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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Latest on Lochte Brazil Situation; Examination of Race and the 2016 Electionl Heroin Overdose Problem Examined; Movie Director Acquitted of Rape Years Ago Finds His Recent Movie Facing Rejection. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired August 26, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:02] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: -- can the actual penal code in Brazil under which Lochte is being charged. And it says that somebody falsely report a crime or misdemeanor by provoking the action of authority, informing it of the occurrence of crime or misdemeanor that knows has not taken place.

So, Ms. Brennan, given what your paper has done and how much you know about what actually did happen and what these swimmers told the police as opposed to Billy Bush. Big difference. Whatever you tell the press in that crime. What you tell police is what that issue. What exactly did they tell the police and does it sound as though it was false?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALSYT: Well, this is a mess, as you know, Ashleigh. We've been talking about it for over a week. And it's almost as if it's moved to the court of public opinion, except for the fact that now there's this extradition call from Brazil. I think all of us believe and I know Jeffrey Toobin has been helpful in this that Ryan Lochte is not going to be extradited to Brazil over filing the charge of filing a false police report.

And any lawyer worth it or result would never allow him to go back to Brazil. Although I think he should probably go to Brazil to do some community service and some good will for all the P.R. nonsense that was going on. But there are real questions about who's telling the truth obviously, you got the story that Lochte says he over- exaggerated.

So throw that into the mix. And then the question about whether the authorities also made things up. Again, I think it's moved to that bigger court, the court of P.R. and public opinion where Lochte, still, I think, has a lot of work to do.

BANFIELD: So here's my question because words matter and we're trying to tell our, you know, leaders that right now, those who are seeking highest office. When they told the police that someone had pulled a gun on them and demanded money that happened. If you're an American, no police officer or security guard is allowed to pull a gun on you and say, give me money and I'll let you go.

That's what we commonly refer to as a shake down. It is illegal. And why is it not plausible that that is exactly what these swimmers said to the police. That's not a crime to tell them that that happened. BRENNAN: No, it's in fact, that's what they told them. I think part of the mitigating circumstances and terms that crossable of the Olympic Games and representing your country as a U.S. athlete Ashleigh, is that what precipitated it.

And if it was public urination and misbehavior and potentially vandalism, again, I think I've said for a week now, we may never know exactly what happened, even though there's cameras all over that gas station, apparently. But if that precipitated then the gun and all the other things that we're hearing happened in "USA Today" has been reporting some of that, then throw that into the mix.

If the behavior of these athletes and that by the way, is what the U.S. Olympic Committee is looking at and USA swimming is looking at. The behavior of athletes, who are not suppose to be drinking while they are representing the United States in the Olympic village. And also athletes who are then interviewed by the U.S. Olympic Committee and by the State Department and tell one story and then out goes Ryan Lochte to speak to NBC and tells a different story and then about five or six days of that kind of back and forth.

BANFIELD: I think we are all in accordance that they acted like doofuses but were the law is concern being doofus is not an extraditable offense. And I think your absolutely spot on this will not result in extradition no matter what Josh Earnest says about the hearing to the laws insidiously. Christine Brennan. Great to see you, have a good weekend.

BRENNAN: Thank you, you too Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Nice seeing you as always.

Coming up next, we take you back to presidential politics. We're talking tax policy, health care polls. Some people say that's boring including the candidate.

And in fact, they have switched and pivoted to bigotry. That's what the Clinton and Trump camps are both focused on at the moment.

[12:33:52] Racism, each calling the other. Is that what this campaign is coming down to? Is this what we're going to talk about until November 8th, really?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The race for the White House enters its final weeks with the race. Actual race is very much in the spotlight. Not the campaign. Not the effort to get the job. Race, it's not a healthy, open-minded exchange of ideas either. It's kind of ugly and nasty and, well, a lot like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators. No conscious, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but, first, we have to bring them to heal.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have a great relationship with the blacks. I've always had a great relationship with the blacks.

What the hell do you have to lose?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, these are things that are being released by the campaigns. They're ads, their web videos, they are public discourse. Like it or lump it.

So, I want to bring in my guests to find out if this is what we have to actually stomach for the next 74, is that how many days we are Philip Bump? I even hate to have to like ask these questions, but I'm going to have to ask these questions.

Is that what things are going to be now? Eugene Scoot, Philip Bump, Both experts in covering the election. They're here to talk about the crop they're going to have to cover for the next two months. Is this is? Is this where we're headed or is this just this next week?

PHILIP BUMP, POLITICAL CORRESPENDENT, WASHINGTON POST: Well, I think the question is whether or not Donald Trump can start doing better with his poor basis supporters. And one of the reasons that he's focused on race, one of the reasons he's made these appeals to the African-American community is because a lot of his own basis support thinks he has a problem with bigotry and that's Republicans.

The most reason Washington Post Poll 1/5 of Republican men and one quarter of Republican women think he is bias against the women or minorities and he's trying to counteract that by reaching to the black community reaching out to the Hispanic community.

[12:35:09] That's why race is present in this debate right now because Hillary Clinton yesterday in this big speech in Reno pointed out that he's got some issues.

BANFIELD: OK since you mentioned it. Here, Hillary Clinton is attacking Donald Trump for his ties to what is called the "Alt-right" movement. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: These are racist ideas, race baiting ideas, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-women, all key tenants making up the emerging racist ideology known "Alt-right".

So, the de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump campaign represents a landmark achievement for this group, a fringe element that has effectively taken over the Republican Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, that was Hillary Clinton, but just prior to that, CNN's Anderson Cooper pressed Donald Trump on the claims that he made that were scripted. They're not off the cuff that Hillary Clinton is a bigot. Here's how that looked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: She's totally bigoted. There's no question about it.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: But it does imply that she has antipathy, she has hatred toward, in this case I guess you're talking about African-Americans.

TRUMP: I think she has been extremely, extremely bad for African- Americans. I think she has been extremely bad for Hispanics. You look at what's happened with her policies and the policies of President Obama and others, look at the poverty, look at the rise in poverty, look at the rise in violence.

COOPER: But hatred is at the core of that or dislike of African Americans?

TRUMP: Or maybe she's lazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, I have a question Eugene, and that is this, usually when you have an attack for either side, right? Hillary Clinton with this very long speech I mean things Donald Trump is a candidate with a long history of racial discrimination who traffics in the dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far dark reaches of the internet.

That's rough stuff. And you would think that Republicans right up to the top would be climbing the walls getting on TV saying, that's awful. Radio silence. Radio silence, no one is coming to his defense, why?

EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: I think it's because Hillary Clinton, obviously, has a trust problem but it has even larger trust problem with Republicans and Republican-leaning voters. And so, there's some question about whether her depiction of Donald Trump is accurate.

And, so, I think people are being bit slow to get on board with what she's saying. I think what's very interesting to me about all of this is that there's a lot of talk about black voters. Not a lot of conversation with the black voters.

When I talk to black voters, they don't need Hillary Clinton to tell them that Donald Trump has been sued by the Federal Government for discrimination against black people. And they don't need Donald Trump to tell them that Hillary Clinton support for the 1994 crime bill is deeply connected to mass incarceration.

Problem there is disproportionately affected black voters. What they need, both of these candidates to talk about with specificity is issues related to their daily lives, relate to education, health care, housing and employment and right now we're not seeing a lot of that. BANFIELD: No, we sure aren't. And hopefully it'll change and hopefully we'll, you know, get more to policy. The boring stuff that we traffic in all the time, you know, leading up to elections.

SCOTT: We like that.

BANFIELD: Pilot guy, right? All right Philip Bump, Eugene Scott, thank you both, appreciate it. Have a good weekend.

SCOOT: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Coming up next. People just this week, 90 of them, 90 have overdosed on heroin in Ohio. Last week, 27 people in four hours overdosing in West Virginia.

So, what exactly is being put into the heroin that is causing it to be even more lethal than it usually is? Upsetting details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Officials in multiple states are grappling with the sudden spike in heroin overdoses and they think it's being caused by a dealer or dealers who are lacing the drug with an Elephant tranquilizer.

In Ohio, there have been nearly 90 ODs in the last week, along with 12 in Indiana. And last week in West Virginia 27 people overdosed within a 4-hour period. One official is there saying the amount of 911 calls are pouring in as August for a mass casualty event. Some people are even using Facebook to warn users about the deadly batch.

Want to bring in CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, who is joining me live now. I just can't believe that an elephant tranquilizer would be an additive in a drug, it's called carfentanil, am I pronouncing it right?

Dr. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN'S CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yup. Carfentanil, a lot of people have heard of Fentanyl. These, you know, Ashleigh, these are all part of the same active ingredient. They all come from opium essentially whether it be the pills, the hydrocodones whether it be things like morphine whether it be heroin or Fentanyl.

And that's part of the problem. Is that people switch back and fort these things, if you're trying pain pills, you can no longer get those, you may switch to heroin. What's happening now and has happened before is that these heroin dealers are cutting it they're essentially adding these other substances to the heroin, trying to give a longer, stronger high but also to stretch out their supply.

In this case, as you a mentioned probably a couple of dealers doing this, adding this Carfentanil to try and really push it to the limits, because as you mentioned this is typically not something not used on humans, used only commercially and can tranquilize large animals, even Elephants. So it is crazy what is happening out there with regard to this cutting of heroin. It's been happening for a long time, but this is unprecedented.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

GUPTA: The strength of the ingredients they're using.

BANFIELD: So that's the question. It's not as -- so heroin doesn't get cut all the time and you take your chances when you use a street drug.

GUPTA: Right.

BANFIELD: But I don't think I understand why a drug dealer would use something this potent. He or she, I'm assuming they're not chemists and they don't know the proper measurements. Are they just trying to make their drug really, really great and get a great reputation?

Ultimately they're killing people and they can go to prison for life or get the death penalty for this.

[12:50:05] GUPTA: No question. I think there's two reasons. And look, it's tough as I think you're alluding to, to get in the mind of a heroin dealer here, but I think its two reasons. One is that they do want to push their product to the limit, to the line, so to speak. And that does give the product a certain reputation.

It is frightening it is scary it is deadly. The second reason is sometimes you can make your supply of heroin last longer by using these other ingredients which are sometimes thousands of times more powerful than the heroin that the individual things that they're getting. One thing that is striking, Ashleigh, you know, people, they talk about this sort of right of passage of experimentation which a lot of people go through at some point in their lives.

Those days are gone and right at experimentation now is potentially a deadly thing and it's a really important message to get out there to adults and kids a like. You can't do it, you have no idea what you're getting any more.

BANFIELD: Yeah, and, you know, what? You got to echo that as many times as you can, Sanjay. You know, these kids are all heading back to college and these parties where this could be part of it all. They just nee to know it could be a potential death sentence ...

GUPTA: No question.

BANFIELD: ... if they give it a shot, even their first time.

Gupta: That's right.

BANFIELD: Dr. Gupta, it's always good to have you. Thanks for, you know, telling us straight exactly what this is all about. Sanjay Gupta, joining us live.

GUPTA: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Thanks Sanjay.

Coming up next, the new film "Birth of a Nation" was getting a lot of good press, but, suddenly, that's changing. But the spotlight shifting to the director, writer and the star, who is coming under fire over something that happened 17 years or when he was 17 -- excuse me, a 17- year-old case.

The case is getting a lot of attention online and that is changing how people are about to receive this film. But is it fair? It's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:55:59] BANFIELD: It is the skeleton in his closet Nate Parker likely never could've imagined would resurface 17-years-later. Nate is writer and a director and a star of the acclaimed movie "Birth of a Nation."

But he was charged with rape back in 1999, and he was acquitted. So the movie come up in October, but the public's perception and reception is in question right now, will the public go see it? Some critics are angry, some venues are cancelling screening.

Jean Casarez takes a close look at this controversy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.

NATE PARKER, DIRECTOR "BIRTH OF A NATION": What do you think you're doing, boy?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORREPONDENT: From the moment Nate Parker's film "Birth of a Nation" premiere at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The picture has been met with critical acclaim.

PARKER: I'm Nat.

CASAREZ: The historical account staring Parker as Nat Turner who led a slavery revolt in 1831. One big honors at this years film festival "Fox Searchlight" and invested a record $17.5 million for distribution right. "Birth of a Nation" was on its way to Blockbuster success.

(OFF-MIC)

CASAREZ: That is until this. Parker, the writer, director and star of this film rated R in part because of violence, was formally accused of a violent act himself in 1999.

Rape. Sexually assaulting, a young woman that he knew while a student at Penn State University. Parker was arrested and charged with multiple offenses. His roommate at that time John Celestin, now Co- author with Parker on "Birth of a Nation" was also charged with a sexually assaulting the young woman at the same time.

According to legal documents Parker Harassed the accuser during the time before trial. Parker was found not guilty on all charges. In 2012 the woman who accused Parker and Celestin committed Suicide.

The future of the movie is now in question. With showing being canceled or modified before the national premiere October 7. Parker, himself is taking to Facebook, trying to explain what happened 17- years-ago.

"Over the last several days a part of my past -my arrest, trial and acquittal on charges of sexual assault has become a focal point for media coverage, social media speculation and industry conversation. I understand by so many are concerned and rightfully have questions. While I maintain my innocence that the encounter was unambiguously consensual, there are things more important than the law. There is morality. No one who calls himself a man of faith should even be in that situation."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: And Jean Casarez is live with me here now. Reminder, Jean is also a lawyer as well as a great reporter. What happened in that incident?

CASAREZ: All right. Nate Parker and His roommate, they were both students at Penn State University. The actual charge for both of them originally was rape of an unconscious person. And this was the accuser was someone that the fact as per Appellate documents I'm reading is someone she was going in and out of consciousness.

So the issue was not whether this happened or not, the issue was whether it was conscientual.

BANFIELD: And there was a third person who actually testified, saying he was there and wasn't keen on what was going on.

CASAREZ: There was an eyewitness. And many times in a situation like this, you don't have an eyewitness, what we want to remind everybody that Nate Parker was acquitted and it was a jury trial. And you saw the seriousness of the charges.

BANFIELD: Sure.

CASAREZ: CNN has reached out these representatives, because we've wanted to get their comments and they have not returned that, but I will tell you the accuser filed a civil suit against Penn State University after the conclusion of the criminal case, we have that complaint and it really talks about how, in her mind, she was harassed by Nate Parker.

She goes into several instances. There was a civil settlement $17,500. Penn State had her then on a board to make changes.

BANFIELD: Well, you know, what, week ahead for this premiere. It'll be interesting to see what happens and how the industry responds, as well.

[01:00:07] Jean Casarez, thank you for that. We'll continue to follow it. Thank you everyone for watching "Legal View" as well.

My colleague Brianna Keilar is stepping in for Wolf. She takes over right now. Have a great weekend.