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CNN This Morning

Danny Olivas is Interviewed about the Missing Sub; Judge Sets Date for Documents Trial; Justin Elliott is Interviewed about Justice Alito; Biden Refers to China's Xi as a Dictator. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 21, 2023 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: After an internal government memo said that banging noises were heard at 30 minute intervals on Tuesday. And as search crews continue their work, we're getting a better understanding of the expedition that was supposed to take place.

According to those who have done this exact dive before, the Titan normally descends for about two hours before it reaches the Titanic shipwreck. Now, that's a depth of 12,672 feet, or about two and a half miles down. The vessel then stays there for about four hours to give those onboard time to survey the shipwreck. Then it's another two hours back up to the surface to complete the trip, but clearly something went wrong on this most recent expedition.

According to the Coast Guard, the Titan dove, as it normally would, but one hour forty-five minutes in contact was lost. We don't know exactly how far down or what happened after that moment.

Let's bring in now Danny Olivas. He's a retired astronaut and expert accident investigator who has done two stays on NASA's Aquarius Underwater Habitat and trained on underwater spacewalks.

Danny, thank you for being with us.

Let me start with, of course, the biggest news of the morning, the banging that's been heard. It's been picked up by Canadian planes. Happening every 30 minutes. What's your take on that?

JOHN "DANNY" OLIVAS, RETIRED ASTRONAUT: Well, it's, obviously - it's a very optimistic sign. You take every little bit that you can at this stage of the game with the oxygen supply running low and the fact that the vessels has been down for as long as it's been. Certainly any - any signs of hope are - are very positive signs right now. But I think we also have to be very realistic with the - the seriousness of the situation.

BLACKWELL: Yes, the U.S. Coast Guard has not replicated that. And hearing the - the tapping, the banging themselves. So, now let's talk about what's happening inside this submersible. It's about the size of let's say an extended cab pickup truck. The inside, as it's been described by CBS News, the size of a minivan. Psychologically, physically, since you trained under water, what are they going through?

OLIVAS: Well, so, there's probably a lot of challenges. It's a very stressful situation at those depths. They're not getting a lot of ambient light. So, if they've lost the ability to generate their own light in the vessel, it would be very dark. If they lost the ability to generate light, it's possible because they've had some power issues and their inability to communicate. It would also mean that they might have an inability to generate the necessary heat. It's going to be very cold at those depths as well. There's not a lot of ambient heat coming from the surrounding environment.

The air circulating inside the cabin would be probably still -- there probably wouldn't be any cabin air circulation, which could also pose a lot of, you know, potential hazards with just breathing the air. The oxygen is important, but also CO2 generation by five people in a small, confined vessel is going to be very challenging and potentially creating a poisonous environment for the crewmembers.

BLACKWELL: You mentioned temperature. And this is something I've been thinking about over the last couple of days. At this point, how cold at that depth is it?

OLIVAS: Well, as - so what - I don't have the exact numbers -

BLACKWELL: Yes.

OLIVAS: But what I will tell you is that if you don't have the ability to generate heat, as you've probably just been out in the ocean over a short period of time eventually you can get yourself cold (ph) soaked (ph) even on a sunny day. Now, you can imagine the depths where you don't have the sun, you know, beating down on you, providing you some additional heating. It's going to get cold. And, unfortunately, that the - the thermal - the thermal generation, the thermal conditioning is required to help people - people remain in a comfortable situation.

BLACKWELL: All right, Danny Olivas, thank you so much for giving us your insight, having trained in these underwater vessels.

All right, summer is coming and hot, dangerously - dangerously hot. Thousands of people in Oklahoma and Texas and Louisiana with no electricity. They're facing another triple digit day. We'll have more on that, next.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Also, Donald Trump is still the -- by far the front runner in the Republican primary for president, but his grip on the GOP might not be quite as tight after this indictment. We're going to show you some really fascinating new CNN polling, ahead.

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[06:38:45]

HARLOW: It is the first official day of summer. Nearly 30 million people though are under severe heat alerts across the south, including Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Alabama. It could feel like 120 degrees outside in some of those places. Take a look at these heat records broken in Texas on Tuesday in Laredo, 114 degrees, destroying the old record of 109 degrees from 1996. In Abilene it was 108. The old record in 1934, 106. And in McAllen, 3 degrees higher than the 1980 record of 103.

Derek Van Dam, our meteorologist, joins us from the CNN Weather Center.

Yikes! Any respite and insight?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS CERTIFIED BROADCAST METEOROLOGIST: Well, I guess if you consider 92 degrees relief from the heat wave, you can take it then. But you can see in our seven-day forecast for Houston, temperatures are going to soar right back into the 100s, right into the early parts of the weekend.

Now people say, hey, look, Houston gets hot. It gets to 100 degree. Well, the average first 100 degree day isn't until July 19th, and it's already reached 100 degrees twice just this week. Excessive heat warnings continue across the state. And, as you mentioned before, the feels like temperature outside will feel like 115 to 120.

And as long as this heat dome stays firmly in place across Mexico and Texas, the heat will remain for a better part of the next coming week.

[06:40:07]

And, in fact, there's science-backed research that says that human caused climate change is making these heat waves that are in place five times more likely. Not only is today the first day of summer, it is also the show your stripes day. This is a graphic that meteorologists show to show the trends over the past 100 years. It's meant to spread awareness about climate change using these warming stripes. And I want you to take note, over the past, let's say, decade, how much we have actually warmed.

Back to you.

HARLOW: Derek, thank you. Appreciate it.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Darek.

Still ahead, new questions of ethics at the Supreme Court and new scrutiny. This time it's Justice Samuel Alito is the focus of the controversy. He responded to the allegations even before they went public. We'll discuss, next.

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[06:45:00]

BLACKWELL: A federal judge in Donald Trump's classified documents trial sets a tentative start date of August 14th, but that could be delayed as pre-trial motions come into play. Judge Aileen Cannon's moves are being watched very closely because she ruled in favor of the former president last year during the document investigation.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz joins us live now from Washington, D.C.

So, she says that she expects that there could be some movement here. How quickly do we expect this date to get pushed back?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Victor, that depends on the work to do before trial and when that takes place. So, there is this date on the calendar now set by Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida for essentially the back half of August. That is when the trial is set now. And now there will be some discussions about that. That is very likely. It's very expected and it's what typically happens in this part of the federal court in the southern district of Florida. Both sides get to go to her and potentially ask to delay things if they need to. And she even said that in her order yesterday. If there are complicated issues that arise in this case, or if there are issues - if there are issues around the classified material being used in the case, there's 31 documents, many of them have some sort of classification markings on them that are charged as part of this case. And so there may be very complicated discussions that have to be had before trial about how much classified information can be used at that trial, how that will be handled.

So, that could derail things. And it's very likely that that trial date will change. But, of course, the Justice Department wants this to move fast. The special counsel said that the day of the indictment that they wanted to speedy trial. And it is a defendant's rights to have a trial that happens fast so that they can clear their name without being under a cloud of scrutiny for too long.

And so we will just have to wait and see exactly how this plays out, Victor. There is no predicting court, especially when it comes to timelines.

BLACKWELL: Understood. We'll know that you'll be watching it closely.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.

HARLOW: Well, this new overnight. "ProPublica" publishing the latest in a series of investigations into Supreme Court ethics, reporting that in 2008 Justice Samuel Alito went on a luxury fishing trip to Alaska with Paul Singer, a man "ProPublica" described as a, quote, hedge fund billionaire who has repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to rule in his favor in high-stakes business disputes. This report goes on to write, quote, the group flew on one of the lodge's bush planes to a waterfall in Katmai National Park, which bears - where bears snatch salmon from the water with heir teeth. At night, the lodge's chefs served multicourse meals of Alaskan king crab legs or Kobe filet. On the last evening, a member of Alito's group bragged that the wine they were drinking cost $1,000 a bottle, one of the lodge's fishing guides told "ProPublica."

Hours before that piece was published, Alito wrote a prebuttal in "The Wall Street Journal" saying the charges against him don't hold water.

Joining us now one of the reporters who broke this story, "ProPublica" journalist Justin Elliott.

Good morning, Justin. Thank you very much for being with us. There's a lot to get to.

An di just want to understand from you first if you can explain if it's believable that Justice Alito and his clerks didn't know the singer connection to some of these big cases. I mean one of them is a 2014 case. One of Singer's funds, NML Capital versus Argentina. This had to do with sovereign wealth, et cetera, and sovereign debt that ultimately, you know, granted Singer over $2 billion. Is it believable that he really didn't know -- that Alito and his clerks didn't know Singer's connection to these cases?

JUSTIN ELLIOTT, REPORTER, "PROPUBLICA": Yes, I mean, you know, it's hard to say what's in the justice' head, but what I can tell you is that Paul Singer's connection, you know, to this case was widely reported in mainstream media outlets. You know, you might remember, his hedge fund actually at one point tried to seize an Argentine navy ship. And this was an incident back in 2012 that, you know, was covered in "The New York Times," "The Wall Street Journal." It was - it was not a secret that this was Paul Singer's fund being sued by Argentina at the Supreme Court.

BLACKWELL: So, Justin, reading this op-ed published by "The Wall Street Journal," Justice Samuel Alito, writes that "ProPublica" misleads its readers. He talked about why he had no obligation to recuse. But some of the things that he points out here, he writes that, what you describe these lavish evenings, he says that, well, these were family-style meals. They were rustic accommodations. Can you just paint a picture here of what the justice was enjoying here in Alaska?

ELLIOTT: Sure. And, yes, I acknowledge that, you know, luxury is in the eye of the beholder, but I think what's not contested here is that Justice Alito flew to Alaska from the East Coast on a private jet provided by the hedge fund billionaire, Paul Singer.

[06:50:02]

In Alaska they stated at the King Salmon Lodge, which at the time cost more than $1,000 a night. You know, they serve king crab. They are flown around the area on bush planes to go fishing. We have pictures in the story. You can see the kind of fish they caught. And then they flew back also in a private plane. You know, the cost of the wine that they drank is in dispute here, but pretty much everything else Justice Alito acknowledge. And I think the really important fact here is that when Paul Singer later had cases at the court, Justice Alito did not recuse himself.

HARLOW: Right. So, Singer -- Alito writes in his op-ed that his interactions with Paul Singer over the decades have been extremely limited. He describes them as no more than a handful of occasions, all of which consisted of brief and casual comments at events attended by large groups. On no occasion, writes Alito, have we discussed the activities of his business and we have never talked about any cases or issues before the court.

Does that square with your reporting? ELLIOTT: Yes, you know, we talked to a series of ethics experts about

when justices should recuse themselves. And what it came to -- down to in this case is the fact that Justice Alito accepted these private jet flights from Paul singer. And this is - this is not cheap. I mean a one-way private jet flight on the type of jet we're talking about here to Alaska could cost over $100,000 to charter the plane. Justice Alito did not pay for it. He did not reimburse Paul Singer. That's not in dispute. And so, you know, the experts we spoke to said that that will look - that's an expensive gift. And, you know, if -- if you were - if you were going up against somebody in court and you found out that the person on the other side had been flying around the judge on a private jet, the basic question is, can that judge be fair? That's the situation.

HARLOW: But - well, you write in this piece that it is potentially a violation of federal law that Alito did not make these disclosures. I know that the disclosure rules changed recently, Justin, and this is part of the defense that Justice Thomas gave as well. Were those rules in place that would have required Alito to disclose all of this when this happened in 2008, or have they since been updated?

ELLIOTT: Yes, so it gets a little bit into the weeds. But the - the law at issue here was actually passed after Watergate in a kind of era of good government reform. The law has not changed. All of the ethics lawyers we spoke to said that getting a gift of a private jet flight should have been disclosed. Justice Alito is maintaining that the filing instructions did not require him to disclose it. But, you know, I'll note that as we say in the peace, we found examples of multiple other federal judges disclosing gifts of private jet flights at the time.

HARLOW: Really important reporting. Everyone should read it.

Justin Elliott, thank you very much.

BLACKWELL: A new development in the search for the missing submersible. Underwater banging has been detected. What this means for the passengers on board and will rescuers be able to reach them before they run out of air.

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[06:57:46]

HARLOW: Well, just after his top diplomat went to Beijing and tried to repair the fractured U.S./China relationship, President Biden referred to China's president as a dictator. This is what Biden said at a fundraiser last night in San Francisco. Quote, the reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot down that balloon with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it is he didn't know it was there. The president went on to say, quote, that's what's a great embarrassment for dictators, when they don't know what happened, closed quote.

Our Arlette Saenz is at the White House with more.

I wonder if the White House is clarifying these comments this morning.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, so far the White House has not issued any reaction or clarification of the president's comments. But it does raise the question of whether these comments from President Biden will complicate and potentially upend some of the efforts that were made over the weekend to try to ease tensions with China.

Now, it's worth noting that President Biden, as recently as Saturday, had actually talked about the Chinese spy balloon incident in similar terms, saying it was an embarrassment for China's leadership. But he went one step further last night when he compared Chinese President Xi Jinping to dictators.

Now, this came in an off-camera fundraiser which tends to be a venue where we see the president speak a little bit more freely and candidly about various matters. So that is something that we had clearly seen take place in relation to his comments about China and this spy balloon incident.

Now, China has already slammed the White House this morning, calling those comments absurd and irresponsible and accusing President Biden of engaging in political provocation. So, we will see whether over the course of the day, if the White House decides to issue any type of verification, any type of walk back. But this is already proving to be yet another wrinkle in an incredibly tense relation between the U.S. and China.

HARLOW: It certainly is. Arlette, thank you for the reporting at the White House.

CNN THIS MORNING continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A complex search, now more complicated by time, which they're running out of.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Crews searching for the submersible heard banging sounds every 30 minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Though it's unclear for how long.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they are alive, and they're in there, they're going to be in almost freezing temperatures. It's going to be dark.

[07:00:04]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now all of our efforts are focusing on finding the sub.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty.