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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

A look at Presidential Politics; Benghazi Report Released. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 28, 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: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

In just a few minutes, we are expecting to hear from Hillary Clinton. She has a campaign stop at a workforce training center in Denver where she is going to talk about technology and innovation, a key part of her economic platform. We've also got a Donald Trump event. He's going to be speaking in just over two hours from now, hot on the heels of the Brexit vote. He's expected, once again, to push his idea that globalization is bad for America and that Hillary Clinton is a big proponent of globalization. I want to remind you what he said just last week before the vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism, focusing on what's good for America's middle class, to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and their workers to foreign countries, all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy itself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Let's go now to MJ Lee, who is covering the Clinton campaign today. She's live in Denver.

So she's at a place called Galvanize, and that sounds to me like she's looking for that millennium vote. Am I wrong?

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: That's absolutely right, Ashleigh. What Hillary Clinton has been doing over the last few weeks is rolling out specific policy prescriptions, whether it's on foreign policy or the economy. And in just a few minutes she is going to speak at a small business incubator here in Denver. And according to campaign aides, we're going to hear her talk about plans like bringing high speed Internet to most households by 2020, insuring that students have access to computer science education. She'll be discussing student loans, ways to give young entrepreneurs a leg up.

Now, all of this, of course, sounds a little wonky, but keep in mind that the big picture strategy here is to draw a contrast between herself and Donald Trump. This is something that we have seen her do over and over again over the last few weeks. And in doing this, Clinton's goal is to paint herself as a serious candidate with a comprehensive policy agenda, while making sure that voters know that she believes Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be president in almost every front. So we can expect that this kind of rhetoric from Clinton will continue over the next couple of months.

BANFIELD: All right, MJ standing by live for us. Thank you for that.

I also want to bring in our political panel, Nia-Malika Henderson is CNN's senior political reporter, and CNN Money correspondent Cristina Alesci is live with me here.

Let's talk money for a minute before we go to the politics. So hold on, Nia-Malika, if you will.

Cristina, the whole Brexit issue and this globalization focus for Donald Trump, I get it, except that things are catastrophic there right now. Bank stocks are tanking. The AAA rating is gonzo. And people are freaking out all around the world. Granted the markets are doing better here today, but not for those folks. So why then would it be wise to stay on that message?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: It's wise to stay on the message because it's an emotional message that's been working for his supporters. So he is going to stay on that message. What he is not talking about are the down sides for the U.S. with Brexit. You know, this does make our dollar stronger, which means that our goods are less competitive on the world stage. Donald Trump is not talking about that. He's talking about the fact that people can vacation, you know, more cheaply in Europe, which, I mean, it's - yes, it's a benefit. But if you look at some of the down sides for the U.S., they are quite substantial and they are quite large.

BANFIELD: All right, so I want to skip over, if I can, slightly, and that is to trade, because I know that that is something that Donald Trump likes to really hammer home in a lot of his speeches. And in this speech that he's got coming up, that's going to be a big focus for him in the rust belt, particularly. And then there is this sound bite that has been unearthed. We knew what was in it before. It was Hillary Clinton talking about the TPP trade pact as being the gold standard. But now we actually have what it sounds like when she said it. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE (2012): This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field. And, when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: All right, Nia-Malika, jump in here, if you will. Cristina just talked about the globalization and there is that whole TPP thingy that I'm sure that Hillary Clinton would prefer wouldn't be on tape. She walked that back. You're going to have to get me through that, because me thinks that's going to be in a campaign ad if the Trump people are quick and witty real fast.

[12:05:00] NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, that's right. I mean this was a big part of the Democratic primary, with Bernie Sanders never letting Hillary Clinton forget that she had come out for that TPP agreement, something that Obama wants to happen, most Republicans want to happen as well. Democrats haven't really been on the same side as the president on this issue. But here is the smoking gun, the tape of hers saying what we knew that she had said in transcript version. So you do imagine that Donald Trump is going to use that in these rust belt states.

He'll be there in Pennsylvania today talking about these issues, talking about TPP, talking about NAFTA. And this is quite a departure from what we have seen other Republicans be able to do in these rust belt states. You typically see them go to these rust belt states and talk about government or regulations squelching businesses. That's certainly something that Mitt Romney did in 2012. But this is something new from a Republican, this idea that they're against free trade. And we'll see what that does for Donald Trump's message, if he's able to do even better amongst working class white voters in particularly, a voting bloc that is already key to Republicans to begin with in these rust belt states. But Donald Trump is even trying to do better. And that would be key to any kind of chances that he has of winning the White House in November.

BANFIELD: All right, since you mentioned the departure, I'm going to talk about another departure, if I can, and that is, Donald Trump has really got a - he's got a big departure from the Muslim ban, which was the cornerstone of his primary campaign. Other than build a wall, it was Muslim ban, until we figure it out were his words. But now instead of a Muslim ban he's saying, we need to target the terror countries. We need to look at the Muslims that come from the terror countries.

So my crafty and trustworthy team went back over the last five major attacks on western countries and we looked at where these very dangerous people have come from. And there is the list. Feast your eyes on it, folks. This is the reality of the last set of western attacks from the Bataclan, to Brussels, to San Bernardino, to Orlando, and then "Charlie Hebdo" as well. You've got yourself six French citizens who were involved, one French national, three Belgian citizens, one Belgian born, one Belgian national, one U.S. born, one U.S. citizen, one Swede, and then one from Pakistan, one from Morocco.

Errol Louis, jump in here, if you will, CNN political commentator. Those are terror countries. What do we do about those silly Americans coming from a terror country?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well -

BANFIELD: How do you establish what a terror country is anymore?

LOUIS: Here you are thinking that there was some logic to this plan. You know, I mean, look, when Donald Trump first made that statement, let's keep in mind, it was not in the heat of debate, it was not in answer to a reporter's question. He held a press conference. He read from a piece of paper. It was a prepared statement. I think the burden is entirely on him to explain what the heck he meant.

BANFIELD: What's a terror country now?

LOUIS: And what - there's no such definition that we've been given. And so it's a made-up term. The campaign should explain what they mean. The campaign should mean - should also explain further, I think, what happens to say an American-born Muslim. Because, remember, he said, we're going to have a shutdown on immigration for Muslims. So let's say you're a green card holder or an American citizen or an American resident who happens to be of Muslim faith. You go away on vacation. You go home to perhaps an unapproved country, whatever that might be. What happens when you come back? It cries out for a vast deal more explanation in detail -

ALESCI: Well, that -

LOUIS: That I don't expect to get from this - this campaign.

BANFIELD: Yes.

ALESCI: I mean that's the case with all of his policies to a certain extent, it cries out for more detail. Even on his position of - even on his positions about trade and imposing tariffs on Mexico and China. Well, outside groups have looked at those plans and said, it's going to cost the average American worker more because as foreign goods become more expensive, U.S. producers will see that as an opportunity to increase prices too.

BANFIELD: So - can I just dumb this down to me. I'm a mom of two kids. I live in the suburbs. And I likes my Walmart. I like to go to Walmart. I like to go to target.

ALESCI: Yes. As you should.

BANFIELD: I like my cheap goods.

ALESCI: As you should.

BANFIELD: And I also go up in sizes, so I have things in several sizes in my closet and I'm glad they're inexpensive.

Seriously, though, isn't that what it means when you start clamping down on these trade deals, my Walmart prices are going to go up and I won't be able to afford, you know, a wagon for each of my kids any more.

ALESCI: Ashleigh, you are absolutely right. Outside groups have looked at these tariff deals and said, the average American family will pay $2,200 more a year. And that's from, you know, a university. If you look at a conservative group that did a similar analysis, they said it's going to cost the average person $780 a year more because even U.S. domestic producers will look at those foreign products and say, OK, they're charging more for them. I can charge more for them too. Why not? That's the way business works.

So the benefits to the producer are there, but it is not the same for the American family. It's not the same.

[12:10:07] BANFIELD: Let me - let me do a complete about-face here. Nia-Malika, I want you to take a look at a tweet that just came out from Michael Cohen, who's one of the chief advisors for Donald Trump. He's worked within the Trump organization. He said this, the NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll has @realdonaldtrump beating crooked Hillary on honesty and national security. This picture says it all. And if you read what the meme says, and I'll quote the meme (ph) here, "I presided over $6 billion lost at the State Department sold uranium to the Russians through my faux charity, illegally deleted public records and murdered an ambassador." This show is called LEGAL VIEW because we know a thing or two about the law. And Michael Cohen is a lawyer. That there is libel, to suggest that a woman murdered an ambassador. Look, it's not as though Hillary Clinton's team is about to go and launch some litigation on this, but that's pretty strident stuff.

HENDERSON: It is strident. And I think it again goes to what has been Donald Trump's problem. This very sort of undisciplined, shoot from the hip campaign and Michael Cohen, again, isn't affiliated officially with that campaign, but he's been a longtime aide to Donald Trump. I remember covering Donald Trump in 2012 when he was sort of pretending that he was going to run for president back then in New Hampshire and Michael Cohen was there and Donald Trump was often on the phone with him as well. So, you know, I mean, again, this is the kind of strident language that has sort of been surrounding the Donald Trump campaign, often coming from Donald Trump himself.

BANFIELD: Can I just - can I - can I show you a tweet that Michael Cohen, the author of this one from moments ago, put out two years ago. There it is, folks. Have a look at what Michael Cohen thought of secretary Clinton.

HENDERSON: Yes.

BANFIELD: "Being received by two great Americans." Hillary Clinton presumably being one of the great Americans, and Patrick Kennedy presumably being the other great American at the Kennedy compound. So I'm not exactly sure what happened because, you know what, Benghazi had happened two years prior to that tweet. And apparently Michael Cohen thought she was a great American two years after Benghazi and now he does not.

Also, Nia-Malika, just quickly, is it Michael Caputo (ph) who resigned after the ding-dong the witch is dead, once Corey Lewandowski was fired -

HENDERSON: That's right. Yes.

BANFIELD: For that kind of language in a tweet. I mean ding-dong the witch is dead is not Hillary Clinton murdered an ambassador.

HENDERSON: Yes. I mean, again, Cohen isn't officially affiliated with this campaign. And Caputo decided to step down because he thought he was going to be a distraction to the campaign after he tweeted out that reference to "The Wizard of Oz" in relation to Corey Lewandowski. So we'll see what happens. I mean we have heard things like this emanating from the Donald Trump sort of orbit and so it's not really a surprise. And we'll see if there is any sort of pushback from the campaign to Cohen.

LOUIS: I mean - let - let - let's be clear -

BANFIELD: Quick.

LOUIS: This is a distraction. I mean that same NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll that he's referring to that has Trump ahead on honesty or trustworthiness has Clinton ahead and actually winning the election by something like eight points.

BANFIELD: Yes, and there's an ABC News poll as well out today that's showing Hillary Clinton ahead in fighting terror as well. I mean I'm sure that he'll want to tweet something about that.

But you know what, let's just be really frank here, people. Don't call someone a murder of an ambassador. For God's sake, it's offensive to Americans who really want the truth in what's going on in politics. Please, give us a break. Campaigning.

Errol Louis, Nia-Malika Henderson, Cristina Alesci, thank you.

HENDERSON: Thank you.

BANFIELD: I nearly lost my cool. Well, I did lose my cool, effectively.

Coming up next, it is out, the House Republican's long awaited report on the Benghazi terror attacks. It happened on Hillary Clinton's watch. It was just released today. So what does it say about the then secretary? We're going to fill you in on the details.

You can watch LEGAL VIEW any time at cnn.com/go. And you can find me on Twitter @cnnashley or just head over to FaceBook.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:17:59] BANFIELD: At long last, the House Select Committee on Benghazi has released its reports on the 2012 attack that killed four Americans at a U.S. diplomatic outpost. And I did say reports, more than one, because with the secretary of state at the time launching a presidential bid, there was never much chance that this probe would stay above the political fray. Witness last October's day-long grilling of Hillary Clinton by committee Republicans and defense by committee Democrats. Those Dems put out their report, sort of a pre- butte to all of this, yesterday, followed early this morning by the, quote, "official" version from the Republican committee leaders and a separate harsher account from two Republican panel members.

And before we get to the claims and the conclusions, all sides agree that Glen Doherty, Ty Woods, Sean Smith and U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens died heroically in service to their country. Glad we can say that because sometimes that really gets lost in all the politics. The official report sites that an array of contributing factors, including a worsening security scenario in Libya overall, inadequate resources from the Departments of State and Defense, and bureaucratic inertia in Washington.

It does not, however, lodge any new allegations of wrongdoing by Secretary Hillary Clinton. And that led to this exchange between the panel's chairman and my CNN colleague, Dana Bash, at a news conference you might have just seen live here about an hour ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The flip side of that could be that, because you chose not to draw conclusions, does that suggest that you don't have the goods on placing any blame on the administration, specifically the woman who wants to be the president of the United States?

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), CHAIRMAN, SELECT COMMITTEE ON BENGHAZI: That - Dana - Dana, shockingly, that was not what the House asked me to do. Look at the resolution. The resolution doesn't mention Secretary Clinton. Speaker Boehner, nor Speaker Ryan, have ever asked me to do anything about 2016 presidential politics. Speaker Boehner asked me to find out what happened to four of our fellow citizens. And I believe that that is what I have done.

[12:20:21] You are welcome to read the report. I hope you will. I know you will. If you, at the end of reading that report, can conclude that it is about one person instead of about four people, I will be shocked.

BASH: I'm asking the opposite question. Do you believe, after doing this for two years, spending all of your time and millions of dollars, do you believe that based on this that the American people should look at this and see that the woman who wants to be president has culpability?

GOWDY: I was with you until the last clause of your statement. I think the American people ought to look at it. They ought to look at it because fellow Americans died and fellow Americans were injured and fellow Americans went to heroic lengths to save other Americans. What conclusions they draw after reading it is up to them.

BASH: Do you disagree with Mr. Pompeii or Mr. Jordan, because they do draw conclusions?

GOWDY: I wrote the report that I think is centered in the facts. I have a background of who, what, when, where. I don't have a background in the why. Y'all may have a background in the why. I don't. My job is to report facts. That's what I've done. You can draw whatever conclusions you want to draw.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The person doing the questioning, Dana Bash, joining me live now with what is the - I'm just going to count them up here -- eighth congressional review of the Benghazi attack. We are also looking at investigations by the State Department's Accountability Review Board and interagency security assessment teams. There's been a lot of questions asked. And I was not aware, until I read this in "The New York Times," Dana, that this effort to investigate has drawn on longer than the investigations into the assassination of JFK, the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina and Pearl Harbor. So what's the headline?

BASH: It's hard to actually -

BANFIELD: Really?

BASH: Exactly. It's hard - it's hard - here's the issue with - with this report and what I was trying to get at in part with Chairman Gowdy there is that it's an 800-page narrative. There's no one headline because Chairman Gowdy doesn't necessarily want there to be one. He wants people to sit down and read it and get a sense from all the interviews that they did, which, in fairness to them, no one else has a lot of this. Chris Stephens, the ambassador who was killed, his e-mails and other transcripts and documents, he wants them to read it and conclude for themselves and, more importantly, for officials at the White House, at the State Department, at the Defense Department, where it is very clear that a number of things went terribly, terribly wrong, that they take it and use some of the recommendations that are in this report.

However, the reason why I had to pause to answer your legitimate question, which is what's the headline, is that the headline is - I mean and as much as Trey Gowdy wants to say it's not about Hillary Clinton, the headline is that this committee spent two years and $7 million, taxpayer dollars, and the - it was through the prism, whether he likes it or not, of whether the woman who wants to be president of the United States has culpability. And the answer is, there are no bomb shells. That there is no smoking gun on that issue.

In fairness, they did uncover and reveal some other questions and answers to questions like, why was Chris Stevens even in Benghazi given how incredibly dangerous it was and how poor his security protection was? Why was he even there? Some answers to that were, we found out through, again, e-mails and transcripts, that he thought he could actually get funding for a permanent consulate, which was his passion. So he went, even though it was dangerous. And that Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, of course, his boss, had planned to go to visit Libya a month later and they wanted a, quote, "deliverable." So that's just one piece of new information.

But just the fact that Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman, was standing on the stage with two Republicans who didn't think that he went far enough. And they did their own separate report making political conclusions. And then on the other side, you have Democrats who are saying that he has gone too far in spending all of this money for what purpose, you know, going at him from the other side. So I think that that kind of makes it very, very murky and makes their message and makes their conclusion hard to really pin down into one or two sentences.

BANFIELD: I can pin it down into this sentence.

BASH: Yes.

BANFIELD: $7 million to learn - BASH: Yes.

BANFIELD: That the government is big and bulky. How about that?

BASH: Yes.

BANFIELD: And, you know, I'm just going to wrap it up with Trey's own words. Trey Gowdy's own words. You ready? He said this. "Congress does a lousy job of conducting a political, nonpartisan investigations and the American people deserve better." There is the headline, Dana. There's the headline from all of this.

[12:25:13] Thank you, Miss Bash. Good job in there doing the questioning.

BASH: Thank you. Thanks, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: As you always do. Appreciate it.

And a program note. Benghazi committee members Adam Schiff, Democrat, and Jim Jordan, Republican, are going to be guests on the "Wolf" show next hour right here on CNN.

Just days after the U.K. voted to leave the E.U., banks are getting hammered again. And not the fun kind. This in the billions, folks. Richard Quest is going to join me next to talk about the impact that has on them, but really on you in America, because it does cross the pond in a digital heartbeat.

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