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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Plan to Close Guantanamo Prison; Nevada Caucus; Trump Talks Protester. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 23, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:12] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We've got breaking legal news this hour. For seven years, President Obama has vowed to shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for good. This morning, he delivered on those plans and sent them to Congress. There are 91 detainees still left at that detention center. The president's plan involves sending the bulk of them to other countries and then moving the rest, those who can't be transferred abroad because they've been simply just deemed too dangerous, well, they are bound for some sort of facility here in the United States.

Now, there's a big problem here. Many Americans are concerned about the really bad ones, those bad detainees, coming to a prison here in the U.S., maybe even close to where they live. In a speech at the White house just a short time ago, the president addressed those very concerns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to say, I am very clear-eyed about the hurdles to finally closing Guantanamo. The politics of this are tough. I think a lot of the American public are worried about terrorism and, in their mind, the notion of having terrorists held in the United States rather than in some distant place can be scary. But part of my message to the American people here is, we're already holding a bunch of really dangerous terrorists here in the United States because we threw the book at them. And there have been no incidents. We've managed it just fine.

And in Congress, I recognize, in part because of some of the fears of the public that have been fanned oftentimes by misinformation, there continues to be a fair amount of opposition to closing Guantanamo. If it were easy, it would have happened years ago, as I wanted, as I have been working to try to get done. But there remains bipartisan support for closing it. And given the stakes involved for our security, this plan deserves a fair hearing, even in an election year. We should be able to have an open, honest, good faith dialogue about how to best ensure our national security. And the fact that I'm no longer running, Joe is no longer running, we're not on the ballot, it gives us the capacity to not have to worry about the politics.

Let us do what is right for America. Let us go ahead and close this chapter and do it right, do it carefully, do it in a way that makes sure we're safe but gives the next president and, more importantly, future generations the ability to apply the lessons that we've learned in the fight against terrorism and doing it in a way that doesn't raise some of the problems that Guantanamo has raised.

I really think there's an opportunity here for progress. I believe we've got an obligation to try.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, joins me now on this momentous story.

Look, the president just said politics of this are tough. I think that really understates so much of this story. It's nothing compared to the logistics and the law when you try to apply them to this whole plan, Barbara, but break down the elements of how he thinks he can get beyond those.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is exactly what you said, Ashleigh, the politics are the starting point. Congress has passed laws and the president has signed them because it's part of the budget bill, saying that no money will be spent to transfer detainees, these enemy combatants, to the United States. That is prohibited right now.

And, in fact, Defense Secretary Carter has said there would have to be some new facility built. The military has said it will not violate that law. So everyone has staked out their positions. And there is considerable Republican and Democratic opposition in Congress to moving these people to the United States. So that is the first case that the president really is going to have to make while he's still working the overall plan to continue to transfer some of them overseas, have other countries look after them.

But getting them back to the United States, whether it's the U.S. naval brig at Charleston, South Carolina, Ft. Leavenworth, maximum security civilian prisons in Colorado, building a whole new facility, whatever it is, it is this political hurdle. Will the traffic really bear having these people back in the United States? And right now all indications are it will not.

[12:05:11] Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Barbara Starr covering this for us at the Pentagon. Thank you for that.

I want to bring in David Remes now, who's a human rights attorney, happens to represent 12 of these detainees currently at Guantanamo Bay.

David, thank you so much for being with me. You are so important to speak to today. I have a zillion questions and I will start with a simple one. Logistically, now that you've seen what the president has outlined, do you see any of it as possible? DAVID REMES, HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEY: I think Guantanamo is going to

remain open forever because I don't think Congress is ever going to let detainees be brought into the U.S., and I don't think any state is going to allow them in even if Congress lets the president bring them into the United States.

BANFIELD: OK. I understand your argument. Even if Congress miraculously could agree on this, you're saying that the states would raise their own legal challenges to having these people cross into their borders and to these facilities. Let's just say they can get beyond even that. Legally speaking, don't we then have to treat these enemy combatants as actual civilian representatives who need American justice? Which mean the game changes and they now are subject to U.S. jurisprudence. And that is a really high bar for these people, isn't it?

REMES: I don't think so. You have to look at the practicalities of it. While they may have more rights on paper, which I'm not sure that they do, no judge is ever going to release them into the general population of the United States and no judge is going to force the United States government to transfer them to other countries. So whatever may happen as a theoretical matter isn't going to be reflected in what actually happens.

BANFIELD: But, David, you can't just hold these detainees at a super max, at an American civil justice facility. Don't they have to be convicted? Because a lot of these guys haven't even been tried yet. And as far as collecting, let's say, evidence from a battlefield 15 years ago, I mean I'm just having a really tough time wrapping my head around a trial for some of these guys if you want to move them to a place like super max.

REMES: You're absolutely right. The notion that they should be moved to a place like a super max is absurd. They haven't been accused of any crime, much less committed. And the problem isn't lack of evidence. The problem is lack of a crime to charge them with. You're right, they can't be held indefinitely without charge, and if you simply bring Guantanamo detainees to the United States, you're moving Guantanamo, but you're not closing it.

BANFIELD: And help me to understand how things change once they would set foot on American soil, on the mainland. Does that then enter them into a legal process where the clock starts ticking and constitutional rights kick in where you have a right to a speedy trial? Meaning, you've got to go ahead with something, with whatever you've got on these guys.

REMES: If they can't be accused of a crime, then they can't be tried in a federal court. It's as simple as that.

BANFIELD: It's so - so what you're saying is, if they're moving them to super max, they've got to have a case to actually try in court with evidence that will reach a bar of conviction to keep them in the super max.

REMES: They have to have a crime to accuse them of. That's what I'm saying.

BANFIELD: And can you find no crime? Have you not had your hat tipped at all, their hats tip to you at all about after 15 years for many of them what crime they would come up with?

REMES: I think I have to leave that to the Justice Department to opine on.

BANFIELD: Material support. It's simple, isn't it?

REMES: Well, number one, material support has been ruled untriable by the military commissions. Number two, the question is what constitutes material support. We need specifics from prosecutors before we can make any decisions. Right now the prosecutors have gone after individuals who are alleged to have done directly damage to the United States, such as the 9/11 attack, the cold bombing. At worst, or at most, the vast majority of these individuals who are still at Guantanamo were individuals who were fighting for the Taliban against the northern alliance. They were engaged in a civil war on one side of it. They only became enemies of the United States when the United States declared that the Taliban was an enemy. This was not fighting against the United States.

BANFIELD: We have so much more to cover on this, and I hope you'll come back. I have a thousand more questions for you just to scratch the surface. But, David Remes, thank you for taking the time.

REMES: Thank you.

BANFIELD: In the meantime, the candidates are wasting absolutely no time, I suppose you would expect so, reacting to the president's plan to close Guantanamo Bay, the detention facility there anyway. And on the campaign trail in Nevada, Senator Marco Rubio had this to say about this very issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You wake up this morning to the news that the president is planning to close Guantanamo. Maybe even giving it back to the Cuban government. This is - this makes no sense to me. Number one, we're not giving back an important naval base to an anti-American communist dictatorship.

[12:10:19] And, number two, we're not going to close Guantanamo. In fact, we shouldn't be releasing the people that are there now. They are enemy combatants. These are literally enemy combatants, in essence soldiers, not soldiers, terrorists of foreign terrorist organizations, many of whom, as soon as you release them, they rejoin the fight against us. Not only are we not going to close Guantanamo, when I'm president, if we capture a terrorist alive, they're not getting a court hearing in Manhattan, they're not going to be sent to Nevada, they're going to Guantanamo and we're going to find out everything they know.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BANFIELD: So Ohio Governor John Kasich is also weighing in, saying about this plan to Fox News, quote, "these are people, some of them are the worst of the worst. Why would we send them into our country? I profoundly disagree."

In the meantime, on the Democratic side, Senator Bernie Sanders tweeting about this issue, saying, quote, "Guantanamo has damaged our moral standing and undermined our foreign policy. I'm glad to see a plan to shut it down."

Joining us with more now is CNN White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski.

So I want to go back to Senator Rubio for a moment and the comments that he made, you know, almost instantaneously when this plan was announced. He's not only running for president, Michelle, he's still on Capitol Hill, too. So this isn't just a fight, you know, in a campaign.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: True.

BANFIELD: This is going to be a fight on Capitol Hill as well. Is he planning to spearhead this? Does he have a lot of support behind him? Is it just super partisan? Give me the read on it.

KOSINSKI: I mean this is coming out now, this plan to have an additional bill. It's not 100 percent necessary because in the Defense Authorization Act that the president signed not very long ago, there were restrictions on having some of these detainees come back to the U.S. So this is kind of above and beyond. There's likely to be support of it, even though it's not 100 percent necessary that it go all the way through because those restrictions are there. The White House knows that they're there. And the White House has asked about this, there being such staunch opposition in Congress. The White House says well, you know, we feel it's our responsibility to present this plan. There has been bipartisan support in the past, although now, in this climate, that seems pretty unlikely.

In fact, even John McCain, that the White House often cites as being one Republican who supports the closure of Gitmo, his statement that he put out today was pretty critical of what the president put out today, saying that, well, it could have been earlier, it should have been much more detailed. But he did say that Senate Armed Services would give this a closer look.

You're right, though, I mean there's lots of opposition out there. Some of it bears questioning. I mean Marco Rubio just said that we are going to - we're not going to be returning Gitmo back to Cuba. I mean that's not in the president's plan at all. In fact, the White House says that's, you know, that's not in the cards.

But there's, you know, arguments like, well, we can't have these people transferred even though some of the terrorists in the past - the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, a 9/11 plotter, they've been tried and held in the United States. When you, you know, press them on that argument, well, what's the difference, what we're hearing now is that, well, the people who are left at Guantanamo Bay are the worst of the worst. That's what they're saying the difference is. The White house, of course, takes issue with that, takes great issue

with that argument, and we will be hearing more from the White House today on their response to some of this opposition that's really coming out pretty quickly, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Yes. All right, Michelle, thank you for that. I appreciate it.

And I want to be really clear for our viewers right now because in this campaign - I'll let you get back to your coverage, Michelle. In this campaign you're going to hear a lot of noise about this, but what this plan says is closing it doesn't mean just scattering everybody into the woods. It doesn't mean releasing people. It means looking to try them or release them, or even maybe try them in other countries. So there's going to be a lot of logistics you're going to hear about and you're going to hear a lot of spin on those logistics. So just be super cautious about some of the campaigning and how they spin what this plan is. But clearly the president has an uphill battle with all of the elements in this.

So coming up today is - it's Tuesday. It is a great Tuesday. It's just not a Super Tuesday. Still a critical day in the race, though. Republicans ready to caucus in Nevada today. Democrats face the South Carolina voters on tonight's CNN town hall stage. It is a whirlwind day on the campaign trail and we've got the breakdown and the headlines for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:18:40] BANFIELD: It's Republicans' turn to roll the dice in Nevada, a state fairly new to the risky and high stakes game of caucusing, while Democrats try to win over undecided primary voters in South Carolina. Hillary Clinton is a heavy favorite in her party's first southern primary on Saturday. Bernie Sanders is already looking far past it to Super Tuesday, a week today. Both are going to appear in a CNN town hall at 8:00 Eastern Time tonight hosted by my colleague Chris Cuomo. Fifty-three Democratic delegates are at stake in South Carolina, 30 Republican delegates are at stake in Nevada. So you've got to tune in to the town hall. You've got to tune in to the debate on Thursday of this week as well.

The first of the Nevada caucuses gets underway for the GOP at 5:00 p.m. local, that's 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and that is tonight and that's why Chris Frates got on a plane and headed out to Vegas to check out the scene there. He's on The Strip right now counting down the seconds.

OK, so a couple of questions. Fair to say that Donald Trump is already kind of running the table in the polls there. but is there anything that looks to be sort of upset worthy or any big story that's kind of eking its way out of those - out of those casinos?

[12:19:59] CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'll tell you, Ashleigh, I mean this is a notoriously difficult state to poll in. That's largely because there's such low turnout here among Republicans in Nevada. There's 400,000 registered Republicans in Nevada. They only expect about 10 percent of those folks, 40,000, to come out. So while Donald Trump is leading in the polls, he's got about 45 percent support, Marco Rubio coming in second at 19 percent and Ted Cruz is 17 percent, according to our latest CNN poll. Those numbers are very difficult to get your head around because participation is so low here, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So, you know, the funny thing is there's no clocks in Vegas because they want you to stay in those casinos and think day is night and night is day. My guess is that a lot of the people in the casinos might be visitors and wouldn't be needing the clocks to go and vote anyway. But effectively, if you've got that low of a turnout, is Trump even talking about the possibility of not pulling in the big win that he likes to sort of, I don't know, talk blustery about?

FRATES: Well, certainly, you know, Donald Trump is saying that he is going to win Nevada. He wants to cement a big win here because then he will have won the last three contests in a row. And more than just winning the contest, that will put him much more ahead in that delegate count, which is so important. He's got about 60 delegates so far. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, his two biggest competitors, down in, you know, the 10, 11-count number. So he's look for a strong finish here and he's arguing he is the frontrunner.

Ted Cruz, of course, arguing he's the only true conservative in this race. And Marco Rubio saying he's the only candidate who can unite all Republicans to take on the Democrats in November.

But the other thing to point out here, when you talk about kind of the low turnout and the poor organization that many GOP officials worry about tonight is counting the votes. Now, in Iowa, there were 170,000 Iowans who showed up to caucus. They got Microsoft involved to help count those votes. It's kind of the gold standard of caucusing. They've been doing it forever.

Here in Nevada, this is only the third presidential Republican primary. And they're vote counting, they tally these votes here in Clark County, where 73 percent of Nevada's population is here in Las Vegas, Clark County, they're going to tally those votes by hand on an envelope. They're going to then take a picture of that envelope and send that picture, text that picture to county and state officials, and that's how they'll get their count.

So this could be a very late night tonight, Ashleigh, as they take pictures, count these things by hand. And, remember, the caucuses here end at 9:00 local time. That's midnight out on the East Coast. So we won't be getting results here in Nevada until very, very late or early - I guess early morning Wednesday.

BANFIELD: Sure. Yes, well, you and your friends are going to have to get used to being up late in Vegas for a weird, you know, change. Chris Frates, thank you.

FRATES: Thank you, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: You know, in the flap that cost Ted Cruz's communications director his job, Donald Trump says the buck stops with Texas Senator Ted Cruz and rival presidential contender. Wow, Trump tweets, go figure, "was Ted Cruz disloyal to his very capable director of communications? He used him as a scapegoat. Fired like a dog. Ted panicked." The firing offense was a video clip that wrongly suggested Marco Rubio was dissing the Bible no less. On top of several other alleged dirty tricks from team Cruz, this one prompted Trump to up his attacks, calling Cruz not only a liar, but he actually called him "sick."

We should point out that ted Cruz did apologize and correct the record on that mistake about the Bible and how Rubio knows about the Bible. But at a Las Vegas rally, Donald Trump stopped short of advocating actual violence, saying that for his ever-present hecklers, I'll let him finish it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know what I hate? There's a guy totally disruptive, throwing punches. We're not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks. Here's a guy throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everything else when we're talking, and he walked it out, and we're not allowed - you know, the guards are very gentle with him. He's walking out like big high fives, smiling, laughing. I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Didn't want to cut that short. I wanted -

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Smart guy, Jeffrey Lord. Jeffrey.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hello, my friend, Ashleigh. How are you?

BANFIELD: Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, I'm OK, but I am - you know, I come to work confounded almost every day. I do have this very simple question for you about this kind of stuff. I know every time something Donald does we ask you about and it - we just move on and everybody and all of his supporters move on, too.

[12:25:03] But I do want to ask you this. When you say it's OK to punch a guy in the face, we're not allowed to punch them out anymore, I just wonder about the decorum of the election and of, you know, of the voters. Do you - are you OK personally backing Trump knowing that we have really kind of sunk to a level where thuggery is OK and sort of high school football rivalry taken behind the stands conversation seems to be OK? Are you really OK with it?

LORD: Ashleigh, here's what I think about this. I am old enough, alas, to remember the 1968 presidential campaign. I remember vividly the riots in Chicago conducted by the American left. And then when the convention was over, the American left did to Hubert Humphrey, of all people, exactly what they are now today's American left is doing to Donald Trump. They went to his rallies. They provoked. They threatened. They did exactly this. And in the day, Hubert Humphrey had the Secret Service and the police drag them out. And I've been re- reading this morning the account in "The Making of the President," 1968, by the Pulitzer Prize Winner Theodore H. White. This has happened before. This is what the American left does. They go to these places to provoke, to deliberately get this kind of reaction.

BANFIELD: Yes, but, Jeffrey, I hear you, but I don't know that ever I have heard the candidates using four-letter words and advocating violence to the point where, you know, a colleague over at NBC tweeted out that, you know, he started railing on the media again, and the media pen -

LORD: Right.

BANFIELD: And one of the supporters actually turned to Katy Tur and said, you b-i-t-c-h.

LORD: Right. Right.

BANFIELD: And someone else gave them the double bird. I mean this is really inciting people in a very unbecoming way. It's very un- American.

LORD: I think - I think the inciting is coming from the other direction. I mean let's face it, if these people weren't doing this, Donald Trump wouldn't be saying a thing. Let me - and, of course - and, of course, Ashleigh -

BANFIELD: No, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, don't get me wrong, I do need to correct you - I need to correct you there. The inciting was coming from Donald Trump at the moment he pointed to the media. He's called them hideous things before. He's used very derogatory language, in a country where the First Amendment is one of our most protected, sacred things -

LORD: Right. Right.

BANFIELD: And he's calling the media, part of that First Amendment, deplorable, disgusting pigs. And this is inciting his followers to then turn directly to Katy Tur and say, you're a bitch. This is bad. You've got to agree, this is bad.

LORD: First of all, I don't encourage anybody to call anybody the "b" word.

BANFIELD: Thank you.

LORD: Secondly, I mean, I haven't lost - I haven't lost all my sensibility here. But I do have to say, this is what goes. And let me just tell you quickly a snapshot of this. As you know I have a book out on Donald Trump. So last night I was doing a book event, a book signing and a talk sponsored by a radio show in suburban Philadelphia. There were about 150 people there. The event had sold out. I can only tell you from the questions I got from the audience, they are furious with the American news media. They think - and I'm just repeating here what I heard - that they are biased, that they are mean, nasty, arrogant, contempt, and corruptible. And I'm just telling you what I was told by audience members last night. They're really upset. So when I hear this kind of thing from Donald Trump, I can only say that this sentiment is out there independent of Donald Trump.

BANFIELD: I just feel like this wouldn't have happened during your Reagan days. It was just a different decorum back then. It was respectable to be in politics. It was respectable to speak on the stage.

But I do want to ask you this, just because I've gone on too long on this topic.

LORD: Yes, ma'am.

BANFIELD: The strategies here. I've got to get this from you. Seventy percent of the American GOP electorate does not back Donald Trump. And the other candidates have their sights focused on that 70 percent to try to divide them up. But now we're hearing about a memo from an anti-Trump super PAC saying no, no, no, no, go after Trump. Here are the talking points. Here's how you do it. Do you think Trump needs to be worried about this?

LORD: No, I don't. And I'll tell you why. I think that the - the moment the establishment - well, the establishment has been perceived as anti-Trump. And you saw where that got Jeb Bush with $100 million- plus. I think if the establishment tries to regather here and go to Marco Rubio or whatever, this is to the detriment of whatever candidate they swing behind. Again, I don't think these people have any idea how much they are loathed by the rank and file base of the Republican Party. And I don't think they're going to help anybody if they do that. And, furthermore, I think if some of these candidates get out - if, for example, Senator Cruz dropped out of the race, I think a lot of his votes would go to Donald Trump.

BANFIELD: Jeffrey, I always love having you on. I will say thank you, sir, to maintain the decorum of this conversation.

LORD: Any time, ma'am.

BANFIELD: Thank you. And I look forward to our next conversation soon, I hope.

LORD: OK, thanks.

BANFIELD: All right, Jeffrey joining us live again today.

And before Super Tuesday, the five Republican candidates are going to battle it out in a debate in Texas with CNN's Wolf Blitzer as the moderator. That next GOP debate is this Thursday, 8:30 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.

[12:30:05] Coming up next, it's all about South Carolina for the Dems. With tonight's CNN town hall there ahead of Saturday's primary - we've got a live picture for you from the town hall where