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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Reaction to Donald Trump's Speech on National Security. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 07, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL ANCHOR, TIME WARNER CABLE NEWS: ... budget control act lurking in the background which actually controls a lot of the stuff.

[12:30:05] And so yeah, the next question for Donald Trump is who is going to pay for all of this stuff. And it's really important something that Barbara mentioned which is that, there is a defense doctrine that really sort of drives a lot of this stuff. So after a multi-year review, the Pentagon decided that they could get by with 450 troops. He wants to add 90,000. But Trump is also talking about changing our relationships and maybe removing troops from Central Europe, from Asia, we're telling them that they'll be on their own. You know, at least sort of a bargaining with the presence of those troops. It really sort of creates a big question about not only why we're going to write this big check. But what we will do with the result of it if you actually get that check from Congress.

And I think most important of all is the sequestration reflected, attention that's been in the Conservative movement, in the Republican Party for quite some time. You have defense hawks but you also have budget hawks. You know, folks don't want to continue to borrow. They certainly don't want to raise taxes. These are really important questions about how you come up with what would be hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions over time.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All those pesky complications. I get it.

M.J., many have said that this was -- this is seen as the strong suit for both of these candidates. Donald Trump wants to be seen and perhaps by a lot of his supporters is seen as tough. Hillary Clinton, with her background and her resume and her creds is seen as knowing foreign policy like the back of her hand. Is this where we see the rest of the campaign playing out for the next, what are we 62 days something like 62 days I believe?

M.J. LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: Yes, no doubt about it. The national security is going to continue to be perhaps the defining topic of this presidential election.

I think one thing that we have to note from Donald Trump's speech. At the top of his speech, he noted that in the first 30 days of his administration he would ask for his generals and advisers to submit a plan to go after ISIS. This is a departure from what he has said in the past. He has said that he has a clear plan. But he is going to maybe, you know, hold on to it and keep it a secret, because he doesn't want to sort of divulge the details yet.

This is a candidate who has said as you all know repeatedly, he knows ISIS better than all of the generals. So you would think that a candidate who is such an expert on this issue would already have at least the outlines of the plan. And this is precisely an opening, I can guarantee you, the Clinton campaign will look to make the point that Mia was pointing out earlier that he is simply just doesn't really know the policy areas very well. That he can talk a big game. But when you get down to the details, he doesn't really know what he wants to do on national security.

When Clinton was asked on the plane yesterday, do you think that you are held to a different standard than Donald Trump? She said, yes. And then it seem was though we have sort of gotten used to some of the behavior that we've seen from Donald Trump. I think when he said something about the departure from something that he said in past, we should point that out.

BANFIELD: OK, well, how about this, there's a new poll that is out and it says that 51 percent of voters say the top priority with regard to immigration, if I may move to another topic for a moment slightly, 51 percent of those asked said the top priority should actually be a pathway to dealing with the people who are already here. 51 percent asked thought that maybe loading people up on a truck and shipping them out might not be the best plan.

And you saw the other number of where the priorities fall. Kirsten Powers, maybe if I can you on this topic. We're hearing this tough talk. We're talking foreign policy. We're talking boning up the military with Donald Trump today. Do you think that this is a migration away from an immigration policy that I still don't know where we stand my friend, I honest can't tell you what Donald Trump's immigration policy is going to be. Is he at a crossroads of not really understanding what his policy can be because you can't have it both ways, so what the hell, move on to military.

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think he has muddied the waters on immigration issue. And I think he's done it intentionally. He obviously doesn't want us to know what it is because he wants to both appease the people. The majority of Americans actually do want a path to citizenship. And that includes Republicans by the way. That was true even in the primaries. If you look at the exit polls and he wants to keep sending, you know, the red meat to his base supporters.

And so I think he is intentionally keeping it very muddy so that we can sit here and say even though we follow these issues very closely, we don't actually know what his policy is in terms of is he going to deport them, is he not going to deport them, because he goes back and forth.

At a minimum, it sounds like now he is going to make them go back to their countries, which is in effect, a deportation. But it's a little less than rounding them up, you know, in the middle of the night and shipping them out of the country.

BANFIELD: That way and also he just said on the plane only a day or two ago, you know, I'm not ruling anything out. So there we go again, we're all left sort of guessing and waiting.

Thank you, Kirsten Powers.

POWERS: Yeah.

BANFIELD: Thank you to all of the guests who just spoke. But like the Oscars, you can't thank everybody because it's just too long of a list. I appreciate it all of your input.

[12:34:48] Coming up next, Donald Trump just gave a speech on a national security where he laid out a wish list of all he'd like to see for the United States military. So we're going to get reaction to what he said from the people who really know best, the folks who used that use that gear, the people who put their lives on the line, a former general, who's a Clinton supporter and a former admiral, who's a Trump supporter, also in the audience in his speech, they both joining me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: A bigger and better military, that's Donald Trump's promise to voters in Philadelphia where we just unveil his plan to increase funding for the armed forces.

Donald Trump also took jabs at President Obama and Hillary Clinton over defense spending. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Obama and Hillary Clinton have also overseen deep cuts in our military, which only invite more aggression, really, we will have aggression like you've never seen before and you've got it already happening. Our adversaries are champing at the bit.

[12:40:04] History shows that when America is not prepared is when the danger is by far the greatest. We want to deter, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength. We have the greatest people in the world. We have to give them the greatest equipment.

Under Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, defense spending is on track to fall to its lowest level as a share of the economy since the end of World War II.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: In the meantime, Donald Trump reinforced his plan to defeat ISIS. Says, he's going to ask the military officials among them to formulate a plan for defeating ISIS within the first 30 days in office.

We want to talk more about this CNN military analyst and Hillary Clinton supporter, Major General Spider Marks. Also with us again, is Donald Trump supporter, Rear Admiral Chuck Williams, who is in the audience for today's speech. So Spider Marks, if I can begin with you, Donald Trump paints the picture of a depleted military and says that Hillary Rodham Clinton is trigger happy. Is that how you see it?

JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, (RET.) MAJ. GEN., CNN MILITARY ANALYST: No, I don't. This is the finest military we've ever had. These young and men and our incredible senior leaders have been at this for years and years.

So you need to take great pride in terms of what we've been able to produce in terms of the military. What I will say is that we can not afford to lose the edge that we have achieved and understanding that our enemies are not going to come after us in a very symmetric way. We're not going to see tank battles. We're not necessarily going to see large naval encounters.

What we're going to see is enemies that will deny us access to areas of the world. And that's what our military does. It projects power. That's how we achieve influence. They will deny us access and they will try to work very, very aggressively and they have been very successful in terms of cyber capabilities.

So we have to be able to have the ability to project power as appropriately as we can and to be able to really dominate in this new domain of warfare called cyber.

Mr. Trump address both of those, my concern is, is that I have lived through too many of these political campaigning and poetry and then trying to lead in prose types of administrations. And that's what concerns me right now.

BANFIELD: So Admiral Williams, do you see this as poetry or prose or something in the middle or nothing at all?

CHARLES WILLIAMS, REAR ADM., U.S. NAVY (RET.): No, I think it was a well laid out plan of what he wants to do. When I left active duty in 2005, if you would have asked the CNO back then, he would have told you need 325 ships to carry out the navy's mission. Today the goal is 308. And we're around 276. When you think about what you could deploy, it's a smaller percentage of that.

I heard Donald Trump today talk about 350 ships and he talk about growth and all the other services as well. The budget is down, operation and maintenance navy accounts. We're just wearing the equipment out. The more we deploy, the longer the deployments, the more we fight, the more we wear out this equipment that it needs maintenance. And there's been a shortage of money for that.

BANFIELD: So I wanted to play what Donald Trump said about the 30 days that he wants his generals to lay out a plan to defeat ISIS. Let's have a look at what he had to say about this first 30 days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I want to have leaders that are unpredictable. I don't want leaders saying we are sending 50 men to Iraq. What would you do about ISIS?

And, by the way, that question, I hate those questions. You know why? Because I want to be unpredictable.

And then, there's ISIS. I have a simple message for them. Their days are numbered. I won't tell them where and I won't tell them how.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Admiral Williams, I don't understand, thaet Donald Trump as you just saw in those last few sound bites said that he already had the plan but he just couldn't tip his hat to the enemy. Now, he saying he needs a group of generals to create a plan in 30 days. Notwithstanding, I can't imagine that 30 days is enough time. But he says he's already has got it. I don't understand where he stands. Do you?

WILLIAMS: I do. One of the most important things I think in this conflict has been the rules of engagement. If you look at an op plan, they're looking for rules of engagement, some of these folks I've talked to, now this is third-hand information, it would include F-18 fighter pilots. It would include army personnel that come back and tell me that the rules of engagement have ham strung them.

[12:44:59] I think when Trump takes over, he'll have the military take a look at a different set of rules of engagement. And, you know, He has only had two briefings as far as I know. So until you really get the intel briefings and then you get assessments made by the military as to what they can do. And it's a dynamic battlefield. It's constantly changing. So, you know, it would not surprise me that, he's going to ask for a new plan, he's going to get a new plan that's going to be different than what President Obama has had.

BANFIELD: OK, General Mark Hertling, one of your colleagues, both of you had this to say about this idea that there can be a plan drafted in 30 days that will be somehow a wholesale different from the strategies that are being employed right now. This is what General Hertling had to say. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK HERTLING, LT. GEN., U.S. ARMY (RET.): I had to ask myself, what the hell does he think we've been trying to do for the last 14 years in terms of Al-Qaeda. It shows a completely lack of understanding of the threat and the ways to fight it. It's a sophomoric approach to national -- the elements of national security policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So Spider Marks, effectively he is saying, this is sort of insulting to the good men and women in uniform and at the executive level who have been working diligently to fight ISIS already. What's the say that, you know, a new crop of guys in 30 days can do any different or better?

MARKS: Well, I'm not convinced that 30 days would necessarily get you white smoke coming out of the chimney with a new solution.

The key thing that I see is that within any amount of time what a new president needs to be able to do is assess where he or she is relative to the threat of ISIS. So I have no issue with either the candidates raising hand and saying, "Look, within X amount of time I want to have a review of where we are." So I don't necessarily -- I do not disagree that it's not something that needs to be done. I do disagree with Mark that it's sophomoric because at every time and at every stage of a plan and then execution of the plan, you've got to put your finger on the polls and figure out where you are and where you need to go.

BANFIELD: All right, admiral yesterday, we had to cut the conversation short because at the end of the interview you mentioned the national security letter that 50 former executive, you know, former national security executives and experts had given in support of Hillary Clinton. These are Republican, and you wanted to talk about that. And I'm going to put a piece of the letter up so that we can talk about it. They said, "Mr. Trump lacks the character, values and experience to be president. He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world. He appears to lack basic knowledge about the belief in U.S. constitution, U.S. laws and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press and the independent judiciary."

And I know that Donald Trump had said, that's coming from all these guys that got us in the boat we're in today. That's the old guard. And they are the problem. But the old guard includes names like, you know, Michael Hayden a CIA and NSA director. John Negroponte, the former director of National Intelligence. And Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff and the list goes on. These are venerable, you know, they're pillars in our history. Are you and Donald Trump suggesting that they didn't know what they were talking about, they didn't know what they were doing?

WILLIAMS: I would say this. These are some of the best educated, most articulated, most well-spoken individuals. They are subject matter experts. I get that. But I don't know how anybody could not argue that Mr. Trump had no involvement in creating the problems we have today. And the problems we have that are created today happened on the individuals' watch that signed this letter.

Let me just make a couple of sentences here because I can almost take every paragraph in here in challenge a sentence in every one of these paragraphs.

Here's one, he is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood. I could put she is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood. He mentioned about not understanding the U.S. constitution and U.S. laws. Donald Trump has not been under an FBI investigation. She has. There are few others that you mentioned are not qualified, Donald Trump is not qualified to be president. I'm sorry. Donald Trump lacks the character, values and experience to be president. If I said Hillary Clinton lacks the character, values and proven experience to be president, I think I could argue that point. I could go through here. There are several like that. One about Trump knows more than the generals do. I don't know how Hillary Clinton has advocated for a no-fly zone in Syria. I don't know of any admirals or generals, I have not heard anybody come up publicly and advocated for a no-fly zone in Syria. So whoever is giving her that advice, you might want to interview him and ask him why, that is a difficult proposition. It would extremely expensive and has all kinds of risks and it might even put us in a confrontation with Russia.

BANFIELD: Admiral Williams, can you wrap it up quickly?

[12:49:58] MARKS: Yeah, I sure can. The key thing that Donald Trump said multiple times on the clips that you demonstrated, he said he wants to be unpredictable. That is the complete antithesis of a leadership that Chuck and I have been raised up underneath which is the number ingredient about leadership especially if the policy level which is where he will work is predict ability. I want a president to be very clear to embolden our allies and give our enemies lots of pause.

BANFIELD: I've got to leave it there guys. Thank you so much. General Spider Marks, Admiral Chuck Williams, nice to have you both.

MARKS: Thanks Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:54:56] BANFIELD: For 27 years, Jacob Wetterling's mother did not know exactly what happened to her 11-year-old boy. And now, she does. And now, we all know. Because the man who viciously killed him, murdered him in cold blood finally told everybody about it, confessed in open court. And the details are so unsettling that I have to warn you, what you're going to hear is very graphic.

Jacob at 11-years-old went missing on October 22, 1989. It was St. James, Minnesota. He and his brother and a friend rode down to a local store that night and planned to rent a movie like most kids might. But on their way home, a man named Danny James Heinrich pulled over in his car.

Yesterday, as part of a plea deal with federal and state authorities, this monster described what he did, how he approached the three boys wearing a mask, carrying a resolver, letting two of the boys run off but handcuffing little Jacob, his hands behind his back, throwing Jacob into his car. Jacob had one question for him apparently and that was, "What did I do wrong?

Jacob was then taken to a rural area where that monster sexually assaulted that 11-year-old child. This is according to the monster himself, Heinrich.

Little Jacob told his captor that he was cold. Jacob started crying, Jacob said he wanted to go home. Heinrich said he never loaded that actual revolver until later in the day when he heard a police car nearby and apparently that got him scared and in a panic, he shot and murdered little Jacob.

So on Saturday, they finally found Jacob's body 27 years. And they were able to identify that little body. His mom, Patty, heard all of this in court and she was able to somehow speak publicly at a news conference about her child for the first time since they found his little body.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATTY WETTERLING, JACOB WETTERLING'S MOTHER: He has taught us all how to live, how to love, how to be fair, how to be kind. He speaks to the world that we -- that he knew, that we all believe in. And it is a world that is worth fighting for. His legacy will go on. I want to say, Jacob, I'm so sorry it's incredibly painful to know his last days, last hours, last minutes.

We love you, Jacob. We will continue to fight. Our hearts are hurting. We will try and pull -- I would love to talk to you all. I'm just not ready yet, because for us, Jacob was alive until we found him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Twenty-seven years. And so I'm going to be joined by U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger in Minnesota. Mr. Attorney, thank you so much for being with me.

I understand how this works. That somehow you have to make a deal with the devil in order to lock a devil away from the rest of us good folk. But this had to be very painful for you because the ultimate charge and conviction will be a 20-year sentence and certainly not a first- degree premedicated sick murder.

ANDREW LUGER, MINNESOTA U.S. ATTORNEY: Yes, Ashleigh, this was easily the most emotional and gut-wrenching case that I've been involved in, in my 30 years. I've worked closely with Patty Wetterling from the time we went to arrest Mr. Heinrich back in October of last year until today to bring justice. And also to bring the truth and the knowledge of what actually happened to this really powerful and inspiring family.

BANFIELD: Can I ask you, it make me feel better, make our viewers feel better that even after a 20-year sentence and this guy is, what, 53. So he could get out and still be in good enough health. There is something called civil commitment that could keep him longer than the 20 years. Tell me about it.

LUGER: Yes, there is. Both state and federal civil commitment laws as a sex offender and predator could keep him behind bars for much longer. And in terms of feeling better, let me tell you and to the people watching, we have two goals with this case, when we were able to charge him with child pornography back in October of last year. Our goal was to lock him up for as long as we could based on the evidence we had, which were child pornography charges. That could have been 10 years or 15 years at most. If the case had ever been made by somebody without his help that he had committed the murder, there could have been a prison term that in state court up to about 20 years. So we decided if we could ever get him to talk, we would insist on a 20-year federal prison term plus the possibility of civil commitment and that's what we did.

[13:00:00] BANFIELD: And that's what you got.

LUGER: And the other thing Ashleigh is ...

BANFIELD: Yeah, quickly, yeah.

LUGER: This is a tough gut-wrenching case. But we sat down with the Wetterling family before we made any deals. That was the only way we were going to go forward. And we had a long conversation about it. They wanted their ...