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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Trump Taping "Dr. Oz" Without Big Health Reveal; Hackers Spill Colin Powell's Emails

Aired September 14, 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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[12:00:14] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN "Breaking News."

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

And we're going to start with this breaking news. 55 days out from election day, Americans want to know how fit their candidates are. Those candidates who say they want to be president.

And we do mean fit in all senses of the word. Hillary Clinton is still out with pneumonia today and also today, it's Donald Trump's health that's in question. Because we were expecting a big reveal about his physical fitness.

He was having in this appearance on the "Dr. Oz" show. It was a taping. A taping that's set to air tomorrow. The taping is going on now. And that means the people are hearing what he's saying.

Brian Stelter, our senior media correspondent joins me now with some breaking news on what's been happening during that taping. And actually, lo and behold, we thought we were going to get sort of all the results of a physical, or at least a lot of the results of a physical that we were led to believe, no, that's not going to happen, and --

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: The campaign is now recanting. 9:00 A.M., the campaign said, no, he's not going to be sharing the results of his physical exam with "Dr. Oz."

We're going to wait until later in the week to release results. On that, Ashleigh, it turns out Donald Trump, the master showman, showed up with a copy of his results and handed it to Dr. Oz on the show. It does sound like something straight out of the reality TV playbook that Donald Trump knows so well.

BANFIELD: OK, do you know what these quote/unquote, "results." A one page -- look, I've had a physical before. It's not one page, and it's certainly not something you can read simply in prose.

What did he hand to Dr. Oz?

STELTER: Now I look forward to doctors like Dr. Sanjay Gupta. They're getting a hold of this result. It sounds that the campaign will share the data tomorrow. That's, of course, when the "Dr. Oz" show is going to be airing.

But there was a report by his personal physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein. You'll recall that famous physician, now the one that's said Trump would be the healthiest president in history.

Now Dr. Bornstein's letter from a while back has been pretty roundly, you know, joked about, called ridiculous, called a joke, because it was so --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Hyperbolic.

STELTER: Yes, hyperbolic.

BANFIELD: Yes.

STELTER: It didn't include actual details about Trump's medical record.

BANFIELD: Astonishingly excellent.

STELTER: That is one of the phrases. That's right.

BANFIELD: Yes.

STELTER: So we'll see if the same tone comes through in his data that was handed to Dr. Oz. But Trump, once again, showing that he's always able to come up with a surprise.

BANFIELD: And I just don't know if it's his surprise, or -- I feel like I'm being played by a fiddle -- like a fiddle, but I'm not exactly sure if I am or not. It fits his little campaign.

Angie Lee is our senior politics reporter. She's outside the "Dr. Oz" studio right now, reporting live.

OK, so from your perspective, what the heck is happening?

ANGIE LEE, CNN SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER: Ashleigh, we are still waiting for Donald Trump to emerge from the studio. He went in about an hour or so ago. He hasn't actually emerged yet. But you can see there are a lot of people waiting outside, reporters.

And I think just people who are walking around and interested to see Donald Trump come out. I think there is so much intrigue right now around what kind of information he may have revealed to Dr. Oz. And whether he actually went into the details of this physical that he said that he had last week.

So much attention on this issue right now on both sides of the aisle, especially because of what happened to Hillary Clinton over the weekend, when she had to cut a visit to the 9/11 memorial short, when it was revealed that she had pneumonia and the became overheated.

So a lot of pressure right now for both candidates. I think Brian makes a very good point that we don't know a lot about Donald Trump's medical records. Even less so than we know about Hillary Clinton's.

The only thing that we have to work off of right now is that letter, the infamous letter where his long-time physician simply stated that he is in excellent health and that he would be the healthiest person ever elected to the presidency.

BANFIELD: OK. And, Angie, stand by for one minute.

Brian, I want to bring you back into this, because there have been major complaints coming from the Trump campaign.

Kellyanne Conway was on the air yesterday saying that Hillary Clinton lied about having pneumonia.

I don't ever recall her lying about having pneumonia. I do recall her --

STELTER: Withholding.

BANFIELD: Withholding the information for a Friday right until she actually, you know, was wobbling into a car, caught on camera doing so.

So there has been the complaint that there were these three days or two and a half days of withholding information. But Dr. Bornstein's physical happened last week.

STELTER: That's right.

BANFIELD: And we are still waiting, and it is Wednesday at 12:04 Eastern Time for those results. Apparently, we're waiting for some fancy show, first, and now maybe they will be released tomorrow.

STELTER: It's good for Dr. Oz, but it might not be good for us.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Well, it's also the pot calling the kettle black.

So in television talk, do people notice these things? Or is it just too much out to digest.

STELTER: I think it's notable that both candidates right now are not sharing everything they could be sharing about their health. With regard to this one-page summary that Dr. Oz was given by Trump, that is not a complete medical history, nothing even close to that.

Nothing close to what John McCain, for example, provided to reporters back in 2008. So even though we're getting a little bit of information from Trump and this will be released tomorrow officially in the public, it still needs a lot more to be desired. And, of course, it takes the focus off Clinton.

[12:00:02] Remember, the reason Trump got this physical last week was partly because he wants to show he's stronger and more fit to be president than Clinton. He decided to do this physical when Clinton was having coughing spells and coughing fits on the campaign trail.

So we'll see what his results are. It creates a lot of mystery in the meantime.

BANFIELD: OK.

If I can, I also want to bring in a couple of our panelists.

CNN political analyst Alex Burns, national reporter for the "New York Times" and Phillip Bumps is a political reporter for the "Washington Post." CNN senior political analyst David Gergen is also here with us.

So let me begin with you, Alex, if I can.

I'm trying to figure out who comes out the winner here?

You have a guy who is treating the health records as a reality show almost by going on a TV show, who could be real clever, because that's a huge female daytime audience, and you're not doing so well with the females right now.

And then you have a woman who is on bed rest right now, who may have trouble calling him out for this because she has her own bad weekend in the past?

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Now, look, Ashleigh, I think for the last couple of days, it's obviously been problematic for Hillary Clinton to be off the campaign trails and have this sort of shifting explanations of what happened on Sunday.

It does seem like now we have more of the story about her health and what happened over the weekend than we have certainly about Donald Trump's health in general and about what happen with that physical last week.

And I do think that the Trump campaign has now invited a larger debate about transparency in this campaign and set a bar for themselves that they have resisted meeting in the past. Both about his health and about a whole other range of issues that, you know, ultimately as a candidate you're either for disclosure and you're for transparency or you're not.

And if you want to criticize your opponent for practicing partial or grudging disclosure, then it's totally fair game for the press to turn around and say, well, why don't you clear that bar yourself?

BANFIELD: Well, there's a lot of things to sift through to get that message out there. Sometimes I wonder if we're just buried in junk to be able to see those, you know, finer headlines?

BURNS: We probably are.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: I call it junk. People call it other stuff. BURNS: If you're somebody like Donald Trump who wanted to make physical vigour an issue in this campaign, getting buried in this back and forth is not the game plan that you had at the beginning.

I do think that it -- ultimately, if you have this back and forth about who's up to the job, who's campaigning vigorously, it does all set the stage for that first debate, which is now less than two weeks away, where you actually see these two people side-by-side debating vigorously for the first time in the campaign.

BANFIELD: So let me just debate the credibility of whatever this physical fitness report is actually going to yield, if I may.

And, Phillip, maybe you can handle this one.

We are now learning that the physical that was conducted last week was conducted by the same doctor. It was Harold Bornstein. The same hyperbolic doctor that has been very unusual, have used the kind of language that most doctors would never use and then laughed about the idea that he had five minutes to write it.

Which again most doctors would say, no. This is serious. If you're running for president, I'm putting out a letter. My reputation is on the line as well. But this is the same person that's giving us the goods.

Should we be trusting these goods? Will they be trusted?

PHILIP BUMP, WASHINGTON POST: I mean, there's a broader question there of the extent to which we trust any information through political campaign that is filtered through another party, right?

And, you know, that's a big question. And there's, you know, it's very subjective.

You know, I think in this case, we have this doctor, who has already proven himself to be a little eccentric, to put it mildly. Who is giving this information to the campaign itself which is then giving it to Dr. Oz, and Dr. Oz has said in interviews yesterday that he wasn't going to challenge Trump on questions that the campaign didn't want to be challenged on, right?

And that's problematic. That's not journalistically the way that one would normally go about this. So we have this -- the information from the same doctor going to the campaign, going to a reporter who isn't going vet that information necessarily in front of Trump, and then that's the reveal.

STELTER: Yes, there's a difference between pretending to be transparent and actually being transparent.

BUMP: Yes.

STELTER: I mean, the source in the room, the tapings wrapping saying that he was also taking audience questions, which, again, is a way to look like you're being transparent. BANFIELD: Read on.

STELTER: Well, it's noted also that Ivanka Trump, as we knew, was joining him, joining her father on stage talking about the recent child care policy.

The idea, though, you know, you can be transparent and you can pretend to be transparent.

BUMP: Right.

STELTER: And going on the "Dr. Oz" show might seem more like a pretending to be transparent than an actual attempt to be.

BANFIELD: David Gergen, you have been around the block a few times.

I want you to do the 30,000-foot view on this one. I know you're giggling. But here's the reality. I thought I was going to be asking you about child care. And there have been about 55,000 developments since child care last night. And there's something to this.

I'm laughing, but there's something very clever to overloading people with so much material that only one brand bleeds through?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think we knew -- you asked the question, Ashleigh, who are the winners here?

I think the real issue is who are the losers? And the losers are very clearly American voters.

We're getting a run around from both camps at the moment. And until they, you know, get serious and really give us hard evidence, we can't really make judgments about either candidate's health.

I do think Trump has been much more secretive than Hillary Clinton has. And for him to use the "Dr. Oz" show as a forum to have this all sorted out, have his health all sorted out, trivializes this whole exercise.

[12:10:05] And I think it makes it more of a national joke than, you know, a serious effort to figure out two candidates heading into their 70s. Whoever wins is going to be a governing in their 70s. And the country deserves to know, what are the prospects for this person's health?

And what are -- are there any clouds that might impair the judgment of a person who's going to be the president?

He apparently from what has just been reported, Trump gave him a one- page summary.

I'm sorry. You know, the doctor wrote the last report in the back seat of a car. Did he write this one in the front seat of a car?

I mean, a one page is just -- is sort of ludicrous on his face as a way to capture -- (CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: And John McCain gave us 1,000 pages, you know, from the Mayo Clinic, no less. I mean, that's all pretty --

(CROSSTALK)

STELTER: Let's go back to the idea of an independent panel of doctors that can review both Clinton and Trump.

BANFIELD: Yes, I'm with Brian on that one.

David, real quickly, we're talking about the transparency issue and the -- sort of this flurry of headlines that comes out so quickly we can barely report them let alone assess them and analyze them to get people like you who know what you're talking about to weigh in on them.

I thought I'd also be asking you about Flint, Michigan, because that's where Donald Trump is headed. We're not talking about that. That's not good for him. But what's great for him that we're not talking about is his tax returns, either. And that's another transparency problem that Donald Trump has.

Not only is he not releasing the tax returns, but he's being pressed more and more about releasing just a simple one-page document from the IRS that actually says, you're under audit. It exists. It is such a letter.

There was a show on television last night that made almost the whole show about that. Lots of reporters have asked about that. We're not getting them.

Kellyanne Conway yesterday almost embarrassingly said to my colleague Alisyn Camerota, I'm sorry, are you suggesting he's lying?

It's what we do, David. We ask questions to make sure people don't lie.

GERGEN: Absolutely. And the IRS said recently, and has been reported that just because a taxpayer has an audit going on does not in any way prevent that taxpayer from providing the tax returns to the public.

Nine straight Republican nominees, stretching back to Ronald Reagan, have released their tax returns. Donald Trump is the first one who's refusing to do it so far. He should be judged accordingly.

After all, every other person who's been running for the presidency had some public service and we can judge them by their public service.

What he is offering the country is based on his business leadership. He says he can lead the country.

Well, we need to understand his business leadership, and the tax returns are an essential way to understand his business leadership. We can't judge him without them. BANFIELD: Well, not only business leadership. I think we also need to know if he's telling the truth about what he makes.

GERGEN: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: If he's telling the truth about what he gives to charity. I think we need to know who he's doing business with. Because there are a lot of people overseas that would directly conflict with foreign policy if you're doing a lot of business with them. Business tangled up for decades.

I mean, there's just million questions that voters need to know before they entrust all of these precious, you know, powers.

I have to leave it there, but I'm going to ask you all to stay except Brian Stelter. Because I know that thing is buzzing.

STELTER: I'll get to work.

BANFIELD: And he has to get to work. So if you all stick around for a moment.

David, thank you.

Coming up next, another big headline coming out today and it comes from another secretary of state.

Colin Powell in the form of e-mails.

His e-mails have been hacked. And it is not just a bunch of boring old secretary of state stuff. It's juicy secretary of state stuff. There's some real doozies in there. He is trashing Donald Trump. He is calling out Clinton. And you are going to hear it word for word. And guess what? He is not denying the e-mails are his.

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[12:17:45] BANFIELD: When dozens of former high-ranking Republican foreign policy figures came out last month against Donald Trump, warning in an open letter that Donald Trump would be, and I'm going to quote here, "The most reckless president in American history."

It was one name that was missing, and it was a loud name, and it's silenced. Colin Powell.

The retired four-star general and former secretary of state under George W. Bush has made no endorsements in the 2016 presidential race. And, generally, had said very little in public about his party's nominee.

But in private -- not so much. He has not been quite so circumspect. We know this because more than two years of Powell's personal e-mails have been hacked and have just posted to a Web site called D.C. Leaks.

An e-mail from June to a former aide calls Trump, quote, "A national disgrace and an international pariah," end quote. Another e-mail from a year ago says Trump, quote, "appeals to the worst angels of the G.O.P. nature and poor white folks," end quote.

Last month, Powell wrote that he, meaning Trump, "Can never overcome what he tried to do to Obama with his search for the birth certificate. The whole birther movement was racist. And for him to say yesterday that within four years, he would have 94 percent of blacks voting for him is schizo fantasy," end quote.

It's not all about Trump. He went on about Hillary Clinton, too.

Powell isn't at all happy that his own use of a personal e-mail account while he was secretary of state has been conflated off and on with Hillary Clinton's use.

In August of 2015, Secretary Powell complained, quote, "Everything HRC touches, she kind of screws up with hubris," end quote.

August 2016, he writes this, HRC, meaning Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me into it. I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hampton's party to get their attention."

[12:20:00] A Powell aide confirms the e-mails authenticity. But that's it. Says no further comment. Clinton campaign isn't commenting either. And Trump's campaign, not interested in commenting on this one.

So, luckily, I have a very smart panel to do so.

Welcome back, Philip Bump from "Washington Post," Alex Burns, "The New York Times" and CNN senior political analyst and west wing veteran David Gergen.

Alex, first to you.

Who does this hurt more? Trump or Hillary?

BURNS: I think there's no question that his comments about Trump are far more critical, far more harshly critical. And they go at him in an area where Trump has been trying really, really hard to change voters' minds. The polls show voters are really skeptical of Trump's temperament. His ability to serve as commander-in-chief and his attitude towards women and racial minorities. So Powell really hits all those points. He's certainly not flattering about it.

But I do think we have to ask ourselves there's, you know, a little less than eight weeks left on the clock in this election. Powell endorsed Barack Obama twice.

Why hasn't he endorsed any candidate? And if he is going to endorse, it certainly seems like it would be Clinton. But why hasn't he done that yet?

BANFIELD: Philip Bump, he did not sign the (INAUDIBLE) letter. BUMP: Right.

BANFIELD: And yet he has a lot of the same opinions. Lots of people have said things, and then said, but I -- I'm not complaining that with endorsement. He'd been able to ride both sides of that fence. Why would he not have done this?

BUMP: Well, I mean, I think that you can see in those e-mails, and we know from other reporting over the past couple of months, that he is actually irritated at the way that Hillary Clinton has said, well, Colin Powell did this, too, about her email server.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Let's be clear to the FBI. It was to the FBI.

BUMP: Right. Correct. Yes.

BANFIELD: She was being asked questions --

BUMP: Well, she's also said it in public statements.

BANFIELD: People forget, though, that these were notes that were leaked from the FBI interview. So if they wanted to be forthcoming, she shouldn't be saying things to the FBI if she believes that had some bearing on her decision making.

BUMP: Right. That's fair. So, I mean, I think that to Alex's point, there is a very different tone to the comments that were made there.

Colin Powell, what he was saying about Hillary Clinton, there was definitely this underlying tension of personal issues between himself and Hillary Clinton. How she's framing him in a bad light in order to save her own skin, which obviously is not the sort of thing that one generally, you know, is appreciated of, of friends.

But, you know, I think that, Alex is right. That what he said about Donald Trump, that we are talking about that today while we're supposedly -- you know, while this is supposed to be about the e-mail server and about Hillary Clinton.

The fact that he said these other things as well that are so much more harshly critical of Donald Trump, I think, is the thing that probably has the most effect on the campaign.

BANFIELD: David Gergen, I want to read for you if I can a little bit more of one of these e-mails. It was pretty strong. It was about Benghazi. This has been the cornerstone of many of the attacks on Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. And Colin Powell wrote specifically about Benghazi, saying that, "Benghazi is a stupid witch-hunt. Basic fault falls on a courageous ambassador who thought Libyans now love me, and I'm OK in this very vulnerable place."

What's fascinating about that exchange as well is that a little bit later on Condoleezza Rice, who was the recipient of this e-mail said, "Totally agree." And I just want to get your perspective on whether this matters, the Benghazi argument to the endless requests for investigations of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state?

I will say this. He did say that he believes fault also lies back in Washington with some of the bosses and HRC as well. But that's pretty strident language.

GERGEN: Yes. Well, first of all, I say I just can't tell you how violated Colin Powell must feel.

BANFIELD: Agreed.

GERGEN: To have his private thoughts, you know, snatched away from him and plastered across and become a part of this.

You know, this man is essentially a fairly private man. That's one of the reasons he didn't sign that letter. He didn't want to get into the fray on this.

I know Colin Powell pretty well. And I can tell you, he is, he's deeply troubled by the course of the nation that it's on. The leadership. He holds high standards for what our president should be, for what our secretary of states should be.

He feels that people are falling far short of those standards. He's deeply worried about and frustrated about the reappearance of so much racism in the country.

That's an issue that he's, you know, he's increasingly in his life, he's focusing on neighborhoods and inner cities and what can be done to provide equal opportunity. So all of this must come as sort of like just disgusting that he's been violated like this.

On the Benghazi issue, I must tell you that the people have been dancing around the very point that he made that Condi Rice agreed with. And that is what role did the ambassador himself have in what transpired there?

You know, was he imprudent? Was he incautious? And we all mourn his loss. He was a very patriotic caring American, but you know, there has been on the edge of this conversation. Nobody really has wanted to go there in the public conversation. The best I can tell, it's been skirted around.

There is a sense about -- the very thing that Colin Powell is quoted as saying.

BANFIELD: And I just want to be real clear, because only part of his quote came up in those graphics. And I don't want anyone to think that this is a biased attempt at looking at his words.

[12:25:00] But the second part that I paraphrased, that didn't come up in graphics says, "But blame also rests on his leaders -- meaning Ambassador Stevens leaders -- and supports back here. Pat Kennedy, Intel community, DS - I'm thinking Department of State -- and, yes, HRC. And Condi Rice said the words, "Completely agree."

(CROSSTALK)

GERGEN: That's right. I agree.

BANFIELD: With all of the above as well.

GERGEN: And I think that is all -- I think, that exchange also represents what is a widespread feeling, but has not been fully expressed in some of the hearings.

Got to think people have rightly wanted to protect reputations here starting with the ambassador.

BANFIELD: David Gergen, thank you. Always good to have you. Appreciate it.

GERGEN: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Philip Bump as well. I appreciate it.

And Alex Burns, thank you as well.

Just moments ago, Donald Trump left the taping of the "Dr. Oz" show. So there it is. The motorcade pulling out.

We know that Donald Trump showed Dr. Oz a one-page summary of the physical that he took last week. And he also took audience questions.

So we're going to bring you more details of the story as we get it, back right after this.

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