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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Trump Stumps with Christie; Violence in Politics. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired March 14, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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


[12:00:00] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Love each other and we're going to do so well.

And, by the way, before we forget, Chris, so important tomorrow, North Carolina, you have to go out and vote.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Yes.

TRUMP: You have to vote.

CHRISTIE: Absolutely. And - and you've talked a lot at recent rallies about how you want to unify the country.

TRUMP: Right.

CHRISTIE: And how divided the country is now by this president and how you want to unify it. And I think people would love to hear about the way you wanted to unify.

TRUMP: Yes, the country is so divided, it's incredible. And, you know, it's very sad when you look and even - even when you have some of these protesters, the level - the level of anger from all sides, including the anger from our side. We're angry. Now, we're not angry people, I'll tell you that. We're not angry people. We're all good - we're good people. But there's a lot of anger.

And there's anger, Chris, at incompetence. There's anger when you look at the trade deals. There's anger when you look at our military, where we can't beat ISIS. We can't beat ISIS. And, you know, there's anger at the fact that America, the United States, it doesn't win anymore. We don't win on trade. We don't win with the military. We can't take care of our vets who are so important. We're going to take care of our vets.

Education is a disaster. Education. Common Core we're getting rid of, by the way. We're going to bring education locally.

And - but you just look at it. You just look at it. They're chopping away at the Second Amendment. We're not going to let that happen anymore. We're not going to let it happen.

And I have to tell you, healthcare, Obamacare is a disaster. We're going to repeal and replace it. We're going to repeal it and replace it. But - but, Chris, you know, the - a certain governor got up and spoke

after a presidential address and sort of alluded to the anger. And the next night I was at a debate, one of the debates. You know they say I've won every debate I think I have. I think - I think if I didn't, we wouldn't be here today, right? I would have been like the other people, out.

But - but the question was, it was Nicki Haley and she said, well, there's great anger, great - like it's a bad thing. And they asked me during the debate, Nikki Haley said that you and a lot of your supporters have great anger. Now, I'm supposed to say, oh, no, we don't have anger. We're wonderful people. We're so happy with the way the country's run. I said, wait a minute, I'm not going to - I'm going to tell the truth. I said, yes, I'm angry. Yes, the millions of people that are supporting Trump, and I'm supporting them, we're all angry because we're tired of a government that is run incompetently. We have incompetent people running our country.

And I said, we're tired of the Iran deal, where we give Iran a terror state, we give Iran $150 billion. We - we have prisoners in - prisoners in there for years. We should have never even started that negotiation until those prisoners were released, that I can tell you.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: So a unique look at a Trump event, this one in Hickory, North Carolina. Instead of this being just a rally, it is an interview. And you can see the interviewer is one New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who's standing by as Donald Trump made an acknowledgement that we haven't heard a lot about so far, there's been a lot of talk about violence at some of his events. He's accused the Bernie Sanders supporters of being violent in their protests. Others have said that he has incited the violence and that his protesters have become violent. Nonetheless, he just made the comment acknowledging that some of the anger has been from, quote, "our side," meaning the Trump supporters side.

We're going to continue to watch this rally. But there are a lot of moving parts, everyone. Hello, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome. This is LEGAL VIEW.

When I say moving parts, it's because, wow, we're on the march to Super Tuesday, folks. And it soon will be in the rearview mirror, but not before they crisscross yet again all the states one more time now. It's the eve of a multi-state delegate sweepstakes. And by our count, the four surviving Republican candidates and two surviving Democratic candidates have a total of 20 - 20 campaign events on their schedule. That's just today. That's not tomorrow. Just today.

Hillary Clinton giving an economic speech in Chicago, which happens to be her hometown, which appears to be in play thanks to an unpopular mayor who' a long time Clinton confidant and employee in the White House, too. In all, three candidates are fighting to win their home states tomorrow. Besides Clinton in Illinois, Marco Rubio desperate to carry his state of Florida. Not looking good. John Kasich says if he doesn't win his home state where he's the governor, Ohio, he says he might just stay there and quit the race. Missouri and North Carolina round out the third Super Tuesday of the month with a total of 367 Republican delegates and 691 Democratic delegates in play for all of those contestants.

[12:05:10] At the moment, Trump holds a 91 delegate lead over Ted Cruz, with Rubio a distant third. Secretary Clinton is more than halfway now to the Democratic nomination in the count, thanks in large part to those magical unelected super delegates. It's confusing. Google it.

But we're coming off a weekend in which Donald Trump, far from taking any responsibility from violence at his rallies, says instead that he should be applauded for heading off worse violence. And he spoke again just moments ago with our Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (voice-over): Wolf, there's not much violence. You know, when we have 20,000 and 15,000 and, you know, many more than that in some cases, we had 35,000 people in Alabama, and, you know, there were no protests. And, you know, there' not much - first of all, let's not even use the word violence. There's very little disruption generally speaking. It's a function of the press. The press likes to say what they like to say. If one person gets up and starts shouting and the police walk that person out, they try and make it like it's a violence thing. It's not violent. It's a protester that stands up for (ph), probably a disrupter, because I think they're sent there by, you know, some people on the other side. But it's a disrupter. But there's no violence. I mean nobody's been hurt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Nobody's been hurt? That is definitely not the true. A few people have been hurt. In fact, several over the last couple of months. Hurt, truly, just a fact. You can hear the rest of that interview on Wolf Blitzer's program. It's going to air right after this program at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

And in the meantime, I want to bring in CNN's Chris Frates, who is live right now with Donald Trump in Hickory, North Carolina.

And just as you were sort of coming up to the start of this - what's being billed as an interview by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, it seemed like there was some activity in the hall behind you. Was it positive? Was it a fracas? Just sort of characterize for me the mood there and the situation at that rally.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hi, Ashleigh.

So we've got a protest going on that some protesters were led out. they had a sign that said, "turn away from hate." They held up that sign. And they were, you know, they were escorted out rather quickly without a lot of incident.

There's not been a lot of protesters here today. It doesn't look at all like St. Louis, where we, just last week, saw a number of protesters interrupting a number of times in a row. Not the case here today. This is a pretty mellow crowd. This is a smaller Trump event as far as Trump events go and there's not been a lot of disruption, not a lot of additional security either. The usual security that we see, Secret Service, local law enforcement, as well. But one interruption so far, but that's about it.

BANFIELD: And then what about the notion of security. This has been a big story now, the number of Secret Service that are at his events and then also local police that have made arrests actually and outside of those halls. What's the circumstance now? Is it any different than it has been?

FRATES: Well, I can tell you, Ashleigh, it is not as beefed up as we have seen at other Trump rallies. Of course, for the last seven or ten days, Donald Trump has had a private security team kind of going throughout these rallies and events looking for protestors and escorting them out quickly. And, you know, you continue to see that. But this is not a big event. There's not a lot of additional security here and there's not a lot of worry from the Trump people that there will be any big incidents here today.

In fact, we heard Donald Trump address the idea of protesters and he said, once again, OK, he told our Wolf Blitzer nobody's been hurt. Here he acknowledged, oh, maybe a person or two has been hurt. So acknowledging that there have been injuries at some of his events, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Good. Good. I mean I like to see that. Anybody can misspeak, but if you misspeak over and over again and you don't take it back, that's where it becomes a problem.

Chris Frates, I'm going to let you get back live to covering the Hickory, North Carolina, conversation interview/rally. It looks like the supporters are very excited about being there. Thank you for that, Chris.

And for the Clinton campaign, a very close call or even a loss in Illinois would be a much bigger blow than the delegate count would suggest. My CNN colleague Jeff Zeleny is with the former secretary of state in Chicago.

Jeff, it's not just Illinois, it's Ohio as well. It's the rust belt. It's the economics. It's trade. It's the economy, stupid. I always love that line. But walk me through why the polls suggest she should have nothing to worry about and yet all the talk on TV says, not so fast.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ashleigh, I think it's clear by this point in the contest that we shouldn't follow the polls because they're not always right. But let's look behind me right now. We happen to be on at just the right moment for Hillary Clinton to be taking the stage here west of downtown Chicago in a union hall. And there's no surprise, there's no coincidence why she's in Chicago. They are, you know, worried about Illinois. They do believe that Illinois is a place where they need to sort of get out this vote.

[12:10:14] And trade is a central issue, Ashleigh, among those white working class voters, those union voters. They believe that Bernie Sanders, you know, has a strong message. So Hillary Clinton is here checking every box and she's working harder for this race today in Illinois than she expected. Ashleigh, it's because of that Michigan wake-up call.

BANFIELD: Oh, yes.

ZELENY: They do not want to see what happened in Michigan, of course Bernie Sanders winning, happen here in Illinois.

BANFIELD: Michigan - yes, Michigan's a shock. I want to - I want to listen in, Jeff, if I can. Let's just be quite for a moment and listen to the secretary.

ZELENY: Sure.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Reminded of what a great American city, a great world city that it is.

And you just heard from Olita (ph). What a great story. This young woman who now is a proud union member, plumber and inspector just shows you what is possible in this country if we all do our part, if we all are committed to building not walls but knocking down barriers. That's what we've got to do. And that's what my campaign is about.

I want to thank your senator, Dick Durbin, who's here. I've worked with Dick in the Senate. I look forward to working with him if I'm so fortunate enough to be your president, to continue to make progress.

I want to thank your members of Congress. Congressman Davis and Congressman Rush and Congressman Foster and Congresswoman Kelly. Thank you. And your attorney general, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, thank you.

Well, tomorrow's the big day, my friends. And we are going to work until literally the polls close to try to persuade as many folks across Illinois to turn out and vote as we can. And you know what, people need to vote as though their future was at stake, because it is at stake.

I don't think the stakes have ever been higher or the rhetoric on the other side ever been lower. It is time for us to unite as a country, end divisiveness. Because we have work to do. And it's really important work.

I want to make sure we knock down all the economic barriers that stand in the way of every person getting ahead and staying ahead. I'm the only candidate who has laid out comprehensive ideas and plans to make sure we invest in our infrastructure and put a lot of people to work, particularly from the trades who can do what needs to be done in America.

I want to say a special word of appreciation to all the unions that help to build the middle class, help to build America. I am proud to have the support of so many unions and union members and I'm thrilled to be here with the plumbers and to have the chance to tell you, I'm going to fight for American labor, I'm going to fight for working people, I'm going to fight for good jobs with rising incomes.

You know - you know I'm always being told that when I talk to you, I should talk in a very calm and measured voice. And I should not get carried away with my intense feelings about what is going on in the country. So I do try to remind myself of that and try to lower the volume when I remember. But I am so worried about our country and what could happen if we don't band together to elect a president who can represent all of America.

And there's a lot going on that I just disagree with. You know, I don't understand why the Republicans won't invest in infrastructure. We have work to do. Our roads, our bridges, our tunnel, our ports, our airports, we're falling behind the rest of the world. And what we can't see, like our water pipes and our sewer systems, those are causing real problems.

[12:15:17] BANFIELD: So the woman who just last week said she's not a professional politician just acknowledges how she's trying to be more of a professional politician. The sweeping rhetoric gets loud from men and women aside. She's been criticized, when she gets loud it sounds shrill. This is something the female politicians have had to deal with forever. Anchors, too.

OK, so, coming up, I want to make sure that you get a broad swathe of all the activity of as many of the candidates as possible. And if there's two numbers I want you to remember over the break, it's these two, 99 and 66. It's not just a highway or a "Get Smart" character. These are the winner take all states for the Republicans. They're huge and they're huge for Donald Trump because if he takes those, it's pretty much over by many accounts. And then there's Bernie. Might Bernie actually take some of Hillary Clinton's words from last night and use them against her because, guess what, the Republicans already are. We'll tell you what they are, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:03] BANFIELD: We are talking Super Tuesday number three. That's tomorrow. I've got a fab four political panel. S.E. Cupp is a conservative author, blogger, also a CNN political commentator and all around very smart girl who wears glasses. Errol Louis is a CNN political commentator and political anchor for Time Warner Cable News. Also wears glasses. There's a theme here. Lou Gargiulo is the co-chair of the Donald Trump campaign in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, and Bakari Sellers is a former South Carolina state lawmaker who supports Hillary Clinton for president. He's also a CNN commentator.

Thank you all for taking the time to be with me today.

First thing I want to do is play a little mash up of both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders last night and our town hall, the CNN town hall, and how they both referred to Donald Trump. It's quick, so don't miss it. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is a pathological liar.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What Trump has done is like a case of political arson. You know, he has lit the fire and then he throws his hands up and claims that he shouldn't be held responsible.

SANDERS: He is saying, if you go out and beat somebody up, that's OK. I'll pay the legal fees. That is an outrage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, Lou, this would be the moment where I say, ouch, here are the Democrats going after the frontrunner in the GOP. But, wait, there's more, because it's not just the Democrats doing it, it's the Republican establishment as well. The super PAC, Our Principles, has just come out with this ad. They title it "Unifier?" I want to play it and then I'm going to ask you about it on the other side. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A Trump supporter is under arrest tonight after punching a protester at a rally.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The latest in what some believe is a growing hostile atmosphere at Trump events.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump's too reckless and dangerous to be president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: OK, Lou, I know that your candidate is used to getting it from all sides and he's done remarkably well despite that, but this is starting to look really uncomfortable for a lot of voters, the violence that's breaking out. Eleven percent in the recent - in a recent poll of his supporters, of Donald Trump supporters, has said this does change the metric for them. This does make them less likely to vote for him. Is this a concern for Donald Trump going forward?

LOU GARGIULO, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I think certainly it's a concern, but I don't think Mr. Trump is the person who's ignited it. I think there's a great deal of pent up frustration in the electorate right now and I think they're being charged up on both the left and the right because there hasn't been and intelligent discussion in this country about the issue of concern. Things like jobs and things like Obamacare and the list goes on. And I think that frustration now is turning into greater hostility. And I think it needs to be amped down and people need to talk in a compassionate manner about the issues. And I don't think Mr. Trump is fueling it. I think it's out there, it's been there, and people on both sides of the aisle need to tone it down and start talking about what concerns those of us in middle America.

BANFIELD: So, S.E. Cupp, I'd love you to jump in on this with this notion. Donald Trump is the master of taking something, doubling down on it, where everybody sees it as a negative, he will take it, he will not only double down on it, but he will turn it into his favor and we started to see the results of the violence. He's suggesting these are Bernie Sanders' organized supporters coming to his rallies and starting it. And that's a pretty - that's a tough message. Now it looks like there is an equivalency, and in some fields it's a false equivalency, but how do the other candidates handle that?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think it's only going to get worse. And what you've been seeing from the other candidates is a rightful total condemnation of it. I think Marco Rubio said that this is essentially chaos and anarchy and should really make us question what kind of - what kind of a leader Trump would be in a country that, as Lou says, is very angry.

Look, you know, it's what you do with that anger as a leader. And Donald Trump has decided to meet that anger with anger. You know, exploiting it, fomenting it, growing it, pitting people against one another. And I think it's just a matter of fact that he has suggested and encouraged violence at his rallies. Or do you meet the anger with resolve, with courage, with calm, with leadership. And I think clearly Trump has opted for the latter, at least through the primary. I don't know if he changes that tone in a general, but through the primaries, he's clearly relying on these moments of protest, exploiting these moments of protest to show how tough he is and to show how, you know, how strong he can be.

BANFIELD: OK.

CUPP: So I think it's not even just exploiting it. I mean he's - he's depending on these moments.

BANFIELD: Well, moving forward, the Democrats seized on it. They talked about it last night. I already played that. But there was something else that happened last night. And, Errol and Bakri, I want you to weigh in on this. Last night during the town hall, moving towards Super Tuesday and this rust belt, Hillary Clinton uttered a phrase with a qualifier but the phrase was "stand alone" and it might be a difficult thing for her to get beyond. I'm hoping I have the tape. Let's play it if we have that tape of what she said about coal miners. Have a listen.

[12:25:28] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country, because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right, Tim? And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: OK, Bakari, you know as well as I do, when you're cutting political ads, you cut it as thin and clean as you can. And already Rand Paul from Kentucky has come out with a tweet saying "@hillaryclinton brags about destroying coal country, just when I thought she couldn't be anymore unqualified." Those words, are they going to come back to haunt her, "we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of work," even though she qualified it?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN COMMENTATOR: No. I think that we also know as ads are chopped and spliced, ads are many times disingenuous. The fact of the matter is, this country is moving further towards and more towards green energy solutions and expanding the market. And what Hillary Clinton is talking about is preparing an economy for the 21st century and not leaving anyone behind, including the coal miners in Kentucky.

You know, Rand Paul can throw barbs all he wants. Rand Paul has to win his Senate seat again and we're not - I don't think the Hillary Clinton campaign is too focused on what Rand Paul has to say right now.

But this was not a - this was not a miss step by Hillary Clinton. Instead, this was somebody who had a plan looking towards the future. And the future in this country is clean green energy. And I don't think she should apologize for wanting to move in that direction and say we're bringing those people who are left out of that market, who - we're bringing those coal miners along with us. They don't have to fret.

BANFIELD: OK, so Errol Louis, weigh in on that. I don't know if Bernie Sanders will take a page out of the Republican's book, or Rand Paul's book, and use that as he goes into a critical set of rust belt states tomorrow, because he, theoretically, Errol, could be scooping away as many delegates as he can without the big win worry.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Well, right, Bernie Sanders is going to get delegates anyplace that he can. And in many cases, as we learned in 2008 following the example of Barack Obama, you could actually go into red states that are never in a million years going to go Democratic in the general election, but if there are pockets of Democrats there, you can scoop them up. And that's what Bernie Sanders will try and do.

I don't think anybody imagined that Kentucky was going to go Democratic in November, so there will be a limit to the damage that Hillary Clinton did to herself with that remark. It will probably hurt her in West Virginia as well. But the reality is, this is - it opens the door on an important environmental discussion that Hillary Clinton should probably jump into now that she's already sort of given up the game. She's kind of indicated what a lot of environmentalists are saying, which is that we're going to have to make some big decisions in the future about whether or not to do what they call stranding carbon resources underground in perpetuity. It's a very tough conversation, but, you know, that's kind of what was behind her comment and she probably ought to just own it and get into the discussion.

BANFIELD: I always love Christine Romans, our chief business correspondent's comment, doubling down on dead dinosaurs. A lot of d's, a lot of alliteration, but it does make a lot of sense. Errol Louis, S.E. Cupp, Bakari Sellers and Lou Gargiulo, thank you all. Lou, I hope I pronounced your name OK. Did I? It's a real tough one. Gargiulo.

GARGIULO: You did. Yes, you did.

BANFIELD: Oh, maybe it's a good Monday. It's going to be a Super Tuesday as well. Thank you to the four of you. I appreciate it.

SELLERS: I need some glasses. I need some glasses, Ashleigh. I need some glasses.

BANFIELD: That's what everybody's saying these days, Bakari. Get with the program.

At the top of the hour, you all - go away. I need you to come back next week - next - tomorrow, rather.

At the top of the hour, this guy sitting down with Wolf Blitzer to discuss Tuesday's primaries, as well as a recent string of protests that have been happening at his campaign events. It's the interview you do not want to miss, 1:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Back in a flash.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)