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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

FBI to Release Clinton E-mail Report; Trump Backer Apologizes for Blackface Tweet; Presidential Contest Looms Over Primaries; California Mandatory Prison Sentence Bill. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 30, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:02] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

There are now exactly ten weeks left for the candidates for president to win friends and influence voters and a little more than one day left for Donald Trump to do what we're all awaiting for, and that's hammer out those pesky details of a very long awaited immigration plan. Donald Trump's major address comes tomorrow night in Phoenix, Arizona, the same day that we could see another big development in the Hillary Clinton e-mail saga. That's because the FBI just told us something, that they are expecting to make more of their investigation public for you to view and read and parse and decide upon.

So I want to go right to our justice correspondent Evan Perez with more of the details.

So what exactly are we expecting from the FBI tomorrow, documents, notes, all of the above? How is that different from what we already have? Lay it out.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the things we're going to see is this report that the FBI prepared to present to prosecutors to recommend that there not be any charges brought in this e-mail investigation against Hillary Clinton. And so it's about a 30-page report. It was provided to the Justice Department prosecutors with the FBI's recommendations to not bring charges, as well as another 12-page summary essentially of the FBI's interview with Hillary Clinton. Again, that occurred last month just before the FBI made its recommendations, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: This is weird. I mean I think - to put this in context, the FBI, when it conducted - they don't take this as standard operating procedure. You don't put it on the video or the audio.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: But you do take notes old school style, like gum shoe detective style.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: The weird thing is, in this day and age, we don't ever get that stuff.

PEREZ: That's right.

BANFIELD: Whether you're Hillary Clinton or not, the public doesn't get to see the work behind these interviews. But they do this time. I don't get it. Explain.

PEREZ: Well, that's right. I mean, look, this is extraordinary. Nothing like this has been done. It's without precedent. And I think Jim Comey - what Jim Comey did last month as well was without precedent, for you to go out there and describe the details of an investigation in which you did not bring any charges. It's just not done. Obviously, because of the context of what's happening, the investigation of a presidential candidate, the FBI decided that it was important to explain to the public why there would not be any charges. And, again, this is - this release, which we expect to happen under the Freedom of Information Act, as soon as tomorrow, Ashleigh, is in answer to that because there is such great public interest in what exactly the FBI did. So we expect we're going to learn a little bit more than what the details that Comey provided in his - in his press conference, or his press announcement last month.

BANFIELD: I know that you and your producer, Shimon Prokupecz, are working your phone lines to get more.

PEREZ: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: We're going to tap in with you throughout the day. Great breaking news. Thank you for that, Evan.

PEREZ: Sure.

BANFIELD: I want to jump over to the Trump front. Immigration topping this week's agenda, but the spotlight remains on the nominee's attempt to win blacks and Hispanic support. And my colleague, Jason Carroll, joins me now live with that.

In this whole effort of outreach to the minority communities, there's a lot of pullback going on today, particularly with the black pastor, a prominent black pastor, who said and did some things and now has some regrets about it. So lay that out, if you would.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Definitely regrets. I mean, look, today was supposed to be the day when much of the talk would be about Trump's muchly anticipated speech on immigration. But then you have this Trump surrogate, Pastor Mark Burns, apologizing repeatedly for posting that picture of Clinton in blackface. Burns says he has not spoken to Trump about it and again repeatedly apologizing for tweeting the cartoon, you see it there, which he admitted was, quote, "divisive."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PASTOR MARK BURNS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Obviously, my message, I stand by it. But the methodology, I do not. The message is simply this, I believe that the Democrat Party has been using the black vote, that black voting bloc. And because the Democrat Party already knows they own that voting bloc, the promises that have been made to the African- American community are not being cared out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Well, you see there him apologizing again repeatedly, say - talking about methodology. What was also interesting about that, Ashleigh, is he said, what he was trying to do was he was trying to be inclusive. You know, only he can sort of try to get through how -

BANFIELD: Sure.

CARROLL: Posting a racially charged image like that would be inclusive, but it most definitely complicates the Trump campaign's position on some -

BANFIELD: Yes, it made a lot of headlines, Jason. Made a lot of headlines that -

CARROLL: Yes, trying to reach out -

BANFIELD: Yes, that he probably didn't want. He didn't want those headlines. And then there are these headlines and it's all about the KKK again, which is something I'm sure the Trump campaign doesn't want either. David Duke is running for Senate, for U.S. Senate, and he put out one of those fancy dancy robo calls that we hear about all the time. But in his robo call asking for voter support, he threw The Donald in there, too. Have a listen.

[12:05:08] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID DUKE, U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE, FORMER KKK LEADER (voice-over): Unless massive immigration is stopped now, we'll be outnumbered and outvoted in our own nation. It's happening. It's time to stand up and vote for Donald Trump for president and vote for me, David Duke, for the U.S. Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So with that fancy technology comes a real quick response from the Trump campaign, Jason.

CARROLL: Yes, you know, I bet the Trump campaign just wants David Duke just to go away. As you know, Trump has been criticized for not disavowing Duke's endorsement during the primary quickly enough. The time, though, the Trump campaign was quick to disavow Duke and that robo call that you heard there. The campaign released a statement saying there is no place in the Republican Party for Duke's racist views. The Trump camp now looking or trying to look ahead to tomorrow's immigration speech. I mean there are some people out here who do want to talk about policy. Trump's hardline supporters are concerned he is softening his position on using that deportation force that he promised to deport some 11 million people living - undocumented people living in the United States. Trump's campaign manager saying Trump may be softening his approach to illegal immigration, but not softening his policy position. A bit of parsing words there. This morning, Trump did tweet about the wall that he intends to build, saying, quote, "from day one, I said I was going to build a great wall on the southern border and much more. Stop illegal immigration. Watch Wednesday."

Ashleigh, I know you will be watching. I will be watching.

BANFIELD: You bet.

CARROLL: A number of people are going to be watching.

BANFIELD: I've been waiting for weeks. I' dying to know because I'm having trouble reporting it. Jason Carroll, thank you, sir. Good work today, as always.

CARROLL: You bet.

BANFIELD: So - so much for my think tank to dive into now. Where should I begin? I'm joined by CNN political analyst and "New York Times" correspondent Alex Burns, "Washington Post" correspondent Philip Bump, and politics editor of theroot.com, Jason Johnson.

Jason, I'm going to begin with you.

What we just sort of dove-tailed off of with Jason Carroll's reporting, and that was this minority outreach, the David Duke ugliness, the Trump campaign disavowed that right away. But Anderson Cooler had Spike Lee on his show last night and said, so how's that while minority outreach thing going do you suppose? And this was how the response came off. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "AC 360": Donald Trump says he's reaching out to African-American. He says, what the hell have you got to lose? Your - he says - when you hear that, as a black man in America, what do you think?

SPIKE LEE, FILMMAKER: I laugh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, Jason, he laughs with a dead serious face. How many people within the African-American community do you think that Spike Lee is speaking for?

JASON JOHNSON, POLITICS EDITOR, THEROOT.COM: He's probably speaking for a lot of people according to the polls, Ashleigh, because every poll has shown that not only is Donald Trump only at zero or maybe 1 percent with African-American voters, but none of his efforts to reach out have improved anything. And I always say this is a very key point. This is a Trump problem. This is deeper than the Republican Party because John Kasich, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, George W. Bush, there are plenty of Republicans who can get African-American Republicans out to vote for them. Trump has turned off black Republicans. So his outreach is having the absolute opposite effect and it's going to hurt down battled Republicans. I think everybody is terrified right now of getting dragged down in this nonsense with him and his poorly run campaign.

BANFIELD: And just when you think that's going to be the headline of the day, out comes the FBI.

So, Alex, I'm going to get you to just in on here if you can with the news that we have more FBI e-mail information to digest tomorrow, which is the drip, drip, drip, drip that obviously the Clinton campaign does not want. No one's really gotten to any smoking guns, right, but does that mater?

ALEX BURNS, "NEW YORK TIMES": look, I think in terms of the trust issues, I mean, honesty issues that Hillary Clinton obviously has with a lot of voters, you know, people have reached those conclusions without the presence of a smoking gun. The challenge I think for the Clinton campaign is looming out of this really quiet and slow August for her campaign when she has been mostly behind closed doors, you know, down day after day, holding private fund raisers, and not necessarily driving an aggressive public message, which just allows all this information about e-mails, about the Clinton Foundation, about foreign donations to just flood into the vacuum. I think coming out of Labor Day you're going to see a lot of Democrats hoping, and I think you're going to see the Clinton campaign delivering a much, much more intensive schedule, a much, much more aggressive, louder message, a positive message about her in addition to the contrast she's been drawing with Trump.

BANFIELD: Since you mentioned those private fundraisers, sometimes you get an iPhone going during those private fundraisers and for Hillary Clinton I think it was - it might have been last night, the New York, she was overheard during one of the fundraisers talking about the upcoming debates and Donald Trump. Have a listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And I'm running against someone who will say or do anything. And who knows what that might be. I do not know which Donald Trump will show up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Which Donald Trump will show up. And the truth is, Philip Bump, I don't even know that his own closest aides know because he has said I don't need the mock debates, according to reports. It's an unusual debate prep mechanism that he's employing at this point. And now the co-writer of "The Art of the Deal," which is his famous book, is actually working for the Clinton camp. I just figured he'd have a non-disclosure agreement. He wouldn't be able to do much. But that's a - that's a lot to sort of chew on for a moment. What do you expect they're trying to do in the Clinton camp to cope with what they have no clue is coming?

[12:10:36] PHILIP BUMP, "WASHINGTON POST": Right. Well, I think the first thing they're trying to do is set expectations. They want to make sure - I think one of the things that we want to look back to is the debate in 2000 between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Al Gore went into that. He was presumed to be able to mop the floor with George W. Bush. George W. Bush came off as very accessible and Gore was kind of frumping (ph) his way through it and it didn't do Gore any good. I think the Clinton camp is trying to do their best to set expectations that this is a -

BANFIELD: Yes, I heard that. And I heard interviews this morning -

BUMP: Right.

BANFIELD: With some of her surrogates saying, you know, he's going to be hopeless. He's never going to -

BUMP: Right.

BANFIELD: He's not going to be able to handle the issues. Like, that's not setting low expectations.

BUMP: Right.

BANFIELD: Or that guy didn't get the memo.

BUMP: Sure. It's very possible that guy didn't get the memo. I mean, you know, it's standard, it's standard that you want to, you know, puff up your opponent. But I think the question is very real, how is Donald Trump going to perform in this debate? What's he going to do? How's he going to come after Hillary Clinton? We've all seen what he did in the Republican debate where there were a lot of people that were on the stage and could absorb a lot of the attention. This is one on one and I think the Clinton team thinks they have an advantage when it gets down to policy, because they can really hammer him in a way that the Republicans weren't able to. The question is how he responds.

BANFIELD: Jason Johnson, I want you to do a quick response for me to some new polling that's just come out. It's the new Monmouth poll with registered voters. Clinton's come in 7 points ahead of Donald Trump at 43 percent to Donald Trump's 36 percent. We've been seeing some polls like this before, but I think the one that screams the loudest headline is the combined unfavorability of these candidates, which, by the way, is 2 percent. Favorable is 2 percent. When you put them both together, I'm not sure exactly how they'd frame the question, but basically what do you think of these guys? Two percent together says I don't.

JOHNSON: I always said, this is like "Game of Thrones" if you had to choose between like Joffrey and Ramsay. Like these are two horrible leaders that no one seems particularly enthusiastic about. I think this is a problem for both candidates. I think you've got a lot of Republican who are like, I'm never Trump, but I got to vote. You've got a lot of Democrats who are like, I guess I'm going to have to hold my nose for Hillary Clinton. These debates are going to be very, very key because whichever candidate finds themselves to be somewhat less unsufferable to the American people is going to have a huge advantage in what was going to be I still think a very close and very tight election in the popular vote come November. BANFIELD: Yes, that - it's hard to say that whole 2 percent business

because I think that's the crissy cross of both, you know, both of those unfavorablities coming together because there's plenty of people who think these candidates are fantastic. They certainly are.

JOHNSON: Right.

BANFIELD: It's going to be fun to do, isn't it, all the way through the next 70 days?

Alex Burns, Philip Bump and Jason Johnson, thank you.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

BANFIELD: All three of you, appreciate it.

BUMP: Thanks.

BANFIELD: Coming up next, as I said, 70 days, ticking away, but the polls are open right now in a couple of key states with some big time, long time politicians and their careers on the line. You recognize them. Where do they stand and what is today going to bring for them? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:17:15] BANFIELD: The presidential race not only seems to be dominating the headlines, but also overshadowing several pivotal primary races. Yes, there are primaries going on right now. Arizona Senator John McCain is looking to earn his sixth term, but he's up against this woman, Kelli Ward. Senator McCain has had a tough go this election cycle. His party's presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has repeatedly accused McCain, a Navy vet and former POW, of being weak on veteran's issues. Let that sing in. A Florida, chairwoman - DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, excuse me, is battling against a Bernie Sanders-backed opponent named Tim Canova. And the congresswoman is dealing with the fallout over all those leaked e-mails suggesting the Democratic National Committee officials were unfairly favoring Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the primaries. And staying in the sunshine state right now, Senator Marco Rubio facing off against a wealthy businessman, which sounds very familiar. Rubio, of course, after trying out to be president, is trying out, instead, to be senator yet again.

CNN's Manu Raju spoke with Marco Rubio and he's with me now live.

So I'm assuming when you had your chance to sit down with Senator Rubio, you put those titles that he had ascribed to Donald Trump in front of him. Like I think it's a sham and a con artist and it goes on from there. Is he disavowing all of those things now that he's basically down tick from Donald Trump?

MANU RAJU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely not. He's actually - in fact he's saying that he's going to stand by those criticisms. I - I asked him directly, well, how could you stand by those criticisms but also support Donald Trump? And his answer, he sort of dodged that answer and said, look, actually the real thing that you should be asking is how could Patrick Murphy, the Democratic candidate in the race, support Hillary Clinton with all these questions about her ties to the Clinton Foundation and the e-mails and her passing around classified intelligence in her e-mail - in her private e-mail server. So trying to dodge that issue and trying to make this a national race and tie his Democratic opponent to Hillary Clinton. So Marco Rubio really navigating a fine line on Donald Trump because he needs Donald Trump's supporters to come out to the polls and help him in November, but also needs those disaffected supporters who don't like Donald Trump to actually vote for him as well.

Now, one thing from that interview, Ashleigh, I asked Marco Rubio, will you commit to a six-year term if you win re-election? He wouldn't say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Can you now commit to voters here in Florida that you will be - serve your entire six years if you're elected?

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: No one can make that commitment because you don't know what the future is going to hold in your life, personally or politically. I can commit to you this, that is that I am running to be a U.S. senator. I am fully prepared to allow the U.S. Senate to be the last political office I ever hold. If I was thinking about running for president or anything else, getting into a race at the last minute in the most competitive state in the country after having lost the presidential primary was not the ideal political choice to make. It was a risky political choice, but it was the right choice for our state and for our country at this moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:20:31] RAJU: Now, already, Ashleigh, Patrick Murphy jumping on that comment saying that he would commit to serving a full six years if he does win in November. But Marco Rubio is in the lead in this race, has about a three to five point lead depending on the polls, largely because he's well-known in this state and it's a very expensive state to run in. So Republican leaders are very happy that they encourage him, urged him to change his mind and jump into this race, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: OK, so once he's dealing with the whole, you know, Murphy issue, he's also got to deal with The Donald issue still. And did he say anything about those joint campaign appearances that so many congressmen do? They show up with the top of the ticket on stage. But Donald Trump had called Marco Rubio "little Marco." He did it for months. He insulted him regularly in massive audience debates. Would he share a stage with him?

RAJU: He may. You know, I asked him that specifically and he said - well, he didn't rule it out. He was open to it. He said, well, it depends if the schedules align. You know, I'm not going to cancel an event to meet him somewhere. But, you know, if things work out, they work out. So he's clearly open to it. So, Marco Rubio is in a differently spot because he said all those very negative things about Donald Trump and he doesn't want to just walk that back. But at the same, he doesn't want to pile on his Republican nominee and he believes the best way to unite his party is to attack Hillary Clinton and to attack the Democratic candidate. So a difficult thing for him to balance here, but clearly he believes that Donald Trump at the end of the day potentially could be more asset that liability.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Manu Raju live for us. Way to go, getting the interview. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. Manu joining us live.

OK, so coming up next, you may remember that on this stage here in this set on this live program we read the words of the Stanford rape survivor. It made a lot of news. What hasn't made the news is what she said on the stand to the jury that ultimately agreed with her and convicted her rapist. You are now going to hear exactly what she told them, her perspective, what happened that night, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:27:03] BANFIELD: In three day, Stanford rapist Brock Turner is set to get out of jail. He was convicted of raping a woman behind a dumpster at a frat party and he got a six month jail sentence, plus three years' probation. But with good behavior, he's only had to serve a part of that, just a couple of months.

But, today, we want to focus on the survivor, who we are not naming, but we will call her Emily Doe because that's the name the prosecutor was using to describe her. And it was, of course, Emily Doe's courageous letter to the judge and to the court and to her rapist that has now inspired a bill. A bill that's making big headlines. It's called B-2888 and it is in California. And, yesterday, lawmakers of that state vote unanimously, unanimously to ensure that anybody who is convicted a sexual assault in the state of California cannot simply get a sentence of probation. They got to go to jail. The bill now goes to the governor's desk, Dr. Jerry Brown, as to whether he wants to sign it or not. California State Senator Jerry Hill and Assembly Member Evan Low, co-sponsors of the bill, join me live now from Sacramento. They introduced this to the public and to their colleagues.

And this has got to be quite a victory. Senator Hill, give me your reaction to this.

JERRY HILL (D), CALIFORNIA STATE SENATE: Well, it's quite exciting because we're very happy that hopefully we will see in the future when it's rape, it is rape. It will be called rape, regardless of whether it's forcible or whether someone is unconscious and you take someone and try to give them alcohol, get them drunk, to make them unconscious, and then you know you're going to get away without being charged with rape. So now rape is rape regardless of whether you're conscious or unconscious. That's the important part.

BANFIELD: Assemblyman Low, I saw a quote from you saying the Judge Persky's ruling was unjustifiable and morally wrong. However, under current law, it was within his discretion. So this is where you were all at, saying he had the right to do that. He had the right to give that sentence to Brock Turner, but it wasn't morally right, hence this bill. So with all of that in mind, do you think this backlash against Judge Persky has been fair?

EVAN LOW (D), CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLY: Well, Ashleigh, I think what's important is that we look at the loophole in the current law. It's unconscionable that an individual could rape an individual and be eligible for probation because this individual was unconscious. And so what we're doing is closing this loophole and saying that if you're going to do the crime, you're going to do the time. And it's important that we make this strong statement.

BANFIELD: But do you think it's fair that there is this backlash, there's a recalled Percy campaign, given that it was within his discretion to do this and so many have found it so offensive?

LOW: Well, this is part of the democratic process, certainly. It was within the purview of his duties. But certainly we also want to ensure that we are doing our obligation as legislators and being responsive to the people. This is an atrocious act and we want to make sure that we're taking action accordingly.