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Time Running Out As Oxygen Dwindles On Lost Sub; Obama Sits Down With CNN'S Christiane Amanpour; Supreme Court Rules Against Navajo Nation In Water Supply Case. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired June 22, 2023 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Search and rescue efforts are continuing to try and save the passengers on the lost submersible Titan. Typically, explorers prepare to spend 10 to 11 hours on the sub for the trip to view the Titanic wreck. This animation here -- and this, by the way, are the five people who are lost right now. This animation right here shows what a normal expedition should look like.

About a two-hour journey to the ocean floor reaching a depth of more than 12,000 feet. At that depth, the vessel is only able to stay in touch with the ship at the surface via text messages. Once a sub reaches the bottom, you see there, the people on board have roughly four hours to survey the shipwreck, followed by another two-hour journey back to the surface.

Now, I want to get you a look at what the dimensions are of the submarine. You know, it's kind of unclear where the sub's last contact after an hour and a half in this particular expedition. But here are the parameters of this particular vessel. 22 feet by nine and a half feet. Overall dimensions here about eight feet high.

And if you look at what's -- what is surrounding the vessel, there's carbon and fiber, and titanium. And there is a small bathroom also that is there. But there aren't any actual seats.

So, here's another look at what it would look like inside the configuration. You can see there's no real room to stretch out. And it is cramped, five people sitting cross-legged. And the Coast Guard has said that only have a little bit of food and water because again, they're only supposed to be down there for about 11 hours.

It is also very likely that they have lost power which makes the temperature a really grave concern. I want you to see what the temperatures were. That is what the vessel looks like in reality, and this is what the temperature would be down at those depths. About 33 degrees.

So, we're talking about freezing which could lead to hyperthermia because there is no way to heat that vessel from the inside. One expert went as far to say a visit to the Titanic is like visiting another planet. Kate. KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and there's the conditions what they're up against down there. It also just seems in a really -- truly almost is an impossible task in finding and retrieving a vessel that could be more than two miles down at the bottom of the ocean. And that is what rescuers are trying to do right now. And deep -- in deep underwater rescues though, they have been pulled off in the past the deepest of those rescues happening off the coast of Ireland.

CNN's Tom Foreman has more on that. He's joining us now. And, Tom, a big question is what can rescue crews today learn from what we've seen in the past?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Potentially, a great deal, Kate. And there's a lot of expertise out in the field here. The question is does the past and does that expertise apply in this case?

[11:35:09]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (voiceover): Racing time the elements in an ocean of unknowns, those trying to find the Titan face dwindling odds of success. Underwater rescues are inherently complicated and dangerous. And the deep sea makes it all harder. Author Stephen McGinty knows.

STEPHEN MCGINTY, AUTHOR, "THE DIVE": It's hard to even imagine that you know two miles of water above you, the immense darkness, no natural light, and the weight of that crushing weight -- crushing weight, so you're operating in pitch darkness at a depth that many things will feel.

FOREMAN (voiceover): His book "The Dive" is about the deepest ocean rescue to date. In the early 1970s, the Pisces III sank nearly 1600 feet below the surface while laying an undersea phone cable off the coast of Ireland. For three days, ships, submarines, and robotic vessels struggled to get lines attached and haul up the submersible with its two experienced sailors' final success.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there a stage at all when you -- when you began to wonder whether you'd ever get upside?

ROGER MALLINSON, RESCUED SUBMARINER: Not at all. Now, we had about a day's supply left for our life support. And we knew what was going on. We could talk to the surface all the time, so there was no trouble at all.

FOREMAN (voiceover): Not exactly. Like the Titan, the Pisces had limited air just enough for 72 hours. The two men extended it by lying still and not talking. And when they finally emerged after 84 hours, they had enough for only 12 minutes more.

So, how different is the Titan's predicament? The Pisces was located quickly 120 miles offshore. The Titan is still missing more than 400 miles from land.

The Pisces had steady communications. No one has spoken with the Titan since it vanished. The Titan is in much deeper water. And yet even when the Pisces was pulled up, the men inside were terribly battered.

MCGINTY: And they thought they were going to be smashed unconscious and say the sub -- so, the sub was rocking and rolling and spinning. And at one point, the bait for them -- for the lift to stop.

FOREMAN (voiceover): There have been other undersea rescue attempts. In 1939 when the USS Squalus sank off the east coast in less than 250 feet of water, 26 men drowned, 33 were saved. In 2000 when the Russian sub, Kursk, suffered a pair of onboard explosions in the Barents Sea, despite early hopes for survivors, the entire crew of 118 perished.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (on camera): So, that is the key conundrum here. There is some history of this sort of rescue. Each one is so unique, however, that the people who are out there right now have to rely on their expertise. They simultaneously have to respect the history. And they have to utterly rewrite the book to deal with the circumstances they're facing now, which no one has faced before, and which as we've noted over and over again, are extremely severe. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely -- it is remarkable this thinking of the circumstances, and just -- and how different each one of these is. And how they did -- at the end, they have to lead on -- lean on, as you said, their expertise and on some level intuition in where they're going to find it. Thank you, Tom.

FOREMAN: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: Sara?

SIDNER: A CNN exclusive in the cradle of democracy, CNN's Christiane Amanpour sat down with former President Barack Obama today for an exclusive interview. You all want to hear what he said. Coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:42:58]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, former President Barack Obama is set to speak about global democracy in Athens, Greece, the birthplace of democracy. Earlier today, CNN's Christiane Amanpour sat down with the former president for a wide-ranging exclusive interview. They had a candid discussion on the war in Ukraine, the 2024 presidential election, and democracy at large.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our existing democratic institutions are creaky. And we're going to have to reform them.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: So, let's ask about the creaky or not institutions in the United States.

OBAMA: Yes.

AMANPOUR: The spectacle of a former president being federally indicted, how is the rest of the world, the democratic world, maybe even the non-democratic world meant to interpret that indictment, and indeed, the fact that a federal indictee is running -- is able to run for the highest office in the land, maybe even the world?

OBAMA: It's less than ideal, all right? But the fact that we have a former president who is having to answer for -- to charges brought by prosecutors does uphold the basic notion that nobody's above the law. And the allegations will now be sorted out through a court process.

And I -- I'm -- I think I'm more concerned when it comes to the United States with the fact that not just one particular individual is you know being accused of undermining existing laws, but that more broadly, we've seen. Whether it's through the gerrymandering of districts. Whether it's you know trying to silence critics through changes in legislative process.

Whether it's the attempts to intimidate the press. A strand of anti- democratic sentiment that you know we've seen in the United States you know it's something that is right now most prominently in the -- in the Republican Party.

[11:45:13]

But I don't think it's something that is unique to one party. I think there is less tolerance for ideas that don't suit us. And it's sort of the habit of a free and open exchange of ideas and the idea that you know we all agree to the rules of the game. And even if the outcomes aren't always the ones we like, we still abide by those rules. I think that's weakened since I left office, and we're going to need to strengthen them again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Well, for Christiane's full exclusive one-on-one interview, "OBAMA & AMANPOUR: WILL DEMOCRACY WIN," please tune in to CNN tonight. 10:00 p.m. Eastern. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Still ahead. More equipment, more expertise, and more urgency are now in the search for the missing OceanGate sub. We have the very latest details on this massive effort underway, and what today could bring. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:38]

BOLDUAN: This morning, it was decision day at the Supreme Court. The justices issuing some of the final decisions of this term. CNN's Jessica Schneider tracking all of this for us. Jessica, there's what's happened today and what's still yet to come. But first, talk us through the decisions handed down today.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, Kate, four decisions handed down today. Two of notes. So, the first one, this court in a five-four decision rejecting claims from the Navajo Indian Nation that the federal government has a legal duty to help them secure greater access to water rights. So, in this case, Navajo Nation had sued, saying that the 1868 Treaty that established their reservation, they say that it also demanded that the government do more to help them get water because right now, the Navajo Nation is really struggling like many of the western United States are.

In particular, the Navajo Nation, more than 30 percent of the households on their nearly 200,000-person reservation, they don't have access to water. They go to great lengths to get the water. They wanted help from the government, but in a five-four decision today, the Supreme Court saying that the Navajo Nation cannot force the government to take affirmative steps to help them access water.

And, Kate, there was a second case also decided today that ruled against a federal prisoner who was challenging a conviction. It was a very technical case. But overall, it will make it harder for federal prisoners to challenge their convictions. So, four opinions today, we'll actually get more opinions tomorrow as well.

BOLDUAN: And the -- in saying that, the -- some of the biggest decisions are we're still waiting on.

SCHNEIDER: Yes, we are still waiting for the big ones. And that's typically what happens at the end of the Supreme Court's term. We expect it to end probably next Friday, but four big key decisions that we're still waiting for.

We're waiting for the court to rule on affirmative action, whether it can continue to be the practice in admissions decisions in colleges and university -- and universities. We're also waiting for a ruling on the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness program, whether that can take effect. Also waiting for a ruling on gay rights, whether a wedding website designer in Colorado can refuse services to same-sex couples.

So, a lot that we're waiting on, Kate, but usually that's how it goes. The big ones come down in those final days. We'll have opinions tomorrow, and then likely a few days next week as well. But we haven't found those out just yet.

SIDNER: Yes.

BOLDUAN: All right, Jess, thank you so much for laying it out. The wait continues for the big ones. Thank you.

SIDNER: We have some breaking news at this moment. We have just gotten some information from the Coast Guard. They're saying that a debris field has been found in the search area by an ROV near the Titanic.

They have not been able to say whether or not they think it's connected directly to that vessel that has been missing for these past four days. But a debris fill hasn't been found. And they are looking at what that may mean at this hour. All those -- all that equipment that's out there so important to determine what they're looking at and also whether or not they can rescue these five people inside the vessel.

BOLDUAN: And getting the ROV on the ground -- on the ocean floor is one of the things that we've heard --

SIDNER: Significant.

BOLDUAN: -- from all of these technical experts saying that this was needed. This is the way to figure out exactly what's happening. We know from the past three days -- three days, that the Coast Guard has been holding these -- have been offering updates. Around one o'clock Eastern, we will see kind of what update --

SIDNER: There's one now at three.

BOLDUAN: They're going to go on three?

SIDNER: We've just learned they're going to do one at three o'clock to talk about I'm sure this debris field. This is the tweet that they sent out just now. And again, debris fields discovered within the search area by an ROV or -- an ROV near the Titanic.

Important because we know one of the ROVs is down there on the ocean floor looking for this particular vessel. They have not said whether it is the vessel, but certainly, an update that everyone will be waiting to hear. So, really important information that will come down at three o'clock.

BOLDUAN: We also have more -- we learned today also that there were -- there's another kind of more technical with like more capability --

SIDNER: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- capabilities and other ROV that's on its way. So, while they're going to get an update on this debris field, everyone could -- should kind of hold their breath --

SIDNER: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- until to find out exactly what that means. But the fact that the Coast Guard's putting it out, that is very significant and we're going to hear more at three o'clock.

SIDNER: We know that the family is awaiting word.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

SIDNER: And all of us are as well. We are waiting word. Much more ahead on this. CNN continues in just a moment.

[11:55:19]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is important to note they have not laid eyes on whatever they are talking about. So, it is unclear what it is. There has been a lot of discussion among people who are in contact with folks that something has been found, and this may be what they are talking about.

It is the first time that we have had in several days other than this -- the sense of this -- the news of that banging or noise that was coming, that there was somebody down there. That there was something definitive to say about what happened -- what has happened to the Titan and where it is.