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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Biden on Campaign Trail; Trump Campaign Chief Investigated; Milwaukee Protests. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 15, 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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[12:00:31] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield and welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

I want to get you to some live pictures right away that are just breaking now. Big hug and an embrace in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on the tarmac. The vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, just having landed. And there's the welcoming committee. That would be one HRC, Hillary Rodham Clinton. This is a very important moment for the two of them because this is the first time the vice president is hitting the campaign trail with the Democratic candidate for president. He is going to be taking that whole working class message that he does very well on the road with Secretary Clinton. And they're set to appear at a campaign rally where there will be no shortage of attacks coming on Donald J. Trump. You can be sure of that.

Hillary Clinton's campaign says that Joe Biden is expected to slam the GOP nominee on his lack of experience, while Clinton is set to hammer Trump for not releasing his tax returns. And speaking of Donald Trump, he's also very busy today, set to make an appearance in another battleground state, Ohio. That's where he's set to lay out his strategy on how to defeat ISIS and prevent terror attacks here at home. We're certainly going to be watching live and take you there just the minute it begins. And we're also going to dig more into some of the highlights that they gave us in advance of the speech that you can expect to hear from Donald Trump.

First, though, I want to get you out to CNN's Joe Johns, who's live in Scranton, Pennsylvania, with more on Clinton/Biden team and what the message is expected to be today.

So, Joe, about that whole vice presidential message of the working- class guy. This is - these are his peeps and sometimes they're the peeps that she might struggle with. Certainly we saw that in the primary in Michigan. We expected her to win Michigan, and then all of a sudden the rust belt said not so fast. So walk me through what we expect from him today.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Scranton, Pennsylvania, is very personal to Joe Biden. He was born and raised here. In fact, Hillary Clinton has strong ties too. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was also born and raised here. So we do expect a little bit of biography, quite frankly, here in Pennsylvania, and then we're going to get into the issues of what's going on with the vice president criticizing, if you will, Donald Trump on a variety of issues.

He's done it repeatedly. He's talked about the ban on Muslims. He's talked about the border wall. He's talked about the close association, or at least embrace of Vladimir Putin by Donald Trump. So we expect those kinds of attacks. These were the same kinds of attacks this campaign has been taking. So we sort of expect a broad reach, an appeal to the middle class, as well as an attack on Donald Trump as unqualified, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So, John - Joe Johns, the - it's always a competition on the campaign trail to keep your message alive and in the headlines, but today there are other headlines for Secretary Clinton, as well, and that the FBI is going to release notes on the transcripts - not the transcripts but notes - about those FBI interviews on her e-mail server. So how do they expect to try to keep this message today in the headlines instead of that message, which I'm sure they would prefer didn't make it out at all?

JOHNS: Well, it's extremely difficult for them and, quite frankly, it would be even harder if Donald Trump didn't go out public and say things that attract attention to him and away from Hillary Clinton. But this has been a problem for them again, and again, and again, the drip, drip, drip. And if last week is any indication, they will attempt, if they can, when information gets out there, to try to distinguish it, to try to take it apart piece by piece, fact by fact, until there's as little left as possible. But right now all we know is that those notes could be turned over, we don't know when, and the other thing is we don't know what's in them, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: OK, Joe Johns watching live for us in Scranton. We're going to continue to follow that. And you'll report most of the day throughout that, as well. Thank you.

We're also following the breaking news involving Donald Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. He is under investigation for allegedly receiving millions in illegal payments from Ukraine's former pro-Russian ruling party. But, while that sounds huge, the investigation is in the Ukraine, not here. There's big difference.

CNN's Jessica Schneider joins us now with the very latest.

[12:04:58] And the question I have for you, as you follow Donald Trump today, is that he's got this big plan. He's going to go out and give his how-to-fight-ISIS message. Last week he gave his how-to-deal-with- the-economy message, but the whole week was about instead sending out the Second Amendment people on Hillary Clinton, and the founders of ISIS being the president and Hillary Clinton. We didn't really have headlines about the economy. How is he going to stay on the message that he plans today and keep those in the headlines instead of the other things that he does?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, he's definitely been dogged by those distractions, Ashleigh. This one could be another distraction for him. I want to set the scene with this Paul Manafort story. Manafort

acknowledges that he worked for Ukraine's former president, Viktor Yanukovych's political party. Yanukovych was elected in 2010. But Manafort is denying the allegations he received $12.7 million from the pro-Kremlin administration between 2007 and 2012.

But questions about possible payments are now coming to light from Ukraine's national anti-corruption bureau. That investigative agency saying it found a hand-written ledger of payments from President Yanukovych's administration. And on that ledger, Manafort's name is apparently listed 22 times. The bureau does stress that just because Manafort's name is on the ledger doesn't necessarily mean he accepted the payment and his signature actually is not on the ledger. But the Ukrainian bureau is investigating nonetheless.

Now, Paul Manafort himself, he's come out swiftly and strongly against these allegations. Take a look at what he's saying. He says, "I have never received a single off the books cash payment, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia." He goes on to say that, "the suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly, and nonsensical."

Now, Manafort also says that his work in Ukraine for the political party of President Yanukovych ended in October 2014, but a lot of questions have been raised because of Manafort's ties to the pro- Russian government there and, of course, the recent pro-Russia comments by Donald Trump, plus that suspected Russian hacking of Democrats' e-mails.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Jessica, thank you for that.

I want to discuss that further with CNN politics reporter Eugene Scott. And also with me is global affairs and economic analyst Ali Velshi.

OK, guys, at its surface it doesn't sound good when you work with a bunch of pro-Russians in Ukraine. Clearly when that is a significant headline, that doesn't bode well in a campaign here. But to be fair, Paul Manafort went on in that statement to say, when you are a consultant -

ALI VELSHI, GLOBAL AFFAIRS AND ECONOMIST ANALYST: Right.

BANFIELD: You receive payment for your staff, for the machinations of what it takes to do the work -

VELSHI: Sure. Yes.

BANFIELD: For the polling. There's a lot of money that's paid to do that kind - and there's nothing wrong with being a political consultant.

VELSHI: Right.

BANFIELD: It's what he done for a living.

VELSHI: Right, and he's done it for a long time -

BANFIELD: But -

VELSHI: With a lot of characters who we would think are suspect.

BANFIELD: Sure.

VELSHI: Ferdinand (ph), Marcos (ph), Mobutu (ph). It's what he does.

BANFIELD: And is that where the problem is, Ali, is it who he did the consulting with, not how he did the consulting or how the payments were made?

VELSHI: Yes, I mean he's careful. He's parsing his words in his response, right? He said, "I didn't receive any off-the-books money, and I have never worked for the Russian or the Ukrainian government, but for the campaign." And, remember, this organization in Ukraine is the anti-corruption body that really is staffed by people who are not on Viktor Yanukovych's side. They are the anti-Putin -

BANFIELD: Right.

VELSHI: Anti-Russian establishment of Ukraine. So there's a lot of politics mixed up in here.

But Eugene and I were talking about this, that when you're a consultant of the vintage of Paul Manafort or Roger Ails or people like that, you have a long history of working for a lot of people that others in the world might not think are good. So I don't know how much this has in terms of legs, other than the fact that Donald Trump trusts him for his advice. And having taken money from pro-Russians, his - his narrative about Russia may be very, very different than the narrative that we are more accustomed to here in the United States.

BANFIELD: So, I want to switch over to the - to the lead story and I'm going to ask you about that if I can, Eugene, and that is that Hillary Clinton is in Pennsylvania today with the vice president. That is a very important state in every general election.

EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Sure.

BANFIELD: And right now, if you look at the most recent NBC/"Wall Street Journal"/Marris poll, she is killing it -

SCOTT: Yes.

BANFIELD: In that state. I think she's at 48 to his 37 percent.

VELSHI: Right.

BANFIELD: Now, that is a very strong number. And then just this weekend, Donald Trump laying some groundwork maybe for losing by saying, I'll never speak to you again, Pennsylvania, if you do this. And also, if you - you know, if I - VELSHI: If you do go that way, it's rigged.

BANFIELD: It's rigged.

SCOTT: Right. Right.

BANFIELD: It's rigged.

VELSHI: Yes.

SCOTT: Yes.

BANFIELD: But does that work? I mean are Pennsylvanians going to appreciate that message? Does she have to do much when she's in Pennsylvania or just stay on what she's already doing and just let him continue to create his own circumstances?

SCOTT: Well, I don't think it's smooth sailing for anyone right now in this election regardless of what battleground state we're talking about.

BANFIELD: Even in Pennsylvania?

SCOTT: I don't think so. I mean I think he's connecting very well with some of the white working class voters that maybe what they would have voted in a previous election, maybe they're looking at things differently right now. I think one thing that the Trump campaign and his supporters are not acknowledging is that a Republican candidate has not won Pennsylvania since like 1988. So whether or not it be rigged or not, that has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he'll win. The fact is, most people in Pennsylvania weren't going to go for him anyway. But I do think that right now, in this election, giving what is happening, if he was going to be competitive, this would be the one.

[12:10:17] BANFIELD: So, speaking of being competitive, not to be outdone by the woman card that Hillary Clinton jokingly, actually not jokingly, put out to raise money.

SCOTT: Sure.

VELSHI: Right.

SCOTT: Sure.

BANFIELD: Donald Trump has come out with an exclusive gold card -

VELSHI: Right.

SCOTT: Yes.

BANFIELD: That you can be a part of, as well. There it is. That's fancy.

VELSHI: Yes. BANFIELD: It used to cost $100 in donations to get that, but there's a discount on it now, it's $35. Nothing wrong with this. There's really nothing wrong with this kind of campaigning. It's just a whole new landscape.

VELSHI: Yes, it's a - I think Eugene called it creative. It's just - it's just an interesting way of doing things.

SCOTT: It is.

VELSHI: You know, if you're going to give money, now have some evidence that you gave money.

BANFIELD: Right.

VELSHI: Show it to other people. See if they think that's interesting, too.

BANFIELD: Anything - anything to the discount, though, Eugene?

SCOTT: I mean, I can't imagine. We will see. I mean he obviously sells so many things that maybe it can work in one of his organizations. But I do think it may take away from the seriousness of the woman card. I think Hillary Clinton, it's playing the woman card because she believes that this is an issue that voters resonate with and Donald Trump's not doing well with women.

BANFIELD: Well, and she was also accused of playing the woman card, so she actually came with something -

VELSHI: Right.

SCOTT: Right.

BANFIELD: OK, fine, I'll buy that.

SCOTT: Right. Right.

BANFIELD: All right, Eugene Scott, Ali Velshi, thank you both. Appreciate it.

SCOTT: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Just about two hours from now, Donald Trump going to talk about how he plans to defeat ISIS and give his step-by-step plan, how to fight radical Islamic terrorism. So, next up, I'm going to ask our terror experts if what he's told us about this big speech makes much sense. You'll hear those nuggets coming up.

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[12:15:31] BANFIELD: After a couple of nights of protesting in the streets and danger and violence, the police chief in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is giving a news conference right now after the shooting death of a suspect in Milwaukee on Saturday. Let's listen in. This is Chief Edward Flynn. CHIEF EDWARD FLYNN, MILWAUKEE POLICE: There were many more folks from both public and private life who engaged the community in these street-level discussions. Greg Lewis (ph), from Pastors United, Marley Miller (ph) from Micah (ph), Theresa Thomas Boyd (ph), the executive director of the Central City Churches, and Alexis Twito (ph), who is a Salvation Army Chaplin (ph) program coordinator, with whom we have a relationship, and many others as well. It was a very significant component of last night of what we hoped to accomplish.

I also wanted to take pains to mention the community itself. The community was a victim of the disorder and the damage, more than anybody else. And large numbers of those community members, as you saw yesterday, trying to repair that damage, clean up after that damage, carry on as normal a life as they can, despite the loss of jobs and amenities that was caused by the disorder, have themselves a resiliency that many can admire. It's something we're proud to work with.

I'm going to also take an opportunity to contend the members of the Milwaukee Police Department. We also had a number of partners there yesterday from the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office. And I think, once again, you saw a great deal of tactical and strategic restraint being exercised. Yesterday we had over 30 shot-spider activations. Gunfire remained a problem last night, as well as gunfire in the vicinity of officers that were attempting to maintain what - excuse me, restrain what disorder did occur. Despite that fact, once again, none of our officers returned fire. That would have been reckless given we couldn't tell where it was coming from. But the point once again is, we were able to exert a significant amount of control over the streets without resort to deadly force.

Last night we made a total of 14 arrests, 11 adult males for state disorderly conduct, three adult females for state disorderly conduct. They're all from Milwaukee. As I said before, we had 30 shot-spider activations between 8:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. in the areas bounded from Center Dekeef (ph), 51st, 20th Street. We had three squads were damaged. Bricks were thrown at two of them. The bear cat was again struck by two firearm bullets to the windshield. One automobile was set on fire late in the evening about 1:30 in the morning. There were a number of dumpster fires and one couch was set on fire, and one store suffered broken windows.

There was a related shooting. An 18-year-old male suffered a single gunshot wound to the neck at 11:00 at 43rd and Berline (ph) during one of the many shots fired incidents. He's continuing to receive medical treatment. Does not appear to be in danger. There was one reported use of police force.

Seven of our officers were injured last night. Four Milwaukee County Sheriff' deputies were injured by flying rocks and bricks to the knees, ankles, hands and shoulders. A District One officer from the NPD suffered an injury to his right foot from a brick. Two of our neighborhood task force officers in the Milwaukee Police Department suffered glass fragments to their eyes when concrete came through the windshield of their squad car. I also had an opportunity to talk to all of these officers. I was out

there last night myself until about 2:00 in the morning. I want to report that their spirits are high. Obviously they've got a lot of concerns for their public safety, for their personal safety, and for the safety of their colleagues, but they're very much committed to the mission. And every time we brought them in to try to rest them, they're sending them back out again. They were enthusiastically ready to go out and protect the community.

I did talk to one of our officers trained in the major incident response team, and it appears that his riot helmet received a graze wound to the back of it, probably from a firearm, and we're very, you know, grateful that he was not significantly issued (ph). I talked to the officers where the brick hit their cruiser and, you know, one of them was suffering a lot of pain in his eyes. My understanding he's been treated and released.

So this was not an evening of insignificant risk for our officers, but I am grateful to report, and they would be proud to know, that they successfully protected the community last night as there were virtually no civilian casualties as a result. There was no significant fire damage. Once again, certainly compared to a Saturday night, the streets were maintained at a level of control far more effectively than we were able to marshal during the first night of this disturbance.

[12:20:19] We're going to continue to reach out to the faith community and community-based leaders to help us again on the streets, talk to people and get them to recognize that there are other avenues towards change other than violence and we're going to continue to deploy our officers in a tactically restrained but nonetheless effective manner in order to take control when necessary, when events become a threat to a community stability and order.

So that's my overall report and I know Mayor Barrett would like to say something now.

Mayor.

MAYOR TOM BARRETT, MILWAUKEE: Thank you very much, chief.

BANFIELD: And as the mayor comes in to give some comments as well, you know, critical to note from the police chief, Edward Flynn, the number of injuries. He said there were several police injuries from the sheriff, to the Milwaukee Police Department. There were many shots fired. In fact his quote was, "many shots fired incidents last night" So why? Because in this particular incident, it is somewhat difference than the others. A person to ask perhaps who might know best about that community is the person who represents that community. She is Wisconsin Congresswoman Gwen Moore and she's live now in Milwaukee.

Thank you so much, congresswoman, for joining me.

As I look at this case and how it has unraveled, and as I look at your community for the last 48 hours, I am led to wonder why those who justly feel underrepresented, unfairly represented in this community perhaps, to choose this particular case to riot about because the statistics on Sylville Smith, the young man who was shot, are not good. This was a young man who was armed, who was running from the police, who has a bad track record and it's now led to people who are perhaps holding him up as - as the gold standard for why there's a problem in the community. That's not so.

REP. GWEN MOORE (D), WISCONSIN: Well, Ashleigh, thank you for having me. And I just want to say - extend my heartfelt relief that none of the police officers lost their lives last night as a result of the violence. And I, in fact, have a staff person who -- who's brother is a firefighter and is in the hospital now recovering. I want to really thank the faith leaders and the elected officials who were out on the street to assist the police in bringing some order to our community.

Let me say that I think James Causey (ph) said in his op-ed, his op-ed with the "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel," I think he really outlined some of the economic changes that have occurred, particularly in that neighborhood. And as a matter of fact, I had just participated on a panel the very morning of the day that this violence broke out to talk about if Congress would just appropriate the desperately need gap in infrastructure funds. That's for, you know, water. Like Flint, Milwaukee has a bad water problem. Transportation, roads, airports, 80,000 bridges that are incompetent. We could create 20 million jobs and that point just can't be ignored.

On the other hand, there is a problem with both police training in our city. I've proposed, for example, that there be some de-escalation training. And in the case of this young man, I have also gone after gun shops, for example, that put crime guns on the street. And so I noticed that our sheriff sort of ran down the list of crimes that this particular person had committed, but that does not obviate the concern that many people in the community have that there is an unfair targeting of police enforcement in our community, that there's a very aggressive enforcement reminiscent of say a Ferguson and that police -

BANFIELD: And, congresswoman, I should -

MOORE: Yes.

BANFIELD: I'm sorry. I should let you know the mayor has just announced, while we are speaking live, that there's an 11:00 p.m. curfew now in the city of Milwaukee for those who are under the age of 18. And I - I sure hope that that has a calming effect on all of this.

I wanted to just quickly, if you'd indulge me, read something from your FaceBook. You wrote, "the share the frustration of my constituents who feel they live in a city where justice is only afforded to some and not all. I also share the frustration of our local police officers who are desperately trying to uphold public safety in what they perceive as a caustic climate. We must find a way to strike a balance."

[12:25:12] And in that striking of a balance, I wonder if you feel that the balance can't be struck when protesters go after police who are doing their job? Because clearly this young man had a weapon in his hand and was running from the police, a loaded weapon that was stolen with ammunition that was stolen. That's a police officer doing what we pay him to do, what we want him to do. And yet the riots somehow say otherwise. It leaves us all in a state of limbo. How do you find balance when those are the cases that are being highlighted and there are so many others that desperately need to be highlighted?

MOORE: Well, Ashleigh, very clearly, if someone is brandishing a weapon that that's - that's a no-brainer in terms of a police response. I think it's really important to get all the facts because the other part of that, Ashleigh, is why was the stop made in the first place? That's what I'm really curious to hear about. I think that people are very concerned about whether or not, you know, you get stopped for just, you know, because you have - you're a known criminal. Is that a reason that you should be stopped because you're driving through the community and you are - have a known record? There's no justification for brandishing a gun at a police officer and expecting a different response other than what we saw.

BANFIELD: Yes. Yes.

MOORE: You know, what we - what we think we know. But I'll tell you, this is a community that's going to work really hard to pull itself together. I'm so proud that we saw last night the community coming together, folks cleaning up after the damage and a police chief and local resources put - coming together.

BANFIELD: Yes.

MOORE: You know, we've contacted the White House about potential resources to help our community bridge this gap.

BANFIELD: Well, there is two issues. There's money and there's leadership. And they are probably equally need. But in the - in the interim, I sure hope that your jurisdiction calms down and that peace is restored and that there's no other injuries on either side of this debate.

Congresswoman, thank you very much. Gwen Moore joining us live from Milwaukee. Appreciate it.

MOORE: Thank you. Keep us in your prayers. We're working on it.

BANFIELD: Without question. Thank you again.

Coming up, Donald Trump's plan to take on ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism. He's laying it out today. It will be live. You will see it. We're going to take you through it because he's giving us some of the highlights in advance and our terror experts have already started crafting whether the math works, that's next.

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