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CNN International: Search and Rescue for Missing Titanic Sub; Storms Sweep Through U.S. South; Deadly Mass Shootings Mark Holiday Weekend; Judge Bars Trump and Co-Defendant from Sharing Information Given to Legal Teams in Documents Case; Quinnipiac Poll: Trump Far Ahead of GOP Rivals; FBI, State Agencies in Kansas Investigate Suspicious Letters Sent to Lawmakers and Public Officials. Aired 4- 4:30a ET
Aired June 20, 2023 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning to all of you. Hello and a warm to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: You're warming everyone up for now.
NOBILO: I have been warming them up, now you're joining us.
FOSTER: I'm Max Foster joining you live from London. Just ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An urgent search and rescue operation is now underway in the North Atlantic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Severe weather reports all the way from Virginia, all the way down to the Gulf Coast, with tornadoes reported down there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We knew bad weather was coming but we didn't know the security of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The scale of the gunfight as the Israelis went into arrest these two suspects is not something that was expected.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo.
FOSTER: It's Tuesday, June the 20th, 9:00 a.m. here in London, 5:30 a.m. in St. John's, Canada, the headquarters for the search and rescue efforts happening right now for the missing submersible that was taking passengers to the Titanic. NOBILO: The sub belongs to the commercial underwater exploration
company OceanGate, which lost contact with the vessel an hour and 45 minutes into his dissent on Sunday. The U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards have mobilized boats, planes, and personnel for the search effort, which has continued throughout the night.
FOSTER: The wreckage of the Titanic is almost 400 nautical miles southeast of Newfoundland. It sits in two parts of the ocean floor, more than two miles or almost four kilometers below the surface. A U.S. Coast Guard official briefed reporters on Monday on the search efforts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REAR ADM. JOHN MAUGER, COMMANDER, U.S. COAST GUARD FIRST DISTRICT: It is a remote area and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area. But we are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: We get more now on the search from CNN's Brian Todd.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An urgent search and rescue operation is now underway in the North Atlantic, in the area near the wreck of the Titanic, to find a lost submersible with five people aboard. The U.S. Coast Guard tells CNN it's got a ship on the scene, and aircraft, including C-130 planes. Canadian ships and planes joining the search as well, along with the Polar Prince, the vessel that transport the missing submersible to the site of the Titanic wreckage, about 380 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The Coast Guard says the vessel submerged on Sunday morning and lost contact with the crew of the Polar Prince one hour and 45 minutes into its descent.
MAUGER: We have to make sure that were looking on both the surface, using aerial and surface vessels, but then expanding into underwater search as well. Right now, our capability is limited to sonar buoys and listening for sounds. But you know, we're working very hard to increase the capability.
TODD, (voice-over): This rescue is a race against time. On its website, OceanGate expeditions, the company that operates the submersible on expeditions down to the Titanic, says the 21-foot vessel has up to 96 hours, four days of oxygen for five people. One signal rescue could be looking for --
BUTCH HENDRICK, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, LIFEGUARD SYSTEMS: Does it have any of the normal pieces that a unit like this submersible should have? Releasable beacon that could've gone to the surface and could've sent a signal.
TODD, (voice-over): What could've gone wrong? CNN's weather team says the weather in the area was not overly harsh at the time the vessel submerged. But experts say below the surface, currents could've affected the submersible, or with various motors and propellers --
HENDRICK: It could be entrapped. It's very easy for it to suddenly get caught on something and it can't come back to the surface.
TODD, (voice-over): The Titanic sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg. More than 1,500 people died. The wreck was discovered in 1985 split into two parts. Recently an underwater scanning project using deep sea mapping creating new spectacular images of the ship. It's become a popular and expensive tourist destination.
[04:05:00]
It cost $250,000 per person to take a trip to the Titanic on the tightened submersible that's now missing. The Titanic lies close to 12,500 feet, more than two miles below the surface, a depth that experts say complicate any rescue mission.
TODD: Because of those conditions, the experts we spoke to say that if and when the submersible is located, and if it's deep underwater, they'll probably have to send unmanned vehicles down first to try to address the situation. Rescue divert Butch Hendrick says they'll likely have to try to bring the vessel to the surface first. He says they won't be able to extract the people inside while it's underwater.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: Late last year, a CBS team was giving a tour of the OceanGate submersible by the company's founder and CEO, Stockton Rush.
FOSTER: The sub holds five people, it's described as being about the size of a mini van, with 96 hours worth of life support. Here's what Rush had to say about the safety of the submersible.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STOCKTON RUSH, CEO AND FOUNDER, OCEANGATE: There's certain things you want to be buttoned down. So, the pressure vessel is not MacGyvered at all, because that's where we work with Boeing and NASA and the University of Washington. Everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go, you're still going to be safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: Earlier, I spoke with a retired U.S. Navy master diver, Rick Armstrong, and I asked him how Coast Guard officials might pull off a rescue operation in these conditions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK ARMSTRONG, U.S. NAVY MASTER DIVER (ret.): The fastest way would be with remote operated vehicles, site scan sonar, unmanned underwater vehicles as well. An ROV would probably be the fastest method if they can get one out there in a rapid method. The problem is they have to have a vessel to land it on. Getting it -- say they're bringing it from the States, they have to bring it out to Newfoundland. Find a vessel to bring it out. You know, how fast it could get out there. They may be able to fly it out 400 miles with a helicopter, you know, you know, refueling. There's a lot of logistics involved here. And given the dire situation, I'm sure that everyone is trying to expedite the gear out to them in a rapid method.
The ROVs are very capable. That's probably what they will use for searching for this vessel. As far as the surface, the Coast Guard is very good at doing this, so it's the Canadian Coast Guard. They're very capable. If it is on the surface, there's a good chance they could find it. But as far as going in the water, it's going to be nothing manned that deep. It'll probably be all of these.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: That is an interesting interview from a former NATO submarine commander of the British Navy this morning that said, if a submarine is supposed to take two hours to get to the depth of the Titanic, and they start to lose comms at 1 hour 45 minutes, then why didn't they press the button, which is the only control they had to start lifting themselves back up? We don't know for sure that they didn't at this stage, but it doesn't seem likely.
FOSTER: Fingers crossed.
Storms have battered the U.S. South in some of the same places already devastated by tornadoes over the past few days. More than 25 million people across the region are under a severe weather threat today into Wednesday.
NOBILO: Take a look at this video of a possible tornado in Moss Point, Mississippi. The storm ripped through the area, leveling several homes and businesses in its path. Also in Mississippi, at least one person was killed and nearly two dozen injured when a powerful twister swept through the town of Lewin on Sunday night.
FOSTER: The National Weather Service gave it a preliminary rating of EF3. Our CNN meteorologist Chad Myers has more on the dangerous weather impacting the country.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Quite a few severe weather reports all the way from Virginia all the way down to the Gulf Coas. The most severe along the Gulf Coast itself, with tornadoes reported down there. Some hitting some towns with damage down there.
Also, another event, very, very heavy rainfall, 6 to 10 inches of rain fell in a short period of time, with flash flood emergencies in effect. Now, here you go. This is what the computer thinks the rainfall is going to look like throughout the day on Tuesday, taking you all the way to Wednesday. Notice what happens Tuesday afternoon. Big storms could be rolling right through New Orleans. This is kind of the biggest threats that I see here. Some of those storms could also be severe with heavy rainfall, wind, and even some hail. So if it falls on the same places that already saw the heavy rainfall, there could be more flash flooding in the forecast. And also, that rainfall will be heading up the east coast, up into
Charlotte, up the hills, up the Appalachian chain. And all that rainfall will be here, along at east of that upslope flow of that mountain area. And also, some heavy rainfall across parts of Texas, and of course, New Orleans, where I showed you, those storms will be.
Something else that's going on to the west of there is this record- breaking heat.
[04:10:00]
More than 60 places will likely break record highs, with excessive heat warnings in effect, and a heat index to 122 and the afternoon in some places. That's in the shade. See, these are the temperatures on the thermometer, without the heat kind of added in and humidity added in. The temperatures are going to be hot already. You add in the humidity and it's going to feel much warmer. In places it's going to feel like 120 degrees. It did in Corpus Christi on Monday. It felt for a time, 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
One more thing going on, tropical storm Bret, it was named Bret at 5:00 p.m. on Monday and it's out here in the Atlantic, way out there. But it's forecast to move to the west towards the islands. And if you notice here, the numbers forecast to become a hurricane. Not until probably Wednesday or Thursday. But this storm will likely intensify and move to some populated islands, and possibly even into the Gulf of Mexico next week. We'll have to watch that. This track is still way too far out to figure out where this thing is going to go just yet.
FOSTER: Meanwhile in India, a blistering heat wave is scorching part of the country. Officials in the state of Bihar say at least 44 people have died in recent days due to the high temperatures.
NOBILO: The Indian Meteorological Office issued a red alert after some districts in that area recorded temperatures above 113 degrees Fahrenheit, that's 45 degrees Celsius. But temperatures are expected to cool in the coming days.
FOSTER: U.S. President Joe Biden touting his record on fighting climate change as he makes his case reelection. Mr. Biden visited a nature reserve in California on Monday, less than a week after four major environmental groups endorsed him.
NOBILO: The president says he has taken the most aggressive climate action ever, while Republicans have tried to block it. He announced funding to modernize California electrical grid and said the White House will host the first ever climate resilience summit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've toured many states across the country, that clearly show climate change is a genuine -- is the existential threat to humanity. We're taking the most aggressive climate action ever. We're investing in the people and places that have been hit the hardest, but who are also on the front lines and leading us forward. (END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: A holiday weekend in the U.S. turned deadly as a string of mass shootings and violence swept across the country. At least 15 people were killed and dozens more injured in as many as 21 shootings in multiple cities.
FOSTER: According to Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 300 shootings so far this year. CNN's Adrienne Broaddus has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICHELLE PETERSON, SURVIVED MASS SHOOTING: This is the one that hurts the most. I had stitches in my head so I already have a hole.
ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nichelle Peterson was among the 22 injured in a parking lot party in Illinois Saturday night, about 21 miles west of Chicago. At least one person was killed. Bullets grazed Peterson's shoulder and forehead.
PETERSON: I was in the back seat hiding and they just kept going across me, but I couldn't get any lower, you know what I mean. I just heard it and I felt it. At least 30 rounds went through my car alone.
BROADDUS (voice-over): The DuPage County Sheriff's Office says deputies were on site to monitor the event.
PETERSON: It was just a Juneteenth party. I'm not exactly sure who threw it.
BROADDUS (voice-over): But around 12:25 a.m. they got called to respond to a nearby fight and immediately returned when they heard gunfire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Next thing you know shots just got there going off and everybody ran and it was chaos.
BROADDUS (voice-over): Investigators saying multiple suspects fired multiple rounds into the parking lot ground.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just all heard a shoot. Cover before we had it. So, we dropped down. We dropped down until they stopped. They just kept going.
BROADDUS (voice-over): In downtown St. Louis, a 17-year-old male was killed and at least nine others hurt. It happened at a party held in an office building.
TISHAURA JONES, MAYOR OF MISSOURI: It's every parent's worst nightmare tenfold.
BROADDUS (voice-over): Officers say multiple weapons were found at the scene, including an AR-style rival. And they're still trying to figure out how the group got access to the building.
ROBERT TRACY, ST. LOUIS POLICE CHIEF: It was planned in advance. We're still investigating who had access to it.
BROADDUS (voice-over): In central Washington State, two people are dead and several others hurt after a mass shooting at the camp grounds near the gorge amphitheater in Quincy, about 150 miles east of Seattle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People were just trying to come out here to have fun.
BROADDUS (voice-over): It happened around 8:25 p.m. local time during an electronic dance music festival. The Grant County Sheriff's Office says the shooter shot four people in the campground then continued firing into the crowd. According to CNN affiliate KOMO, when officers caught up to the suspects, they fired their weapons injuring the alleged shooter who survived.
KYLE FOREMAN, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, GRANT COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: We don't know what the motives were or what the intentions were of the shooter.
BROADDUS (voice-over): And on Friday night in Carson, California, eight people were injured during a shooting at a home, about 17 miles south of Los Angeles. It happened in a cul-de-sac where it's believed around 20 to 30 people were gathered. Deputies say the victim's range in age from 16 to 24.
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DAMON JONES, CAPTAIN, LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: We did get some indication there might have been a fight before the shooting, but that's all being investigated.
BROADDUS (voice-over): Adrienne Broaddus, CNN, Willowbrook, Illinois.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: Just ahead, a judge applies new restrictions on Donald Trump in the classified documents case, as the former president explains why he didn't cooperate with investigators.
FOSTER: Plus, the U.S. elections are almost a year and a half away. But a new poll shows how President Biden would fare in a head-to-head matchup with Donald Trump.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: The U.S. magistrate is barring Donald Trump and his codefendants from disclosing any information handed over to their attorneys in the classified documents case. Special counsel Jack Smith asked for the ban.
NOBILO: Trump appeared on Fox News Monday and offered his latest explanation for not handing over boxes of documents to government investigators.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've got a lot of things in there. I will go through those boxes. I have to go through those boxes. I take out personal things. As far as the levels and all, everything was declassified, because I had the right to declassify.
[04:20:00]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not just hand them over than?
TRUMP: Because I had the boxes. I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don't want to hand that over to NARA yet. And I was very busy, as you sort of seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: I'd want to know what the personal things were, notes, a paperweight?
FOSTER: Yes, I think there are physical things as well. Weren't there? You know, tracking back what he said about those documents and why he said there were there, there were different stories, which is the point that journalists are pointing out. More now from CNN's justice correspondent Jessica Schneider.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the judge has issued a four-page protective order, and it detailed several prohibitions on the former president and his co-defendant Walt Nauta. That's because Justice Department officials want to ensure that all of the information they hand over as part of this discovery process in this prosecution is kept private.
So, Donald Trump and Walt Nauta and their lawyers would be barred from several things. First of all, sharing any information they're given with anyone other than their lawyers or people involved in the defense. In addition, Trump and Nauta will only be allowed access to this material under the direct supervision of their attorneys. Now, they can take notes, but their notes must be kept in the possession of their attorneys and stored securely.
And finally, nothing that DOJ gives can then be shared on social media. This sort of protective order is definitely standard in criminal cases like this. And the order, it must be signed by all parties who are privy to the information collected and then handed over by prosecutors.
And it really protects against the disclosure of sensitive information, like grand jury transcripts. Especially when other investigations we know are still ongoing. Of course, the special counsel's probe continues into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election. So, DOJ really needs to make sure that information about those other investigations is not disclosed publicly. And that's what this protective order does.
Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: Transformer Attorney General William Barr is stepping up his criticism of the former president. In a "Free Press" op-ed, Barr writes: If true -- and many key facts come from Trump's own lawyer -- this was brazen criminal conduct that cannot be justified in anyway. For the sake of the country, our party, and a basic respect for the truth, it is time that Republicans come to grips with the hard truth about President Trump's conduct and its implications.
But that message may be falling on deaf ears among rank-and-file Republicans. New polling shows that Trump's two indictments have not diminished his support within the party. CNN's Jessica Dean reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As former President Donald Trump sorts through all of his legal battles, we're getting some fresh insights. Thanks to recent polling by Quinnipiac University as to how this is all playing out politically for the former president. And if you take a look at the Republican field for the 2024 nomination, you can see his support really has not eroded away at all in the wake of this recent indictment. The second of course this year, and a potential third one under way out of Georgia.
You see him with 53 percent of support from Republican voters or those who lean Republican, and then 23 percent for Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis. That's the closest competitor there, everybody else in the single digits.
A couple things to keep in mind, it is of course very early still and this is a national poll. This is not done in the states that will really determine so much of the outcome of those early voting states at the beginning part of 2024.
Quinnipiac also doing a potential and hypothetical head-to-head matchup between the current President Joe Biden and then former President Trump. Biden is leading there with 48 percent to Trump's 44 percent.
And while all of the actual voting in the 2024 race continues to be pretty far away, that does not mean that we are not seeing the candidates out on the trail. We're seeing President Biden in Northern California where he is doing some fundraising and also talking about one of the key issues that we are told will be central to his campaign, and that is climate change. He's talking about climate resiliency, talking about money that will be going to a lot of these coastal areas to put climate resiliency practices into place. That's part of the Inflation Reduction Act, some of his signature legislation that passed with Democrat-only support out of Congress last August.
On the other side, we see Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis there. He's also doing some fundraising but talking about very different messaging. Where he's really seeking to contrast himself to blue states led by Democrats. And he's really seeking that contrast between himself and California's Governor, Gavin Newsom. We saw his team putting out a video today really slamming Newsom and his policies there in California. We also know that he was fundraising to those smaller donors off of text messages, that sort of thing off, on being in California and really taking on these Democratically led states. Then of course, the ultimate Democrat President Joe Biden, who he continues to try to laser focus in on when he is on the stump. When he's off the stump, that is when we see him taking on his chief rival in the GOP contest, that's the former President, Donald Trump.
Jessica Dean, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[04:25:00]
FOSTER: With well over a year to go before the election, super PACs supporting candidates are already pouring millions of dollars into political ads. And so, far Republicans are outspending Democrats by a landslide.
NOBILO: The totals right now, more than $58 million spent on GOP candidates, and about 7.6 million for Democrats. The group's backing Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis make up well over half of that Republican spending.
The FBI is now assisting Kansas state agencies with an investigation into dozens of suspicious letters sent to public officials across the state.
FOSTER: Now some Republican officials who received those letters, which contained white powder, believe there targeted. CNN's Rosa Flores has the details from Houston.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I spoke to Kansas Representative Stephen Owens, and said that this experience was terrifying. He says this act was targeted towards Republicans. Look, he says that the return address on the envelope appear to be a constituent. That's why he opened this letter freely, only to find the white powder inside.
Now, he shared a photo of the letter and he points to two specific sentences in that letter that say, quote: To honor your recent accomplishments, it's important not to choke on your ambition.
Now, he says this message is cryptic, and it could reference Republicans super majority in the Kansas House and the Kansas Senate, which recently overrode nine vetoes by the Democratic governor. Now those moves were very controversial. He points out that two of them were especially controversial. One of those defined a man and a woman, and the second one stated that biological males could not participate in women's sports.
Now authorities are not saying that this is the motive here. But this particular lawmaker is not the only one who feels targeted. Take a listen. MOLLY BAUMGARDNER (R) KANAS STATE SENATE: There is some message, the
message is somewhat unclear, but it was intended to be threatening. Everybody has to be concerned. Everybody has to take this and any subsequent threats like this very seriously.
FLORES: Kansas authorities have tested some of the about 100 letters that have gone to public officials across the state of Kansas, and they say that the powder has returned negative for common biological agents. But they do say that further testing is being conducted. And it's important to note that no injuries have been reported and no arrests and that this investigation is ongoing.
Rosa Flores, CNN, Houston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, Ukraine insists it's not losing any ground in its two-week-old counteroffensive, but Russia is not easily giving ground either. We'll bring you the latest on the war.
FOSTER: Plus, the head of the U.N. issues a warning as he appeals for more international aid for war torn Sudan.
[04:30:00]
