25:13] BANFIELD: So, so trade and the economy and immigration, all key words in the campaign where you are, Sara. And clearly, big key words in the campaign here as well. Ones that Donald Trump employs regularly.

Ryan Lizza, I want to bring you in on that. I'm sure that these similarities are not lost on you as you analyze the results that we just saw overseas and what result we might see in November.

RYAN LIZZA, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORKER": Yes, I think there is some important differences as well, Ashleigh. There's no doubt that immigration was the issue that drove the leave campaign. And in the U.K., immigration has been soaring now for two decades when the - when the E.U. absorbed eastern European countries, a huge spike in immigration into the U.K., where the economy was pouring (ph) better. After the 2008 financial crisis, another spike of immigration into the U.K. from the southern European countries, like Spain and Greece. And there's no doubt that that has fed a huge anti-immigrant backlash in the U.K. And that's all legal immigration. And there's no doubt that they were putting more weight on the national health service in the U.K., and the education system, and you had populist Trump-like politicians come out of nowhere to drive this campaign.

In the U.S., despite the fact that Trump has made immigration, and let's be clear, illegal immigration, the main points of his primary campaign, the truth is, illegal immigration has been steady or declining the last few years. It is true that it's a major issue that divides Republicans. But despite what Tony Blair said, talking about the populism of the left and right, there are actually some big differences in the U.S. There's not really an anti-immigration reform contingent in the Democratic Party. It's not an issue on the left. Remember, the AFL-CIO and Bernie Sanders are both pro-immigration reform. The populism on the left is much more about trade, not immigration. So I don't see the same level in the general electorate in the U.S., same anti-immigrant fervor that you saw in the U.K.

BANFIELD: Interesting. I'm so interested that you say that.

Errol, I wonder if you would beg to differ because many people have said that when you look at the Trump rallies and the thousands where those have said, jobs, jobs, jobs and trade deals, they're really actually dog whistling about those immigrants, those Mexicans who Donald Trump, right on day one, said were rapists and some, I guess, are good people.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you know, it's interesting. I think Ryan's exactly right, because you've got the trade component of it, and we've got the immigration component of it. The immigration component of it is really what was fueling the emotion and really, I think, determined the outcome of the vote most likely. Some of this has to do, though, I mean - and there are huge differences between what goes on here and what goes on there. I mean the part - part of being in the European Union meaning that if you're in Britain, your immigration policy in effect is being set by the other members. So that if somebody can get into Italy, if somebody can get into Greece, they can make their way to London and you don't really have a lot of control. It was that sense of dislocation, I think, based on not having any input on to what the policy is and what's actually happening on the real borders with Turkey and so forth.

BANFIELD: You mean elitists from afar making policy that you don't like where you live?

LOUIS: Well, I mean, but other countries, whereas here it's actually under our control.

BANFIELD: Right.

LOUIS: And just real quick, I mean, one thing that the leaders in Europe have not been clear about and have not come clean with their populations about is that they have shrinking populations. The immigration is not people, you know, jumping over the border, you know, and they can be kept out. They are needed.

VELSHI: Right.

LOUIS: There's been a program in Scotland, in fact where Trump is, for years where they're trying to get people to settle and to move into Scotland.

VELSHI: Yes. Yes, yes. And so when you - and so when you see service workers in the U.K., they are - you know, the generation of Pakistanis, Bangladesh, these Indians and Nigerians, they're - they've moved sort of out, in many cases, of the service ranks and now you've got Pols and Romanians, eastern Europeans and some southern Europeans.

BANFIELD: Eastern Europeans also. Yes.

VELSHI: So this -

BANFIELD: And is this true? Is this really what the Brits were so concerned about is that the eastern Europeans are coming in and taking our jobs?

VELSHI: Well, it depends what you mean by taking your country back, because there are two things. Errol and Ryan both make really good points. Errol is right, part of it is the, why are decisions being made in Brussels about us? But you know what kind of decisions get made by the E.U.? Not the stuff that keeps working people out of a job. So people got very - "The Washington Post" is reporting this morning that one of the most Googled things in Great Britain today is E.U.

BANFIELD: What is the E.U.?

VELSHI: So after - after deciding to vote -

BANFIELD: I'm not kidding. What is the E.U.?

VELSHI: Ourselves out of it, what is the E.U.? But the -

BANFIELD: That's one of the most Googled questions.

VELSHI: So there's the take back your country from -

LIZZA: (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: Yes. What?

LIZZA: But it became a - but it became a referendum about immigration, didn't it, Ali? I mean that's the bottom line. That's the - that's what the leave campaign made.

[12:29:54] VELSHI: Well, but I think --- I think - I think, Ryan, it was both. It was really - it was a haves versus have not decision. That's where I'm more on Trump's side on this one. Why this can happen in the United States because fundamentally it was, take control of your country back and working people don't like trade deals. If you're in the richer country, it hasn't worked for them. it's worked for companies and it has worked for the so-called elite.