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CNN This Morning
Search for Missing Sub Reaches Dire Stage; Tornado Devastates Small Town in Texas; Schiff Censured in Partisan Vote. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired June 22, 2023 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:10]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR/CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Thanks for joining me. I'm Christine Romans. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning, everyone. So glad you're with us this morning. So happy to have Phil back by my side. How are you doing?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm good. How are you?
HARLOW: We're glad to have you back, because we've been following this news --
MATTINGLY: Yes.
HARLOW: -- all week, hoping for some rays of hope this morning. Let's get to "Five Things You Need To Know" this Thursday, June the 22nd.
Search-and-rescue crews continuing and racing to find the missing submersible and its five passengers. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the oxygen supply onboard is rapidly dwindling, but they continue to hear noises underwater.
MATTINGLY: And also this morning, a deadly tornado tearing through Texas leaves of path of destruction behind. A town official telling CNN their home is gone and they still don't know how many people are injured.
And Evan Gershkovich, the American reporter detained in Russia since March for alleged espionage, appearing in a Moscow court just minutes ago. He's appealing the ruling to extend his detention through August.
HARLOW: Also, India's prime minister set to address Congress today, but some House Democrats say they will boycott his speech. The core of their protest is human rights.
MATTINGLY: And we are just hours away from the NBA draft, with the most highly-anticipated prospect since LeBron James.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRY BELAFONTE, SINGER (singing): Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch. (END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: You heard the music. Seven-foot-five phenom set to go No. 1.
CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
HARLOW: That's a great song.
They tell me that was Harry Belafonte.
MATTINGLY: Because you were thinking of the Lil Wayne version, with the song that uses that.
HARLOW: Because I know everything about Lil Wayne.
MATTINGLY: Yes, that's right.
HARLOW: Yes, that's right. So we'll get to the NBA draft in a minute, because that is super exciting. We have a lot more on that.
But of course, we begin with this breaking news that we've been following all week here. This morning, the continuing search for that missing sub near the Titanic shipwreck really is entering a dire stage this morning.
At this point, it is feared that the five people onboard may have little to no breathable air left. But more banging sounds were detected yesterday. The Coast Guard, though, has not been able to find exactly where they're coming from or determine if they are even from this submersible.
This is video of the Canadian surveillance plane that has been dropping those sonar probes into the ocean and listening for any signs of the sub. More ships with that equipment have been racing to join the search as the window for survival is closing.
That includes this ship The Horizon Arctic, which has located -- which was loaded, I should say, with a U.S. military remotely-operated vehicle. The U.S. Navy's deep-sea salvage system has also arrived in Newfoundland. It can retrieve objects even deeper than the Titanic. But it's just not clear when it will reach the search area.
Also this new overnight: OceanGate and its CEO, who is now missing on the Titan submersible, are coming under more scrutiny. A former subcontractor who helped develop the sub says the construction materials and design choices were considered controversial and experimental.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG VIMIG, FORMER OCEANGATE SUBCONTRACTOR: The pressure hull itself on Titan is made out of primarily carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is -- is a completely untested material in this application. And that has been a -- many late-night discussions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: We begin our coverage this morning, again, with Paula Newton, who joins us from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Paula, you know, in watching this, the CEO talked about how they worked with NASA and with Boeing and the University of Washington to create this. But now there are more and more questions about just how it was created and how safe it is.
PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and especially now given all that's happened, Poppy, I will say that this is a submersible --Stockton Rush said that, look, there were a lot of redundancies. And that's what you want built into a system like this.
One of the ones that he had built in there was the capacity to actually rise to the surface. What they've got on their hands today, Poppy, is the best shot yet of either finding the submersible or being able to understand what those noises are all about.
There are several ships out there now and, as you just outlined, also equipment that will be able to delve deep into those seas and see exactly what happened to the Titan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAPT. JAMES FREDERICK, U.S. COAST GUARD: When you're in the middle of a search-and-rescue case, you always have hope.
NEWTON (voice-over): While hope is running out against a dwindling oxygen supply --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very confident that these banging noises come from the submersible.
NEWTON (voice-over): -- it also rests on the indistinct banging noise detected by sonar.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The noises were heard by a Canadian P-3.
NEWTON (voice-over): The U.S. Coast Guard has disclosed that noises were picked up by sonar Tuesday and Wednesday during the search, following the deployment of a sonar buoy by a Canadian aircraft.
[06:05:09]
FREDERICK: I can't tell you what the noises are. But what I can tell you is, and I think this is the most important point, we're searching where the noises ar. And that's all we can do at this point.
NEWTON (voice-over): Acoustic information sent to the U.S. Navy has so far been inconclusive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are very aware of the time sensitivity around this mission.
NEWTON (voice-over): The search area has expanded to twice the size of Connecticut and up to two and a half miles deep, with more ships and aircraft arriving today to join the around-the-clock aerial and below- the-surface search.
DAVID GALLO, RMS TITANIC INC. SENIOR ADVISOR FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES: We need to go full-speed, regardless of what that time is, and -- and find that submarine.
NEWTON (voice-over): The sub was en route to explore the Titanic wreckage on Sunday but lost communication about one hour and 45 minutes into its descent. Five passengers were onboard, including OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush, who is now facing criticism for the engineering of the sub.
STOCKTON RUSH, CEO, OCEANGATE: I've broken some rules to make this. I think I've broken them with -- with logic and good engineering behind me, the carbon fiber and titanium. There's a rule you don't do that. Well, I did.
NEWTON (voice-over): Two former employees separately raised safety concerns about the thickness and integrity of the submersible's hull. One employee was fired. He sued for wrongful termination. The other resigned. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and OceanGate says it conducted further testing on the sub.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON (on camera): You know, CNN has continually reached out to OceanGate Expeditions to get more information on that. Obviously, everyone is hoping that the integrity of this submersible will last and be able to help those five passengers survive.
I want to point out a couple things, Poppy. Those noises, right, that was from a Canadian surveillance aircraft that takes off about an hour and a half from here at Canadian Forces Base Greenwood.
They started to hear those noises as early as Tuesday, and that is what gave them a lot of hope for them to continually run that surveillance.
As I said, a lot more help out of the scene now, as well for them to hopefully move from what the U.S. Navy says are noises that are inconclusive and move to something more concrete, right, to give them more of an opportunity to find out what the noises are and hopefully launch more of a rescue -- Poppy.
HARLOW: Certainly. Let's hope so. Paula Newton, thank you for the reporting.
MATTINGLY: So it's important to put this in perspective.
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Because I had no concept of what was actually happening. I'm not super well-versed on the sea, to some degree, other than what you watch in movies. Just how deep down is this missing submersible? Keep this in mind. The world record for the deepest scuba dive was recorded at 1,090 feet. At about 3,200 feet, things get pretty dark. There's no longer light.
Further down, at 5,200 feet, there isn't much marine life at all. Most animals can't even survive at those depths. Ten thousand feet below the surface is the deepest a sperm whale can dive.
The average depth of the ocean is a little more than 12,000 feet, and that's about where the Titanic shipwreck is. That's 2.4 miles below the water's surface.
Let's bring in oceanographer and deep-sea explorer David Gallo. You saw him in the piece just now. He's a senior adviser for strategic initiatives for RMS Titanic Incorporated, which owns the exclusive salvage rights to the Titanic wreck site.
And David, you were mentioning in the piece: full-speed, everything you possibly can, resources wise, to try and find and then start a rescue operation here.
Given the clock that I think everybody is eyeing warily and with significant trepidation right now, what do you think the chances are that something can actually end up positive in this?
GALLO: Well, we need a miracle, Phil, and I think the good news is miracles can happen.
And, you know, the Coast Guard has done a very good job in putting the right tools with the right team in the right spot. So the chances are as good as they're -- can be. And, in fact, the chances are getting better as more and more material, talent shows up.
So, as I said in that piece, you know, I think that we have to not think about the clock all the time and just go as fast as possible no matter what; locate the sounds; and get some equipment there to find out -- see if we can see what those sounds are coming from.
HARLOW: You would think having the sounds, I know, every 30 minutes they were hearing banging, and that was a data point, and it would help them try to triangulate where this sub could be, but we've learned overnight that the search area has expanded.
Remember, it was first the size of Connecticut. Now it is twice the size of Connecticut. Why would it expand and not narrow if they're focusing on the sounds?
GALLO: Yes, Poppy, the expanding area is -- is the aerial search.
HARLOW: OK.
GALLO: Looking down on the surface of the water for anything that might be floating. And we're looking at the underwater search.
[06:10:00] And it's tough, because the oceans are pitch black. You can only use sound to image effectively, and you've got to be pretty much on top of the object to actually -- actually see it.
I do wonder about the tapping, because if it's P-H Nargeolet who's on board, very experienced, he'll make sure that that sound cannot be interpreted as anything but human. And so I'm curious about what the tapping really -- the pattern really is.
MATTINGLY: When it comes to the sound -- and, again, you'll have to excuse my ignorance to some degree on this -- I assumed when people were picking up the sounds, when it seemed like it was coming in 30- minute increments, it gave a real kind of positive feel in a situation which obviously didn't have a lot of that.
OK, this is only a matter of time. The experts are there. They'll figure this out and identify it very quickly. That's not actually the case, and that's not a surprise, to some degree. Why?
GALLO: The oceans are deep, as you pointed out, two miles deep, dark, incredible pressure, and you've got to have enough tools in the right spot to be able to make that determination.
You know, we have really no idea how small that area is where the sound is coming from, so we'll have to wait to see. And they're probably being extra special careful not to say it's definitely the submarine --
HARLOW: Can we talk about --
GALLO: -- until they know.
HARLOW: Sorry about that. Can we talk about the material that the sub is made of? Because our viewers just saw in Paula Newton's reporting the CEO saying, essentially, I broke some rules in making this. He mentioned, I believe, carbon fiber and titanium, was it, that you're not supposed to use those or combine them in a sub? Is that right? What do you know about this?
GALLO: Carbon fiber is very new for that application. It's supposedly much lighter and much stronger than either steel or titanium, and it's spun. I don't exactly know how that works, except the idea is lighter and stronger.
And then titanium is metal and solid, a solid piece. So there would be some differences in stress from the cold and the like. So typically, you wouldn't want to do that. You'd want one smooth type of material. And Stockton did make a point almost every time he was in front of a microphone to say that this was a very innovative, new design. And everyone in the community said this is very interesting. It could be exciting but definitely a very interesting concept.
MATTINGLY: Certainly something everybody is going to be looking into going forward. We hope for the best. David Gallo, appreciate your time, sir. Thank you.
HARLOW: Thank you.
We are seeing also this morning the deadly devastation that a tornado left behind in Texas. It touched down in the small West Texas town of Matador leveling buildings, leaving behind piles of debris. The storm has killed at least three people overnight.
Our Rosa Flores joins us live from Texas. Rosa, tragic. Another tornado, more deaths. What can you tell us?
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, with daylight, Poppy, officials will be able to get a better sense of the devastation there.
For now, we do have drone video. Take a look. This is Matador, Texas. It is Northeast of Lubbock. The population there is about 600.
And this tornado hit at about 8 p.m. last night, local time. And in that drone footage, you can see some of the destruction and devastation. Structures that are now debris. There's also an RV turned on its side.
Now, officials say that three people have died and that others are injured.
Now, the mayor there says that he lost three businesses. His home, though, is OK. His family is OK.
The mayor pro tem's home is completely gone.
Lubbock Fire Rescue are assisting in that response.
Now this was one of about ten tornadoes that happened in the region. At this hour nearly 200,000 customers in the states of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma are without power.
And, Poppy, there are more severe storms expected today, so the threat is ongoing.
HARLOW: We just had you on the beach earlier this week, talking about these record extreme temperatures, so there has been no relief in the weather pattern for people across Texas. Rosa, thank you.
MATTINGLY: Well, also this morning, Justice Samuel Alito facing mounting questions over his ethics and transparency after a new report details his luxury trips paid for by a hedge fund manager. Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The House will be in order.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame! Shame! Shame!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shame! Shame! Shame!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame! Shame! Shame!
(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: It does not sound like order. House Democrats yelling "shame" after a vote to censure Adam Schiff. We'll chat all about it with Josh Barro. He's next.
Very serious, Josh.
MATTINGLY: Very serious. The most serious.
HARLOW: Hello.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: On this vote the ayes are 213, and the nays are 209, with 6 answering "present." The resolution adopted. Without objection the motion to consider is laid on the table. The House will be in order.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame! Shame! Shame!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shame! Shame! Shame!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame! Shame! Shame!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: The House, as Poppy noted, not in order. Those were House Democrats you saw, gathered together shouting "shame" after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the vote to formally censure Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff.
Now this is why I think the context matters. It's only the third time this century that a member of Congress has been censured.
Members of the GOP Freedom Caucus led the charge to punish Schiff for his role in investigating Donald Trump during the last four, five, six years.
The censure resolution alleges that Schiff misled the American public by spreading false accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
Joining us now to discuss is the author of the "Very Serious" newsletter on Substack. It's both the title and the reality of that newsletter.
HARLOW: And the man. And the man. The man.
MATTINGLY: And the man himself, the one and only, Josh Barro.
HARLOW: You can still drink your water.
BARRO: That's OK. That's all right.
MATTINGLY: Here's what I'm struck by, as somebody who covered the House for more than a decade. Censures used to be a bridge way too far. Only the most serious -- and
it was a massive, massive issue, massive news element. Leadership never wanted to go that far unless they absolutely had to. Yesterday kind of felt a little bit like, eh.
BARRO: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Why?
[06:20:04]
BARRO: Well, I mean, it has no actual force of law. I mean, this is a statement by, you know, 213 members of the U.S. House of Representatives that they disapprove of what Adam Schiff did, and they think he did a very bad thing.
And that -- it's a political statement that is not that different from going on television and saying that, you know -- and raising these objections to Adam Schiff.
And so I think that, you know, it was a norm of the institution that they didn't do this very much. But once that norm has changed and once you have this extreme acrimony there.
And then also, you know, Adam Schiff has been particularly driving Republicans crazy. A lot of them, I thin, really think that he has been leaking stuff to the media through this process. And so I think that, you know, it was an expression of that animosity.
But it really doesn't go beyond that. There's no material consequences for Adam Schiff. I mean, they already removed him from the Intelligence Committee.
But it doesn't have any force --
HARLOW: Yes.
BARRO: -- besides being a statement.
HARLOW: But it's indicative of what they choose to spend their time on and energy on, et cetera. And the question, I think, is is it censure today, impeachment tomorrow?
I mean, McCarthy had to fight off calls from people like Congresswoman Boebert for impeachment. Listen to what he said about, you know, it being too premature, or something like that. Here it was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: To prematurely bring something up like that, to have no background in it, it undercuts what we're doing.
Look, this is probably one of the most important things members of Congress has a right to do, and to take it in a flippant way, to just put something privileged on the floor like that.
These investigations will follow the information we get, wherever it will take us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: To be clear, he's talking about calls to impeach Joe -- the president, Joe Biden, there.
BARRO: Right.
HARLOW: But I think our analysis this morning from our colleague, Zach Wolf, is really interesting, because he quotes Kevin McCarthy as asking of those who want to see impeachment, for example, what majority do we want to be? Give it right back in two years or hold it for a decade and make real change?
But it also shows his vulnerability, given all the concessions he made to become speaker.
BARRO: Yes. I mean, first of all, it's interesting to me he cited that history about, you know, we've taken the majority five times, and twice we gave it back in two years.
HARLOW: Yes.
BARRO: I mean, that was in 1948 and 1954. So that's pretty long ago history, those one-term majorities.
But I think, you know, when you ask about it being indicative of how the House is spending its time, we have a divided Congress, and there's a Democratic president.
So they needed to raise the debt limit. They will need to pass government funding bills sometime, probably before the end of the calendar year. Technically, the fiscal year will run out at the end of September.
But other than that, there isn't a really large, robust policy agenda to actually be passed through both houses of Congress and be enacted.
The Senate has lots of nominations to act on. It can -- it can confirm judges and members of the cabinet and that sort of thing.
The House sort of has a lot of time that it can't really do very much with, other than political messaging. And so Republicans are deciding among passing pieces of legislation that won't become law. or passing statements like this censure that don't have the force of law.
And so I think partly, you know, why -- why they spend time on this is that their opportunity cost is not that high. They have free time, because they're not otherwise going to achieve that much this year.
MATTINGLY: And they apparently loathe Adam Schiff so much that they're trying to ensure that he's a U.S. Senator next year, to some degree.
HARLOW: Good point, though.
MATTINGLY: That's what several Democrats have been, like -- you know. HARLOW: Thanks.
MATTINGLY: This -- this is going to raise him a ton of money.
HARLOW: He's fundraising.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
BARRO: Weird dynamics. Because, you know, California has this top two system, where all the candidates run in one primary. And there's a fairly high likelihood that you'll have a general election in California between two Democrats. Quite possibly between Adam Schiff and Katie Porter, congressman for Orange County.
And Katie Porter is clearly to the left of Adam Schiff substantively on policy issues. But you have -- I mean, when Dianne Feinstein was last reelected in 2018, she was running against a candidate to her left, but she was less -- that candidate was less familiar to Republicans than Feinstein herself. And he picked up a lot of Republican votes from people who were just trying to vote for not Dianne Feinstein, not the Democrat they'd heard of.
So I think that you could have a really weird dynamic in an election in California where you could have a candidate run to Schiff's left, pick up a lot of progressive votes, and then also pick up some Republican votes from people who don't really know a lot about Katie Porter but just know that they hate Adam Schiff from all of this coverage.
Now, I think what Schiff wants is he wants to run against a Republican in the general election. He might get that.
But so I think that, in terms of the idea that this is going to make him a senator, I'm -- it's not clear to me that that's true. Although on the other hand, then maybe they've made Katie Porter a senator.
I don't know that Republicans are doing any better by defeating Adam Schiff and get someone -- getting someone farther to his left elected to the Senate.
MATTINGLY: Kind of destroyed my flippant analysis based on Democratic aides there. That's not cool, man.
BARRO: I apologize.
HARLOW: In a "Very Serious" way.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTINGLY: "Very Serious." All right. We have to close with the most important issue of yesterday.
BARRO: Yes.
MATTINGLY: And that was the visceral verbal battle --
BARRO: Yes.
MATTINGLY: -- between Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, and Lauren Boebert, Republican from Colorado.
BARRO: Yes.
MATTINGLY: I believe -- you can see it right there. You're actually watching it. This was a fight that happened. "The Daily Beast" actually broke the news on what was said, which included Marjorie Taylor Greene calling her Republican colleague a little expletive, which Greene's team later confirmed.
[06:25:04]
BARRO: Yes.
MATTINGLY: And seemed to be quite proud of to some degree.
BARRO: Yes.
MATTINGLY: These are two back-bench members of Congress. What happened here was, like, procedural and completely unserious.
BARRO: Yes.
MATTINGLY: And yet --
BARRO: Well, I mean, it sort of reflects the purpose for which many of these members on the right wing of the Republican Congress are in Congress for, is more to draw attention to themselves than to make policy.
It was arguing about who would have responsibility for this resolution to impeach Joe Biden, which is not going to pass the House, let alone the Senate.
And Marjorie Taylor Greene has had a number of these resolutions drafted. And then Lauren Boebert had the idea I can bring this up as a privileged resolution, which allows her to force it to a floor vote, even if the speaker doesn't want to bring it for a floor vote.
And Marjorie Taylor Greene was clearly mad that she hadn't thought of this first. Or, I think, maybe more likely, that Marjorie Taylor Greene wanted to be just so outrageous, but not quite this outrageous, because she actually has a real relationship with Republican leadership in a way that Boebert doesn't.
And so it's like, Boebert stole my idea. She's getting attention off my idea. What a little -- I guess we can put it on the chyron, but we can't say it aloud on CNN.
HARLOW: There's an asterisk there.
BARRO: Yes, yes.
HARLOW: I mean, it's cable. We can say it. BARRO: OK.
HARLOW: But it's 6:25 in the morning.
MATTINGLY: We'll wait till, like, it's 7. We've got your back on this side. Sort of wait till then.
BARRO: OK. Sounds good.
HARLOW: Wow.
MATTINGLY: He tried to pull me in with procedure there. Did you see that? And I didn't bite. I wanted to talk about congressional --
HARLOW: Thank you for not biting.
MATTINGLY: I'm not going to. You're welcome, Poppy.
HARLOW: Stick around, please. We appreciate it.
Back to our top story today. The estimates growing more dire by the minute as the search for the missing sub continues. Our next guest can relate to this first-hand. He was on a sub that got trapped under the Titanic's propeller. That is right. His harrowing story is ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:30:00]
