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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Trump Calls Clinton A "World-Class Liar" And Slams Her "Deadly Foreign Policy"; Local Businesses Suffering After Mass Shooting; Stanford Rape Victim's Letter Inspires New Legislation; Trump Campaign Has Paid $11 Million To Trump Businesses. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 22, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:37] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: So yesterday if you were watching this program, you saw about 40 minutes worth of Hillary Clinton ripping into Donald Trump about his business cumin, his business past and his business performances.

And today Trump flagged back. His target was Hillary Clinton herself. And he absolutely laid bear of what he thinks of her. And what a lot of other Republicans do too. For instance, take this one little nugget and believe me, to borrow where Trump - from Donald Trump, it's very much the flavor and the essence of what the rest of the speech was. This is how Donald Trump characterized how Hillary Clinton acted as secretary of state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft. She ran the state department like her own personal hedge fund doing favors for a present regimes and many others and really many, many others in exchange for cash, pure and simple, folks, pure and simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Like her own personal hedge fund. She may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency. Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched.

Back with me, CNN Senior Political Analyst and Former Presidential Adviser David Gergen, so the question I have for you is this will be music to the ears of a lot of people who back Donald Trump, a lot of Republicans have been waiting for him to turn on Hillary Clinton. Even though they really push the envelope on truth, I mean spread death and distraction everywhere she touch. There's a little hypathology that we can all agree.

But people against Hillary, they hate her so much, do they hate her more than they find his actions and his behavior and some of his words distasteful?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Many Trump supporters do. And it's, you know, there's been a level of distrust of Hillary for a long time. It generally -- when she was at the state department she was actually pretty popular, when she was first lady she was very popular, when she was a senator ...

BANFIELD: She had very high favorability rate ...

GERGEN: Yes, she did when she left the state. But, you know, those numbers have gone down like that and people - there has been a level of distrust about 50 percent that we've seen now for some months. And what Donald Trump is doing is trying to take that level distrust and turn it into hatred and turn it into a belief that she's corrupt. It's not just that she's greedy and wants money. It is that she's corrupt. That she's actually sold favors. And she got cash that she and her husband got personal cash in exchange for favors that she did at the state department.

There's just no truth for that, there's no evidence of that at least. And -- but it is whipping people up. And I must tell you, I think we've also wandered on to gender territory here. I think that it is partly about -- I don't think a man would be necessarily treated the same way.

BANFIELD: You mean like the websites we've seen in the past 20 years about her hair, her ankles, her clothes?

GERGEN: Yeah, all those kind of things, so just go in to that. And I'm not, you know, Barbara Bush used to say, Well, I won't say what that person is, but it rhymes with witch. And there is that quality that people are using against her. And, you know, she's fighting back. She's playing the gender card herself in trying to get elected. But it is -- I want to get back to this, the whole notion both sides are now engaging in a level of discourse that is far worse, far darker than what we've seen in the past. And the Trump people have decided the way we can get there is to demonize Hillary, totally Demonize her to wrap her up her up.

And the Hillary people have said the best way we can get there is to disqualify Donald Trump right from the beginning to jump all over.

BANFIELD: Maybe this modern history because isn't it Adam Jackson who's wife was Rebecca ended up dying of sorrow because of the campaign hatred of disgust that was laid upon her?

GERGEN: And he was always very angry, when he got there.

BANFIELD: It ain't like we've been here before.

GERGEN: We've been here before. But, you know, we got into some of these things before and where did it lead like to a civil war.

BANFIELD: I'm going to ask you where will this lead because up until now, Donald Trump face has loved the talk of the wall, the talk of the Muslim ban. This is others have found very displeasing.

GERGEN: Yes.

BANFIELD: And backwards. GERGEN: Right.

BANFIELD: But now going after Hillary Clinton, will his favorability numbers be affected at all let's say by women or are women so distasteful and distrusting of Hillary Clinton that they will be fine with what he says no matter how far it goes, no matter how much critic.

GERGEN: No, well, look, I think that that what we know is there is a youth gender gap and women are going personally to Hillary and men are going personally with Trump.

[12:35:04] I think what's interesting to be very distinct because he's had a terrible three week. His organization is disarray. He's under fire people. He hasn't raised the money, all the rest of it that would normally destroy a candidacy. And yet here he is within four or five points of Hillary still in the CNN polling.

And that tells you that the distaste, the distrust and now the growing sort of just animalistic behavior of Hillary as his copying to boy this campaign far more.

BANFIELD: So you expect that this is going to be the narrative. We're not going to hear more, Mexican, judges and Muslim ban as much as we're going to hear about ...

GERGEN: I think that he pivoted away from Donald Trump personally, away from the judges, and toward putting all his artillery on her.

BANFIELD: Yeah, I'll bet the Hillary campaign is retooling a few things.

GERGEN: They will be. And I think Elizabeth Warren is going to grow an importance of that because they need someone who left for him was not Hillary.

BANFIELD: So they are the bad guys of the attack.

All right, David Gergen always great to have your ...

GERGEN: Thank you.

BANFIELD: ... perspective tonight, I appreciate it, as always. And a quick programing note to you as well, tune in tonight because we've got a special town hall. CNN town hall with the libertarian ticket for the White House, Gary Johnson and William Weld Joining Chris Cuomo for a smart conversation on the issues and the race, and last few things, these folks are also ran, nah-uh. They're polling upwards of 10 percent right now. And that seems to be climbing. So watch your ballot folks and definitely watch the town hall 9:00 p.m. eastern, right here, only on CNN.

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[12:40:52] BANFIELD: A big push to get back to normal in Orlando today. But it is a new normal to say the least all since the horrific terror attack, a week and a half ago.

This morning, Florida Governor Rick Scott and Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs held a news conference at a bake shop to talk about the impact that the shooting has had on the local economy, and then also to encourage people to support small businesses in Orlando. They have suffered and not just financially. But they're grieving, as well. They're grieving the loss of the victims who were also their customers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERESA JACOBS, (R) ORANGE COUNTY, FLORIDA: When I think about what is the purpose of terrorism, is to disrupt. It's to scare us. It's to force us into our homes, into our cocoons.

We as a community have come together to show that this killer did not disrupt our unity. He did not disrupt the loving hearts and souls that we have in this community. And we cannot let him disrupt the way we live our lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Since the tragedy, people all over the world have donated millions of dollars to help the victims and to help their families.

And to learn more about how you can help, log on to cnn.com/impact. I want to take you now to the west coast, the Stanford rape case. For every disgusting thing that was some that that actually happened in that case, there is believe it or not the some lasting good that may just come in the aftermath. And I'm talking about perhaps new legislation that is being written right now as we speak for a proposal, these were inspired actually by the brave woman who is so eloquently and painfully shared her experience with the world through a letter.

The assault has town light on a couple of brand new things for many people. Number one, that there's a new federal nationwide definition of rape that the FBI actually uses when it puts its statistics together. And number two that states definitely differ very vastly in fact on how long they hold statute of limitations regulations for sex crimes on their books.

Our legal analysts is David Cevallos and Paul Callan are here to sort of help muddle through some of these issues. And for folks who might not know this guys, it is not uniform at all as you travel state to state in this country, how long you have to go to the police to say this happened to me and I want him or her to pay for it. I mean, the vastness is kind of overwhelming.

Paul, I'm going get you to talk to it while we pop up a map as I can. Just to show that there is such a varied degree of those who have no statute at all, you can come anytime reports your crime and we'll investigate, those are the light states. But the dark states, they're a lot different.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, and people would be shocked about this because you're not about to look it up in a law book when you've been sexually assaulted as to how much time you have but normally crimes, big crimes, like murder, kidnapping, that sort of thing, longer statute of limitations or no statute of limitations.

BANFIELD: Nothing for murder.

CALLAN: But nothing for murder in every state in the country.

However, rape in a lot of places, you know, legislature said that's a very personal crime if the people know each other, they should - they will bring the charge quickly. And it's not fair to wait 20 years and report it back, how is the man going to defend himself, why didn't the woman bring the charges. So there's been a big debate that's been going on about this. But the winners have been extending the statute of limitations. We're seeing it happen in many states. And I think that's what a trend is going.

BANFIELD: So I have a couple of examples that are pretty remarkable. If we can pop up the states and show the differences on some of the statutes of limitations across the country. I can't put them all up, but this is the varying degree of California, you've got up until 10 years after the incident to come in and get, you know, the investigation going.

Connecticut, though, these are the low end. Only 5 years, Florida 4 and Minnesota ends up at the bottom of the barrel with only 3 years. I should put the gold standard out here on Ohio, Ohio is one state that has given a 20 years statute of limitations for rape. But then it does, the double, triple, quadruple gold standard goes to all of those states I showed you before on that map that hold no statute of limitations.

[12:45:13] So, it's the jurisdiction where it happens, it's the jurisdiction where you move to or have you got anyway to wiggle around those limitations?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: For the most part, the jurisdiction is where the incident occurred. And, you know, you talk about statutes of limitations. They're all arbitrary. The very essence of a statute of limitation is plucking a number out of ether and saying after this period of time, we say, as a state, that convictions would be less reliable because evidence we just feel after three years is reliable or four years. It's a reflection of how each individual state views these sex crimes. Because statute of limitations is a statement about how reliable you think, number one, witness testimony is, and physical evidence in the case of rape. But with the advent of DNA, that is totally changed the way we look at statutes of limitations in sexual assault cases.

BANFIELD: That can be preserved. In fact there's a lot of kits all over the country that haven't been tested even right now that could change that metric. Can I just put up, if I can, as we wrap the conversation because this might remind people what these types of limitations due to cases? These are the Cosby accusers. There have been over 50 of them. These are just some of them. But many of the women on your screen have absolutely no recourse because wherever their alleged rapes happened, the jurisdiction suggests I'm sorry, but you're past due. Long past due for some of them. Certainly it didn't exist at the time that they went through their ordeals. It's, you know, non-statute limitations ...

CALLAN: And here's what Cosby's attorney will say about that.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

CALLAN: Every one of those women could have brought charges against Cosby within the statute.

BANFIELD: Try that in the 70s.

CALLAN: Well, they could ...

BANFIELD: Why you were wearing a short for (inaudible).

CALLAN: They could. This is the law was at the time.

BANFIELD: That's the attitude ...

CALLAN: When he was in a position to assemble his evidence ...

BANFIELD: Yeah.

CALLAN: ... one way or the other. I mean statute of limitations - we can have a big debate about it, but anybody who does criminal law in defense people ...

BANFIELD: There's a reason for them.

CALLAN: There is a reason for it.

CEVALLOS: Yeah.

CALLAN: We want to be as close to the crime as possible because that's when the evidence is fresh and can be developed. Yup.

BANFIELD: Thank you, Paul Callan, thank you, Danny Cevallos for your help. We'll continue to follow that story as well. And then also this. Up next, when Donald Trump says that he was funding his own campaign, he meant it in more ways than one because it turns out that his campaign spending is real good for business. His own business. Wait until you hear the explanation, next.

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[12:51:35] BANFIELD: We heard a lot during primary season about Donald Trump funding his own campaign by which he meant lending his campaign tens of millions of dollars, which may or may not eventually be repaid. But even if it's not repaid, it won't be a total write off because Trump's newly filed campaign spending reports show that almost 20 percent of that spending was on products and services supplied by Donald Trump.

Follow me here. It's tricky. Since this launched just over a year ago. The Trump campaign has paid almost $11 million, which it borrowed from Donald Trump himself, to businesses that were owned or controlled or otherwise lend to Donald Trump, and that includes $4.6 million to Tag Air. That's Trump's airline.

More than $420,000 to Trump's Mar A Lago resort. That's his very fancy Palm Beach place. Almost $600,000 to Trump Tower in Manhattan. That's where his headquarters. And almost $4,000 to his son Eric for Eric Trump's winery in Virginia.

Now, none of this is illegal. Let's be real clear. But it could make it tough to close that mammoth fundraising gap with Hillary Clinton. This is one Republican said the A.P., "Why would donors give money when the first dollars go back to, you know, paying back a billionaire buying products from his own company."

CNN senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin had been all over these numbers. So, let's be fair about this. The campaign has to pay for these goods and services no matter who provides them with the goods and services. They're not allowed to take them for free. They would be considered corporate contributions then, right?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely right. And as long as they are legitimate expenses and not just made up, that something is actually being delivered, it is perfectly legal. You know, there's two ways of looking at this, Ashleigh. If you're a Trump hater, you're going to think this all stinks and he's paying himself and this whole business about self-funding his campaign is just the way that he can move money from one loan into the businesses of another. If you're a Trump supporter, you're probably thinking he's such a great businessman, he's figured out how to work the angles on the campaign itself.

The fact to the matter is these are all legitimate expenses. He's got to fly around on plane. He's got to check in to some hotels along the way. Where you would stay? Where would you fly? Might as well flying your own jet. I guess it's a ...

BANFIELD: Yeah. One day I hope to fly on Ashleigh Air, right? Just don't be (inaudible) soon. He's not the first rich guy to run for office. Either we've had Ross Perot, Steve Forbes, Michael Bloomberg. Have they done the same kinds of things or they different business models?

GRIFFIN: You know, it's unusual according to people who look at this stuff. It's unusual but this guy is unusual I that. He's got so much of this available to him. Listen, left of that list is $30,000 and $40,000 to various golf clubs where he's hosted events. We have never seen a candidate that has this kind of business model, which is that in tune with what a campaign would need, catering, lodging, planes. All those kinds of things that a campaign thrives on. Now, he's got a huge bill he pays to enterprise, rent a car, he pays a lots to Holiday Inns, but he also, when he can, it appears pays to himself.

[12:55:03] BANFIELD: OK, last question, has to be a quick one though, and that is this. When he buys his own products, is he buying them at a premium with lots of profit? Meaning could he end up profiting for running for the presidency if he gets the expenses reimbursed by the campaign and all those donors who may give money?

GRIFFIN: You know, he could but it has to do with what he's charging himself. Is he charging himself at a higher rate or is he giving himself a, you know, wholesale cost. We won't know until and, quite frankly, unless he releases tax returns down the road, Ashleigh. Not talking about this year. We're talking about expenses that he would file for next year. So it's all part of a business model. You know, we just really not be able to know unless we can track these individual expenses to hopefully publicly available tax returns in the coming years.

BANFIELD: And, you know, that the donors have been standing on the sidelines waiting to find out if he plans to reimburse himself with their money because many of them find out this tasteful. Drew Griffin, great work. Thank you. Appreciate it, as always.

And reminder, tonight, CNN is going to host the Libertarian Town Hall with Gary Johnson and William Weld. Our own Chris Cuomo will be going to be at the helm moderating. So look at that at 9:00 Eastern, only on CNN.

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