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Search Continues for Missing Submersible with Passengers Visiting Site of Titanic Wreckage; Searchers Report Hearing Banging Noises at Regular Intervals from Underwater in Area Near Titanic Wreckage; Extremely High Temperatures Affect Parts of Texas. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired June 21, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: It is the top of the hour.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good --

HARLOW: Good morning, everyone.

BLACKWELL: Sorry, that was you.

HARLOW: No. I am just so glad you are with me.

BLACKWELL: I am just filling in here.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: Thank you for being with me the past few days. This is my buddy Victor Blackwell. We are covering a lot this morning on CNN THIS MORNING. And there is some hope. That's where we begin, with a little bit of hope this morning in that desperate search for a missing sub near the Titanic shipwreck. The sound of banging has been detected underwater and the noise apparently repeated every 30 minutes.

BLACKWELL: Plus, Republican leaders are accusing the Justice Department of giving Hunter Biden a sweetheart plea deal. We'll take a look at the facts.

HARLOW: Also, millions of Americans under extreme heat alerts as the summer officially kicks off today. We're going to take you live to south Texas where temps are expected to keep breaking records.

This hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

HARLOW: New overnight, a potential sign of life as rescuers race to find the submersible that vanished while diving on the Titanic shipwreck. Sonar has picked up banging sounds in the search area, and those were repeated, those sounds, every 30 minutes, that is according to an internal U.S. government memo. This morning the Coast Guard says it's not clear what the source of the sound was, and Navy experts are analyzing it. It is estimated that the five passengers on board would have only about a day left of breathable air at this point if that's submersible is still intact. Here is what a former passenger onboard that same missing sub said what it's like inside.

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AARON NEWMAN, FORMER PASSENGER ON MISSING SUBMERSIBLE: As you start to descend through the water column, it is an amazing journey to see the light very quickly disappear, and within five, ten minutes you are in pitch dark, complete dark. And you have the lights from the sub, right. You have the lights from the submersible that you can see outside and internally. But without those, your light is gone at any depth below a couple hundred meters. So anyone would be in that would be in complete darkness if they didn't have power still at this point.

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HARLOW: Take a look. This is new video from this morning of another rescue vessel heading out to join the search and rescue operations after the U.S. Air Force flew special equipment into Newfoundland. CNN's senior national correspondent Miguel Marquez joins us in St. John's, Newfoundland. Can you talk to us about what the Coast Guard is doing this morning?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is all hands on deck. There was a Coast Guard ship from the Canadian Coast Guard that just shipped out now. There was the Horizon Arctic, that private ship that left overnight, both of them carrying gear, both of them heading out to the search area now in the hope that they can rescue the individuals who may be as far as two miles down and looking for help.

With regard to the sounds that were heard, this was over about a four- hour period. There was a Poseidon, a sub hunter that had dropped buoys into the ocean. It heard banging. Every 30 minutes they were hearing a regular banging. And then four hours later they dropped more buoys in, they heard more banging. They sent remote operated vehicles down to the location where they thought that sound was coming from but were not able to find anything.

They are now moving surface ships around the area to see if they can either hear other sounds. They heard other sounds after that initial period yesterday of about four or five hours or so, but it wasn't banging. So they are not clear, it's not clear what they were hearing down there at that point. But just an excruciating wait, an absolute concern here for what, if they are alive, what they must be going through down there in the cold and the dark and just hoping against hope that they are rescued. Back to you.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk more about the search and the resources that are involved. You talked about that one ship that was en route searching from the air, on the surface of the water, below the water. Miguel, what do you know?

MARQUEZ: So, there were three U.S. military C-17s that landed here in St. John's in Newfoundland yesterday. That gear was offloaded from those planes, put on to we believe the Horizon Arctic that went out about two hours ago. And there is everything from remote operated vehicles, submersibles that can dive down that deep, gear that if they find it, they can wench it up if necessary, and even remote -- or decompression chambers, so that if individuals come up and they are suffering the effects of decompression, they can put them in a chamber and, hopefully, save them.

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Everything that they can do, it seems, is being done. Back to you.

BLACKWELL: Miguel Marquez for us there in Newfoundland, thank you, Miguel.

HARLOW: And as Miguel was just saying, this is a huge multinational search and rescue operation. It's in the air. American and Canadian surveillance planes are flying overhead. The Canadian P-3 drops torpedo-like sonar buoys into the water on the surface. You've got five vessels from the United States, Canada, and France. They have been deployed. And searching underwater, France's Victor-6000 deep sea robot that can dive deeper than the Titanic wreckage -- that's key, right, because we are talking about 13,000 plus feet here. But the ship delivering it is only expected to arrive later tonight. And we know, Victor, time is of the essence.

BLACKWELL: Absolutely. Only 24 hours, about, of breathable air inside that vessel.

Let's bring back now David Gallo. He is a senior advisor for the strategic initiatives for RMS Titanic Incorporated which owns the exclusive salvage rights to the Titanic wreck site. David, let me ask you about the search area now, because the last update we received from the U.S. Coast Guard was that the scope was about 10,000 square miles, that's about the size of the state of Maryland, and they are looking for something the size of an extended cab pickup truck, right? So that's the perspective. Once you hear the banging, do you concentrate on where that was? Or do you expand because thus far you haven't seen anything in that 10,000 square miles?

DAVID GALLO, RMS TITANIC INC., SENIOR ADVISER FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES: Right. That's a big area. But they must have reasons to expand the search area to look there. I think you have to continue the air search in case the sub is at the surface. But I think it's so -- you can't ignore the banging. And you don't have time to wait to analyze the sounds exactly. So you have to assume, I think, that they are human made and then move equipment in that direction right now so that if the analysis happens and you say, OK, that's the sub, that you are already have vehicles on the spot. There is no time here to waste with waiting to analyze before you move that way. And I am sure the Coast Guard is doing that. They are moving -- in fact, I heard that, that they are vectoring in on that area.

So my hope is that they do that quickly. I don't know if they've responded to the banging or sounds with another sound from the surface ship, from a surface ship back to the submarine to acknowledge that, yes, we hear you. You know, so that's -- that will -- we will have to see if they have done that. HARLOW: And maybe we will find out at the next update from the Coast

Guard. You have a dear friend onboard, P.H. Nargeolet is onboard. So we are hoping right alongside you that they are all OK and still alive. Can you speak to what role the buoys that are dropped from the air with sonar, the ships and the aircraft can all play together?

GALLO: Sure. Yes, the aircraft, so you can fly overhead looking down at the surface to spot things. You can use radar also to spot things at the surface. Once you get below the sea level though, the water level, you're in a world of sound. Not things you can see easily, but sound travels a long way beneath the water. You can't hear that from a plane overhead, so they drop the torpedo-like sonar buoys from the plane into the water. They have the acoustic listening, so they are there listening to the underwater world. And they take the sounds that they hear, they're very sensitive, and send them back to the aircraft for analysis.

So it's the only way, really, you can hear what's going on in the deep from a plane overhead. Now, I don't know, typically these are made to find submarines for the most part. And submarines don't go anywhere near -- Navy submarines don't go anywhere near 3,800 meters depth. So I am not sure if the buoys can hear that. But you have to assume that they can at this point. Time is out. Anyway, that's the best way to hear what's going on from a plane overhead.

BLACKWELL: Again, hopefully, we get those answers from the U.S. Coast Guard when they get their update a little later today. David Gallo, thank you.

HARLOW: Yes, thinking about you and everyone who knows people on board for sure.

The first official day of summer today, will be dangerously hot in the south. Nearly 30 million people are under heat alerts this morning, including large parts of Texas, record-breaking triple-digit temperatures will continue for the next seven days. Take a look at the temperatures forecast for today in Houston, 112, same in corpus Christi, in Austin even hotter, 113. Our Rosa Flores joins us live from Galveston. It is early there, but still, I bet you're feeling it.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Everything is bigger in Texas, Poppy, even the heat. Right now, it is about 83 degrees where I am here in Galveston, and the humidity is close to 100.

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A lot of people in Texas will be coming to Texas beaches like this one to try to cool off. In nearby Houston the temperature has not dropped below 80 in over a week. The temperature there during the day is between 100 and 101. And if you put in the humidity, the heat index has been between 110 and 115, and Houston is not alone. Take a look across the state of Texas. All of those big cities, the heat index has been between 110 and 120. Some of the smaller cities in Texas don't have much relief. They have been between 108 and 112 degrees.

All of this has prompted the state of Texas and localities to open up cooling centers. Now, these can be YMCAs or libraries that really just give people a little relief during the day where they can get some air-conditioning. And all of this has been testing the Texas grid. ERCOT, which is the operator of the Texas grid, has said that people need to conserve energy. And we want to do our part, Poppy. We are going to try to make chocolate fondue today. We've got some chocolate here, and also some strawberries. It's not that hot yet, but, Poppy, I think we are going to be able to achieve this with the Texas heat.

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HARLOW: Rosa Flores with the live shot of the morning. Why am I not surprised? And I bet it's going to be super dippy. Is that a word?

BLACKWELL: "Dippy" is not a word. But I will say with these temperatures, you will get there, Rosa. You'll get there.

HARLOW: You'll get there.

BLACKWELL: Maybe we will create dippy?

FLORES: I will be tweeting the photo to you guys. I will be making chocolate fondue right here courtesy of the heat of Texas.

BLACKWELL: So many reasons to love Rosa Flores, including the fact that she makes the best of every situation, including when it's 113 degrees. So there you go.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Rosa.

All right, still to come, Hunter Biden's plea deal. Republicans are turning it into a rallying cry.

HARLOW: They sure are. Plus, the special counsel who investigated the investigators in the 2016 Trump-Russia probe set to testify. John Durham publicly will speak before Congress about his findings. What we could hear from him and what to expect. That's next.

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REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): Well, it really is just a slap on the wrist, and it came one week after the indictment of Donald Trump over the documents. For years now, the FBI and the DOJ have known about other crimes potentially committed by Hunter Biden, other Biden family members. And today, I have more questions and I have answers. A lot of people they get smacked with a gun charge, they don't get to walk away like Hunter Biden. There's a lot more here to this story I believe than meets the eye.

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HARLOW: That's not entirely accurate. We will dig into all of this that was Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace here on CNN this morning last hour sounding off on Hunter Biden's deal with the Justice Department. The President's son will plead guilty to federal tax charges and has made a deal on a felony gun charge. It is expected that he will avoid prison time. But Mace is one of many Republicans who are saying this doesn't pass muster in their mind.

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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): If you are the President's leading political opponent, DOJ tries to literally put you in jail, get in prison. If you are the president's son and get a sweetheart deal.

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HARLOW: And moments ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland was asked about a double standard at the Justice Department while he was in Sweden, listen to this.

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MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF UNITED STATES: As I said, from the moment of my appointment as Attorney General. I would leave this matter in the hands of the United States Attorney who was appointed by the previous President. And assigned to this matter by the previous administration that he would be given full authority to decide the matter as he decided was appropriate. And that's what he's done. And if you have any further questions about that matter, you should direct them to the U.S. attorney to explain his decision.

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HARLOW: Up to get straight to our colleague, Paula Reid. She joins us now, Paula, good morning to you. Nancy Mace is among a lot of Republicans both candidates for the White House. And also, Republicans in Congress who are saying this isn't fair, this doesn't make sense, this is only because his last name is Biden. Tell us more about the reaction and the facts.

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly why you hear the Attorney General there trying to emphasize, that this case has been overseen by a Trump appointed U.S. Attorney someone that he had stay on to continue to oversee this investigation. As he has also appointed special counsels to handle the investigations into President Biden and former President Trump. He is trying to preserve and protect the independence and the reputation of the Justice Department.

Specifically, when it comes to Hunter Biden, we know the president's son continues to be a political flashpoint with Republicans really capitalizing on his personal and legal problems and trying to connect them to his father. But here, after five years of a Trump appointed U.S. attorney with all the resources of the Justice Department, who has investigated everything from possible foreign lobbying to money laundering. All that's left on the table here in this plea deal are two misdemeanor tax charges.

So, Hunter Biden is expected to plead guilty to failing to pay his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018. He owed about $100,000 in each of those years. He failed to pay by the deadline, but he did eventually pay those taxes along with fees and penalties. And we've learned from our sources, the Justice Department is expected to recommend probation for his sentence. And Poppy, this is not an unusual way to resolve the case where someone failed to pay taxes for the first time by a deadline.

Now, as part of this deal, Hunter Biden can also avoid facing a felony gun charge for failing to disclose his addiction on a form when buying a firearm. It is very unusual at the federal level to be charged with anything like this. But at the state level, it is common to use what is called a diversion program to avoid sending someone to jail or penalizing them when drugs or alcohol are involved.

So, he'll have to comply with some court ordered requirements in order to get that charge expunged. But Poppy, all of this is subject to approval by a judge. But at the end of the day, what the Justice Department is presenting here and what Hunter is agreeing to plead guilty too, does not corroborate. Many of the accusations that have made against Hunter Biden.

HARLOW: Right, that's right. And just to be clear, a deal for diversion program like this is not rare, maybe rare to be charged federally, but not rare for someone who's not a convicted felon or has not used that gun in the commission of a violent crime. To your point about where this goes, a judge needs to sign off on it. But the memo from David Weiss announcing this deal used the word ongoing to describe the investigation. What does that mean?

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REID: So, a lot of confusion over this Poppy, because Hunter Biden's lawyers released a statement saying that they believe this plea deal would resolve out all outstanding matters. So, it was a little surprising when the U.S. Attorney released a statement saying this matter is ongoing. Now, in speaking to experts and our sources, it appears that that's just boilerplate language that you put in an announcement.

Because look, the plea deal? This is not the final disposition of this case. A judge has to approve it, Hunter Biden has to hold up his end of the deal. So, clearly, this case is going to be open until all of those issues are resolved. But it is expected that there was unlikely that any other issues would be outstanding because it would be highly irregular for the Justice Department to resolve a case with a plea deal if they were still investigating other substantial issues.

Now, we know lawmakers have said that if they get a chance to talk to the U.S. Attorney, they're going to seek clarity. We may also get some clarification if and when Hunter Biden appears in court to plead guilty and be arraigned which we expect will happen in the coming weeks.

HARLOW: OK, Paula Reid, thanks for the great reporting.

BLACKWELL: Happening today, the Special Counsel who concluded that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into the 2016 Trump campaigns connection with Russia is set to testify publicly before Congress. John Durham had a closed-door meeting yesterday with the House Intelligence Committee. Today's testimony will be before the Judiciary Committee. CNN's Sara Murray is live on Capitol Hill. So, what do we know first about the meeting yesterday? And what should we expect to here today?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, on John Durham, I'm doing double duty on Capitol Hill this week. You know, we know one of the things that he focused on behind closed doors with the House Intelligence Committee are changes. He still believes should be made at the FBI. And that's pretty notable because he omitted a lot of those recommendations from the report, he put out publicly. The other thing we should note is that the House Intelligence Committee really tried to approach this in a bipartisan basis. Again, it was behind closed doors, they met in a secure room at the U.S. Capitol. Take a listen to what the top Republican and the top Democrat on that committee had to say after they emerged from hearing from John Durham yesterday.

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REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): I don't think anybody on our committee is completely satisfied with the performance of the FBI has undertaken. They're certainly a great start. They are responding to some of the issues and problems that are identified in the Durham report. And in some of the issues that an angst that members of Congress themselves have.

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): There are all kinds of things where we need to, I think redouble our efforts. And if it's not quite deep politicizing, at least making sure that the FBI acts in such a manner that Americans can't point to their activities and say, that's clearly political. And we have a long way to go on that.

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MURRAY: Now, the FBI has said they've made a number of changes in the wake of the Justice Department Inspector General looking at many of these same issues. But it's notable to see both the Republican and the Democrat they're talking about further changes that could be made. I think what we're going to see in front of the House Judiciary Committee, though, is much more of a spectacle today.

This is going to be much more of a partisan scene with John Durham appearing before Jim Jordan who, of course, the head of the Republican head of the House Judiciary Committee. When I talked to Jordan yesterday and asked him what he wanted to cover with Durham. He basically wants to re-litigate the Russia investigation cover that the Steele dossier is nonsense. And we may see, you know, a hearty defense of Donald Trump from Republicans on this committee today.

BLACKWELL: All right, well, look forward to then I guess, Sara Murray, thanks so much.

MURRAY: Thanks. HARLOW: There is really fascinating a reporting out this morning from ProPublica about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. And a luxury fishing trip he took with a billionaire who later had cases before the High Court. How Alito is responding? Next.

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BLACKWELL: New overnight, ProPublica publishes the latest in a series of investigations into Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. It report now that in 2008, Alito went on a luxury fishing trip to Alaska with Paul Singer who describes as quote, a hedge fund billionaire who has repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to rule in his favor in high stakes business disputes. But hours before the piece was published, Alito wrote a pre bateau in the Wall Street Journal saying that the charges against him are not valid. CNN's Ariana de Vogue is with us now. So, what does this reporting from ProPublica first say?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: All right, we have another justice here accused of skirting ethics rule. And it is so unusual that Justice Samuel Alito actually responded in the Wall Street Journal before it was even published. But we'll get to that in a minute. First of all, the two issues really at play here, that in 2008, Justice Samuel Alito, he took a ride on a private jet given to him by Paul Singer. This GOP player, he's a billionaire. It was to go on this luxury fishing trip.

And critically, Justice Alito never disclosed that trip on his annual financial disclosure forms. And, of course, that raises big question, raises flags, because they said look, it is worth thousands of dollars. It exceeds the gift limits, they say. But if it sounds familiar, remember we had a similar story with Justice Clarence Thomas. And just as Clarence Thomas said, like Alito is saying here that the gift rules at the time didn't require a disclosure like this on a private jet for a social trip.

So, that's point number one. But secondly, we know that an entity related to Singer and his hedge fund later had several cases that came before the Supreme Court in a long running dispute with Argentina. And one actually that led to an opinion were Alito was in the majority and Alito never recused from that case. And he said in The Wall Street Journal look, my clerks and I, we went through this dispute, we didn't see any names like Paul Slate -- Singer that might have flagged it. So, it wasn't our fault. We went through it, but this was an entity that was related to Singer and his name was in --

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