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Coast Guard Racing Against Time to Find Titanic Tour Sub; Trump Asked About Indictment in Fox Interview; Washington Post Reports, FBI Delayed Probe of Trump's Role in Jan. 6. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 20, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: New air attacks across Ukraine, targeting the capital, Kyiv.

[07:00:03]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This as Russia has heavily mined the frontlines and is sending more reservists into battle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Underscoring just how difficult Ukraine's counteroffensive is proving to be.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to be a long fight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Americans celebrating Juneteenth all across the country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just can't believe we have a federal holiday finally recognizing the end of our enslavement.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've come a long way, but we have a long way to go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love, and it's up to us to do it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. We're glad you're with us. We'll get to that and Juneteenth. It's only been a federal holiday for two years now and what yesterday meant.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And there was a big concert on CNN last night.

HARLOW: That's right.

BLACKWELL: So, we'll have a little bit of that for you throughout the show.

Listen, right now, though, the race is on to find a submersible that vanished while diving on the Titanic shipwreck. Five people were onboard. The U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards have launched an all-out search with planes and ships and buoys equipped with sonar. The ocean, at that point, it is about 13,000 feet deep in that area. And as of yesterday afternoon, officials estimated the passengers might have had somewhere between 70 and 96 hours worth of air left if the sub is still intact.

Now this was a sightseeing expedition that costs a quarter million dollars a person. The passengers included a British billionaire explorer, a Pakistani businessman and his son. There are also reports by the CBC and CTV News in Canada that a famous french diver and Titanic expert was also on the sub.

These are some of the last images of the submersible as it began its descent on Sunday morning. The deepest-ever underwater rescue was less than 2,000 feet. So, this could be unprecedented rescue if operation -- if the Coast Guard finds that sub.

CNN National Correspondent Jason Carroll has the latest on the search from Boston. And I think that context, that comparison, the deepest ever was 2,000. This could be as much as 13,000. What have you learned overnight?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You can tell that search and rescue crews are dealing with a number of challenges. The Boston Coast Guard basically says that they're searching in an area that's extremely remote. They've reached out to experts in the field of deep sea exploration, and they also realize at this point time is not on their side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADM. JOHN MAUGER, COMMANDER, FIRST COAST GUARD DISTRCT: We're doing everything we can do to locate the submersible and rescue those onboard.

CARROLL (voice over): Search and rescue teams from the United States and Canada are working around the clock in the North Atlantic to locate a lost submersible with five people onboard. Search planes have been scanning the ocean's surface, sonar buoys deployed to try to detect any sound from the missing vessel.

MAUGER: The location of the search is approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod in a water depth of roughly 13,000 feet.

CARROLL: According to the Coast Guard the submersible lost communication with its mothership, the Polar Prince, less than two hours into its descent Sunday morning as it ventured towards the wreckage of the Titanic. The company that operates the submersible on voyages to the Titanic, OceanGate expeditions, releasing this statement, our entire focus is on the well-being of the crew and every step possible is being taken to bring the five crew members back safely.

Onboard, businessman Hamish Harding, who is no stranger to adventure. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've always wanted to do this.

CARROLL: Recently he was a passenger on Blue Origin's June 2022 space flight. On Saturday, he posted on his Facebook page, I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate expeditions for their RMS Titanic mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic.

Also onboard Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman Dawood. Their family issuing a statement saying, we are grateful for the concern being shown by our colleagues and friends and would like to request everyone to pray for their safety.

According to OceanGate expeditions' website, the 21-foot, 23,000-pound submersible made of carbon fiber and titanium has up to 96 hours, four days, of oxygen for five people. Larry Daley, a Titanic expert, has been inside the 21-foot vessel.

LARRY DALEY, TITANIC EXPERT: I was in the sub for 12 hours. We have our own breathing system onboard. And if that's maintained properly, like changing your filter on your CO2 scrubber, you can stay down for quite a few hours.

[07:05:01]

CARROLL: In an interview CBS last year OceanGate expeditions CEO touting the submersible's safety.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go. You're still going to be safe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (on camera): And also, according to OceanGate, there is some sort of an early warning detection system onboard that's supposed to alert the pilot in case something goes wrong. Also onboard, a system in place that's supposed to help the vessel resurface, again, if something goes wrong. But, again, at this point, it's just unclear, Victor and Poppy, what exactly went wrong with this vessel. Back to you.

BLACKWELL: Jason Carroll reporting for us. Thank you, Jason.

HARLOW: For more on this, let's bring in deep sea explorer and oceanographer David Gallo. He is the senior adviser for strategic initiatives at RMS Titanic Inc. David, thank you so much for being with us.

Look, you've done this type of work for the better part of four decades. How likely is it that they will find this submersible in time before the oxygen runs out?

DAVID GALLO, SENIOR ADVISER FOR STATEGIC INITIATIVES, RMS TITANIC INC.: Well, certainly -- hi, Poppy. Certainly, time is against us at this point, and the only thing we can say is that everything that can be done is being done and that includes the Coast Guard at the surface, listening a bit beneath the surface, and then assembling right now some of the best robotics people with robots and ships to respond right away if they do find that submarine. BLACKWELL: David, we have the pictures of the submarine in this pretty blue water. I mean, it is beautiful. But when we're talking 13,000 feet down, give our viewers the reality of what it actually looks like down there.

GALLO: It's a whole different world, Victor. Normally, a dive, you begin on the surface in a light blue, pretty color blue that we're familiar with. It takes two and a half hours to get to the bottom roughly. And you start to drift down slowly through that water column. You leave the blue behind. It gets medium blue, deep blue, dark blue and then black for about two hours.

And this is a place where it's been eternally cold and pressure is building. So, when you land, you're landing, as I said, almost in a very unfamiliar world where all sorts of different kinds of creatures live and there's different kinds of landscapes.

HARLOW: I was struck, David, by this part of the CBS Sunday morning report last year by the journalist, David Pogue. I want you to listen to one part of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no GPS under water, so the surface ship is supposed to guide the sub to the shipwreck by sending text messages.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Turn 30 degrees right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably 30 degrees.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But on this dive, communication somehow broke down. The sub never found the wreck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were lost. We were lost for two and a half hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rush says he'll offer the passengers a free do- over next year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: If they got lost and there's no GPS, how do you find this now?

GALLO: Well, the thing about that, that does happen. It's unfortunate that it happened with David Pogue, and there's been no communication with the sub. So, even if you're lost, there's usually communications back and forth with the sub. You just don't know exactly where you are and you hope the surface can tell you.

So, really, it's just, in a way, looking actively, listening a bit but looking actively with sonars, a bit with cameras to see if they can locate the sub. And the problem begins with the last known position, where the sub was last heard.

BLACKWELL: Let's put up the graphic again showing just how deep the water is at the wreck site of the titanic and in comparison you see some of the iconic buildings across the country. You see the height of, I believe, that's the empire state building.

David, my question to you, Grand Canyon as well, we first met you, our first conversation was during MH-370 when that disappeared. And I was surprised by how little we know about how much of the ocean. Because the titanic wreck is there, are we familiar with this part of the North Atlantic that we know the depths, we know what is there?

GALLO: We know it probably better than most places because we've been there, but we're still learning things about it, about the currents that sweep through there -- like under water, almost like a wind that blows beneath the water except it's water, from different quadrants and from the north, from the east, we're learning about that, and learning about the animals that live in that spot. So, yes, we know it better but there're no guarantees and there are always surprises.

HARLOW: You're a deep sea explorer so you have a unique perspective and vantage to all of this that many of us don't.

[07:10:01]

Can you speak to the mental toll of being inside that very small space with those people who obviously know now that something went terribly wrong?

GALLO: Poppy, I can't imagine, and the entire community -- (INAUDIBLE), a colleague of mine, my closest colleague, and one of the best at this, searching, is onboard that expedition. Something we always think about as explorers and scientist that go to the deep, and we've always known something like this could happen and now it's happened. But we're still pretty much in shock, the community is. I hope it has a good ending.

HARLOW: Of course, we all do. David Gallo, thank you very much.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, David.

HARLOW: Well, Special Counsel Jack Smith just scored a win in court. What does this mean for former President Donald Trump?

BLACKWELL: And The Washington Post reports the FBI resisted launching a probe of Trump's role in the January 6th insurrection for more than a year. Why the bureau held back, that's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Why not just hand them over then?

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Because I had 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've sort of seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: That's Donald Trump offering up a new defense on why he didn't return classified documents that he was sorting at -- or storing, rather, at Mar-a-Lago, maybe was sorting through them. He said he had golf shirts there. He says he was too busy to look through all of it to separate his personal records.

In that interview with Fox News' Brett Baier, Trump maintained his innocence a week after pleading not guilty to 37 criminal charges, including obstruction of justice. He was also asked about a key allegation in the indictment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: But according to the indictment, you then tell this aide to move to other locations after telling your lawyers to say you'd fully complied with the subpoena when you hadn't.

TRUMP: But before I send boxes over, I have to take all of my things out. These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things, golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes, there were many things. I would say much -- not that I know of, but not that I know of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Joining us now, Criminal Defense Attorney Stacey Richman, National Correspondent for The Washington Post Philip Bump and CNN Senior Political Analyst and Anchor John Avlon.

Let's start with the law, Stacey, because all of these lies and shifting explanations politically mean one thing, but post-indictment, what's the role in the case?

STACEY RICHMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, the concern that you have is each day he's creating new evidence. So, when the government eventually turns over all of his statements, each one of these new statements is going to be included. He is making the case harder and harder for his counsels because the counsel may have a theory of how to proceed and Trump is constantly shifting because he's constantly throwing out a new theory. This is a very dangerous situation. He is not a good client because he needs to follow the direction.

BLACKWELL: He is not a good client, quote, Stacey Richman.

RICHMAN: One should remain silent in this situation, review the evidence, figure out what the positions are and confer with counsel. Conferring with the world is not the optimal role of the defendant.

HARLOW: Brett Baer did, I think, a very important job of fact- checking him in real-time in that interview on a lot of different points, also making some news here. Let's listen to something else Trump said. This was about the Bedminster assertion in the indictment that Trump waved this classified document around that he said was by General Milley, that Milley says was not by him, about Iran and any potential attack on Iran. Here's that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn't have a document per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.

BAIER: I'm just saying what the indictment says. The recording and the people in the room who testify --

TRUMP: These people are very dishonest people. They're thugs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Philip, speak to what the indictment does actually say because it quotes the former president on tape, in his own words, saying they're classified.

PHILIP BUMP, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, you're right. I mean, we have this tape. So, essentially, what happened is in June 2021, I believe it was, Trump was sitting down to be interviewed by people who were writing an autobiography for one of his former chiefs of staff, and he has this conversation.

So, our understanding is there was someone on his side who's actually recording it because he wanted to make sure that he was being quoted correctly. And as such, we have to imagine the scenario. It's not just that Donald Trump is sitting here saying, oh, it's these newspaper articles, you know what you're talking about.

It is, A, there is the recording, which, of course, would be presented in a court of law, but he's also sitting across the table from people, right? There are people in the room with him, both on his staff and these authors, all of whom, presumably, or at least one of whom is going to be called to testify and is going to sit on the stand and under oath say, actually, here's what happened, here's what he was referring to, here's what he had in his hand, here's what that recording means. The odds are good they're going to contradict what he just presented there.

But, of course, he's not making the case. He's not making a legal case. He understands that his fight is a political fight. If he gets elected president again, all this goes away. That's the fight that he's fighting in these conversations.

BLACKWELL: One of the people in the room might contradict him, but there's nothing to say that Trump won't contradict himself in another week or two and trying to explain what happened.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, as a matter of fact, put money on that. He almost certainly will. He keeps trying out different lies in different contexts because that's what he does all the time. But what you saw in that interview was a man unspooling. He was desperately trying to play defense against what I think he still thought would be a friendly interview, but was, in fact, fact-checking him in real-time. And he just clings to his lies like Linus with a blanket. It's all he's got.

And so the con man looks increasingly pathetic when he does that because it's contradicted by every established fact.

BLACKWELL: John, let's switch gears here because I really want your take on -- I think this is pretty stunning from the Washington Post reporting overnight, that the Justice Department senior officials there and that the FBI resisted requests for about a year to really probe former President Trump and his allies' actions in the days leading up to and on January 6th. And what is striking about this is part of the reason why, according to The Post, was because of their, quote, wariness about appearing partisan.

AVLON: Yes. It is so old school, and it's a reminder that in some ways we've been having an unfair fight over the course of the Trump administration, its aftermath. It's always been sort of a Boy Scout versus somebody who doesn't play by any rules. And in this case, you see the FBI being reticent to get involved in the investigation because they're concerned about the appearance of being political. They're trying to hold themselves above the fray.

HARLOW: Because they've been called the deep state nonstop.

AVLON: Because they've been called the deep state and everything else.

And I think it just shows that how much of our democracy, our democratic republic, is based on guardrails that are imposed by people who are trying to be honorable and care about perceptions, the amount of damage that can be done when people who don't care about honor, who don't care about those guardrails can get in and start destroying things.

BLACKWELL: Yes, some fascinating reporting from your colleagues there at The Post, Philip, in which they say that the effort initially was to work this like a mob case, where you start at the bottom and see if there's a way up. But, increasingly, they saw that there was no ladder that was going to take them right to the top. And there was some frustration throughout the department that sometimes trying not to appear political or partisan means you're not really doing the job.

BUMP: Yes. I mean, look, this is an incredibly complicated thing occurring in a very unique scenario, right? This is -- when we're talking specific specifically at that time, at the very beginning of the Biden administration, we're talking primarily about the Capitol riot. We're not necessarily talking about things like the electorate scheme, like the pressure was being put on the Justice Department in part because the full details of those weren't known yet. A lot of that emerged from the House select committee's work, right?

So, at that outset, you are trying to figure out, okay, how much can we actually charge Trump criminally with responsibility for what occurred at the Capitol? And, of course, for outsiders, it's easy to say, of course, this would not have happened without Donald Trump. That's different, as all of us are aware of, you more than most, than actually being able to bring criminal charges against it.

And so there is certainly some of it, which is just like, okay, we don't necessarily have an open and shot case here. As months progress, it becomes more clear the scale of what he's trying to do, they're still trying to figure it out. And then, of course, you have this documents case which is spelled out. It's cobbled together in Legos very precisely, and you have this thing that you can seize, right? It's very different than the Capitol riot case. And so they move forward on this one, and that's what we've done.

HARLOW: What's the significance, Stacey, of the magistrate judge signing off on this order that Jack Smith, the special counsel, requested, saying to Defendant Trump, you cannot show any of this discovery material to the media, you can't show it to your allies? Obviously, there's concerns given classified information, et cetera, but just seems like that would be an obvious thing for a defendant not to do. But he felt an order was necessary here.

RICHMAN: Well, it's not uncommon in many, many cases. So, the fact that everyone is seizing upon, like, oh, my God, the court has issued this order to Trump. First of all, counsel conferred beforehand, all counsel agreed because it would be issued regardless.

I have in many, many cases, both state and federal, like it was issued in the state case in New York as well, this type of protective order. And it's a little bit, again, as the gentleman have said, this is a really unique situation. We have this prosecution in the midst of a political campaign. And so, of course, they don't want things used improperly. Everything is for the case.

I have a very different role than all of you that are commenting and quarterbacking and seeing what people are saying. Part of my job as a criminal defense attorney and his counsel will be is to look at the evidence, look what the government is presenting and assert the defenses. So, our world is confined and the concept of what the jury is supposed to see is within the confines of the indictment and the evidence presented therein. All of this extra commentary is not to infect the jury, but, of course, here we all are.

BLACKWELL: And we should expect there will be more extra commentary, as you put it.

All right, John, Philip, Stacey, thank you all.

New overnight, Ukraine says Russia launched another massive air attack on Kyiv, saying that Iranian-made drones, quote, entered the Capitol in waves. We'll get the latest on Ukraine's counteroffensive. That's next.

HARLOW: We're also following this urgent search this morning for five people on board, a missing submersible near the wreckage of the Titanic. The new details we just learned, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

HARLOW: Welcome back. We are getting new details this morning about the desperate search for that submersible that disappeared during a sightseeing expedition to the Titanic shipwreck. CNN has just confirmed that the French submariner and ex-Navy Officer Paul-Henri Nargeolet is on board. That's according to his family. The other passengers include a British billionaire explorer along with a Pakistani businessman and his son. As of yesterday afternoon, the Coast Guard said the passengers may have had about 70 to 96 hours worth of oxygen on board if that sub were still intact.

These are some of the last images of the sub on Sunday morning as it began its descent with five people on board. The ocean is about 13,000ft deep at the site. The U.S. and the Canadian Coast Guards using planes in some buoys with sonar, scouring the region about 900 miles east of Cape Cod. The U.S. Coast Guard commander who is overseeing this search, Rear Admiral John Mauger, just spoke to ABC News. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAUGER: We have a P-3 from the Canadian Armed Forces that's been flying during the last 24 hours and dropping sonar buoys, listening to the sound. We also have vessels on scene now that have the capability to listen with their sonar. And so if they are making sound, that's certainly one of the ways that we're going to use to locate them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:30:01]

HARLOW: Ahead in our next hour, we will be joined by the Coast Guard rear admiral you just heard from, John Mauger. He's overseeing all of these search.