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Rescuers Have About 30 Hours Left Before Air Supply Runs Out for Five People Onboard Missing Submersible; Trump Allegedly Continues To Incriminate Himself In His Statements; Banging Sounds At 30-Minute Intervals Reported In The Search For Missing Sub. Aired 11-12p ET

Aired June 20, 2023 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, I mean, apparently it's not clear enough, but it's so good to have you on this, Daniel Dale, to kind of give folks the facts as they evaluate the candidates out there. Thank you very much. And thank you all for joining us tonight, CNN Tonight with Alisyn Camerota starts right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCOR: Hey, Abby, great to see you.

PHILLIP: You, too.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to CNN Tonight. Rescuers think they've got about 30 hours left before the air supply runs out for five people onboard that missing submersible. The sub vanished somewhere in the North Atlantic on Sunday after heading out to see the site of the shipwrecked Titanic, nearly 13,000 feet below the surface. There are plenty of questions tonight about what went wrong and if any corners were cut with safety precautions. So, in just a moment, I'll speak to a team of experts in deep sea searches.

Also tonight, Hunter Biden's plea deal, the President's son will plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and is reportedly negotiating a deal with federal prosecutors to resolve his felony gun charge. Would any of us have been offered the same deal? We have a reality check for you tonight.

And a new CNN poll shows former President Trump's support is slipping following his indictment for mishandling those top secret documents. We'll show you those new numbers. But let's begin with the search mission for that missing submersible with five people on board and time running out. Miguel Marquez is in Newfoundland tonight with the latest on the search. Miguel.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, I'm going to show you what's happening here on the ground in St. John's right now. This is the Horizon Arctic. This is the sister ship to the Polar Prince that took the submersible out there, the Titan submersible out there. That's what it launched off and it is now that the Polar Prince is now taking part in the search for the submersible. There are three C-17 big military cargo jets that have landed here in

St. John's. They have tons of gear to bring on to this ship. We believe that, well, then, poured out a Canadian Coast Guard ship left earlier today and is on its way to the search area. There are planes in the air, planes to not only look on the surface, but planes to drop buoys and listen for anything coming from that submersible. The ships are doing that as well, at least the Polar Prince is.

The concern here is the easy part of this operation should be locating that ship, hearing a ping from it, an emergency beacon of some sort. They have not been able to hear anything from the ship, so far. It is extremely -- the pressure is extremely great that deep down. It is extremely cold and they are running out of oxygen. And the fact that they cannot find that ship yet or that submersible yet is a great concern because the hard part will be once they find it, getting it secured and hopefully bringing those people home to safety. Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Miguel, thank you very much for all of that. Let's bring our experts now. Here with me tonight, we have Tim Taylor, an expert in deep water searches, Christine Dennison, who plans and runs expeditions like this one, also Bill Willard, who's traveled down to the Titanic site twice and has been friends with Paul-Henry Nargeolet, one of the missing people for more than two decades. Thank you all for being here.

So, Bill, let's talk about that, the new equipment that they've just brought in. What's the plan, to send a robot down and look around?

TIM TAYLOR, PRESIDENT AND CEO, TIBURON SUBSEA: Yes. A remote operated vehicle is basically a tethered vehicle that's run down on a cable and operated by a man on the ship to drive around with cameras and sonar and other equipment to try to locate them.

CAMEROTA: But at the moment they don't have one that can go down 13 ,000 feet.

TAYLOR: Correct. My understanding is they have one on site. It only goes to 3000 meters there and 3800 meters. They have another one, last I heard from my sources, they have a French ship that's underway with an ROV on board that can hit 6000 meters.

CAMEROTA: Meaning, 13,000 feet.

TAYLOR: Yeah, much deeper than that, so, they got the capability. These things are not readily available, not sitting there waiting to go. So, this is a good thing that they got somebody that may be there with capabilities before the time runs out.

CAMEROTA: Everyone, we have some new information coming into our newsroom about this right now. In fact, the -- an internal U.S. memo finds that crews searching have heard banging sounds every half an hour during their search. So, this is the crews who have been searching for the submersible heard this every 30 minutes today and four hours later after additional sonar devices were deployed, the banging was still heard, unclear what the banging was or for how long it had been going. Subsequent updates Tuesday night suggested more sounds were heard though those were not described as banging. Additional acoustic feedback was heard and will assist in vectoring surface assets and also indicating continued hope of survivors.

[23:05:00]

So, that's the latest update, Christine. I mean, obviously, that is hopeful, though vague. You plan, you know, expeditions like this, obviously. These are not for faint of heart people. And I assume that many sort of millionaires or billionaires, as we know, are on this one, like to do things like this. But you say that you try to prepare for every contingency. So, what would you have done differently with this?

CHRISTINE DENNISON, FOUNDER, MAD DOG EXPEDITIONS: Well, my expertise in running for 20-some odd years has been working in the polar regions, in the High Arctic and that is very remote. We're underwater. We're not nearly as deep but it comes down to really mitigating its risk assessment and mitigating risk for yourself as a company owner and as an expedition leader.

I have to concern myself with the obvious litigation, potential litigation liability, and also look out for my clients. And at the end of the day, it's taking care of clients. It's people that entrust their life to you. And so, this is a very, very big undertaking for them. And I hope that everything was in place that they needed.

CAMEROTA: Of course. Bill, as we've mentioned, you are friends with Paul-Henry and have been for what?

BILL WILLARD, TITANIC HISTORIAN AND RESEARCHER: PH, yes.

CAMEROTA: Yes, for more than -- you call him PH?

WILLARD: PH.

CAMEROTA: Okay. What about this development that we are just getting, this breaking news that the crews have heard these banging sounds every 30 minutes and that it's after these sonar devices were deployed? What does that tell you?

WILLARD: As you said, if this is an accurate story, then it is a tremendous amount of hope. The time interval of 30 minutes does suggest that it's been made. And that is something that PH would do is every --

CAMEROTA: Oh, Bill, I think we've lost you.

WILLARD: We try to be located.

CAMEROTA: Okay, hold on. Sorry, Bill, we lost you for a second there. You're saying that the interval of every 30 minutes, why does that tell you that it's something that PH would do?

WILLARD: It's manmade. When you're down there, it's going to be dark. It's going to be cold. You're going to try to send out some way to be noticed.

CAMEROTA: Bill, we'll fix that because you're freezing a little bit. We'll fix that and get that back to you. Tim, what do you think? Does this give you a new hope?

TAYLOR: I agree with him. I know PH, not as well as his friend, and I actually met him here on CNN 10 years ago on Flight 370. We were on set together, and we kept in touch over the years. So, I would agree. He would be resourceful. They would be MacGyvering this. They need to be heard.

Acoustic Pinger, which I question why it's not on this ship, they're making their own acoustic pinger if this is the case. They're banging on the hall and sending out signals. And if they're doing it on a regular basis, I'm sure exactly what he would say is that irregular 30-minute intervals is a man-made thing. It's not a natural occurrence. It doesn't happen like that in nature.

CAMEROTA: And given that this was picked up on these acoustic feedback machines that -- because now there's all these surface assets, is there anything else it could be?

TAYLOR: Well, it could be. It could be the Titanic and something in the current drifting and banging, but 30 minutes, every 30 minutes, every time, you know, it is a good sign of hope. So --

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Bill, are you back with us yet?

WILLARD: Yeah, I'm here, yes, ma'am.

CAMEROTA: Okay. So, Bill, you have gone down twice to this site that they were trying to --

WILLARD: No, ma'am. I've been to the wreck -- I've been to the wreck site twice, but I've not dived down in Nautil. But I've been out there at two different expeditions and PH led both of us.

CAMEROTA: Oh, so you've been -- meaning you've been out on top of the water and you haven't gone all the way down?

WILLARD: That is correct.

CAMEROTA: Okay, because we had PH, as you say, on in 2014. He was talking to our Bill Weir and he was explaining what it looked like down there. So, I just want to play this for everybody.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL-HENRY NARGEOLET, DIRECTOR OF UNDERWATER RESEARCH, PREMIER EXHIBITION, INC.: On the Titanic, you have two big parts of the Titanic, but there is a huge debris field where you can find a lot of things like a link from China to a piece of the wreck, anything like that. And it's the same condition, of course. It's totally dark, and you have to use some light to see anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CAMEROTA: So, Bill, as you can hear him saying there, it's totally dark. It's hard to see anything. You have to use special lights. So, how will they -- let's say that they have -- let's say at some point in the next 30 hours, they can locate where this submersible is. How would they be able to actually spot it? How would they be able to find it?

[23:10:00]

WILLARD: The ROV will have some kinds of lights that will be shining in front of it, so that it could illuminate an image or something that's in front of it. So, they would be able to detect that through their open porthole that they have through the opening -- that they have to look out. They would see that coming. If it could release the ballast of that submersible, then you've got Archimedes working with you and it's gonna start lifting on its own very quickly. And it'll still take two hours to get to the surface, but inside they will know that they're on their way.

CAMEROTA: Tim, will this banging help them narrow the search?

TAYLOR: Yes. Yes, they can triangulate on noise. Again, it's only happening every 30 minutes. They only have a data update every 30 minutes. So, if it was happening every minute, it would be a lot easier and a lot faster. I will add to him, the camera and the lights are on the ROV, but they will be also equipped with forward-looking sonar. They're gonna be able to look out two, 300 yards, maybe more, depending on how far they are off the bottom, and look with sonar and scan. So, they will be able to find a large object like the submarine and the wreck obviously, but with eyes using sound. So, they will have more tools than just a camera and lights to look around.

CAMEROTA: Christine, I know that earlier today, before we got this news that they had been hearing some banging, that you were, I think it's fair to say, losing hope.

DENNISON: I was. I think -- I think that we have to remember that we're still not there yet. If we can locate them, if it is them, what condition are they in? They have to be stressed. They're obviously very cold. They're in the dark. And we still have to get them to the surface because remember, they have been bolted in there. So, when you bring that sub to the surface, you have to release them.

CAMEROTA: And when you say they've been bolted in there, from the outside, people have bolted them and they don't have any escape hatch?

DENNISON: They have none. We have to bring them to the surface. You have to secure all the vehicles then you have to release them from this submersible. And obviously, they have been through a tremendous amount. You can expect that psychologically, physically, they are not at optimum capacity. And that is, I still hold that hope. This is wonderful, wonderful breaking news.

But we're not clear yet. There's so many things that could still go wrong. And I think that's very important to note and very important to take very seriously and not lose sight of the fact that we have a recovery mission.

CAMEROTA: Just to recap for everybody, crews searching for this submersible heard banging sounds every 30 minutes today. And they, after they used additional sonar devices, the banging was still heard. This is according to an internal government memo. This is an update on the search.

It's unclear when the banging was heard today or for how long based on the memo. It suggested -- then there were more sounds heard Tuesday night, though that was not described as banging, quote, additional acoustic feedback was heard and will assist in vectoring surface assets and also indicating continued hope of survivors. Tim, what's your hope level at this hour?

TAYLOR: A little higher than it was when I started the show. All right, so there's a lot of work to be done if they are there, if they're in any type of shape. We don't know what happened in the first place. Are they entangled in the wreck? Finding them is the first thing. Extricating them, bringing them to the top, as was stated a second ago, is a whole other matter. We don't know what you're going to run into yet. And then there's going to be a whole other set of problems that are going to have to be solved in very short order.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

TAYLOR: And we don't know if we even have the assets to do that on board.

CAMEROTA: Bill, very quickly, what's your level of hope now?

WILLARD: Very, very strong. We are hoping for the best. This is good news. The fact that there are several rescue vehicles either on site or approaching the site is also strong hope. All of the Titanic community that supports and loves PH largely.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, folks, we're going to obviously keep you around and keep in touch with you as we get more information. So, we'll stay on the story of this missing submersible. We'll bring you an update later in the show.

Okay, other news. Donald Trump used to say that he only hires the best people, but that's not what he calls them anymore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: You and your White House called your White House Chief of Staff John Kelly weak and ineffective and born with a very small brain. You called your Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney a born loser. You called your first secretary of state Rex Tillerson dumb as a rock and your First Defense Secretary James Mattis the world's most overrated general.

[23:15:00]

You called your White House Press Secretary Kate Kennedy, milk toast, and multiple times you've referred to your Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao as Mitch McConnell's China loving wife. So, why did you hire all of them in the first place?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right, let's find out what he calls Anthony Scaramucci, who's walking out right now. We'll talk about that and --

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I sort of feel left out. You left me out in the interview.

CAMEROTA: You feel left out?

SCARAMUCCI: Yeah, I had energy.

CAMEROTA: We'll see if you're left out. We'll talk about Donald Trump's new poll numbers next. Thanks so much. Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: New CNN polling finds that Donald Trump's legal troubles are hurting his approval numbers. Let's bring in our panel. We have CNN Legal Analyst Jennifer Rodgers, Former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, Podcast Host Coleman Hughes, and Rolling Stone Columnist Jay Mickelson. Great to have all of you here.

Okay, so let's look at the polling numbers, Anthony. It says here that Donald Trump's favorable numbers, this is among Republicans, okay, and Republican-leaning voters.

[23:20:00]

So, in May, there were 77 percent approval, now, 67 unfavorable, in May was 18 percent, now 27 percent. And then, in terms of given the federal charges, this is what was asked, Trump should end his campaign. Ninety percent of Democrats, no surprise, say yes. Sixty-two percent of Independents say yes, 27 percent of Republicans. What do you make of all that?

SCARAMUCCI: I think it's a small dent. I don't think it's a big enough dent yet, but if those numbers really start to move, he'll drop out of the race. He will not be able to handle a eviscerating defeat in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina.

CAMEROTA: He won't drop out before the Iowa or the New Hampshire.

SCARAMUCCI: With those poll numbers, no, but if you told me he went to 55 percent unfavorable in the Republican Party and you saw somebody like Governor Christie or Governor DeSantis rise in the polls and you saw another indictment or two, and you saw him starting to unravel. I mean, I don't know what he's doing with his hair, but he's got to get a new hairstyle or something.

CAMEROTA: Really, you see -- you see something has changed in his hair.

SCARAMUCCI: Oh, come on. He's, like, physically unraveling. Just take a look at him. Go back to the red bear tape. Yeah.

CAMEROTA: What part is unraveling?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, he was probably using six cans of hairspray during the campaign. He's probably only using one now. He's got to straighten this out.

CAMEROTA: Wow, this is the meter that you're using.

SCARAMUCCI: Well, he's a very image-conscious guy. I mean, there's not enough hairspray going on that raccoon nest. You know, I mean, just being honest. So, you can tell that he's unraveling. People that really know him can tell that this thing is starting to come undone on him.

CAMEROTA: Coleman, do you think that this is a momentary sort of dip in his poll numbers and they'll come back?

COLEMAN HUGHES, HOST, "CONVERSATIONS WITH COLEMAN" PODCAST": Yeah, I mean, so I mean, first of all, I think this dip is probably happening because people are seeing not just the indictment itself, but how he is reacting to the indictment, right? He is literally incriminating himself on camera. Like, his lawyers must be at home just slapping their foreheads, just having, you know, having strokes because their client is making them crazy.

And this is -- this is the kind of thing that even looks bad to his base. And he, you know, famously, he said, I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. But it remains to be seen whether he can basically make no efforts to avoid prison without pissing off his base.

CAMEROTA: Jen, Chris Christie said the same thing, that he felt that Donald Trump was incriminating himself in this Bret Baier interview. So, let me play for you the moment that Chris Christie was talking about that he says that Donald Trump incriminated himself about the classified documents. Here's Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: 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 I had. I don't want to hand that over to NARAL yet. And I was very busy as you've sort of seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Is that incriminating?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, recordings are gold for prosecutors anyway, right? And he's basically now thrown out a new defense that he really hasn't used before, the I was looking through the boxes and didn't have time to get through them defense, which is ridiculous on his face, completely undercut by the facts and not a legal defense in any event. So, it's definitely incriminating. It just says to me, though, that

he's now more concerned about the campaign than about the legal case, because I think he's kind of putting all his eggs in the if I get elected President again, I can get rid of this basket as opposed to trying to fight it in the courts where he really is not going to have a good shot at it because of the strength of the case.

JAY MICHAELSON, COLUMNIST, ROLLING STONE: This has to be an encouraging moment, right? I mean, I think if we look at that independence number, in particular, the favorable numbers that you just put out there, most Republicans are reasonable people, right? They may have, I may have different views from someone on the conservative side of the aisle, but this movement is becoming one of, and I say this as a rabbi, of spiritual darkness.

This is a movement that he is now entirely a cult of personality driven by rage, grievance, and animus. And you can see this again and again and again when you look at some of the rallies on his base. This is not where the center of America is. Most Americans, we may disagree on a lot of issues, but we're basically reasonable people.

And as these things, to me, I think, you know, Coleman's exactly right, you know, this, these, it's like not just the death of a thousand blows, the picture of the files in the bathroom, this is clearly well beyond where sort of the vast middle of America is, even if Trump's sort of hardcore base stands by him.

CAMEROTA: He was too busy to go through the boxes and he wanted to sort out his golf shirts.

SCARAMUCCI: It's obviously incriminating but I just think that, again, this is my opinion, his legal staff, the good ones are departing. The ones that he's picking up right now are yessing him. And he's in a -- he's in a very tough spot, and he's going to do what he usually does, is completely rely on himself and go with his intuition as opposed to great legal advice, and it's gonna lead to his downfall.

CAMEROTA: Meaning what? That he's both of them are really done?

SCARAMUCCI: He'll implode.

[23:25:00]

He'll continue to do interviews like that and incriminate him. There'll be more and more recordings of things that he's saying that are nonsensical and that indictment will stick. He will have a small group of people that, no matter what, will say this is a witch hunt him and it's the government going after him, the government is a bunch of bad actors and all the conspiracy tinfoil hat people will stay with him.

But the people that Jay's mentioning, they will not, they will eventually flee. And you know, when it happens, people will be like, why did it take so long? But when it happens, it happens in a waterfall. It doesn't happen gradually. It'll just, he'll go over, he'll be in that little barrel going over Niagara Falls and people are like, okay, that was pretty predictable.

CAMEROTA: Anthony has given us some good visuals, I feel, in his metaphors that he's using.

HUGHES: Well, among anyone at the table, he's been the closest.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

SCARAMUCCI: Get some hairspray ads out of this. You know, I mean, the guy needs help.

CAMEROTA: Thank you all very much for this. Meanwhile, Republicans say that Hunter Biden got a sweetheart deal and a slap on the wrist. So, what would the punishment be for the rest of us? We've got a reality check, next. And we've got more to come on our breaking news on the search for the missing sub. Banging sounds have now been heard every 30 minutes during the search today. We'll have more coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: President Biden's son, Hunter, will plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and is reportedly striking a deal with federal prosecutors to resolve a felony gun charge. Republicans call it a sweetheart deal. Is that true? John Avlon's got our reality check tonight. John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: So, look, Ali, after an uncommonly long five-year investigation, Hunter Biden will plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors while striking a deal to resolve a felony gun possession charge. This is not the outcome that Republicans were hoping for.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: It continues to show the two-tier system in America.

TIM SCOTT (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This DOJ continues to hunt Republicans and protect Democrats.

MIKE PENCE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One set of rules for Republicans and one set of rules for Democrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Yeah, there's a lot of doubling down on this idea of a legal double standard, especially in the wake of Donald Trump's 37-count indictment. But does that stack up to the facts? Well, the investigation first was conducted by a Trump appointee, U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, specifically to reduce concern about politicized results. But of course, Hunter Biden has been demonized by the right pretty

thoroughly. Do you just one measure? Get this, Alexis Nexus search found that he was mentioned more than 2,200 times on Fox News between 2020 and 2022. For those doing the math at home, that's well over once a day. So, don't believe the hype. Instead, look at the cops.

Now, we know that other Americans who've taken home classified national security documents often receive stiff prison sentences. It happened in several cases recently, as detailed by CNN's Daniel Dale. But willful failure to pay income tax with a guilty plea often does not result in prison time, especially if the money's been paid back with interest. And that's the deal with Hunter Biden's case. He underpaid the IRS by at least $100,000 in both 2017 and 2018 when he was admittedly a crack cocaine addict. He has since paid up and will receive probation.

Now, the gun charge is a little bit stranger, but bear with me. Basically, Hunter Biden was charged with possessing a gun when he was a drug addict. That is illegal, but rarely charged standalone, unless the gun is used in a separate crime. Get this, over six months from October 22 to March of this year, federal prosecutors filed over 3800 cases of unlawful possession of firearms according to a database compiled by Syracuse University. But in only three percent of the time, failing to make a false statement to acquire the gun related to the lead charge.

So, look, you can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into, as the Irish author Jonathan Swift once wrote. But here's the big picture. The fact that son of the President was investigated by the government and charged is actually evidence that no one is above the law in America. That's a good thing. And that's your reality check.

CAMEROTA: John, thank you very much. We'll check in with you shortly. My panel is back quickly. So, Jen, just to be clear, just so I understand what John was saying, if any of us underpaid our taxes by $100,000 for two years in a row, we would also get probation or we would get a stricter sentence?

RODGERS: Honestly, I'm not even sure you would be investigated and charged in the first place. There's a very good argument here that were Hunter Biden not the President's son, no one would have been taking a look at him for all sorts of stuff that he's done in the first place. But putting that aside, yes, you would have a very good chance of getting probation if you paid back the money immediately, as Hunter Biden did.

And think about this as well, because people were talking about this at the time of the investigation. Hunter Biden was a crack cocaine addict at the time of the offense conduct. That means if you are a prosecutor and you're thinking about taking this case to trial, felony trial, can you prove the mens rea to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury, right?

That's a proof question. That's an issue for them. And so, as you're thinking about this case and how you charge it, that's another reason to think about trying to get a plea deal here, which is one of the reasons you saw in this demeanor.

CAMEROTA: So, Jay, do you feel that Republicans will no longer be worked up in a lather about Hunter Biden?

MICHAELSON: I mean, for years now, the Republicans have been trying to make Hunter Biden out to be Tony Soprano. He's really Brendan Fallon. The guy is, he's a nevish. We should have what we could say in Yiddish, Rachmones. You should have compassion. The guy, he lost his brother. He fell into addiction. He's had a, he clearly, he broke the law. And I agree with John, you know, the fact that no one's above the law. This is a good thing. At the same time, the fact that this man who has made a bunch of mistakes and has shown, broke the law.

[23:35:00]

And I agree with John, you know, the fact that no one's above the law. This is a good thing. At the same time, the fact that this man who has made a bunch of mistakes and has shown very poor judgment, that this is the person who's at the center of these wild conspiracy theories by one of the two major parties in the country. That's to me what's most shameful.

CAMEROTA: Thank you both very much. All right, meanwhile, coming up, more on our breaking news on the search for the missing sub. Banging sounds, heard every 30 minutes during the search today. What that means? We'll have more on our breaking news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: We have breaking news tonight on the massive search operation to find that submersible with five people on board that went missing Sunday on a trip to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

[23:40:00]

There is a new development in the past hour, crews searching for the sub, reportedly heard today banging sounds at 30-minute intervals. Then, after additional sonar devices were deployed, banging was still heard. This is according to an internal U.S. government memo. It was unclear exactly what time this banging was heard. A subsequent update sent tonight suggested more sounds were heard, though they were not described as banging.

I want to bring in Deep Sea Explorer and Oceanographer David Gallo. David, thank you very much for being here. What does this development tell you?

DAVID GALLO, SENIOR ADVISER FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES AT RMS TITANIC, INC.: Well, immediately, the first thing is it gets your hopes go skyrocketing up, but also it makes you think that, wow, you know, time is really now against us. So, it really encourages you to do something, but do it quickly. Because, you know, you have to be, there's a little bit of caution here because if you remember Malaysian Air, there were all sorts of bangings and beeps and pops heard that were positively this or that and turned out to be none of those things. I'm not taking away from this, but it gives the hopes of the families

and loved ones up. And it does cause an upbeat in terms of, let's get this show underway. So, I'm looking at it as a very positive sign. And now the next question is, how do we find out and how do we investigate right away?

CAMEROTA: Yeah, and David, what about -- what about the every 30- minute interval? What does that tell you?

GALLO: I don't know. You know, I'm thinking PH, my dear, my closest friend and colleague is out there on that sub. And he knows what he's doing and maybe he figured that that's the best way to have them recognize where the errors are to make sounds every 30 minutes. And he would have figured that out. But that's the way PH was, that this is the best, instead of constant clinging, it's best to save energy and to do it that way.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, you're not the only person who has said that. We just had another friend of his on who said that Paul Henry, who you call PH, would be doing something methodical in that way.

GALLO: Positively.

CAMEROTA: So, does this help narrow, I imagine this helps narrow the search, but do you have any sense of I mean, we had heard earlier today, it was -- the search was the size of the state of Connecticut. Does this change that?

GALLO: Yeah. I don't know where that came from. I mean, if they think that's a search area, that's incredibly large. I think it would be a lot smaller than that, much smaller than that in my mind. But maybe they thought it would drift further. But the lesson we learned with Air France and other sunken ships is that the best place to look is where the last known position.

And in this case, it was right above the Titanic wreck site. So, and the question is, where are those bangs coming from? Are they also coming from that area or are they moving around the ocean? I get a little bit agitated when they put something like that out. What did they do to investigate the location of those bangs? Not just that they heard them, but from where? And that seems like the kind of thing a Navy submarine hunter should be able to do to locate where that sound is coming from.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

GALLO: So, but the fact that it came up a government memo and I've started hearing about it about two hours ago, a lot of credible people have said this is a real deal.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, I agree. It's not just a witness. I mean, this is from a U.S. government memo. And so very quickly, time is of the essence, of course, they -- estimates are that they have 30 hours left of basically an oxygen supply. And so, what needs to happen right now? And do they have the equipment to do it? GALLO: I don't know exactly what's out there. I've heard there's a

remotely operated vehicles and the very least you need to get something with a camera and probably with some sort of manipulator arms that can grab and then start moving. You know, first thing to do is to identify where the bangs are coming from and if they're continuing. Second thing to do would be to move some of the remotely operated vehicles to that area and get them in the water and there may be nothing there.

But in case there is something there, you don't want to have to wait a day to get that. Let's get the ships out there right away and that's -- those are the find it and then document what the issue is and then prepare to retrieve what's there.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, it sounds like that is what they're working on right now. Well, David, thank you very much. I know how nerve wracking this is for you, that your dear friend is on there. We will check back with you. Thank you very much.

Gallo: Okay, Alisyn. Bye bye. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Other news, Donald Trump might not be Joe Biden's biggest headache in 2024. It could be a different candidate.

[23:45:00]

Could be a Democrat. We're going to show you the proof.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is speaking out tonight about the war in Ukraine and calling on the U.S. to stop, in his words, provocations of Russia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT FRANCIS KENNEDY, JR. (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I abhor Russia's brutal and bloody invasion of that nation. But we

must understand that our government has also contributed to its circumstances through repeated, deliberate provocations of Russia going back to the 1990s.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:50:00]

CAMEROTA: Is RFK Jr. presenting a problem for Joe Biden? My panel is back. Coleman, RFK Jr.'s poll numbers are at 20 percent right now. So, Biden's at 60 percent, RFK Jr., 20 percent. Marianne Williamson, eight percent, someone else, eight percent. So, I know that you think that Democrats shouldn't sort of laugh this off.

HUGHES: Yeah, no, I don't think Democrats should. But I think Democrats -- I worry, will make a similar mistake that was made with Trump, which is, he seems like a clown, he's saying all this crazy stuff. He's an outsider. His fans seem taken in by misinformation. Let's just wish that this goes away by not taking it seriously and then we're all blindsided.

CAMEROTA: And what might happen if they don't take him seriously?

HUGHES: Well, I think frankly he appeals to a lot of people and we should make a serious effort to understand why, right? Obviously, I watched the whole Joe Rogan episode. A lot of his ideas are just absolutely kooky, unfounded, right?

But he's also speaking to a very real resentment that people feel of the government's handling of COVID. And, you know, we know the pharmaceutical industry is the number one lobbyer. And you know, the CDC, FDA, NIH, unfortunately, there's a revolving door and regulatory capture and corruption that's legal and people feel enormous resentment about how that led to policies that were heavy-handed and RFK is speaking to that.

So, Democrats could do one of two things. They can just focus on his like really, you know, looniest claims and just dismiss this guy's crazy or they could come up with a counter narrative that's like, we care about that stuff too, but we have a better way to solve it.

AVLON: Well, one way they could do it is talk about, you know, the fact that the Biden administration has been pushing the lower prescription drug costs against the wishes of said drug companies. But look, it's clear, polling has shown for a long time, that there is a desire for an alternative to Joe Biden for a variety of different reasons among Democrats. His numbers are not as high as they should be for a typical incumbent president.

I don't think that Bobby Kennedy, Jr. is the solution to that. The fact he's getting pumped up, particularly by folks on the right, as a credible alternative to Joe Biden, I think speaks to who he most appeals to. That doesn't mean there's not Venn diagram overlap. There were Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump fans in the world. And so no, he should not be dismissed, but his claims need to be interrogated in a fact-based way. And when they are, many of his strongest claims break down upon the slightest bit of scrutiny. But he sounds very convincing because he's indicted himself with this stuff.

SCARAMUCCI: Well, 2008, a gentleman by the name of Barack Obama was not taken seriously. He was very low in the polls and then Clinton said, okay, don't attack him. He'll be our HUD Secretary someday. He went on to become President. 2016, Donald Trump not taken seriously by anybody. Candidates that worked for Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, he'll flame out of the race. He'll say something destructive.

We thought the McCain incident was going to cause that, became the president. I don't think R.F.K. Jr. becomes the president, but he could do heavy damage to the president. He could weaken him going into the -- and there's an additional factor. So, they got to go after him now.

AVLON: Yeah, there's an additional factor, too, which is the halo effect of his name, not just his last name, but about his father. You know, Robert F. Kennedy holds a very sacred place in the memory of this country, in part because he was able to create coalitions, particularly among African Americans and poor working class whites, that no other candidate's really been able to cobble together. And the fact that he's, of course, was assassinated 55 years ago this month.

And so that itself, I think, lends him an authority on the surface that you know, you should not underestimate as your parallel.

SCARAMUCCI: I like R.F. K. Jr., by the way. I like him.

MICHAELSON: I would say in the segregation of the support as between people who like the name Kennedy or as Coleman said, people who are actually resonating with the message and people who just want anyone but Biden. I was actually intrigued by Julian Castro's comments today, not signaling necessarily a run, but saying, you know, we need -- the Biden hasn't delivered on these promises, saying the kinds of things that a primary opponents, so it's to say, I mean, it seems to me that a rational, actual Democrat running against Joe Biden might have a real chance.

CAMEROTA: But do you think R.F.K. Jr. does hurt Biden somehow?

MICHAELSON: I mean, his posters say I'm a Kennedy Democrat, like, that's good advertising. But beneath that advertising is someone who's way out of step with the Democratic Party.

AVLON: He's already hurting him. He's already hurting him.

CAMEROTA: How?

SCARAMUCCI: He's very likable and he has a message that's reaching a demography that the president needs. And if he gets 10, 12, 15, 20 percent of the vote, the Republicans will say, you know, this guy's weak, even in his own base. And you could get a strange candidate on the Republican side that goes after the RFK people. It's not impossible.

MICHAELSON: That's actually the bigger --

SCARAMUCCI: That's the crossover. We got Bernie Sanders voters, by the way, in 2016.

MICHAELSON: That's right. Mainstreaming of wild anti-vax conspiracy theories, the mainstreaming of this kind of vote sizing on Russia- Ukraine, that I think is exactly right. This lends ammunition to a future Republican candidate.

[23:55:00]

AVLON: Yeah, this is the code pink Donald Trump overlap on foreign policy which we know. But the framing of I'm a Kennedy Democrat speaks to something different. That tradition means to people a certain patriotic liberalism that I think is open and Bob in up, this Kennedy's policies don't actually back up. But the fact he's got twenty percent does speak to a certain scottness in Joe Biden's approval rate. There's a softness --

UNKNOWN: He asked on camera. AVLON: Yeah, you could look like whatever you want.

HUGHES: Something much stronger and much more, you know, able than Joe Biden.

CAMEROTA: All right. We'll leave it there, guys. Thank you very much for all that. Tomorrow on "CNN This Morning", inside the first of its kind recommendation to screen all adults for anxiety. Tune in for that at 6 AM Eastern. Thanks so much for watching us tonight. Our coverage continues.

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