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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Delegate Race; High Court Nominee Controversy; Legal Immigrants Rush to Vote. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 17, 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] MAYOR KAREN WEAVER, FLINT, MICHIGAN: Sorry, then, you know, one of the things I have been harping on, because right now he's still in office. If you're sorry, you would do the right thing and give us what we need to have. You know, this is going to cost us - we know $1 billion. When you look at the people, the kids that have been impacted by this, the seniors that have been impacted by this, the people with compromised immune systems, when you look at the human cost, in addition to the infrastructure cost. If you're sorry, do the right thing. Give us what we deserve. We need money. We need to fix this problem. And while right now there is, you know, apologies are going on and finger-pointing is going on and we can't wait to see everybody that's responsible, because I know it's going to be more than one person and everybody that is found to be accountable for this -

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Mayor -

WEAVER: Yes, ma'am.

BOLDUAN: We're just running over time and we really appreciate you very much.

WEAVER: OK.

BOLDUAN: Thank you very, very much for coming on and reacting to what's going on, on Capitol Hill. Karen Weaver, thanks so much.

WEAVER: OK.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: "Legal View" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We are two days past Super Tuesday number three, and Missouri, gosh darn it, Missouri's still too close to call. Can you believe it? It's like Florida or something. By the way, not just for one party, for both parties. It is absolutely air-tight there.

For the Republicans, 52 delegates up for grabs and Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, neck and neck. Trump with 40.9 percent of the vote, Cruz with 40.7 percent. So now let's look at the Democrats. Is it just about the same? Yes. Seventy-one delegates at stake there. Hillary Clinton leading just ever so slightly, 49.6 percent of the vote. Bernie Sanders, 49.4. A squeaker. Here's where we stand on the overall delegate count. By the way,

Missouri not part of this, of course. For the GOP, Donald Trump leads with 662, followed by Senator Ted Cruz with 408 and Governor John Kasich, 143. Never mind that Marco Rubio number. He's out.

For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton, well ahead of Bernie Sanders. She now has 1,588 delegates. Bernie Sanders, way back with just 817.

I want to bring in CNN's senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, and CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston.

Mark, when you look at the delegate count, and let's just talk right now about the Republicans if I can, Donald Trump talks about walking away with this, that it's over. It's not necessarily over. You still have to make 1,237 delegates in order to clinch that nomination. What does Donald Trump have to do in terms of one absolute number, a percentage of the remaining delegates, to avoid a big problem on a convention floor?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, he needs to start - well, he needs to start winning and continuing to win and he needs to win by big margins. But let's just take a look at the numbers right now, Ashleigh, to kind of set the stage of where we are and where we could be.

Right there, as you see, Donald Trump has 662 delegates right there. Ted Cruz has 408. If you look at mathematics, Donald Trump has a little more than a 50 percent chance of getting to the magic number of 1,237, OK. But if he goes into Cleveland and he doesn't have the number, let's look at that situation right now, too. What would happen then? Ninety-five percent of the delegates would be bound, meaning they have to vote for whoever won the state and wherever those delegates were apportioned to. So on the - on the first ballast, you would see Donald Trump with his support and you would see Ted Cruz with his support. Marco Rubio, of course, is out of the race at this point. And you would see John Kasich with his support. I -

BANFIELD: But to be clear, Mark, wait, you're saying that they are bound. So even if they hate the person who won the contest where they come from, they'd have to cast their vote on the floor for him?

PRESTON: Yes, in the first ballot.

BANFIELD: OK.

PRESTON: Now, about 5 percent of those wouldn't have to do that, depending on how close Donald Trump is to getting to the magical number of 1,237. He potentially could get the 5 percent of whatever that amount of delegates are to come to his side, perhaps he could clinch - we would move on.

Let's assume that doesn't happen, though. Let's go to the second ballot and let's look at those numbers right there as well. Fifty- seven percent of the delegates now are unbound, meaning more than 50 percent could go as free agents and vote for whoever they would want to. So to your point, if there are delegates that don't like Donald Trump and they had to vote for him on the first run, well, the second run, they don't have to vote for him. This is where the horse trading gets very, very furious and fast.

Let's assume that we don't get any kind of conclusion, nobody gets 1,237 on the second vote. Let's go to the third one right there, 81 percent is unbound. We are talking about total chaos and mayhem at this point on the floor as they try to figure out who's going to be their nominee.

[12:05:05] Now, we talked about what's happening inside. I do think that it's important to note, and Donald Trump did say this yesterday in an interview on CNN "New Day," that there would be problems outside. You potentially would see violence and rioting. I think you are probably going to see that in Cleveland if we get to this situation.

BANFIELD: OK.

PRESTON: And let's not forget, there will be anti-Trump protesters there as well.

BANFIELD: And the last thing you just said, if we get to this situation. He can avoid that whole situation if he just gobbles up 57 percent of the remaining delegates. And when Missouri comes in, that will be a little bit lower. But around 57 percent of the remaining delegates as this race goes forward. If he clinches them, he'll get that number and none of what Mark Preston just said will matter, although Mark Preston matters a lot.

All right, Ron Brownstein, let me switch over to the Democrats for you, if I can be so bold. And I want to tell you two things. When it comes to super PACs, apparently the anti-Trump super PAC has now decided that it needs to retool how it tells its message, realizing that nothing has worked before. All of the attacks haven't worked. And on the Hillary side, Hillary's super PAC has decided that it's no longer going to bother wasting money, as they would consider it, on this primary race, but they did do this. They released a response to that ad that came out yesterday, that Instagram ad that came out yesterday, courtesy of Donald Trump, that showed her barking and making fun of her. Here is what the Hillary super PAC's response was. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ON SCREEN TEXT: When it comes to facing our toughest opponents -

The Republicans have the perfect answer -

MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC: Who are you consulting with consistently so that you're ready on day one?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (voice-over): I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain, and I've said a lot of things.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: (Laughing). ON SCREEN TEXT: We don't' need to be a punchline!

Vote for Hillary Clinton.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: OK. So I guess you could say that -

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Eight months, Ashleigh. Eight months of this.

BANFIELD: Oh, God, please don't tell me this is just the beginning.

BROWNSTEIN: Eight months.

BANFIELD: I just have one word, and I think that's touche.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BANFIELD: But I think that's myopic. I think this is going to go a lot deeper and uglier.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Sure. Yes, no, look, I mean a Trump-Hillary Clinton race would be, especially in this modern media climate, just grueling and enervating and exhausting and debilitating for both sides because it would be - you know, you have two candidates with very high negatives. Trump's even higher. Both of - both of whom would see enormous opportunity to kind of target the other.

You know, and in - and in some ways the Trump super PAC - anti-Trump super PAC on the Republican side, the ad particularly with women just quoting Donald Trump's statements about women over the years, I mean you could literally imagine that being lifted into the general election a playing nonstop in northern Virginia, Jefferson and Arapaho County outside of Denver, the I-4 corridor in Florida, anywhere where there are a lot of suburban swing voters.

So, I mean, there's a lot - there's a lot here for both sides to work with. You've got candidates with high negatives. And I think we have two campaigns that have shown they can be pretty hard - you know, sharp elbowed when they need to be. So, yes, it would be quite a - quite a spectacle. Not necessarily a -

BANFIELD: So -

BROWNSTEIN: You know, not necessarily an uplifting one, but quite a spectacle.

BANFIELD: Right. Ron, he would be battling Hillary, as you just laid out -

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BANFIELD: But he would also, it turns out, really be battling a lot of GOP senators at this point, as well.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Sure.

BANFIELD: They're not too keen. But you know what else?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BANFIELD: Not too keen on Ted Cruz either.

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

BANFIELD: They have just actually demanded that Ted Cruz apologize for attacks last year, last year, going deep into the well of things that have bothered them about Ted Cruz, when Ted Cruz called Mitch McConnell a liar.

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

BANFIELD: This just sounds like cannibalism.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, it's really striking. And the way our politics evolve - we talked about this before. There's a higher correlation than there used to be between the way people vote for president and the way they vote for Senate. Twenty-six states voted for Obama both times. Democrats now have 80 percent of those Senate seats. Twenty-two states voted against Obama both times. Republicans now have 90 percent of those Senate seats.

What that means is whether they like it or not, the Republican Senate candidates are going to be on the ballot with Donald Trump, and the Democratic candidates are going to be on the ballot with Hillary Clinton. Seven Republican Senate seats are up this time in states that voted twice for President Obama. Those are places where Donald Trump, with his high negatives among millennials, minorities and suburban women could face the most difficulty. So if you're Kelly Ayotte or Pat Toomey or Mark Kirk or Ron Johnson, you are looking at being bound to Trump whether you like it or not. And that is, I think, a very a challenging situation for Republicans. It's hard to imagine if Trump is the nominee and does not do well that Republicans will still hold the Senate.

BANFIELD: Ron Brownstein, thank you. Mark Preston, thank you. Extremely enlightening. Do appreciate it.

I'm going to switch from the politics of politics to the politics of justice, because the Supreme Court nominee that President Obama put forth yesterday, it was all Kumbaya in the Rose Garden and now the politics set in, in earnest. Coming up next, one of the senators who's been weighing in on this, Senator Al Franken from the great state of Minnesota, is going to join us to talk about the Democratic fight, the message going forward to the Republican senators who said, hey, not in an election year. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:13:48] BANFIELD: President Obama's pick to fill the empty seat that's sitting vacant on the Supreme Court of the United States is due on Capitol Hill today. It would ordinarily be described as a courtesy call, right? But today the courtesy will come almost exclusively from Democrats, meetings with Democrats, while just about all Republicans will greet Judge Merrick Garland with tightly closed doors. They say that a president with less than a year in office should be leaving a lifetime appointment to the next president. Through - over the years, though - over the years, both parties have argued both sides of that issue when it suited them. Here's Republican Senator and Judiciary Committee Member Orrin Hatch speaking to my colleague Jake Tapper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Yes, the president has absolute right to recommend and to submit who he wants. But the Senate has an absolute right to determine when that should be brought up. And I think almost all Republicans agree that it should be brought up after the elections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: My next guest also sits on the Judiciary Committee, but he's very much in the pro-nomination camp, pro-confirmation camp and pro- Merrick Garland, the judge who wants to be justice, camp. Senator Al Franken, the Democratic senator from Minnesota, joins me live now from Capitol Hill.

[12:15:08] Good to have you on the show again, senator. Thank you for doing this.

SEN. AL FRANKEN (D), MINNESOTA: Thanks for having me.

BANFIELD: So here's my question. I am seeing all sorts of people taking to live mikes and announcing press conferences today with their one-liners. And it reminds me that as we take a short break and a breather from the presidential primaries, we have a sub contest going now. We have people going out and saying, Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee, do your job. And then we have Republican supporters saying, it ain't fair, not when everything's so politicized. Why is your side wrong?

FRANKEN: Well, I think they are saying, don't politicize this, while they're politicizing it. You know, they say, let the people decide, let the voters decide. The voters did decide. They elected President Obama. The Constitution says the president has a four-year term. Scientists tell us there are approximately ten months remaining in the term. He - in the Constitution, if there is a vacancy that comes open and it happened because a justice died, then he - his job, his duty, is to make an appointment. And our duty is to provide advice and consent and vote on - and we do that through hearings, which we've done for 100 years. And Republicans have said, let the people decide, so we should wait until the next president.

BANFIELD: OK.

FRANKEN: Because we have a presidential election. But now some of them are saying, well, if Hillary wins, we will take up this guy, because he's a consensus guy. We will take him up in - in the lame duck. So now they've changed - let the people decide to, let the people decide unless they elect Hillary Clinton.

BANFIELD: OK, so -

FRANKEN: And it's getting a little absurd around here.

BANFIELD: Yes, well, it's getting absurd everywhere, I'll be honest with you. We have had decades and decades of what's come to be known as sort of tradition in the Senate, that a nomination and a confirmation shouldn't happen during an election year.

FRANKEN: That's -

BANFIELD: I think Joe Biden in 1992 even talked about it. It is a bit apples and oranges. He was talking about if the nominee could meet with Congress, if the president at the time could meet with Congress, then maybe that could be assuaged. I guess my question is -

FRANKEN: It was very different, Ashleigh, very different.

BANFIELD: It was very different. I acknowledge that. I guess my question is -

FRANKEN: In terms of the timing, too. You have to - you put it in full context.

BANFIELD: OK.

FRANKEN: When the - when he said this. He said this at the end of the last Supreme Court - of the Supreme Court session that year. So that was in late June. And he wasn't talking about filling a vacancy caused by a death. He was talking about a justice gaming the system by resigning after the session ended. No one - you know, no one games the system by dying. You don't do that. And this was -

BANFIELD: Do you think, though, that -

FRANKEN: That was a full 11 months -

BANFIELD: OK.

FRANKEN: That was a full - when Justice Scalia died, it was a full 11 months remaining. And also, you have to - you are - are not quoting Joe Biden in totality, because he said if we -

BANFIELD: I didn't quote him at all. I paraphrased the concept of what happened in 1992.

FRANKEN: You're paraphrasing him, not in his entirety, which is they -

BANFIELD: Yes. And so are - and so the Republicans. This is the argument. But my bigger question is, do you - I mean, look, don't tell me that this isn't a political thing all the time. The Democrats filibustered like mad the nomination of Sam Alito. And politics can come back to bite you in the you know what. Is there regret on the side of the Democrats for having done that because now it's come home to roost? FRANKEN: No. Well, Samuel Alito sits on the U.S. Supreme Court. Anthony Kennedy, who was confirmed in an election year in 1988 -

BANFIELD: But not nominated in that year.

FRANKEN: No, he was confirmed in that year.

BANFIELD: Correct, but not nominated in that year.

FRANKEN: If you start -

BANFIELD: That's something the Republicans are quick to point out, that it's a nomination and confirmation in all the same year.

FRANKEN: I know, but -

BANFIELD: You have to give them -

FRANKEN: OK, may I speak? You really -

BANFIELD: One hundred percent. Fully.

FRANKEN: OK, thank you. Thank you.

BANFIELD: This is the context.

FRANKEN: OK. The - they said - they have said that no - that no one has been confirmed in an election year. That's wrong. They - once you start setting a precedent of a time limit, like 11 months, well then why not go to 18 months. This sets a dangerous precedent to undermine - you're right, there's been too much politics in this. This, though, is trumping all of that by injecting politics by not doing any kind of meetings with the nominee, except now they are. So they're backing off of that.

[12:20:11] And that's why I think we are going to eventually, with Judge Garland, have confirmation hearings, because this guy is someone who I think the American people want to hear about and learn about. And from everything I have heard, including from my Republican colleagues, including from Senator Hatch, is an exemplary judge and -

BANFIELD: Exemplary judge and a good bipartisan record. And that's why you and I aren't (ph) having the conversations on the merits and the qualifications of this (INAUDIBLE).

FRANKEN: And that's why -

BANFIELD: We're having the politics discussion because that's what's happening.

FRANKEN: And that's why what Biden said, actually said, and you can paraphrase him, but he - what he said was, if we had - if the president consults with the Senate, and if you come up with a bipartisan - a consensus nominee, then, of course, we will do this. Well, that's exactly what Merrick Garland is. So it's really important to look at what senator - then senator, now Vice President Biden actually did say then.

BANFIELD: All right. Senator Franken, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

FRANKEN: Thank you.

BANFIELD: All right, up next, legal residents - legal U.S. residents rushing to get legal U.S. citizenship, all so that they can vote against Donald Trump. Could they be a factor in this election? And, by the way, who are they? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:26:08] BANFIELD: Election year in and election year out. Several million people in this country do not vote for the simple reason that they can't. They're not U.S. citizens. They're legal permanent residents of the United States who could become citizens but for whatever reason they haven't gone through the process. And there are many. But this year, many have actually found that reason. And this is Kyung Lah reporting on a growing group of citizens to be who cannot wait to cast their first-ever ballots because of the man on your screen, Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: :Number one with Hispanics.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Visible and loud, the ubiquitous protesters at Donald Trump's rallies, many of them Latino, holding and wearing their outrage. More subdued, but just as powerful, Edgar Ripoll protest. A native of Colombia and legal resident for 10 years, it's only now Ripoll feels the need to naturalize in time for November.

LAH (on camera): Do you have Donald Trump to thank for bringing you out here?

LAH (voice-over): "If I could become a citizen, I can vote against him," he says.

Across the U.S., from Florida to Nevada, to Illinois, to North Carolina, Latinos once content to carry green cards now seek citizenship because when Trump teed off his presidential candidacy with this -

TRUMP: They're bringing crime. They're rapists.

LAH: And this.

TRUMP: And who's going to pay for the wall?

CROWD: Mexico.

LAH: The federal government says naturalization applications jumped 14.5 percent compared to the same six months last year.

LAH (on camera): If all of those with green cards become naturalize citizens, what happens politically?

RAUL HERNANDEZ, CATHOLIC LEGAL SERVICES: You want a cliche? It's a game-changer.

LAH (voice-over): The numbers reveal that political power. Swing state Nevada has 73,000 Latinos who are eligible to naturalize. Arizona, holding its primary next week, 146,000. Florida, 637,000. Nationally, the U.S. is home to 4.5 million Latinos eligible to naturalize.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS, UNIVISION ANCHOR: The very same group that he has been attacking is the one that's going to stop him from getting to the White House.

LAH: There's no love lost between Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas and Trump. Univision, a powerful media organization owned by a Hillary Clinton donor, has joined with grassroots groups to get out the vote in November. The natural response, overwhelming.

SALINAS: You feel it. You know that Donald Trump is your enemy because he declared war. Because he's the one that declared us enemies.

LAH: That's the main motivator. Why Cuban-born Gisell Broch is getting her citizenship after 22 years in the U.S. When we bring up Trump's name, this reaction.

"I can't stand him. He's like a punch to the gut," she says.

Donald Trump's unintended consequence, a pathway to their political power.

LAH (on camera): The Trump campaign says his proposed immigration reforms, the deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants, the wall, all of this will end up benefitting legal Latino immigrants. No one we spoke with believes that.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: I'm joined now by lawyer, commentator and immigration expert, Raul Reyes.

Raul, thanks for being here.

RAUL REYES, ATTORNEY, COMMENTATOR: My pleasure.

BANFIELD: One of the things that stands out to me is that the largest nationals group in America is Mexicans and yet they naturalize at a rate far lower than everyone else. Why is that?

REYES: Well, there's a lot of factors that play into it. One of it is that in the last few years the cost of doing so has gone up. It costs $576 to go through the citizenship process, which for a lot of people who are the maybe first generation or their children, they don't have that money. And when you're looking at a family, that, you know, can be several thousand dollars. [12:29:57] There are two big reasons why we're seeing things

differently this year. One is obviously the Trump phenomenon. And she mentioned - your reporter mentioned that things are up 14 percent - up 14 percent this year. That's on top of an 11 percent increase last year.

And the second - a second factor driving this increase in people seeking