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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Iraq: Terror Stronghold Ramadi "Liberated" From ISIS; 11 Killed By Storms In Dallas Area; Texas Tornadoes Destroy Hundreds Of Homes; Trump Slams Bill Clinton As "Sexist"; Top Scandals and Controversies Of 2015. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 28, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:35:02] LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Turn back on. That's going to take a bit longer so yeah it -- we're not true with despite just yet but it's a very good sign and I can understand why they're celebrating.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: So they took back the city, and now they will have to rebuild the city.

Gentlemen, I'm going to have to ask both of you this question but first you, Colonel Francona.

In the new CNN ORC poll, who is winning the war on terrorism, and according to the poll, terrorists -- our respondents said on 40 percent, neither side, 40 percent, the U.S.18 percent.

But when we talk about this war on terrorism, that is so vague. What are we talking about? Are we talking in Iraq? Are we talking in Syria? Are we talking now here on the streets of America now that we're seeing a sort of isolated incidents or even in Paris and Western Europe?

The war in terror, who is winning, and what is it that they're winning?

Lt. COLONEL RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it is a perception problem and we say the war on terrorism. That's the world of at large. What we're talking about here, you know, this ISIS in Syria and Iraq and in the region.

And people tend to conflate what goes on. They see what happens in Paris. They see what happens in Sinai. They see what happens in Ankara, and they say, "Oh my god, the war -- we're loosing the war." When in reality it's a series of wars. It's a series of conflicts and we look at each one of them. You address them individually, and as the general was saying, more typically talking about Ramadi, I think this is a success story for the Iraqis and I think we have to take that for what it is.

So, you know, the polls that asked the question is the war on terrorism, much too broad of a topic. I think we need to focus on how -- what we are doing in each individual conflict.

FEYERICK: And General Hertling -- please go.

HERTLING: If I can to that. Rick is exactly right. You know, I think when the question was asked of most Americans they immediately reverted to ISIS. That's the big terror boogeyman right now.

So everyone was saying are we winning this and truthfully, you know, it's been challenging for the last year. This has been an organization that has stood up within the last few years, and it's been a tough slog as we gotten some things together.

But there are terrorists, Ansar al-Sunnah, Jaysh Al Islami. You know, you can name about 30 terrorists organizations all over to the world, and terror is an act. It's not a political factor. And it's going to be difficult to stamp out anyone who wants to commit a terrorist act.

FEYERICK: There's a huge stream of thought that says that and this should have been always at deemed, a war on extremism and violence, not just on terror which is so broad and can cover so much.

But when you look at what is going on, and the U.S. had allowed us to again and again in terms of the fall of Ramadi. They had air strikes. They have -- they were training the Sunni tribesmen. They've got special forces now that are in there which are effectively boots on the ground. But there's also a move towards a peace process.

In Syria, which really of calling a lot of the shouts in terms of ISIS, and where they're going, and what they're doing. So general, do you think that in fact, perhaps there could be some resolution of, or it seems that there are positive developments or am I just being too optimistic? And then I'm going to you lieutenant colonel.

HERTLING: Yeah I'm with you, Deb. I'm an optimist by nature, as well and Rick will know more about Syria but what I'll tell you is when we started seeing things turn around in Iraq, it was because the government started changing, and started treating their people of all sects and believes the same way.

It has become a patriotic, and a nationalistic fervor again. That's not happening in Syria, and until there's good governance in Syria, and until Mr. al-Assad there removes himself or shares his power in someway and treats all people the right, the same way. You're still going to have problems in Syria with terrorism.

FEYERICK: And so Rick, final word to you. You think about this U.S.- Russia sort of negotiated peace process that the U.N. wants to incorporate, but either Russia or Syria just took out a major rebel leader. Does that affect what happens now?

FRANCONA: Oh, absolutely. And you know the general is absolutely right. I am an optimist when it comes to Iraq, but I am still very pessimistic about the future of Syria. And this recent act by -- and I believe it was the Syrians.

Syrians have really good intelligence. You know, at eastern suburbs of Damascus, they took out, you know, Zahran Alloush whose on moderate leader. He was acting when he's out and talk to the Syrian regime. Now the Syrian regime is taken out, so I think that they've hardened opinions on both sides. I think Syria is still a problem, whereas Iraq, you've got defined actors on each side.

In Syria, we still don't know who are the players are, and we can't even sit down with the Russians. The other super power and determine how we're going to approach a terrorist organization, so I think Syria is a real, real problem, and the solution is not on the horizon whereas it is on Iraq.

FEYERICK: Right so while ISIS may have at lost with Ramadi, they are making gains elsewhere including places like Libya so one step forward, two steps back.

[12:34:58] General Mark Hertling, Colonal Rick Francona. Thank you so much, rick and mark.

FRANCONA: Thank you Deb.

FEYERICK: And 60 million people in the path of a deadly storm. Increasing temperatures follow up devastating tornadoes in Texas. We will have the very latest on the severe weather throughout the south straight ahead.

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[12:38:37] FEYERICK: As many as 100 million Americans are facing a triple threat of very rough and violent weather.

The storm system now heading East could bring rains, high winds and even record snowfall. 43 people have lost their lives in the last week, as a result of this December storms system.

Meanwhile, one town is dealing with a one-two punch of tornadoes and snow. Residents in Garland, Texas, trying to recover after a twister killed eight residents there. Officials says 600 homes have been destroyed and leaving some families to deal with this devastation under frigid snowy conditions.

Let's bring in the Mayor of Garland, Douglas Athas. Mayor -- the mayor of Garland, Douglas Athas and mayor first of all our condolences. We know that you lost eight people from your town.

You've been touring the devastation. Tell me what you're seeing and tell me who you're talking to?

DOUGLAS ATHAS, MAYOR OF GARLAND, TEXAS: I'm talking to the residents but first I'm also talking to the first responders. I'm talking to the people that are at the federal level and the state level they're trying to help us as far as the federal assistance later on.

There is tremendous amount of destruction, and what you can see behind me right now, obviously is pretty bad, but it's homes, and in some cases, they are basically just totally gutted and the roof is gone and everything sucked out of them completely. I have talked to a number of residents that were in their homes, and some of the people in the apartments behind me that were here at the time of the tornado. They were hunkered down in the bathrooms and we are very blessed that we didn't have more injuries and more fatalities from this event.

But we've been through this search and rescue phase. We don't believe that there is any other why people looked in any of the 600 structures that were affected. We can't -- right now, say that they're not -- might not be that there'll be some other bodies discovered in the future, but we know that there is no one alive still left and trapped.

FEYERICK: And Mr. Mayor, what are some of the challenges that you are facing whether it be with electrical or gas, utilities, what are some of the challenges?

ATHAS: Well, the biggest problem right now, of course, is the areas with so much destruction, and so many limbs (ph) and downed power poles and everything else out in the streets and things of the nature.

We can't turn the electricity back on right now because of the people that were going through the houses. We expect the residents to be let in as soon as we can so they can start recovering their valuables.

We'll be as a city putting out dumpsters to be able to haul away the debris as soon as we can do that or we got to let the residence in to go through their things before we start that process.

So we've been through the search and rescue phase and now we really need to move into the cleanup phase and so we are transitioning from one to the others

FEYERICK: And you talked about cleanup -- I'm looking at that home behind you. Does that home stand or just that home did get knocked down? Is it sort of one and sort of door-by-door evaluation? And are you getting any sort of financial help from the state?

ATHAS: Well, these are apartments behind us and I'm sure that these will be totaled. The others be taken right down to the foundation and started over, but we're getting incredible assistance from all levels of the -- from the County level, from the State level and from the Federal level.

Congressman Sessions is here with me right now touring this, and he'll be talking to our team (ph) for as a later today.

FEYERICK: The families that you're seeing, where are they? I'm thinking about those who are going to have come back and try to salvage what they can but are they in shelters? Are they with other family members? Or did people seem to get where they needed to be before this hit?

ATHAS: They didn't get where they need to be before hit, because they really only had a moment's notice because this started really just South of the location that we are at right now, when the tornado touch down so very few people had more than just a seconds or a minutes' warning.

Those that ran and got to the safest place they could in their homes, of course, being in from Texas, we talk about tornadoes all the time, and people are familiar that they have to move very quickly, and I think that of course, that is constant training constant talking saved a lot of lives.

FEYERICK: And sir, when we talk about you, you had eight fatalities there in the town but what about the hospitals? Are they treating a lot of the injured folks as well? Do you know how many people may have been injured in this tornado?

ATHAS: I don't have the exact number, but it was in the 40s some people or something of that nature, and not a whole lot more of that.

If you look at the devastation around me, it is very hard to understand how so many people were able to gone through unscathed, but we are very blessed in that and very thankful, of course.

FEYERICK: While you hear people just running to their bathrooms to sort of shelter in place, and what a terrifying ordeal. We wish you all of the very best as you start the long process of cleanup and trying to salvage homes there at Garland, at Texas, Mayor Douglas Athas, we thank you for your time. Good luck.

ATHAS: Thank you.

FEYERICK: And Donald Trump is picking new sites. This time his any at former President Bill Clinton in the State of Virginia, we'll explain, next.

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[12:47:07] FEYERICK: Donald Trump is closing out the year with two new enemies in his cross hairs. The first is someone he's not even running against. The second, it is not even a person at all. Trump says that Bill Clinton is fair game if the former President plans to campaign for his wife, the Democratic presidential frontrunner.

Trump Tweet "If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband with his terrible record of women abuse while playing the women's card on me, she's wrong."

Trump also is leaded (ph) that the Republican Party of Virginia is requiring voters in that state primary to sign a loyalty pledge to the GOP and oath saying that they're Republican.

Bad Trump said, total mess. Our Senior Political correspondent Nia- Malika Henderson joins me now with more and didn't Trump sign his own pledge?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: He did. In that time his own pledge and here you have the state party in Virginia, the state Republican Party in Virginia essentially saying that voters there who can be any stripe of voters, it's an open primary on march 1st. The Republican Party down there saying they have to sign a nine-word pledge identifying themselves as Republicans, and Trump backers and Trump himself, they are saying that this will possibly limiting the people that comes to the polls who could be independents, who could be Democrat, who could be anyone who wants to participate in the process, so they are crying file on the state party there. And of course, the Trump campaign is also having difficulties with the RNC. This of course is different, because it's the state party in Virginia.

FEYERICK: And also Nia, Trump is basically called out Bill Clinton for what he calls women abuse. He's referring to the affairs Bill Clinton had. But Donald Trump shouldn't be throwing stones and see himself living in a glass house if you remember wife number two, right?

HENDERSON: Yes, he does live in a bit of a glass house on this one, and this is interesting, because you had from time to time, political figures try to bring up the these infidelities, well known infidelities on the part of Bill Clinton.

Now and it hasn't really worked. And in fact, it's usually backfiring and benefited Hillary Clinton who has had some of her best approval ratings right around the time that the Monica Lewinsky scandal was raging back in the 1990s. So here we have Donald Trump going to the way back machine, and bringing up what is well known about Bill Clinton who is a figure who is beloved among Democrats, and that is who will be campaigning in front of in Iowa and New Hampshire starting next month. His wife has talked about him as sort of a secret weapon, but it's obviously no secret of Bill Clinton is a master campaigner, and now that the Donald Trump is poking him, we'll have to see what the rejoinder is from Bill Clinton.

[12:50:01] FEYERICK: Do you think this is certain just preemptive in some levels basically trying to cut the air out from underneath Bill Clinton's tires to make sure that perhaps he doesn't gin up any support for the wife?

HENDERSON: You know, maybe. But I don't think it is going to work. Again, Bill Clinton will he will be campaigning among voters who really like him, who remember the 1990s quite favorably. So I don't think that it's going to work in terms of taking the wind out of Bill Clinton's sails. He's a masterful campaigner. He'll do a big favor I think for his wife, better than he did in 2008. I think his learned from some of those mistakes. But again, Donald Trump adding to his enemies' list, and we'll see how much it grows in the next year.

FEYERICK: Yeah, very interesting. All right, Nia-Malika Henderson, thank you. We appreciate your insights.

HENDERSON: Thank you.

FEYERICK: And they made us gasp, shake our heads and say huh? The top scandals and controversies of 2015 is next.

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FEYERICK: From a drug company executive who became the poster child for corporate greed, to a reality star's fall from grace. Scandal and controversy two things that were not difficult to find in 2015. In our top ten of 2015 series, Joe Johns look back at some of this year most jaw-dropping scandals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Number 10, most hated. Pharmaceutical company CEO Martin Shkreli makes our list. Not just because he jacked up the price of a drug to treat AIDS and cancer patients over 5,000 percent; also because he took too long to stop talking.

MARTIN SHKRELI, FORMER TURING CEO: Yes, I could see how it looks greedy, but I think there's a lot of altruistic properties to it.

JOHNS: Or tweeting, trying to make his case to people like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton who did not want to hear it. Shkreli was indicted for unrelated fraud and resigned before the end of the year.

[12:55:01] Number nine, state of denial. 2015 was yet another banner year for Illinois politicians in big trouble. Former house speaker Dennis Hastert got caught up in sexual misconduct and hush money allegations. Former congressman Aaron Schock resigned after misusing taxpayer money including to redecorate his office in the style of the Downton Abbey T.V. show. And Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel was on the ropes for his city's handling of police shooting video that somehow didn't go public until after the mayor got re-elected.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL (D), CHICAGO: I'm responsible. I don't want to shirk that responsibility.

JOHNS: Number eight: the year of family values.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a story of my family. We're the Duggars.

JOHNS: Conservative family man and reality T.V. star Josh Duggar quit the Family Research Council after admitting that while in his teens he molested four of his sisters. And then Duggar popped up when the Ashley Madison hacker started naming names, though he wasn't the only one. 32 million people buying into the Web site slogan "Life is short, have an affair".

Number seven, black like me.

The story of Rachel Dolezal was hard to watch, but impossible to turn away. President of Spokane's NAACP outed as white by her parents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you African-American?

RACHEL DOLEZAL, FORMER SPOKANE NAACP PRESIDENT: I don't understand the question.

JOHNS: No crime, of course. In a color-blind society, it wouldn't matter. But this is not that America. The telling part was the overheated reaction to Rachel's story that said more about our times than she ever could.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she's out of her mind, to be quite honest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At first I thought, you know, maybe this is a psychological disorder, but now I'm convinced that she's a con artist.

JOHNS: Number six, at least they're consistent. The U.S. Secret Service, the guys who protect the First Family seem to stay in the spotlight and not always for their heroics. Sometimes it's not even their fault.

This year some rocket scientists flew a drone over the White House that crashed on the lawn. What are you supposed to do about that? But then in March two senior agents who had been drinking crashed a car into the White House barricade. So there's that.

Number five, journalism's naughty list is anchored this year by former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, FORMER "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS" ANCHOR: I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire.

JOHNS: Who somehow managed to turn his credibility into a late night comedy routine.

Not to be forgotten, "Rolling Stone Magazine", which this year had to retract a story by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who managed take a serious issue of national concern and change the focus with her deeply flawed opus on the alleged sexual assault at the University of Virginia.

Number four, no sense of humor. Here's a question. Three top officials of FIFA, the governing body of professional soccer, are all traveling in a car. Who's driving? Answer, the police. It's almost not a joke considering so many officials who control the world's most popular sport have been implicated by the Justice Department for allegations of bribery, fraud, and money laundering. That joke was so not funny to FIFA that when one of its P.R. guys told it in public, he quit his job.

Number three. And speaking of sports scandals we can't forget Tom Brady of the NFL's New England Patriots who faced down allegations that made both a joke and a punch line. Grown men accused of playing with deflated balls.

TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: Our equipment guys do a great job of breaking the balls in. To me those balls are perfect, and that's what I expect when I show up on the field.

Number two, I'm Alice in Wonderland, and I approve this message.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a place like no place on earth. Some say to survive it you need to be as mad as a hatter.

JOHNS: When Lewis Carol wrote this fantasy classic, he could not have foreseen the unparalleled political Jabberwocky coming from candidates in both parties in the U.S. presidential race.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Everything I did was permitted by law and regulation.

JOHNS: Where being a leader can mean insulting millions.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They're rapists.

DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.

JOHNS: Even billions of people.

TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.

JOHNS: And the great thing is the general election is still more than ten months away.

And finally, number one, policing in the age of candid camera phone. It has dominated the headlines for more than a year separating the vast majority of officers just doing their jobs from those who abuse their power.

Nowadays, if the police report says a guy who got locked up or beat up or worst, was supposedly resisting arrest, pictures sometimes tell the rest of the story.

Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: And thanks for watching. I'm Deborah Feyerick. Wolf with Brianna Keilar starts right now.

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