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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Clinton Home Sick with Pneumonia; Trump on Clinton's Illness; NFL Begins with Patriotism and Demonstrations. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 12, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:40] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

Fifty-seven days before an election that your whole life has been leading up to. Two short weeks before the most important debate of your career, it is a really bad time to have a sick day, or multiple sick days in a row. And yet that is where we find the Democratic nominee for president, home, in Chappaqua, nursing a case of pneumonia after a weekend that she probably wishes could be a do-over.

Her Republican opponent, meantime, is en route to Baltimore for a speech to a National Guard convention. That happens about one hour from now. Aides say that Donald Trump will open with a full-throated attack on Hillary Clinton's dismissal of half of Donald Trump's supporters as, quote, "deplorables."

Our Jeff Zeleny is camped out in the hometown for Clinton, just north of New York City, and CNN's Sara Murray is with the Trump team in Baltimore.

Jeff, I'm going to begin with you. I think the big question at this point is right now that a big California fundraiser has been cancelled for Secretary Clinton. She's going to be home all day. But how long is she going to be home and what effect does this have on her work?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh, there's no question this is a disruption in a carefully orchestrated and planned out presidential campaign. Her San Francisco fundraiser later today actually is going to go on but she will be not be there. She's going to be calling in by a videoconference or teleconference. And the entertainment and others will still be there. But she is definitely not going to be there. And that's what a lot of donors want, their photographs taken, their handshakes made, their connections made, et cetera.

But, more importantly, her speech tomorrow in Los Angeles. It was billed as a big economic speech. Another effort for her to distinguish herself from Donald Trump and tout her positive agenda. That is not happening.

Now, we are told that she is potentially going to resume campaigning on Wednesday. She was scheduled to be in Las Vegas that day campaigning. We're told that that speech on the economy almost may happen more in the northeast. Somewhere that's closer to here in New York so she wouldn't fly all across the country for one speech. But that is still very much up in the air. I'm told by her advisers she is actually following doctors' orders this time and she is resting today. She's also preparing for that debate.

Ashleigh, as you said at the beginning, this is the biggest moment of the campaign, that debate two weeks from tonight. That first debate with Donald Trump. So she's using some of this down time at her home here in Chappaqua to prepare for that head-to-head matchup with Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: And I had walking pneumonia and I don't know if hers is walking pneumonia. I couldn't do a phone. I couldn't do a teleconference. I was out cold. So it will be interesting to find out just what that presence is like on that teleconference.

Jeff, stand by for a second. Sara Murray, I want to bring you in. I think a lot of people were wondering when the news broke about Hillary Clinton's pneumonia, they wondered if Donald Trump would pounce. It didn't really feel or sound or look at all like a pounce, but it also looked like something else. What is it?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, I think the Trump campaign has decided they want to be very careful in how they're responding to this. They've warned their surrogates, they've warned their campaign staffers that people should not be posting about Hillary Clinton's health right now and they want to send a respectful tone. But listen to how Donald Trump himself addressed it this morning on Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I hope she gets well soon. I don't know what's going on. I'm - like you, I just - I see what I see. The coughing fit was a week ago. So I assumed that was pneumonia also. I mean, I would think it would have been. So something's going on. But I just hope she gets well and gets back on the trail and we'll be seeing her at the debate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: Now, he's still bringing up her coughing fit from last week and suggesting there that something is going on, but we're not seeing him come out and say something he has been saying for weeks, which is questioning Hillary Clinton's stamina. So there is a little bit of a shift here, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: All right, Sara Murray reporting live for us from Baltimore. We'll continue to touch base with you throughout the day.

Thank you, Jeff Zeleny, as well, up in Chappaqua.

I want to bring in my panel now if I can. CNN Politics executive editor Mark Preston joins me live from Washington, and here in New York, our senior media correspondent Brian Stelter is here, CNN's senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlantic," Ron Brownstein, and CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis. Wow, that's a mouthful. A lot of smart accolades for a lot of smart guys.

[12:05:03] All right, Mark, I'm going to start with you. I guess the question is, which part of all of this is worse, the fact that Hillary Clinton actually got sick and it's not just some crazy, dark corner of the Internet sick, or the fact that she didn't tell anybody, including a lot of her top aides who did not know since Friday, since her diagnosis, that she had pneumonia, which, by the way, it's kind of a big deal?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Sure. It's certainly the latter. Look, had she come out and had they said that she had come down with pneumonia, had they explained that, it is something - it was a virus that had been working its way through the campaign headquarters, I think that people would understand that, right? I mean they - you go to work. You travel a lot. You're going to get sick. That's the bottom line.

It's the cover-up, though. It's the lack of transparency. It is that really devastating video that we saw yesterday of her slumping before she gets helped into the van. It's her leaving without the press corps in toe. That press corps that is supposed to travel with her everywhere she goes, as well as her leaving her daughter's house then and also leaving the press corps behind. It looks like they're trying to hide something. Whether or not they are, we just don't know. But the fact is, had they been much more transparent about it, we would not be talking about this right now.

BANFIELD: So - and - and a lot of people are talking about it. Not necessarily just those you would expect to be critical. In fact, David Axelrod, firmly in the Dems camp, tweeted out, and I'm going to quote David Axelrod, "antibiotics can take care of pneumonia. What's the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?" And then Jennifer Granholm, also firmly in the Dem camp you could say, tweeted this out, "to press lamenting at Hillary Clinton's health transparency, powering through illness is what women do stoically every single day." Lots of periods in there to emphasize the extra, you know, attitude.

So if I can, Ron, I want to bring you in on just the notion that, within the Democrats now there is this introspection.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BANFIELD: That can't be a good thing. You would firmly expect everyone to come out and say either, hey, the woman deserves some privacy when it comes to that. This is not a long-standing illness that could literally take her down, although, she is 67. And when you get pneumonia at 67, it's not the same as when you get it at 30.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. I had pneumonia once too. It was no fun. It was no fun in my 20s.

Look, I think both of those - both of those tweets have validity to them. I mean the first instinct to often of Hillary Clinton, even more than Bill Clinton, when faced with any kind of challenge, is to kind of hunker down and - and, you know, give out information grudgingly. It has been kind of a pattern, I think, throughout her career. Even, as I recall, in the health care task force in 1993 there were these - there were these kinds of issues.

On the other hand, I mean it is - you know, she go - she did kind of stoically push through this over the weekend until she couldn't push any further.

I think, look, if she has pneumonia and she - you know, she gets better in a few days, that's it. That's the issue. I mean people get sick. As Mark Preston said, they go to work, they get sick. But, you know, it does kind of raise - you know, it does kind of put her in a more vulnerable position going forward if there are more episodes. And it really - what it really underscores above all is how little we know about the health background of both of these candidates, right? I mean this is a campaign in which we've had more words spoken and written than ever before and yet the amount of basic information compared to earlier candidacies on health and Donald Trump's taxes that we don't have is pretty extraordinary to be this close to the campaign.

BANFIELD: And, I think, again, at health at 67 and 70 respectively, that's the age of these two candidates -

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Right.

BANFIELD: Health is a big issue for people who are going to the ballot box.

Errol, for you , I want to talk about that other side of the campaign, and again the health, because Donald Trump was on CNBC this morning talking about what he's about to do in terms of transparency when it comes to his doctor and a physical that he's taken. Have a look at what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Sometime during the week I'll be handing out a paper with very large numbers of very detailed, hopefully good statistics. I've been, you know, I feel very confident, otherwise I probably wouldn't be telling you I did this, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: OK. So let me just correct one thing. Hillary Clinton's 68. She's turned 68 since this campaign. So we've got 68 and 70 respectively. And there's Donald Trump at age 70 saying I'm going to be handing out a paper with very large numbers, very detailed, hopefully good statistics. That - I suppose you could say that's transparency, although apparently that the physician who will be doing his exam is Dr. Bornsteen (ph), his family physician for many, many years, who also had some very colorful, extraordinary language.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Are you saying it's going to be another letter from the same person who gave us that ridiculous letter from before? BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Yes.

BANFIELD: I think - yes, I think - Dr. Sanjay Gupta's weighed in on it as well. It was a ridiculous letter to say he'd be the healthiest person to ever serve as president.

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

BANFIELD: I mean, I don't -

BROWNSTEIN: Teddy Roosevelt had just come out of combat, so -

BANFIELD: There you go. Yes. And I've seen, you know, President Obama do a layup, so pretty darn high too.

LOUIS: Exactly.

BANFIELD: So that's the kind of doctor that he's doing - that he's got doing the physical as well.

LOUIS: Right. So I think you can, you know, sort of have a little bit of skepticism in advance. On the other hand, maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe there will be some real disclosures about real numbers that people can understand, like cholesterol and the statins that he's taking or not taking. His - his - his health numbers, his heart numbers. So, yes, maybe we'll find out something. I wouldn't count on it, though, just based on what we've seen from this - frankly clownish physician who wrote this letter in, what did he say, five minutes while the limo was waiting for him, full of grammatical errors and no real information.

[12:10:22] BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Right.

LOUIS: If we - if we - if it - if we get another version of that, then we've learned nothing. If we can get something that we could actually use, that would actually be somewhat helpful.

And let me just say about the Hillary Clinton thing. I mean I think this might be a case where we might want to apply a little bit of the golden rule. Like, you know, everybody watching and all of us, we've gone to job interviews. We've been part of a team. We've been under a lot of pressure. I don't know if you necessarily would go into each session in those kind of situations talking about the meds that you're taking, your latest health report and everything else. So to a certain extent, this is going to happen to everybody in every -

STELTER: Ah, I don't thinks so.

BANFIELD: I came in and I did - I came in and I did my show a couple a couple weeks ago terribly sick and my voice was horrible. Viewers noticed it. And I think some viewers said, I can tell you have a heroin problem. I think it was so hyperbolic, it was crazy. But with that kind of scrutiny, you might be a little bit more apt to keep things quiet.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. BANFIELD: I want to ask you, though, about the fact that they can, because there's no traveling press pool.

STELTER: Right.

BANFIELD: Nobody gets to stay close to either of these candidates. It's appalling. Every presidential campaign that I've ever covered, there's been a pool. There's been someone next to the candidate at all times to report to you, and you, and you, what's going on when we can't see them.

STELTER: That's right.

BANFIELD: And right now, neither of these candidates is giving that to us.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

STELTER: This is what made a bad situation worse yesterday and why we're asking so many questions today. She leaves this ceremony at 9:30 a.m., a devastating situation having to leave - having to be helped into that vehicle. Between 9:30 and 11:00, their people have no idea where she is. Reporters has no idea where she was. There were rumors spreading about her being in a hospital. In fact, news outlets started going to local hospitals trying to find out if Clinton was there. In that abys, in that lack of information, rumors spread, conspiracy theories spread. They made a bad situation worse. It's another reason why this campaign needs to give more information to reporters as much as they possibly can. And if Clinton herself is withholding from her press aides, that's a problem, too.

BROWNSTEIN: And (INAUDIBLE) - I disagree. If a presidential candidate has a diagnosis of pneumonia, I think that's something the public deserves to know. It's more than a sniffle.

BANFIELD: It's more than a sniffle.

STELTER: Especially we're talking about the two oldest candidates we've ever had running for president who -

BANFIELD: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

STELTER: Who - in terms of who would be president, you know, on day one.

BANFIELD: I'll reiterate, 68 - and, ironically, guys, I man, I thought today was going to be all about the basket of deplorables comment, and instead that seems to be overshadowed by this. But that doesn't mean it's not going to be talked about on this program in a couple of minutes. I'm going to have a lot of you back as well.

STELTER: And can I just say -

BANFIELD: Real quick. STELTER: This is a news cycle that moves really fast. Things keep

happening. But health is going to be with us until Election Day. These candidates have to, this week, share more information. The press needs to demand it.

BANFIELD: Hey, health is with you for life.

STELTER: It is.

BANFIELD: Somebody told me that once. All right, thank you.

STELTER: Right.

BANFIELD: Errol Louis, Brian Stelter, Mark Preston and Ron Brownstein, thank you both - or thank you all four of you, thank you so much.

Today, Trump's vice presidential candidate is going to be live on CNN. Mike Pence is going to join Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" coming up, 5:00 Eastern Time. Make sure you stay tuned for that.

And coming up next, politics aside, how serious is pneumonia? We're going to ask Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He's going to give you the breakdown. What we know about Hillary Clinton's diagnosis and if at her age or Donald Trump's age any of these kinds of illnesses make a difference, and how much do you deserve to know about every single thing that's going on inside these bodies?

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[12:17:21] BANFIELD: Probably heard by now that Hillary Clinton has been diagnosed with pneumonia. This is something that is treatable for sure, but it's not a diagnosis that anyone should take lightly, especially when you're 68 years old and especially when you're running for the most powerful position in the U.S. and your schedule has you on your feet almost 24 hours a day.

CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me now.

So just run down the idea of pneumonia, what kinds of pneumonia -

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

BANFIELD: What this might be. We're not really being told everything about it.

GUPTA: No, and I think that's an important place to start. You know, we found out that she had pneumonia two days after she, in fact, got the diagnosis herself, but we still don't have a lot of information. What type of pneumonia is this? We think it might be bacterial because she's being treated with antibiotics.

But what type of bacteria is causing it? There are some that are going to be more serious than others. What type of antibiotic is treating it? Did she get a chest x-ray? And almost certainly she probably got a chest x-ray but you'd want to know how much of her lung is actually impacted by this pneumonia as well. So, you know, there's a lot of follow-up questions. How is she going

to do, what's recovery going to be like, what's the treatment going to be like, that are predicated on knowing exactly what we're dealing with here. So it's just a very, very sort of limited, even though it's more information than we've had before, it's still limited in terms of medical information to actually say anything concrete about it.

BANFIELD: Governor Jennifer Granholm said, women just power through these things. And I get it. I try to power through all my illnesses.

GUPTA: Right.

BANFIELD: But should you be powering through pneumonia?

GUPTA: Well, you know, again, it sort of comes down - get that too, the powering through. But, again, it comes down to, there are pneumonias and there are pneumonias. You know, I think pneumonia in and of itself is a serious diagnosis. And you heard what the doctor said, you need to rest, you need to recharge, you need to rehydrate, all that sort of stuff. And she was still powering through, as we're calling it. But I think despite - even with milder pneumonias, you're going to need a little bit of time to recover. With more serious pneumonias, I mean, you know, if you look at the statistics, it can be up to six weeks to recover.

BANFIELD: Wow.

GUPTA: And no one is suggesting that that's the case here.

BANFIELD: Right.

GUPTA: But, again, we don't know what the case is because we haven't been given that information.

BANFIELD: So the information on medical entirely is something that's become a big issue for this campaign. Trump's letter that you have so aptly said was like, you know, hyperbolic and just -

GUPTA: Yes.

BANFIELD: So colorful and inappropriate for a physician.

GUPTA: Non-objective.

BANFIELD: Not objective. And then Hillary Clinton has release at letter as well. But, you know, John McCain released 1,000 pages of his medical records, and the standard doesn't seem to be the same. And I'm curious about your thoughts about today's 70-year-olds.

GUPTA: Yes.

BANFIELD: We have a 68-year-old candidate and a 70-year-old candidate, versus the Reagan era 70-year-olds.

GUPTA: Right. BANFIELD: Aren't we healthier? Is 70 the new 50? Should we be examining and demanding more medical information because they're 70- ish?

GUPTA: Well, I think you can make that argument both ways, right? You could say because 70s the new 50, we don't need as much information. They're like 50-year-olds and we don't need as much medical information on a 50 year old. On the other hand, you could say, because they're 70 years old, they're elderly, we still need to have more health information than before.

[12:20:18] I've been reporting on this for a long time. Here's what I'll tell you, Ashleigh. Back in 2004, you had John Kerry and George W. Bush running. Both pretty healthy guys. There wasn't a public clamoring for health information about those guys. In 2008, as you mentioned, I was one of the few reporters who was taken into a room in Arizona, give about a foot high worth of medical records and several hours -

BANFIELD: From the Mayo Clinic no less, right?

GUPTA: Right. I mean and so very detailed medical records, but, still, only a few hours by which to examine them. So you had to do your best within a few hours. But there's never been a set standard.

I think they're - you know, if you're asking my - my thoughts on this, I think there should be a set standard in terms of what - what people should disclose. They don't - I think they're entitled to some privacy, no question. But anything that could impact their job as commander in chief, anything that could impact their lives overall, things that have to do with the brain, the heart, the lungs, cognitive function and cancer, something like that, those things need to be disclosed, I think, And whether it's disclosed in releasing all medical records or having an independent panel of doctors review the stuff, there's different approaches to this, but - but -

BANFIELD: I just got something and I want to share it with you at the same time as I'm getting it. But Brian Fallon, who is -

GUPTA: Yes.

BANFIELD: With Hillary Clinton's team. She's - he's his - he is her national press secretary. He just told MSNBC that the Clinton campaign is going to release more medical information on Hillary Clinton later this week. Here's his quote. "It is our intention that we will be releasing additional medical information about Hillary Clinton." Adding that they're working with her doctor to get that information together. It should come later this week. Brian Fallon's going to be on with Wolf Blitzer at 1:00 so they can flush that out a little bit more.

GUPTA: Yes.

BANFIELD: At the same time, Donald Trump said on CNBC, I just had a physical and I'm going to release big numbers. I thinks the quote was big numbers and - GUPTA: Big numbers.

BANFIELD: Big numbers. I'm not sure. Some of those things you don't want to be big.

GUPTA: That's right.

BANFIELD: You really don't want you numbers to be big.

GUPTA: No.

BANFIELD: But I think I know what he means. He's inarticulate. But it means that he's going to release more information. Again, from the same physician, though.

GUPTA: Helpful, but still incomplete. And, you know, there's a sin of omission here, right? It's not anyone - I don't think anyone's saying it's inaccurate, but it's incomplete. If you - if you release a snapshot in time of a few laboratory tests, you're getting a snapshot in time of an evaluation. You really want to know what the likelihood of any kind of problems over the next four to eight years is. That's a question you're really trying to answer. Getting a snapshot in time of lab results doesn't give you that answer. And I think that's why you need to either release more medical records, like, yes, it's being suggested the Clinton camp may do, or you need to have independent doctors who aren't friends, by the way, of the candidates.

BANFIELD: That's it. Bingo!

GUPTA: Yes.

BANFIELD: I say, Sanjay Gupta, that is your jobs. You should be doing that one.

GUPTA: I have no friends, so I'm perfect for the job.

BANFIELD: You have more friends than anyone I've ever met. Dr. Gupta, thank you.

GUPTA: Great to see you.

BANFIELD: Always good to see you. Thank you so much.

Coming up next, you know, the NFL has certainly kicked off a big season. It happened on 9/11. A lot of touching tributes. But it also brought with it some controversy with more players refusing to stand during the national anthem. Is this un-American or is this every American's right? And what about the football? Should they be intertwined? We're going to put this in historical perspective for you, next.

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[12:27:51] BANFIELD: Got some live pictures we want to bring to you out of Baltimore. Just a couple of minutes from now, we're expecting Donald Trump to come out on that stage and take to the microphone. This is the National Guard Association. And they're at the convention center there. We're expecting that his comments will be live in moments. And once he takes the stage, we will bring them live to you as well.

And while we wait for Donald Trump, we want to turn to an NFL controversy, because tonight eyes are going to be glued to the gridiron for perhaps some different reasons. The actions or the inactions, should we say, of San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick. You may remember that Kaepernick sparked a passionate debate after this, uh-huh, refusing to stand during the national anthem, bringing gasps nationwide, for different reasons though.

So in meantime, there are major discussions over his protest. In fact, the discussions are at an all-time high. The focus on "The Star- Spangled Banner" was never greater than it was just on Sunday, yesterday. In fact, the 15th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. The day was marked by tributes, but also with protests. On the one hand, fans saw teams like the Dolphins, where several players did take a knee, and then there were players on several teams who raised their fists. Players using their platform to highlight the problems of racial injustice and police brutality. And then there's the other side where we saw players, like the Patriots Danny Amendola, who was one of many who decided to hold a giant American flag that was unfurled across the green. There he is, standing in solidarity.

I want to discuss this with CNN Sports analyst Christine Brennan.

Christine, how much is this going to be about football, how much of this is going to be about the headlines that come out of the football that have nothing to do with sports?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: I think, Ashleigh, in the greater world that we're in, the non-sports world, I think the big headline will be Colin Kaepernick. And if he is kneeling or sitting, which I think he's going to be doing one or the other tonight, I think that's it.

I think sports fans will, you know, look at that as they, did all the news yesterday on 9/11, of course, which was a fascinating intersection of that moment in our nation's history and remembering that, and then - and giving honor to those who lost their lives, and then, of course, the - some of the players, as you've pounded out, who did what they did. But I think for most sports fans after, after that it's all about the game.

[12:30:06] But this is, once again, another story that leaves the sports pages, that leaves the field of play and moves into our culture in a fascinating way.