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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Latest Headlines in the Presidential Race; Ryan Wisconsin Race; Fox News Accusations. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 09, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

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[12:00:37] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

Ninety-one short days before Americans elect a new president, or 91 long days depending on your outlook on all of this. Another Republican senator now has bailed on the Republican nominee. And just minutes from now, Susan Collins is going to tell us why in an exclusive CNN interview. But in a blistering op-ed in "The Washington Post," the senior senator from Maine, and one of the few remaining GOP moderates on Capitol Hill, declared, and I will quote the senator, "with the passage of time, I have become increasingly dismayed by Trump's constant stream of cruel comments and his inability to admit error or apologize. I am also deeply concerned that Mr. Trump's lack of self- restraint and his barrage of ill-informed comments would make an already perilous world even more so."

And while Senator Collins may be the highest ranking new member of the Republican not backing Trump group, she is not the only one to join since just yesterday. Witness a letter that was signed by 50 former Republican national officials. And they warn that Trump would be, and I'll quote them, "the most reckless president in American history." Ouch.

I want you to hear Trump's reaction to that because you know it's going to be a doozy, right? First, though, I want to bring in the brain trust on it. David Gergen is a CNN senior political analyst and former advisor to four U.S. presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, Eugene Scott is a CNN political reporter, and Phillip Bump is a political reporter for "The Washington Post."

All right, so, first to you, David Gergen, and I've got some material I need to share with you because this is a little complicated. A lot been going on in the last 48 hours. The - this issue with the national security group, they really just - they just let it all out there. They were not holding back whatsoever. And these are some really big names as well. I want to read something from the letter. "He," meaning Trump, "is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood. He does not encourage conflicting views. He lacks self-control. He acts impetuously. He cannot tolerate personal criticism. He has alarmed our closest allies with his erratic behavior. All of these are dangerous qualities in an individual who aspires to be president and commander in chief with command of the U.S. nuclear arsenal." And not to be outdone, a wannabe president Trump decided he was going to have at them as well and this is what he tweeted out. "I'm running against the Washington insiders, just like I did in the Republican primaries. These are the people that have made U.S. a mess." And then, if that weren't enough, he had an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business this morning in which he had this to say about those very people. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (voice-over): Well, I respond by saying that I wasn't using any of them and they would have loved to have been involved with the campaign, but I wasn't using - I had no interest in using. Look where the country is now on national policy. Look where we are on defense. Look where we are - look at - look at the mess we're in, whether it's the Middle East or anyone else. And these were the people that have been there a long time, Washington establishment people that have been there a long time. Look at the terrible job they've done. I hadn't planned on using any of these people. I guess, for the most part, I haven't even spoken to any of these people because I like to speak to a new group. The old group was not doing it. Take a look at the Middle East. Take a look at the problems that we have. And the last people I want to use are the people that have been doing it for the last long period of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: David, he is a master at making this very simple, black and white, those are the old guy. They got us here. I want the new guys. It's a very simple argument and it plays very well to people who are busy and looking at headline news.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely. Well, first let me say how wonderful it is to have a former student, Eugene Scott, here. It's great. He's been terrific.

BANFIELD: You taught him in his Masters' program.

GERGEN: Yes, yes. We -

BANFIELD: OK, we're going to - you're - no pressure.

GERGEN: He's a self-made man. I want to tell you something. We've been - he's come up through journalism the hard way and I want to congratulate you. It's terrific to see you here.

EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Thank you so much. Thank you.

GERGEN: The -

BANFIELD: That's better than the degree, by the way, what you just got.

GERGEN: Yes.

BANFIELD: So, you know - you know, speaking of degrees, this guy, Trump, should have a degree in public relations because he's phenomenal at it. This is an incredible response and he has a great point, doesn't he?

GERGEN: No.

BANFIELD: No?

GERGEN: He does not have a great point.

BANFIELD: Tell me why.

GERGEN: Listen, I - I think that if you look at this list, there are 50 people. They are very substantive people. I've worked directly with at least 20 of them and several of them by reputation. These folks have represented the United States overseas for over 40 years, going all the way back to the Nixon administration. And Republicans have not been perfect stewards of national security. Look at the war in Iraq.

[12:05:19] But if you go back to the Nixon days, driving a wedge between Russia and China, who are mortal enemies, helping to tear down the wall in Berlin, ending a Cold War without a shot, getting - kicking Saddam out of - the hell out of Kuwait, securing the country since 9/11. There have been a lot of successes that these people have represented. And just as Donald Trump can't understand and can't seem to get it through his head that NATO is a big plus for us as an alliance, he does not understand - and the history of what so many other people have done in both parties, but in this case they're Republicans, to protect the security of this security, to advance the security of the country.

BANFIELD: So, and, you know, quite frankly, he's got a couple of names on his own list of experts that come right from those ranks, too, which is (INAUDIBLE) critical.

GERGEN: That came right from those ranks. But, guess what, they're, for the most part, people, you know, people that we've never heard of. Yes, I don't know what they've done. I'm sure they're very fine people. I'm sure they're fine, upstanding Americans. But the people who have been in charge, who have actually run things, made the big decisions and should be there for the next president, if Donald Trump becomes president, he needs to call upon the wisdom of a Bob Zellic (ph) or a Carla Hills (ph) or a number of people on this list of 50 and stop being so dismissive of others who have actually contributed and built a better world. They have not been perfect, but to be so dismissive I think shows -

BANFIELD: It works, though. Boy, look at that Republican primary, dismissing anything that anyone's done on either side of the (INAUDIBLE).

GERGEN: Yes, but he's now - he's now running as something - he's now on a bigger stage.

BANFIELD: Let me ask, Philip, in your own paper, yes, I think, you know, Trump's supposed to be on this big reboot from a pretty disastrous last couple of weeks. PHILIP BUMP, POLITICAL REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": Right.

BANFIELD: And yesterday was supposed to be a scripted, planned, policy-heavy moment for him with his economic plan. Stayed on prompter. Didn't worry so much about those protestors. By all accounts that should have gone really well. But then you've got Susan Collins coming out today in your own paper and it sort of usurps all those headlines with yet again somebody who says, it doesn't matter what he's saying. It doesn't matter what he's saying the policy is, it's the guy.

BUMP: Right.

BANFIELD: It's the guy. And that's the problem.

BUMP: Yes, I mean, I think it's worth pointing out that - that all of these Republicans are defecting at this point, at a time when Donald Trump seems to have less of a shot at the presidency than ever before. I think it's important to remember the context here, that Susan Collins was not out at the forefront of this when Donald Trump was leading in the polls, you know, very briefly at the beginning of May.

That said, it is certainly the case that Donald Trump is in a very weak position electorally. The polls have consistently shown him down now with some regularity by double digits. We saw a poll from Monmouth yesterday that showed him down by 13 points.

The challenge for Donald Trump is, he needs to do something to change what's happening in this race. And, yes, he had this speech yesterday which, for the most part, wasn't really a change. It was mostly proposals he had already made in the past but he was trying to use this as a moment to redirect people's attention and say, here I am. I'm here to talk about the economy. Let's put all of last week behind us. But then he can't help but, A, have the very well organized Clinton campaign hammering him, have Republicans that are defecting on him - are defecting on him in his candidacy, but he also can't help himself. He can't help tweeting things like he did this morning. He can't help tweeting conspiracy theories as he did last night with this Iranian scientist. He just - he has shown, and this is what Collins says in her editorial, he has shown an inability to control his own instincts on this. And his instincts worked in the primary. So far they are not working in the general.

BANFIELD: So you threw out a lot of really interesting nuggets there. Let's start with that first one, the Monmouth poll that you mentioned. I think it's 13 points that he's ahead. Clinton, I think, was at 50. Trump at 37. And that's including the other two candidates, Johnson at seven and Stein at two.

So, I think, Eugene, at this point, if Trump does what he did in the primaries which is exactly those instinctive things, bombast, excitement, rile that group that comes out to see him in all of those massive halls, it doesn't seem to work maybe when you get to the general. So then gets back on prompter and he starts dumping heavy policy. So what's the next poll going to show, because things haven't really changed? There has been a drip, drip, slide, even though he's juggling two different styles.

SCOTT: Well, whatever he does, he's going to need to do something that's going to attract independent voters because the current approach - the first approach is what helped him win his base. But we're now at a point where people who have not quite made up their minds and did not respond to the rhetoric or the rallies or the tweets want to hear more in-depth policy proposals on the issues.

And so to the 50 professionals who dismiss his expertise, attacking their character and their experience and their wisdom is not helpful. Responding to them with knowledge saying, actually, you are wrong, this is where I am smart. And it's like, well, it's what's going to be most helpful and perhaps could change where he stands in the polls.

[12:09:59] BANFIELD: So, David, the tweet that Philip just mentioned about the Iranians, I actually want to read this tweet that Donald Trump sent out. It said, "many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the U.S. because of Hillary Clinton's hacked e-mails." "Many people are saying." Well, my first instinct, although I always try to pull back on that, is to send it out saying, but is it true? Because if you want to be commander in chief, you can't just throw stuff out there. At a news organization, we don't just say "many people are saying," you actually have to vet it.

GERGEN: It's a - it's -

BANFIELD: And if you vet it, it's actually not true, because some of the people five years ago had already said this. American officials had already said, yes he was not a defector. He helped us and everything was legitimate and, you know, that's unfortunate. But it wasn't Hillary's e-mails that got that out of the bag. It was years ago.

GERGEN: Well, what - as you know, he has a way of saying, and many people are saying, and then he goes on to make some conspiratorial point that is not proven anywhere, but he - he wants to inject that into the conversation so that - and he - and he gets us to go sort of whipping down various trails that lead nowhere. And I think that's what happened here. If you go - if you get into the depths of - you just said, there's not much here. I mean this has been very public knowledge since 2010. There is - there is zero evidence that this is related to the e-mails. There is - this fellow came over here voluntarily, he had a variety of reasons to want to go back.

BANFIELD: Oh, you mean the details?

GERGEN: Yes, you know, I know the details. I know the details don't matter.

BANFIELD: Because that's what I'm saying, David, you send out a tweet like this and people get angry and excited and do they ever read below the bumper sticker.

GERGEN: Well, let me go back to Eugene's point, because I think that he critical issue for him right now is, how does he stabilize his campaign and how does he get the narrative back to something that really does matter to voters. The scientist really doesn't matter all that much to the voters. And I think he has to do that through the economy. She's got a big economic speech coming up Thursday. Maybe he can join the debate in some way, he can keep the emphasis on, how do you create jobs.

I think that he also has to deal with her very smart, tactical move in the last 24 hours, and that is to challenge him to three debates. You know, because he has said, no, no, I don't like these debates on this date. Now the pressure is going to be on him, either you accept Hillary and drop your objections and move on -

BANFIELD: He'll have a good answer, though. He always does. (INAUDIBLE).

GERGEN: Or he keeps objecting and looks like he's ducking.

BUMP: Right.

GERGEN: You know, it's a smart, tactical move on her part. She just picked up a piece - she picked up a pawn on this one.

BANFIELD: I -

SCOTT: But I think ducking from a debate works for him in January when he was in Iowa, but the question becomes, will it work for him now at this point.

BANFIELD: Yes.

GERGEN: Right. It may be the next event he can look to, to change the narrative, change the dynamic. Do you think that?

BUMP: Yes. Yes. Inject some energy in.

GERGEN: Yes.

BANFIELD: All right, I have to leave it there, but certainly that's not the end of this story. David Gergen, thank you so much, Philip Bump and Eugene Scott, lovely.

BUMP: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Of course, lovely. You did a great job.

SCOTT: Thanks.

BANFIELD: Thank you.

GERGEN: (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: Coming up next, the polls are open right now in Wisconsin for the Republican primary that could send shockwaves through Washington and right across the country. Well, or maybe not. Because House Speaker Paul Ryan is battling a guy most people have never heard of. That's the guy on the right. But the race is being heavily influenced by a guy everybody has heard of, one Donald J. Trump. Also coming up, Republican Senator Susan Collins speaking exclusively

to CNN about why she cannot support her nominee, Donald Trump. She says he makes the world a more dangerous place. We'll have that for you next.

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[12:17:22] BANFIELD: You undoubtedly have heard that all politics is local. Even when you're the most powerful Republican in Washington, that holds true. The House speaker, Paul Ryan, is zero focused, laser focused right now on his home district in Wisconsin today because voters there are casting ballots in the primary election. And Speaker Ryan is being challenged for his seat by a Republican businessman who is a big fan of Donald Trump.

CNN's Manu Raju joins us now from Janesville, Wisconsin.

So, talk to me a little bit about the challenger who, you know, heretofore I think many people didn't know his name, but then all of a sudden a big news story changed all that. Is a week enough time to make a difference, though?

MANU RAJU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Probably not. He's Paul Nehlen. He's a political novice. Someone who has not run for office before and really trying to seize on any dissatisfaction on the right with - for Paul Ryan, including namely on the issues of immigration where Ryan is a little bit more moderate than a lot of his conservative counterparts, and on the issue of trade, where Ryan has championed free trade deals as he (ph) led the charge to pass fast track trade authority in the Congress - in this past Congress. Nehlen is trying to seize on those concerns. A lot like Donald Trump has along the campaign trail.

But we are not really seeing the kind of ground swell of support behind Nehlen's campaign that could prompt what would be probably the upset of the century, if not the last two centuries, if Ryan were to go down. This is a different - feels a lot different on the ground than it did in 2014 when Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, was upset by Congressman - now Congressman Dave Brat in the race that virtually no one saw coming. It was a lot different back then because there was a real movement behind Brat's campaign that really isn't that when it comes to Paul Nehlen.

Similarly - differently also here, Eric Cantor attacked his opponent, Dave Brat, in that race, driving up his name I.D. Paul Ryan doesn't even want to mention Paul Nehlen. He won't even talk about him on the stump at all. So a difference in style and also probably a difference in outcome tonight.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And just a different feeling, actually, on the ground there this time around. At the same time, though, there are reverberations that seem to be getting louder and louder about this kind of thing, and that's the down ballot contests in November. A lot of GOP have been warning that people like Paul Ryan and his cohorts in Congress could suffer and lose their seats and lose their majority because of their leader, when it - you know, the leader's own colleagues are dumping out, what are voters to think?

RAJU: Yes, that's the real concern among - from Republican leaders. You know, Republican leaders have told their members to distance themselves if they need to from Donald Trump. Run their own races. Talk about their accomplishments. But when I have talked to Republican strategists, top Republican leadership aides and the like, they're saying, if Donald Trump is so unpopular in battleground districts, in battleground states, losing by eight points or 10 points to Hillary Clinton, it will be really, really hard for these incumbents to outperform the top of the tickets. So that is the real major concern going forward. They need Donald Trump to improve in the standings because that could help a lot of their members and a lot of these members are in tough spots because they need Donald Trump supporters to come out to the polls so they don't want to distance themselves too much or they get to close to him, it could alienate a lot of those swing voters who just don't like Donald Trump, Ashleigh.

[12:20:46] BANFIELD: All right, Manu Raju, live for us in Janesville. Keep us posted throughout the day, especially when you hear from some of those voters, what they have to say about what they're doing on that ballot and why. Manu, thank you.

Coming up next, a Republican woman who has served nearly two decades in the U.S. Senate sitting down with CNN to explain why she simply cannot throw her support to Donald Trump this November. The exclusive interview coming with Jamie Gangel, next.

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[12:25:39] BANFIELD: From the moment that we read former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit against her former boss, Roger Ailes, we had a question, did she secretly record their conversations? We don't really know if she did, but according to "Vanity Fair," a lot of women did. Now, remember, in Gretchen Carlson's complaint, she used some very specific language when she was quoting, or at least allegedly quoting conversations that she had with Roger Ailes.

I want to read one for you just so you know about how specific it got. This is allegedly a meeting back in September where she says that Ailes said to her, "I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then you'd be good and better and I'd be good and better." That's weird. It's an odd syntax and it would be hard to remember that.

Ailes denies that happened. He denies pretty much everything else, as well. But "Vanity Fair" says that 21st Century Fox has started settlement talks. And at issue in those settlement talks the existence of audiotapes. Bum, bum, ba. That is never a good thing. The company reportedly wants Roger Ailes to be a part of the money machine and to help fund, at least in portion, any settlement that might be reached, which is also being discussed in the eight figure range. Count the zeros.

That's just one of a number of new development in this story. CNN's senior media correspondent Brian Stelter, host of "Reliable Sources" is here now, along with CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson.

So, first and foremost, let's get an idea of the numbers and the reporting on where we stand because there's dribs and drabs of news on this Roger Ailes story every single day.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, indeed. Yes.

BANFIELD: How many women, how much evidence that we know of?

STELTER: At least two dozen women at this point have spoken with investigators. They were hired by the Murdochs, the owners of Fox, in order to look into the allegations of sexual harassment. We don't know how severe these allegations were. I believe some of them were more severe than others. But more than two dozen women have been approached.

And, by the way, we know of other women who have accounts who have not yet been interviewed by investigators. Yesterday, Andrea Tantaros, a former host on the network, who was weirdly sidelined three months ago, came out and said she was harassed by Ailes. Ailes is denying this though.

BANFIELD: I don't know if it was weirdly. I don't know if it was weirdly. They said that she came out with a book that she didn't get cleared. No one's really allowed to do that. It's in your contract. You've got to get your stuff cleared before you go out.

STELTER: You're right. That's true. I say it was weird because it was sort of a mystery on the Internet. People wondering, her fans wondering, where did Andrea Tantaros go? They said it was a contract dispute, but now she says she was harassed. She's not yet been interviewed by the investigators. So that's an indication to me that Fox is continuing on probe just went on inside Fox News.

BANFIELD: So, Joey, as a lawyer, I know the first thing you do is you go to the complaint -

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Got to do it.

BANFIELD: And you look through it for all of the little nuggets and the secrets and the hints and the clues. And I think the biggest clue, when this came out, that gave it the biggest megaphone was that quote.

JACKSON: Yes, I think that and there were a number of things. Now, whenever you talk about a tape, now a tape is a tape. It's going to indicate what both parties said, exactly how severe it is, but that also in court attorneys ask another question, Ashleigh, and what is that? You've been harassed, right, and how many time did it happen? Multiple times. Did there come a time where you felt it was necessary to protect your interests? Yes. How did you do that? I brought in a recording to the conversation. I - so that I could record what occurred. And what compelled you to do that? Well, since it was the 12th time that someone said something to me, Mr. Ailes, right, and, again, this is what would happen if it went to court -

BANFIELD: An allegation, yes. JACKSON: An allegation. Allegations, of course, you know, not that it's criminal, but he's entitled to presumption of innocence, just like in a civil trial, you're entitled -

BANFIELD: Sure.

JACKSON: You know, to be presumed not to have done anything. But that's the build-up. So then, yes, I did. There did come a time that I went into that room and you - and I did tape it. The fact that someone would feel compelled enough to have a tape or even, if it's a phone conversation, to tape that conversation is an indication of something further, something more, something severe. And that evidentiary value, in addition to what's stated on that tape, gives it the impromptor (ph) of seriousness and significance.

BANFIELD: So these tapes that may or may not exist, in the conversations legally speaking, if they go to trial -

STELTER: Right.

BANFIELD: You get tapes to play on your TV show, don't you?

STELTER: That's right. And that probably explains -

BANFIELD: So you're just basically waiting to see if this thing goes to trial and we get to hear all of these allegations actually play out on Memorex.

[12:30:06] STELTER: And that probably goes a long way to explaining why "Vanity Fair" says settlement talks are now underway.