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Americans Fed Up With Congress; Program to Defer Deportation Begins; Powerball Drawing Today; Peterson Defense Withdraws Mistrial Request.

Aired August 15, 2012 - 11:00   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, ANCHOR, "CNN NEWSROOM": Fredricka Whitfield, thank you so much.

Hi, everybody, I am Ashleigh Banfield and it's 11:00 on the East Coast. That means it's 8:00 on the West Coast.

Let's get started with this. It's not even Labor Day yet and the presidential campaign is, I think you can pretty much safely say, it's in the gutter. It started with Vice President Joe Biden telling a crowd that included a lot of African-Americans that Mitt Romney's policies will put people, and I'm quoting, "back in chains."

Back in chains? Seriously. Before you freak out, we should mention that Biden's mention of chains, according to their campaign, is apparently a reference to Paul Ryan and a statement that he made back in 2011 when he was delivering the response to the State of the Union address and said, quote, we need to unshackle our economy.

OK, is that weaseling out of a really stupid gaffe? Or is that really what the plan was? To just play off of "unshackling." You will probably want to have a listen for yourself to make a decision. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they're proposing. Romney wants to let the -- he said that in the first 100 days he's going to let the big banks, once again, write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street.

They're going to put you all back in chains.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Ooh, ouch. Paul Steinhauser, now, has to follow that. That's pretty ugly. And you know what? It set off a real mess yesterday, didn't it, between these campaigns?

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: It certainly did, Ashleigh, and, if anybody thought the naming of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate was going to end the nastiness in this campaign, it didn't. There was tough talk. There was trash talk before Ryan was named and, as you were just showing, there's been plenty since then, as well.

You're right, the Romney campaign was very quick, very quick to respond to those comments that the vice president made in Virginia yesterday. Take a listen to what Mitt Romney said last night in Ohio and, also, what Joe Biden said at the next event he had and, also, President Obama had some interesting comments on the campaign trail in Iowa. Here, you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: His campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the presidency.

Mr. President, take your division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.

BIDEN: And I'm told when I made that when comment earlier today in Danville, Virginia, the Romney campaign put out a tweet. You know tweets? Put out a tweet, went on the airways, saying, Biden, he's outrageous in saying that I think I said instead of unshackled or unchained. Outrageous, to say that. That's what we meant. I'm using their own words.

I've got a message for him. If you want to know what's outrageous, it's their policies and the effects of their policies on middle-class Americans. That's what's outrageous.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I'm quoting here. You can't drive a car with a windmill on it. That's what he said about wind power. You can't drive a car with a windmill on it. Now, I don't know if he's actually tried that. I know he's had other things on his car.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEINHAUSER: All right, I've got to explain what the president was talking about there. He was pointing out his differences with Mitt Romney when it comes to renewable energy, which is a big deal in Iowa, and he made a reference to Seamus the dog.

And this is storyline from many years ago when Mitt Romney and his family were taking a family vacation. They put the dog in a crate, put the crate on top of the car. That story was against Mitt Romney by his opponents back in 2008, when he was first running for the president. Used again this campaign, especially in the primaries. The president going there with his comments.

He made that comment three times, three different campaign events yesterday in Iowa.

Ashleigh, listen. You were just saying it and I think you're absolutely right. This campaign should be about big issues and there are lot of them. But really it looks like the campaign is playing small ball and we've got two-and-half months to go here.

BANFIELD: Ain't the first time, Mr. Steinhauser. By the way, if Seamus the dog had legs like that, you can bet that this "unchained" business is probably going to play out for at least a few more weeks.

Paul, thank you.

Want to switch gears here. A map of wildfires. We told you about this at the top of the show yesterday, but look at the map today. What a mess.

And pretty remarkable, too, when you look at all of those areas burning. Sixty-two out-of-control blazes scorching thousands of acres in Washington state, California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah.

And, by the way, I usually sound like a broken record when I say this, but the conditions are really hot and dry and that's making it extraordinarily difficult for the firefighters who are putting their lives at risk to try to battle these.

And this is why they're doing it. Look where those forests end up, at your back door. A lot of people have had to run, run for their lives, literally, leave everything behind, only to come back and then find the mess that those flames leave behind.

Reporter Jeff Dubois with our affiliate KIRO joins us from near Ellensburg, Washington. The stats are unreal. Twenty-eight-thousand acres destroyed already in Washington and it looks as though there's really not much abatement that's coming.

JEFF DUBOIS, REPORTER, KIRO: Ashleigh, it's bad. High winds and high temperatures continue to push this fire to greater lengths.

Forty-four square miles, that's how much has burned here near Ellensburg in the last three days. At least 70 homes and buildings have been destroyed so far, at last count. More than 900 people have been evacuated. Thankfully, though, no reports of any injuries or deaths.

The fire is burning through timber and grass. This part of Washington about 75 miles east of Seattle is agricultural land. So, the wildfire is burning in both residential neighborhoods and farms.

We met one woman who was desperately trying to rescue her horses from the fire's path and had to leave some livestock behind.

BANFIELD: You know, we had that sound bite ready to go, Jeff. Sorry the tape didn't role there, Jeff, but let me ask you real quickly. When we're talking about the livestock, the damage and the destruction and the death, you mentioned it, thank god, nobody hurt so far, but how many homes did you say were destroyed? I had counted only, I think, an hour ago, 60, but think that count is up?

DUBOIS: Yeah, we have about 70 homes, we're being told, that have been destroyed so far, more than 900 people evacuated. One thing, Ashleigh, I wanted to tell you. Here in Ellensburg, the community is really coming around all those people who have been evacuated. I'm standing in the lobby of a Holiday Inn Express. Some guests here, just yesterday, had been evacuated and one of the employees wanted to do something to help.

So, she went to her manager. They went to Facebook. And in 24 hours, this is what they've had, an outpouring of support from the community, clothes, toys, toiletries. This is the kind of support these people have after being evacuated from their homes.

BANFIELD: Oh, Jeff, I mean, it's lovely to see that, but what a terrible story to have to bring to us and I hope things get better soon.

Stand by if you will for a second, Jeff. I want to bring in Chad Myers, our chief meteorologist.

So, Chad, I was reading up on what a lot of the fuel is on this fire. The grasses, the sagebrush, and then beetle-killed lodge poles. I don't know what that is.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We've had a lot of kill in the West for these trees and it goes from Utah through Montana and Idaho. You really, unless you live out there and you can see the number of trees that are killed, partly because of what was the old drought. It's not much of a drought in Oregon and Washington where Jeff was.

But these beetles have just infested these trees. They suck the sap out of these trees and then the trees have no chance of living and they die and they're standing up and then they're dead standing up and they are just a fire waiting to happen.

And there are so many fires across the West right now, all the way into Idaho, into Washington, Oregon and even some of the worst ones are into parts of Northern California, so I'll you what. It's going to be kind of an ugly couple of months here. This hasn't even started, really, to be the fire season yet.

Redding, big fire not that far from you, the Redding fire. Chips fire, this is the smoke we can see from the satellite. That is Northern California.

High temperatures today, look at Medford, 106 degrees. Think about fighting a fire when you're in the fire line and then it's almost 100 degrees on top of that. High temperatures in Sacramento, 98 degrees today. Not much drought out there, but there's an awful lot of stuff to burn.

BANFIELD: All right, Chad, thank you for that. We'll continue to watch these, obviously, as they continue to burn out.

Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BANFIELD: A quick reminder for you, if you're heading out the door, you can take us with you. It's that easy. On your mobile phone or even if you're heading to work, you can dial up on your desktop, that computer-thingy that you have. You just go to CNN.com/TV. All the instructions you need are right there and, trust me, I'm an idiot and I can do it. I know you can, too, as well.

Let me take you overseas for something that's been developing this morning that really caught our eye. In Syria, the rebels have taken the battle to the heart of that country, Damascus.

A bomb exploded near a hotel there. Not just any hotel, it was a hotel that was housing U.N. monitors, the people who are supposed to be watching what's going on there. Three of them were hurt. The U.N. says that none of its members were hurt badly, though.

Rebels claimed responsibility, saying the government was a nearby military complex, so that's a bit of a twist from the usual happenings there.

But, as usual, the government blamed the bombings on armed terrorists, not necessarily rebels, but terrorists.

So far today, at least 50 people have been killed in fighting across that country.

And with no end in sight to the civil war that is raging in Syria, there are new allegations now from here, this side of the ocean, from the Obama administration that the government of President Bashar al-Assad is getting some sweet help from Iran.

These are pretty tough words and they're the latest words coming from our defense secretary, Leon Panetta.

Our Barbara Starr from the Pentagon joins us now with the very latest. This is a heck of an accusation that there are Iranian boots on the ground in Syria, training people.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ashleigh, the secretary of defense isn't really pulling any doubts or any punches about all of this.

The U.S. now believes, according to him, that Iranian trainers, forces, if you will, are inside Syria on the ground. I want to take you right to what Panetta is saying about all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY: It is obvious to both General Dempsey and I that Iran is playing a larger role in Syria in many ways, not only in terms of the IRGC, but in terms of assistance, training.

There's now indication that they're trying to develop or trying to train a militia within Syria to be able to fight on behalf of the regime. (END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Much of the same thing that Iran tried back in the war in Iraq, Iranian forces on the ground inside Syria, training the regime forces.

Why are they doing it, Ashleigh? Well, the Pentagon believes it's an indicator that Bashar al-Assad's forces after 18 months of war are getting exhausted, worn out, their equipment is getting worn out, so they need some of this outside help to train up a whole new round of forces so they can carry on.

As for the opposition, the Pentagon says it can now confirm, yes, it believes, a few days ago, the opposition shot down their first Syrian fighter jet. Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: Well, and the video sure showed that, so it's nice to have that confirmation, Barbara.

But let me just ask you really quickly, in Mecca in Saudi Arabia, right now, is the Organization of the Islamic Conference. This latest comment from Leon Panetta and the suggestion that Iran is doing this, it can't be going over well in this conference when so many Arab states disagree with what Bashar al-Assad is doing.

STARR: Well, yeah, right. I mean, isn't it extraordinary. You're absolutely right.

This Islamic conference of some 57 nations going on in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, right now. Very serious business for the nations that are attending there, Iran claiming to be part of the effort to find a solution. You see the Iranian leader there with some of the other leaders.

But, look, this is happening, while everyone's looking for a solution, Panetta is pointing out that the Iranians are inside Syria stirring up, in his belief, more violence, more trouble inside that country.

So, even with Iran's own neighbors, this just is so extraordinary that Iran would be doing this and doing it at a time when it causes such international embarrassment at that conference.

BANFIELD: All right. Barbara Starr, thanks very much for that. Appreciate it.

I want to take you to another story now that straddles the continents and it has to do with our Bill Gates. He is on a mission -- are you ready -- to rebuild the toilet. I know it sounds odd, but hear this out.

The experts are saying that a 1.5 million children die every year because of poor sanitation and just simple lack of access to a toilet. So, because of that, the Microsoft co-founder issued a challenge to universities to create something new that works better, as part of a worldwide effort to improve sanitation and, hence, save lines. Apparently, now, we have a winner, which is great news, and our Zain Verjee who's been following this story can tell us all about the contest.

At first, it sounded like a punch line, Bill Gates looking to improve the toilet, but this is really serious stuff. Walk me through it.

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it really is serious because something like 1.5 million kids die from disease because of unsafe sanitation around the world, every single year.

So, here was the criteria. No running water, OK? This "loo," toilet, in the 21st century cannot have any electricity. It has no septic system and it should only cost 5 cents a day and it's got to be green, you know, environmentally friendly, that is. And, basically, turn solid waste into energy.

So, a lot of scientists are competing for this and they're looking at basically turning waste into things like electricity and into charcoal, things that can really help the people and be sustainable in the environment in which people live in. And given the developing country, this would be an absolutely major breakthrough on the health-front.

There's going go a toilet fair, Ashleigh. We can look forward to that.

BANFIELD: Do they have a winner?

VERJEE: No, they're still testing it out. They about a -- they have some time to figure it out, so it's a project that's in the making, $370 million, and it's ...

BANFIELD: Here I was thinking you were going to do a show-and- tell for me.

VERJEE: And the winner is, yes, yes.

BANFIELD: We're going to follow up on that, but I want to switch gears because there was another great international story that we saw. If you're a smoker or even if you're not a smoker, people can usually see just how the labels on cigarettes have changed over the years and, in Australia, there's been a huge ruling about what cigarette packs can look like when you go to the store to buy them. Tell me what's happened.

VERJEE: Right, now, take a look at this, all right? You go into the shop or the store. Here's what you'd normally see. So, now, you see it and, in Australia, you won't. You're going to get cigarette packs, OK, that are basically blank.

So, Australia is doing something that the rest of the world has not done before. They're taking on "Big Tobacco" and they have done it successfully. They want absolutely no branding, no advertising of any tobacco companies on this. And what they're going to have instead is some really awful, horrible images of what smoking can do to you. So, they're going to show cancerous organs, people that have lost their eyesight, anything to deter people from smoking.

So, obviously, the tobacco companies are really mad about this. They're talking about their intellectual property rights. A lot of them already want to sue over this and they're saying that, anyway, you can do this, but it's not going to reduce the amount of smoking that people will do anyway.

Nonetheless, the Australian officials that pushed for this are happy. The health officials are glad. Parents are thrilled for addiction for their children, hopefully, they say, will go down, so it's a really significant move, being watched by the rest of the world.

And, in the U.S., one-in-five people, according to the CDC, die of smoking a year.

BANFIELD: Yeah, hold that up again. I'm just trying to think of the poor convenience clerk who has to find out what kind of cigarette you want to buy and you've got to just take a big, old guess. All right, Zain.

VERJEE: Nothing.

BANFIELD: Thank you, my dear. I do appreciate it.

And one last addendum here to Zain's report. Last year, the United States unveiled nine, graphic health warning labels, the kind that Zain was talking about, and they have to cover half of the package of the cigarette. That's got to be implemented by this November.

But just half, not the whole thing, like Zain was showing us, which is basically the whole thing being blanked right out. And that joins 41 other countries around the world that have decided cigarette packages need to be more clear.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(AUDIO BREAK)

BANFIELD: Wow. Well, if he could see her now.

JONATHAN VAN METER, AUTHOR, "THE LAST GOOD TIME": He's disgusting.

BANFIELD: That was pretty horrible. But, you know, that changed things because people don't dare talk about those kids in the White House anymore.

VAN METER: That's true. I think one of the things Clintons will go down in history for may very well being the world's greatest parents. I mean, they did such an incredible job of protecting her from the likes of us, basically, and it's an amazing thing that she's decided to step out finally and do this.

BANFIELD: Let's talk a couple of things I read in the article that I loved. She talked about running and she said this about running. "It's one part of my life in which I fundamentally feel like the observer instead of the observed." My heart just sank.

VAN METER: Isn't that amazing? One of her best friends from childhood basically said that she, as a little girl, behaved like a person who was always being watched.

BANFIELD: She was.

VAN METER: She grew up in a fish bowl, but somehow she's magically survived it and turned into this incredibly lovely, fun, easy-to-be-around person.

BANFIELD: And all that, yes. But then, on top of that, and this is what's so surprised me. I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me with smart parents like those two. She is just remarkably articulate, poised, successful. She's on seven boards. She's actually a lecturer at the university. She's a graduate PhD student right now and I want to read this quote just so that you know how articulate this young woman has become.

She said, "I really wanted to work in the private sector. I felt as if I had no inherited understanding of that from my parents, but I didn't fundamentally care about denominating success through money. And think it's important to be in professions in which you care about the metric of success."

Whoa.

VAN METER: It's amazing. And one of the things that I loved about her is that she has digressions that I described as frequent and lengthy where she'll be telling a story, she'll digress and you'll learn so much in these digressions because she's got this big throbbing brain. She's so smart.

Huma Abedin said, she may very well be the smartest person I've ever met.

BANFIELD: Holy cow, 32-years old, too. I was thinking, yeah, she's probably 19 or 20. Thirty-two years old, married and pressure from her mom, Hillary, to have grand babies.

Jonathan, it's a great read. It's really, really terrific. It's so insightful and it's what you do best. I remember your Jennifer Aniston piece from a decade ago.

VAN METER: I wrote about you. I wrote about you.

BANFIELD: Now, let's not talk about that.

VAN METER: Remember when it was a scandal to wear glasses on television? Now, we're all doing it.

BANFIELD: Or dye your hair. Yeah, right. Oh, yeah, nice glasses.

Mr. Van Meter, excellent work. By the way, you can read the entire interview with Chelsea Clinton on Vogue.com, as well. But I recommend that you that September issue. It's awesome ballast because it's extraordinarily heavy. It's almost a thousand pages this year, right?

VAN METER: It's a cinder block, is what it is.

BANFIELD: And it hits newsstands, nationwide, on August the 21st. By the way, she is a total fox, so I ...

VAN METER: She really is.

BANFIELD: ... hope Rush Limbaugh is watching this interview and I hope he gets to see these pictures and see how poised, articulate and beautiful this woman has become. Thank you, Jonathan.

VAN METER: Thank you. This was great.

BANFIELD: I want to bring you now to a really -- what, that's not inspiring? Maybe this one will be inspiring, as well.

An 8-year-old girl, how she's turned her hearing difficulty into a complete advantage for not just her, but a lot of people. Dr. Sanjay Gupta introduces us to her in this week's "Human Factor."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAMANTHA BROWNLIE, WROTE A BOOK ABOUT HEARING LOSS: It's mostly about my hearing aid, what I do in life.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Samantha Brownlie is 8-years old and she's already a published author.

S. BROWNLIE: I have a hearing aid. I wear it in my left ear.

GUPTA: Her book, which she wrote at the ripe age of 6, is about how she copes with hearing loss.

S. BROWNLIE: Some people have it, problems, different problems that they have in life, but they don't really want to share it. But I like to share it.

GUPTA: Samantha and her 11-year-old brother, Sean, both were born with damage to ears in the inner ear, permanent damage in both ears, but at an age when taunting from their peers could shatter their self-image, Samantha and Sean are undaunted.

LISA BROWNLIE, MOTHER OF SAMANTHA BROWNLIE: I never saw it as a disability. It's just a factor. I mean, I wear glasses. I don't have a sight disability. I just need help with my vision.

GUPTA: Without the word "disability" weighing her down, Samantha found it in her to write and illustrate this book.

S. BROWNLIE: It helps me hear better because it makes the sounds louder.

GUPTA: It's called "Samantha's Fun F.M. Book." Her name is on the cover.

L. BROWNLIE: I just thought it was a wonderful, you know, project at first and then it sort of took on a life of its own.

GUPTA: A life of its own, including sales of Samantha's book on Amazon.com ...

S. BROWNLIE: Fifty million in this country have hearing loss.

GUPTA: ... and this PSA from the Hearing Health Foundation.

And, though she has many years ahead of her, Samantha has advice for children and adults about how to overcome.

S. BROWNLIE: No matter what happens, I just try, try, try. You can help someone else with it.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: OK. From the love-to-hate file, if you're fed up with what many regard as the do-nothing Congress, guess what, you have a lot of company. Check out the latest Gallup poll. 10 percent approval rating. 10 percent. This ties the all-time record low from last February, and that's the lowest rating in Gallup's 38-year history of this metric. Now, take a look at this graph. Don't bash the other party because the low opinion of lawmakers on Capitol Hill has been constant, equal disdain for Democrats and Republicans.

Wolf Blitzer joining me now live.

This is something the Democrats jumped on right away when Paul Ryan was named at the V.P. running mate because they say, guess what, he's from Congress and we know how people feel about Congress right now.

WOLF BLITZER, HOST, THE SITUATION ROOM: That number has been steadily going down. You saw the graphic go down, 24 percent a year or two ago, down to 10 percent. I always wonder, who are these 10 percent who approve of the way Congress is actually doing the job.

(LAUGHTER)

Are they relatives of various members? I've spoken to so many members and leaders, including leaders of the House and the Senate in recent years, and I have asked them, if a pollster came to you and said, do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job, most of the leaders say they disapprove themselves.

(LAUGHTER) So there's a problem there. I don't know how to resolve the problem.

BANFIELD: Yes, who are they.

BLITZER: But clearly there's a problem. I get back to the point, who is the 10 percent who like how they're doing their job.

BANFIELD: Excellent point.

I want to move on to the big talking point today. Joe Biden out on the campaign trail. He's known as the king of gaffes. This was a major gaffe, and by the campaign account, not a gaffe at all. The whole issue of "unchained" when he's referring to a room that's predominantly African-American. And it's not the only time Joe Biden has had some major gaffs. I wanted to go into the archives and show some other ones. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You've got the first sort of mainstream in African-American, who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man.

You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I heard a pundit, who I thought least likely to say this, say Joe Biden doesn't have a racist bone in his body but he's like that insensitive uncle, the drunk uncle, who doesn't get it or hasn't got the sensitivity. I'm waiting for the absolute outrage that doesn't come from the political campaigns.

BLITZER: Joe Biden is a really intelligent guy. He's got a wealth of experience. Occasionally, as you pointed out, he says something he wishes he could take back and do a re-do, if you will.

But having said that, I will point out, I've covered a lot of politicians, including the best in the business. All of them occasionally have a gaffe. They say something they wish they could redo. Mitt Romney's statement, corporations are people too. I'm sure he wishes he could re-do his statement. Remember Barack Obama when he said there were 57, 58 states. He wishes he could re-do that.

When you're talking so much -- and you and I, we're talking all the time too.

BANFIELD: Yes.

BANFIELD: Have I made many gaffes? Sure. You? Of course. We all do. It comes with the territory. When you're constantly talking, as Joe Biden and these other politicians, you're going to make some mistakes. That just comes with the territory. BANFIELD: It feels like he's doubling down on this one. I'll be interested to see how this plays out on so many levels.

Wolf Blitzer, thank you. I always look forward to these chats with you. And I look forward to your show 4:00 p.m. eastern right here only on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: This is a really, really big day for a lot of young, undocumented immigrants in this country. There's a reason it's a big day. It's the first day the federal government is accepting applications to defer their deportation, which means hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants who came here as children may now be able to stay, at least for a little while, and could work without being deported. There's a catch though. At least one catch. This will only last for two years. But, hey, it's two years.

Let's get straight to Miguel Marquez who's in Los Angeles right now at an immigrant rights organization in downtown L.A.

Wow. I did not know there were that many people behind you. It looks like people are really jumping on this opportunity.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes. To say they're excited is an understatement. To say they're not sure what's going to happen is also the case.

Let me show you the line here. We're in front of Shirlo's (ph), one of the biggest human rights organizations for immigrants in Los Angeles. About 200 people in line.

It's 8:30 in the morning in Los Angeles. They don't start processing applications for another two hours. They expect to have about a thousand people in line.

These young women have been showing off their documents all day. These people have their diplomas here. The things that they will need are diplomas. It's anything to prove they were here prior to age 16. Only people ages 15 to 31 can apply. But here at Shirlo (ph), this organization, they expect that they're going to take applications for about 10,000 people in the weeks to come and across Los Angeles. It's going to be massive. The school district believes there are as many as 218,000 in the L.A. county school district who may fall under the guidelines under the basis of this program -- Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: I imagine the mood is happy and people are very excited obviously. However, when it comes to immigration, it's not an easy topic. There are a lot of people who don't like this policy. They say we don't have enough jobs in the country for legals, and when it comes to illegal immigrants, it's just not fair. What are people in line saying then?

MARQUEZ: I want to bring someone in. This is Martin Bustos (ph). He came here from Mexico when he was 21. Is that correct? There are a lot of people who say you're here working. If you get legal status you'll be taking jobs away from America. How do you respond?

MARTIN BUSTOS (ph), ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT APPLICANT: It's jobs people don't want to take, and the jobs are restaurant workers. And people that work there work really hard. We're like everybody else. We're humans, we've got families, we've got bills to play.

MARQUEZ: When you came here, do you feel you have a chance as mump as anybody else or do you think it's unfair for them to make that claim?

BUSTOS (ph): Everybody has an opinion. It's how we were raised. Everybody has opinions to say whatever they want.

MARQUEZ: Thank you very much.

Ashleigh, this place is going to be extremely busy throughout the day. They expect at least a thousand people throughout the day if not more -- Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: And, Miguel, he's going to need luck. Honestly, the paper process alone is pages and pages, and instruction alone are pages and pages, so it is tricky to say the least.

Miguel, thank you.

For anyone wondering how much is this going to cost the taxpayer, 465 bucks, but it's an application fee those people each have to pay to fund the administrative costs of that program.

If you're looking for the application forms yourself, we have the information for you. Forms and applications are posted on the government website uscis.gov/childhoodarrivals. You can Google that. They handle all the immigrations for this country.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: If you like to play the odds, the lottery, you're not going to want to miss this. The Powerball jackpot has grown to $320 million. And if you're in one of those states where you can get that ticket that drawing is today.

Our Jason Carroll is in New York.

My guess is he's bought a few tickets and perhaps bought a few for me as well.

I'm curious how long the lines are. Are there people out the door like see these crazy lines all the time?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes. You know how it is. You can buy tickets in so many places.

We've seen a steady number of people coming in, especially now that we're getting close to the lunch hour, including Rosemary Matthews. She told me a few minutes ago, she said, I know what the odds are, but you have to be in it to win it.

If you win $320 million, Rosemary, what would you do?

ROSEMARY MATTHEWS, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT: Take care of family and friends.

CARROLL: And new friends like me?

MATTHEWS: Absolutely.

CARROLL: Maybe and Ashleigh, and new friends like that?

MATTHEWS: You and Ashleigh are definitely included my group of friends.

(LAUGHTER)

CARROLL: Do the odds ever bother you with something like this or do you just have a good time?

MATTHEWS: It's a good time out to play. That's all it is.

CARROLL: Nice to dream about it, too.

MATTHEWS: It's a wonderful dream and we all need dreams.

CARROLL: We certainly do.

Rosemary, thank you very much.

A lot of dreams. $320 million would buy a lot of dreams. Two of the luckiest states, just to let you know, happen to be Indiana and Wisconsin. They've already had 46 winners in Indiana, 41 in Wisconsin.

BANFIELD: Wow.

CARROLL: If you live in those two states, maybe you've got better shots.

BANFIELD: And I think Wisconsin is a swing state. Wow. What a lucky state.

(LAUGHTER)

Tell Rosemary I'm her long-lost cousin.

And, Jason, would you pick me up five? I'm good for it. You know where I live.

(LAUGHTER)

Jason Carroll.

CARROLL: I'll let her know.

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: Thank you.

By the way, as Jason mentioned, it's the drawing tonight so we'll see if Jason or I or anyone else in Wisconsin out there wins.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: So, what happens to your case, your legal case when you are a prosecutor, and the judge looks at you and says, with an instruction, not to do something, and as the prosecutor, you go ahead and do it anyway? I can tell you this, it is not good. It is really not good. And it can lead to a disaster, a mistrial, which is really, really not good on so many fronts. And it is what could have happened in the Drew Peterson murder trial. And it all hinged today on something terrible that went down in the courtroom. But when the prosecution said something that it wasn't supposed to say, and the defense said, I want a mistrial, the defense has backed away and withdrawn the request for the mistrial. What on earth happened? And what on earth did this prosecutor say that got this judge so revved up? Well, you know, it was critical, and the witness was no joke either. And it is like the lynch pin witness in the case.

And joining me now is defense attorney, Joey Jackson.

First of all, in the Drew Peterson case, he is on trial for the murder of his?

(CROSSTALK)

JOEY JACKSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Third wife.

BANFIELD: There is a fourth wife who went missing.

JACKSON: Who went missing?

BANFIELD: He is a suspect?

JACKSON: Yes, he is.

BANFIELD: But he is not charged with that one.

JACKSON: No. And they are not allowed the talk about it. And of course, the prosecution wants to talk about it, because it muddies him up. And if your fourth wife is missing and you're on trial with the third one, what is the correlation?

But the defense is calculating that if the judge had declared a mistrial, he would have declared it without prejudice. What does that means in English? They could retry him and you establish a new jury and go through it again. I think the defense is confident in the jury and confident to date how the case is proceeding, they withdraw the request --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Why did they do it in the first place?

JACKSON: Well, because -- you change strategy. And if a judge tells you -- because what happens you have a pretrial motions, and before the trial, the judge establishes the ground rules as to what the witness can testify to. And sometimes the evidence is prejudicial. That means it hurts your client and impairs their right to a fair trial.

BANFIELD: Well, you want to think, if you are a prosecutor, all your evidence is prejudicial.

JACKSON: Exactly.

BANFIELD: But some of it is --

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: All of it is unduly prejudicial, but the judge said this is order protected and the witness is very compelling, a police witness talking about the fact that --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: A restraining order.

JACKSON: Yes. The defendant came over to her house and threw her on the ground, said I could kill you, ultimately took out a knife and said, I can't do it. But what happened is --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: OK, well, don't gloss over that.

(LAUGHTER)

Hold on, hold on. This is a former --

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: A colleague of his, meaning that Drew Peterson's colleague from the Bolingbrook Police Department who responded to a domestic dispute.

BANFIELD: To Kathleen Savio (ph), who is dead.

JACKSON: Yes.

BANFIELD: And he is charged with her murder.

JACKSON: Yes.

BANFIELD: And the police officer, who interviewed the dead victim, said he showed up -- or the story is, from the dead wife, as I interviewed her, he showed up in a SWAT uniform. JACKSON: That's right.

BANFIELD: And he shoved me to the ground and she said, you go ahead and do what you came here to do, kill me.

JACKSON: That's right.

BANFIELD: He allegedly says, where do you want it? And she said in the head. And then she alleges, before she's murdered later, that he allegedly -- that she turned her head and he said, I can't kill you. All of the allegations. but the witness on the stand who said it to the jury.

JACKSON: It is important because it is a prior bad act. And that means the jury could infer, if he had ill will towards her, he would do something or be capable of killing her later.

BANFIELD: So I thought that we were going to be talking about a mistrial today. It's not going to be a mistrial, at least not yet. We will still go ahead. We are three weeks into this thing?

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: From what you know, from the evidence, does he have a fighting chance?

JACKSON: Well, I think that he does. The defense is banking on the fact that there is no physical evidence. There's hearsay evidence about things that he could have done and wanted to do and didn't want to represent harm to, but there is no clear cut evidence, and that is what they are banking on.

BANFIELD: No physical evidence of a murder, because they did not believe she was murdered at the time. They had to exhume her body and then decide, oh, yes, this woman was murdered.

Joey Jackson, can you stick around?

JACKSON: Of course.

BANFIELD: I've got a whole lot more. So stick around.

We have another case. This, you won't believe, in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: All right. An update to a legal brief we brought you on Monday. A young man by the name of Chavez Carter, young African- American arrested July 28th handcuffed and placed in the back of the police car and, lo and behold, he ends up dead. How? A Gunshot to the temple. And he is handcuffed. Think about that for a moment. He is handcuffed and he dies of a gunshot wound to his head.

Joey Jackson is back.

I had my hands behind my back because I am trying to do this while I am talking to you. And we did this demonstration --

JACKSON: We did.

BANFIELD: -- on Monday. Put your hands behind your back, and pretend they're handcuffed and hold a gun and see if you can shoot yourself in the temple.

JACKSON: Very difficult.

BANFIELD: It's was really difficult.

JACKSON: Very difficult.

BANFIELD: Very difficult and some say impossible.

JACKSON: Yes, and the police video.

BANFIELD: Exactly. The police in Jonesboro, Arkansas, say this was a suicide. Now they're backing this up by releasing a video a guy with a reenactment.

Let's show it.

It is silent, so I will walk you through it. This man is the same height and build, and the cuffs are the same. The gun that he actually is using or at least holding is a .380 semiautomatic Cobra, which is the same one that Chavez had. And look at this. He is doing it. I don't know if he is good at yoga or if you are in that seated position in that particular car --

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: Or if he double-jointed or something else.

BANFIELD: There is a lot to this.

JACKSON: Yes, a lot to this. And they will recreate it and whether that depicts what really happened, Ashleigh, we don't know, and we won't know, and there is 100 ways to spin it. The police are saying it was a suicide, they are saying they did not act inappropriate, and so they are releasing it for their benefit.

BANFIELD: When they say it was a gunshot wound to the temple, what about accidental suicide? Moving the gun and it goes off.

JACKSON: That's possible, too.

BANFIELD: Couldn't the forensics tell the story?

JACKSON: I think they will. They will look at the trajectory, how it entered and exited, they'll look at the gun powder and the paraffin and everything else and figure it out.

BANFIELD: We will have another update, Joey Jackson.

JACKSON: That's right. BANFIELD: Thanks for being here today.

JACKSON: With hands behind the back.

BANFIELD: And thank you for the demo.

JACKSON: You're welcome.

BANFIELD: I appreciate it like you don't know.

By the way, the victim's family has hired an attorney and they will conduct their own investigation, too. So stay tuned.

But in the meantime, NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL starts now.