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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Panelists discuss Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, U.S. Olympic Swimmers at Rio Gas Station; Hillary Rodham Clinton meeting with police leaders. Aired 12:30-1pm ET

Aired August 18, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The plot against Roger's side and some of the headlines are pretty uncomfortable I would say, especially for women.

Take a look at this three. "There's no hiring bias against women in tech. They just suck at interviews." "Sympathy for the devils: The plot Roger Ailes and America." "Big train hate machine -- I'm sorry, big trans hate machine targets pitching great Curt Schilling "and "Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy.

Kellyanne might be great, but she's also got to deal with stuff like that.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Kellyanne is not just a professional and very well respected within the field but she's actually written a book about messaging to women. This is her sort of core expertise.

And so, she knows that both the candidate and certainly anybody within the campaign who wants to sort of go off and sort of, you know, spout the kind of nonsense of -- reflected in that -- the headlines you just saw is somebody who's going to take them toward defeat. And she can explain it in a language, in a way that I think has a lot of credibility.

And really, what I heard her saying this morning is what you would expect from her which is to say, look, I can guide you to where the numbers are, to where the analytics take us, to where the undecided voters are if you want to try and reach out and persuade those voters.

But in then, if the candidates doesn't want to do that, if the candidate's other senior staff members don't want to do that, if it's important to them somehow to make sure that you put out every rowdy sexist message that pops into your head because somehow that's going to help you.

Well, you know, you'll have to pay the political price for that. I think she's very good at calculating that political price and explaining it to them. And then in the end, it is the choice of the campaign leadership as a whole and the candidate himself.

BANFIELD: And the candidate himself brings on things like which made me chuckle. But I think it's one of the -- of talking and that's Paul Begala's comment that he wrote. It's an Olympic analogy I propose since we're coming to the end of the Olympics.

And Paul said this, "It's like the decathlon, the first event, the GOP primary is the javelin. Trump picked up that spear and threw it farther than anyone had ever seen. But the second event, the general election is the pole vault. It requires lift and loft, you got to soar. Yet Trump grabs the pole and throws it too. And when that doesn't work, he starts running around the Olympic Stadium with the pole trying to hit the Mexican judge."

It made a lot of people laugh but the truth of the fact is here. Philip, is that you've got an RNC that's dealing with Republicans throwing jabs at them from both sides over a guy like this.

Get them out of your payroll. Put the money on the down-ballot. Guys who are really worried about losing their stature, losing off the house, losing congress and others saying, damn it, stick with him. We're all on titanic together so to speak.

PHILIP BUMP, WASHINGTON POST POLITICAL REPORTER: Right.

BANFIELD: How do you handle that if you're trying to take on this brand new campaign and juggle comments like this and RNC that's torn apart and Republicans who are none too happy about the circumstance they're in?

BUMP: Sure. So I mean, Donald Trump likes to say that he doesn't do a lot of polling starting doing now. But I guarantee the RNC is doing a lot of polling. They're taking a look at how Donald Trump is affecting their down-ballot races.

If it becomes obvious that he's hurting their chances to retake this era to -- the whole vicinity is hurting their chances potentially. They even lose a lot of seats in the house that they are going to move resources off of him.

I think that Errol's point was absolutely right. But the question is the extent to which Donald Trump will listen to his advisers. That's been his recurring problem. He has this idea that because he won the primary race by doing dupe it all by all those point.

By doing this thing where he goes up and he's just himself and he has his rallies and people love him. He doesn't realize the electorate has changed and people tried to tell him, this is a different electorate. You have to change what you're doing. I think that Kellyanne Conway understands that difference and she will try and explain it. But there's an inherent tension between saying he's going to be himself and he's going to stay on message because himself is not enough.

BANFIELD: We'll see if he will listen to the new messages he's getting from his new advisers. Phillip Bump, thank you. Mark Preston also, thank you and Errol Louis, appreciate it.

Coming up next, more on the other news. The new campaign hiring, Trump's campaign, Steve Bannon and then the secret of a film maker who has worked directly with him and has a couple of things to say about his style. We're also watching and waiting for Hillary Clinton to start that meeting with police leaders. We're going to bring you all of that just as soon as we're back in the set.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:38:29] BANFIELD: We're following the latest changing of the guard in the Trump campaign which puts an investment banker turned right wing internet media mogul in the new role of CEO. Steve Bannon is widely seen as a kindred spirit of the candidate who's so clearly has chafed at past attempts to remold him for the general election.

I want to bring in Ben Howe who is a contributing editor at redstate.com and Phil Maker who has also worked with Steve Bannon in the past. He's also a fierce and outspoken critic of Donald Trump. Kayleigh McEnany is a Donald Trump supporter and a CNN commentator. Welcome to the both of you.

Ben, I'll begin with you. I know you're no fan of Donald Trump, but you got to admit one thing, that his new guy is tough as nails and isn't that a good thing when you're coming down to the wire?

BEN HOWE, REDSTATE.COM CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Tough as nails, I think I would say he's a bully which works well with Trump. A lot of the people that were around Andrew Breitbart before he died, a lot of his closest friends and most trusted journalists aren't at Breitbart news anymore for a reason and that reason is Steve Bannon. So, I would say, yeah, they fit pretty well. They're kindred spirits in that way and in that way he's a perfect fit.

BANFIELD: So Kayleigh, there has been a lot of criticism from people who've worked with him before. Charlie Sykes, the Wisconsin radio host, you know, revered among a lot of Republicans said this, "Trump's campaign has now entered the hospice phase. He knows he's dying and wants to surround himself with his loved ones." What's your reaction to that?

[12:40:02] KAYLEIGH MCENANY, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: No, I don't think that's the case. Look, this is a -- Bannon is an excellent guy. He have served in the military seven years, worked in Reagan's administration before, went in the pentagon. So he's a great conservative figure but he's someone who understands the direction of Republican voters.

In 2013, Steve Bannon said that there is about to be a center right populist movement that rises up against the Republican establishment. How accurate was that to say in 2013? Bannon understands conservatism and he wants to let Trump be that conservative figure that voters put in this nomination spot.

BANFIELD: But don't they need to expand the base? I mean, if you're looking Trump's got his supporters.

MCENANY: Yeah.

BANFIELD: He said it himself. He could fire off a bullet down Fifth Avenue and his supporters would stick with him. What about everybody else? And he needs those everybody else to win the election. Can a Bannon bring them in with his fire brand stuff?

MCENANY: You couldn't be more correct which is where Kellyanne Conway comes in. Kellyanne Conway has spent her life studying female voters. She is an expert on how to tailor conservatism in a way that is effective that female voters will hear and respond to.

So I think with Bannon, encouraging Trump to embrace this populist movement that that he's so captured and then balancing that out with Conway who understands female voters, that is the perfect balance that can win this campaign.

BANFIELD: All right. I want to play something to what Donald Trump said the other night about Hillary Clinton's stamina and her health, her physical health and her stamina. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Importantly, she also lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS and all of the many adversaries we face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So I guess the question is then, it may not be fair to go after her health, considering that fact she's come out saying very, very clearly, she's put out her doctor's, you know, assessment of her as perfectly healthy. It may not be nice. It may not be fair to float conspiracy theories that she's physically incapable, but this stuff works. In politics it works.

HOWE: I think it works to some extent. I mean, they're basically now adopting the info wars talking points. Some of the people who first started propagating this health idea are some of the scummiest people I've ever encountered. And I think that it's a sign of desperation. I've said that since the beginning, since they first started talking about it.

Trump is older than she is, first of all. And second of all, in terms of mental capacity, mental ability, there have been plenty of psychologists who've already written about -- talked about the idea that Trump himself has a narcissistic personality disorder. So, I would say if questions are going to be raised of her health then fine, let's get a psycho analysis on Mr. Trump.

BANFIELD: Do you think it's fair, Kayleigh, that he's raising these kinds of this about her? I mean, look, he's no vision of health himself. He's overweight. He eats bad fried food. He sort of touts that back with -- he tweets photograph of himself eating fried food on the airplane. Campaigns are never a healthy, you know, a healthy receptacle for trying to keep your fitness up. But do you think it's fair to go after Hillary Clinton in this way?

MCENANY: I do because here is what Ben and doing that is ...

BANFIELD: You don't think it's pot calling the kettle black? MCENANY: No, because Ben is incorrectly linking this to conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton's health when that is not -- that said, Donald Trump brought up this physical stamina talking point in December long before this ever became, you know, a talking point on some of the other networks.

What he's nearly saying is I have the stamina to do this, I've only took one day off in August. Hillary Clinton has taken seven days off. We don't want an absentee president. President Obama is in Martha's Vineyard for two weeks as 13 people are dying in Louisiana. That is what Trump is getting at. But linking this to some conspiracy theory on info wars, I think that their response on that is not at all should what Donald Trump is doing.

BANFIELD: To be fair. Do you think the president should have a vacation at all? I mean, you could say there is a crisis at every moment and every time a president takes a vacation, someone complaints that he's not there for them or she's not there for them. Do you think that's fair to level that criticism at him?

MCENANY: I do, because when you have local newspapers in Louisiana calling for him to return, I think that's the point where you say, look, I've had a week and a half in Martha's Vineyard, maybe I cut it short and respond to this national emergency.

BANFIELD: OK. Last word, Ben.

HOWE: Well, I was just going to say. I don't think that it's a good sign for the candidacy of Donald Trump that the best he can come up with now is maybe Hillary is sick. He's not winning on any of the issues. He's not winning with the voters. So he's now trying to pretend that there's some kind of a health problem. It's desperate and it's not going to work. I'm not even a fan of Hillary and I know it's not going to work.

BANFIELD: I have to leave it there. Ben Howe, Kayleigh McEnany, thanks so much. Appreciate both of you for being on.

MCENANY: Thank you.

HOWE: Thank you.

BANFIELD: We're getting some new details right now regarding those two American swimmers who are still in Rio. Their passports were taken after claims of a robbery. I want to get right to CNN's Nick Paton Walsh with this most recent discovery. What are you finding?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Quite staggering Ashleigh. Just put it 5minutes ago, we thought this was a mystery. Well, now a police source is making it much less mysterious. Now, according to this one individual in Brazilian police.

[12:45:01] This man says, the source says that the athletes went to the gas station, that they were "drunk" and they had torn off a sign at the gas station damaging it and effectively vandalizing it. But then the owner or staff at the gas station came to some "agreement" with the four swimmers and it was decided that when the police arrive charges would not in fact be required.

Now, that is a quite remarkably different story to the one that have been given by Ryan Lochte on Monday when he began -- he suggested quite clearly that he was a victim of an armed robbery. There appears -- according to this police source, there are being no firearms drawn by the police when they got there. No suggestion of the fact even of an altercation at that particular gas station even though we have heard suggestion that perhaps there was a slightly more tense exchange between the gas station staff and the swimmers at that particular point.

Let me just press though, this is the Brazilian side of the story. Now, from multiple sources actually backs up too by a close circuit (ph) television, broadcasts by a major T.V. station here in Brazil with reports to show much of this incident as described by these two particular sources. But, this is the Brazilian side, the Brazilian authorities who have long wanted to maintain a clean image, particularly of the high profile nature of what Mr. Lochte claimed was an armed robbery.

We have not heard from Mr. Lochte's attorneys in the past hours and yesterday. He was sticking by his story, for that attorney is saying he cooperated with anybody who wanted to speak to him and the fact he hadn't been approached for extra help.

But at this moment now, the two men who were also with him, remember there were a party of four here, Ryan Lochte, James Feigen, Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger. Mr. Conger and Mr. Bentz have just in the last few minutes finally arrived in the police station there where I'm sitting to give their first evidence to police in all of this. But what an extraordinary mess.

If this really is the case that in fact, they got into an altercation at a gas station because of damage they've done there. How on earth did that suddenly turn into a story about armed robbery? Why did that require that level of excuse if this turns out to be at the fine level of events? So many questions to be answered still here but a bit more clarity about certainly what Brazilian police think happens here but still, we've had the search and seizure warrants given out by court here yesterday.

Mr. Bentz and Mr. Conger taken off the plane physically by authorities and had their passports taken off and so they can't leave. Mr. Feigen is here and Mr. Lochte's back in the United States. An international incident in what appears to be, according to one police source, a scrap over a poster in a gas station.

BANFIELD: It's just crazy. It -- hold for a second. Don't go anywhere because we're just getting some of the security camera video in. And I believe when we see it, I need to direct your attention to the upper left-hand side of your screen. This is the Global media security camera video at this gas station in question, whereas victims just reported there was some kind of confrontation over a ripped sign, some sort of an agreement.

Nick, as we're looking at this video, I have to get back to that one part of the story where they had negotiated some kind of a resolution to the damage that perhaps the swimmers allegedly caused in ripping the sign and that there'd be no need for any charges once police arrived. So, are you saying that police ultimately did arrive at this location? So, there's a police report in all of this that we've been waiting on days and days, police actually were there after this conflagration?

WALSH: Well, yes. Bear in mind too here that in fact, you know, we had this very high profile story from Ryan Lochte and Brazilian police. I have to say, you know, taking their time it seems to be absolutely sure about what necessarily happens here.

Remember, they're coming up against the very high profile state and very high profile American athletes and America's top of the medals table here. Nobody really want to -- necessarily to spoil this but it became so openly public. Looking at that CCTV video there, that is released by major Brazilian outlet Global T.V. here which they say, you can see the dates down there, they say it's around about 6:00 in the morning of the supposed night of this armed robbery.

It does seem to back-up the notion of them going down an alleyway. There have been reports in Global that the owner believed they urinated down this back alleyway. But the police source really refers more to the fact that they were drunk and damaged the poster there as well.

Now we've had somebody down at that gas station has seen some sort of material damage to it. Not clear who did what when. But, certainly something is entirely right there and then the CCTV you're seeing part of it does later go on to show them getting back into a taxi. That taxi not leaving and the taxi driver it appears speaking to a member of the gas station staff.

So, this media, of course, released by a very prominent Brazilian network here and corroborating Brazilian officials' story is one side of the story. But at this stage, we are -- I mean we reached out to Mr. Lochte's attorney to say what do you make of all this? And we haven't heard back now for a number of hours. So, lot of questions mounting. I mean, as you know, Ashleigh too, where does it stop from here? And we've heard from a Brazilian game spokesperson that, you know, let's give these guys a break.

[12:50:05] He didn't go into the nature of a charges but his basic point was people have a good time. They get out of control maybe, they do something silly. Let's let it pass. But still, remarkable how we got here.

BANFIELD: Bizarre. Just bizarre. Nick Paton Walsh. We're going to leave it there while we gather more details on the story. We have another breaking story here in New York as well. Hillary Rodham Clinton starting that meeting with police leaders. She's getting to her introductory remarks. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... respond to any legitimate questions, to find answers together and to keep our communities safe, to protect lives and property while also respecting every single American.

So that's what today is about and I look forward to the conversation. And again, I want to thank everyone here. Some didn't have to come so far, soon-to-be retired commissioner Bill Bratton. We will miss you. We thank you for your lifetime of service from one city, from Boston to L.A., back to New York. We welcome Chief O'Neill, soon to be commissioner. We're excited about that.

I want to thank Chief O'Toole from coming all the way from Seattle and Chief Magnus, thank you for coming from Tucson, and Chief Beck, thank you for coming from L.A. with a lot of the firsthand experience that we want to hear from. I want to thank Chief Ramsey, I've known him in various incarnations, starting in Washington and in Philadelphia. And I particularly appreciate his service on President Obama's policing study which has a lot of good ideas.

Sheriff Valdez, thank you for being here. You've been elected three times as I understand it by the people of Dallas County. And your devotion to service really is well known. And Chief Thompson, thank you for coming from Camden and from the trenches to tell us what's working and how we can do more of that and try to create a better dialogue in our communities. So with that, I'm going to let the press have a chance to depart and then we can begin our conversation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So that's it. You just get the introductory remarks. They're going to have a private meeting now. There's a number of law enforcement officials if you missed that earlier on the number of law enforcement officials, chiefs of police, professor from across the country including the outgoing commissioner of the NYPD sitting at that table.

We're going to take a quick break. Be back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:56:32] BANFIELD: So there are a couple of stories that we're still watching at CNN that are developing throughout the day. Hillary Clinton just going into her now behind-closed-doors meeting with law enforcement in New York. When she's merges, hopefully we'll have headlines for you on that.

As well, the swimmers in Rio, two of them are still there. Their passport is confiscated. Awaiting interviews on what that story was about being held up. It seems there are a lot of refuted headlines now regarding that particular story. So we're watching that really closely.

And then there's this, I have a little news I'd like to give you as well. And it has to do with this program. I have been absolutely delighted for the last five years to be working with some of the most talented people in television news, just really stellar, stellar producers, writers, researchers, reporters, just remarkable people here at CNN. And so it is really tough to tell you that I'm going to be leaving, kind of. It's sort of weird. But I'm going to leave this time slot at 12:00 noon and I'm going to make the jump and follow my friends over at HLN.

You've heard that Michaela Pereira has jumped over there. Erica Hill is over there. Robin Meade. So, I'm going to jump over to prime time on HLN, 8:00 p.m. in the fall. Super excited to do it. We're going to bring, you know, a unique brand of social and legal issues oriented programming to that 8:00 p.m. spot. Lots more news and details about it will follow. But I just wanted to let you know what a privilege it's been at 12:00 noon to be with your every day.

And if you will just indulge me for a moment, you see me all the time, but you don't see Christina or Sonia or Lindsay or Robin or Chris or Scotty or Gus and Alex and Ariel and Lenny and Tanju and Dave. This is my family and every single day, it is a delight to get up at 4:30 in the morning and be with them. And I say that honestly.

So, thank you for being here at 12:00 noon everyday. So I'm going to be here for a few more weeks. On the 23rd, it will be our last program here. But I'll be seeing you on HLN at 8:00 p.m. very exciting time for us all here a CNN and HLN. And I will still be doing a lot of stuff on CNN as well. I'll be bringing legal analysis and I'll be guest, you know, representing and talking about the stories of the day, the justice-oriented issues of the day over here on CNN's program.

So I'm in the going very far. And I'll still be working with all these extraordinary people on a pretty regular basis. For now, that's it for today. I've said enough. Brianna Keilar stepping in for Wolf and she starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR: Hi there, I'm Brianna Keilar in Wolf Blitzer. It is 1:00 p.m. here in Washington and wherever you're watching from around the world, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to start with breaking news.

An Olympic sizes crime drama playing out in Rio. A new video allegedly showing four U.S. swimmers at a gas station that police now believe they vandalize on the very same night those swimmer's claim they were robbed at gunpoint. Overnight, two of those swimmers, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were pulled off of a plane and stopped from leaving Brazil. Police, they want to talk to them and gold medalist Ryan Lochte and James Feigen as well about this alleged robbery as it's now being called

Police are citing inconsistencies with their stories from the number of gunmen involved to how the robbery actually played out. Lochte is back in the U.S. already, while the other three remain in Brazil.

Let's get right to this now with CNN's international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, he is in Rio. And Nick, let's start here with this brand new details about what unfolded at a gas station?