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CNN Tonight

Massive Search For Titanic Submersible Intensifies; Is Christie On A Mission To Block Trump?; Some Community College Grads Can Outearn Elite University Peers. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired June 21, 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 SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Greene's spokesperson has now confirmed tonight that the Georgia Republican did, in fact, used that language with her colleague while accusing Boebert of -- get this -- copying her articles of impeachment against President Biden.

And with that, thank you for joining us. CNN's Alisyn Camerota starts right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: I did see that movie in middle school. That rings a bell, yes.

PHILLIP: Yeah, a little bit more profane than my middle school experience, for sure.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Well, that is -- I'm happy for you because nobody needs to do that. Thank you very, Abby. Great to see you. Good evening, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to "CNN Tonight".

The search is still going on at this hour for that submersible that went missing Sunday with five people on board. Rescuers spent the day scouring an area twice the size of Connecticut after hearing banging sounds this morning. The Coast Guard says they remain hopeful but, of course, the odds are getting steeper. Five people trapped under water in the dark and freezing cold with oxygen running low. In just a moment, I will speak with a man who is scheduled to be on that excursion but canceled his trip over safety concerns. One of his friends, though, is on board.

Plus, in political news, Donald Trump is the GOP front runner for 2024, of course, but Chris Christie is trying to change that. We will show you how Christie's radical honesty approach is working, and can he convince fellow Republicans to do the same? My panel has thoughts.

But let's begin with the ongoing mission to save five people trapped on board that missing submersible somewhere in the North Atlantic. CNN's Jason Carroll is live in Boston with some of the Coast Guard searchers are based. Jason, what does this search look like at this hour? JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Boston Coast Guard has -- the Coast Guard here in Boston has made it very clear, Alisyn, that this is still very much a search and rescue mission. They want to make that very, very clear. But, you know, there are some headways here. I mean, you know, you are talking about the timing here. The time is most definitely running out. That is first and foremost.

But, you know, family members, those who have been watching this for quite a long period of time now, are hanging their hopes on some of those noises, those noises that were detected. You remember they were first detected yesterday when you had this research plane, this Canadian research plane flying over the area, dropped a sonar buoy down, and then the so-called banging noises were detected. That was yesterday.

Again, today, when speaking to the Coast Guard, they are telling us more of these noises were found. When I asked the Coast Guard, the head of the Coast Guard out here, the captain, I said, what more can you tell us about these noises? And he said, look, we just want to make it very, very clear that we don't know what the noises are.

And so, what they've done is they've taken all that acoustic data, they've sent it to the U.S. Navy for analysis. And so, once they get back that analysis, they will have a greater sense of what those banging noises are.

But you talk to the experts and they will tell you, look, these noises could be any number of things. I mean, the ocean is a noisy place. It could be sea life. It could be the titanic metal settling. It could be other vessels that are out there. So, these are some of the dynamics that they are looking at.

But because they have detected some of these noises, the so-called banging noises, they have sent extra resources into that particular area where they are searching. What are those resources look like? Well, we are talking about some of these remote operated vehicles, ROVs, which are manned with cameras so they can go below the surface and search at deeper depths. So, those are being taken into the area.

But, once again, time now running out. We are looking at less than 10 hours by some estimate in terms of how much oxygen might be left there on board. But again, the Coast Guard making it very, very clear this is still a search and rescue mission, and they're sending all resources into the area. Still a little bit of hope. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Jason, tell us about this company, OceanGate, that is behind this excursion because we've learned that they faced a series of legal issues before this particular excursion, both from customers and from former employees.

CARROLL: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: So, what do you know about that?

CARROLL: Yeah, that's' true, that's true. I mean, there were allegations from previous customers that they had some of their planned trips that were canceled because of either mechanical reasons and because of weather. So, there were some lawsuits involved there.

Also, particularly troubling, Alisyn, when you think of what happened from two former employees from OceanGate who had allegedly raised concerns about the integrity, the thickness of the hull of the particular craft that we are talking about, this particular vessel, apparently, there were some additional testing of the vessel since the employees left in 2017 and in 2018.

[23:04:58]

So, it's not clear if these particular issues were addressed, but these issues were most clearly raised by two former employees at OceanGate. So, some troubling signs from the past. OceanGate would clearly tell you that these were issues that were addressed. But nonetheless, these were issues that were out there in the past. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Okay. Jason, thank you very much for all of the reporting from the scene in Boston there.

Now, lets' go to Tom Foreman at the magic wall to explain what is involved as this search intensifies. So, Tom, we understand so many different assets are being used to search here. What does each one do?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, our team out there, Jason and all the others, have done a great job keeping track of all this. We know about the air support out there, things like the Poseidon, capable of scanning for submarines, that is above the water, obviously, the ships out there on top of the water, all of them have some ability to reach in and figure out what is going on below the water.

But when you start getting really deep, you start talking more about things like this, these probes that they can drop down. They can listen for things going on. And particularly, if you start talking about things like side scan radar, they're able to go down and actually take sonar pictures of the bottom of this. You may remember this from the Malaysian air flight that became lost and all the searching there. These this type of thing there.

What can you do with this? Well, if you can get pictures in this manner, then you can say, well, we do identify something here, and it helps you actually go after a target. How good can these pictures be? Well, sometimes they can be really quite astonishing. They can show a lot of details and look for other things before. None of the pictures we are showing of this is from the site, by the way.

If that happens, then you go back up, and that's when you start going to the robotic devices we are talking about. For example, from France, the Victor 6000, very deep diving, this can go to about 20,000 feet. It's a remarkable craft. It's got robotic arms on. It could cut loose this sub, if they found it down there, if it's hung up in some way. It can take a lying down to it. They can hook it to be pulled up. It can shoot video of it. This can be remarkable work. But, but really important here, it can only do that work if it knows where to go to do that work. And we are not to that point yet. We still don't know where this submersible is at this point, if it's intact. We just don't know any of that information.

And everything that I have described here takes time. And that is what is running out. There's just so much ocean out there. And this is such a small craft. And it's in this three-dimensional environment. It is just a tremendous, tremendous challenge. Good on them for getting all these extraordinary assets out there to do this.

They are all, though, poise for that moment when one of them figures out where it is, and then the race is on to see in these dwindling hours if they can save the people there, if they are still surviving.

CAMEROTA: Tom, it's remarkable to see the amount of energy and people and resources and equipment that is being devoted to finding these five people. Thank --

FOREMAN: Yeah, it's remarkable, and it's because they know this is one of the great engineering and rescue challenges on the planet. This is one of the hardest possible things to do, and they are trying to do it with all of these assets.

CAMEROTA: Thank you for explaining all of that, Tom.

FOREMAN: You are welcome.

CAMEROTA: Chris Brown is a digital marketing tycoon who is friends with the British billionaire, Hamish Harding, one of the five people on the vessel right now. Chris, thank you very much for being here. I know it has been an incredibly nerve-racking few days for all of the missing people's family and friends. How are you feeling at this hour?

CHRIS BROWN, DIGITAL MARKETING TYCOON: Absolutely devastated. All my thoughts stay with the families and friends of those who are missing and, of course, just holding out any hope that is left for those that are underwater, really hope they can still pull this off.

CAMEROTA: Tell us about Hamish. I know that you two have been on other expeditions, et cetera, together. So, tell us about your history.

BROWN: Yes. I met Hamish on a trip to the South Pole with Buzz Aldrin actually in 2016. He's an extremely amiable man. He won't be flustered by a situation. He will be the calming influence on people around him.

He is fiercely intellectual. So, I can imagine he is sitting there going through all permutations and combinations of what can be done to help a situation. It would not surprise me if it was his idea to be doing the banging given the intervals to distinguish it from random noise. The time seems to indicate that humans are making that noise.

[23:09:58]

CAMEROTA: How risky was this? How risky is this type of expedition? BROWN: Without a doubt, it is risky. It is 3,800 meters. It is very deep. Bear in mind that most military submarines can only go down to 1,800 meters. The pressures and temperatures down there are quite foreboding.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. And why would Hamish have wanted to take this risk?

BROWN: I think he will agree that the Titanic is an iconic wreck. There's a lot of history there. The fact that it was missing for so long. The original expedition objectives were to go down and to do a 3D scan of the Titanic using the OceanGate submersible. So, that could then be compared to another scan a few years later to see what parts were decaying so that the data, the wreck could be preserved.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. And so, I know that you had paid a deposit to go on this expedition and you had wanted to at one point, but then you pulled out. What -- why did you have cold feet about this?

BROWN: The deposit was staged. There was a (INAUDIBLE) milestone. So, once they hit this first milestone, (INAUDIBLE). Once they hit the second milestone, they paid a bit more. They constantly missed those milestones, which were quite simple to hit, in my view. By the second milestone, at the end of 2018, they still hadn't got the sub down below 300 meters. Bear in mind that they aim for 3,800.

There were a few other things. I brought up the issue of certification with the company. It became obvious that they -- it became obvious to me that they did not seem to want to get certification, that they were going to call this an experimental sub and not certify for one dive (INAUDIBLE) multiple dives. That was outside of my risk envelope.

Also, certain parts seemed to be, to me, to be off the shelf, maybe not ideal for the situation. I didn't like the small thruster motors on the outside and the cabling. Putting all those things together, I just thought, this is a risk that is outside of my control and it is one that I don't think I wish to take.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. You are not alone. I mean, obviously, I'm sure you have heard the reports that there have been some employees who had spoken out about their own safety concerns. What do you think happened, Chris?

BROWN: I wouldn't want to get into speculation here. I mean, still the ideal situation is (INAUDIBLE) surface and are bubbling around because it wouldn't -- it wouldn't sit above the sea level, it would just be bubbling below the surface. That is the ideal situation. It could be found within the next few hours, the next 24 hours.

It still needs to be open from outside, which, again, in my view, is another design flaw. It could be snagged on -- it could be snagged on the Titanic wreck. It could be just dropped on the ocean. We don't really know what the situation is.

I would not want to get into speculation. It is not fair on the family and friends of those who are involved to speculate on these things. And I think also, you know, the blame and why, we've got to leave this. Our thoughts have to be with those who are trapped and their close families.

CAMEROTA: Understood. And we are praying for them. Chris, thank you. We really appreciate your expertise and your personal experience, certainly, with Hamish about all of this. Thank you for talking to us.

BROWN: Thank you. It's my pleasure.

CAMEROTA: As Chris just told us, he is still, of course, hopeful that his friend and the other passengers will be rescued. So, how can searchers do that? A navy diver is going to tell us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: The search and rescue mission for that missing sub covers an area twice the size of Connecticut and includes dozens of vessels and divers.

Joining me now is Rick Armstrong, a former Navy master diver. Rick, thank you so much for being here. Just help us understand how this works and the role of divers. How can you, as a diver, help search for something the size of a minivan in the vast darkness of the ocean?

RICK ARMSTRONG, FORMER NAVY MASTER DIVER: Well, this operation is now being operated with remote-operated vehicles. This is way too deep for the divers. Saturation divers, you know, have gone to 2,000 feet. You are talking about almost 13,000 foot of water. So now you are using high tech robots, sonar, plus the surface area you are searching.

It's a huge area in deep, deep waters. This is extremely dangerous not only for the individuals that are in the submersible but also the individuals -- these are very expensive machines that are going down to locate this submersible in a rapid manner because time is of the essence right now.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. We have been told that, you know -- I mean, basically, the best estimates are that they have just several hours left of oxygen. And so, is there a role for divers right now or is this all being done from the surface with remote-operated vehicles?

ARMSTRONG: At the moment, it is being done with remote-operated vehicles. Should they be able to locate the vessel and bring it to a depth where divers could go on and help get it ready to bring up and over safely, they would probably use divers at that point. But it would not be -- there is no way they can go to that depth.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

ARMSTRONG: The ROVs that they are using are pretty high tech.

[23:20:00]

These are very, very complex machines that work on oil rigs and cables underwater, deep depths. They are very proficient at it, the people that are working with it. They have mustered some of the best in the business right now to this area to help rescue these people.

CAMEROTA: So, Rick, as you know, one of the hopeful signs is that yesterday, they heard some banging. What sounded like strategic banging. I mean, the way it was described, at sort of half-an-hour intervals, which seemed as though somebody might have been -- might have been man-made banging. And then they heard it again this morning.

ARMSTRONG: That is a very encouraging sign that someone is taking the time. Like you said, it's intermittent, it's not constant, it's not something just banging against a hull. That is somebody, possibly, signaling from inside the hull that if they could possibly triangulate that with sonar and give those guys an area, a smaller area to search, that would help them a lot. But here, again, you know, time is running out. Those individuals are under a lot of stress.

CAMEROTA: Do you think rescue is still possible?

ARMSTRONG: There is always hope. The rescue of the kids from the caves in Thailand, people had not given up hope. They kept trying. They eventually found them. A different scenario here. Folks are in deep depths.

And like the individual in the last segment said, they may be on the surface, just below the surface, where planes can really see them. This is -- if they actually find these folks and bring them to the surface, this will be one of the greatest rescues in history.

CAMEROTA: I thought so -- like you, Rick, I thought so much about those Thai kids in the cave because that, too, was considered almost impossible. I mean, the herculean effort and the ingenuity, that nobody knew how to get into that, you know, flooded cave, and they figured out how to do it. I have thought about them during this -- in that very same way.

But just, lastly, what you were saying -- as Chris was saying in the last -- in the last segment, it is not that this submersible floats on top of the water. Right? It -- maybe, it just underneath the surface.

ARMSTRONG: And it's painted white. Wave caps are white. I mean, there are many scenarios here. It could be on the bottom. If that's the case, if it is hang up in the wreck and they could get to it, they can cut it away and bring it to the surface.

If it is on the bottom amongst the wreckage itself, that will be very difficult. You would need site scan sonar to just map the bottom. When you are looking for something the size of a van in and a huge wreck area, it is a herculean task. It really is. This is a big job.

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

ARMSTRONG: And the fact that they mustered these companies, the international military, you name it, in a manner they did, this is pretty impressive.

CAMEROTA: For sure. Yeah.

ARMSTRONG: Hopefully, they find them. Hopefully they -- hopes and prayers that they find these folks.

CAMEROTA: Rick Armstrong, yeah, we agree. Thank you very much for your expertise in helping us understand what they are looking at this hour. It's great to talk to you.

ARMSTRONG: Thank you. Goodbye.

CAMEROTA: Okay, now to politics, Chris Christie is on the campaign trail in New Hampshire tonight and not mincing words about Donald Trump. Why is Christie willing to say stuff out loud that no other candidate will? My panel is going to be here to explain, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Chris Christie is on a mission to take down Donald Trump, including calling him a repeated loser. Here's how Christie phrase it in New Hampshire tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: In the whole time that he was president, all we did was lose. In 2018, we lost the House. In 2020, we lost the Senate. In 2020, we lost the White House. He said he was going to repeal and replace Obamacare. He had a republican Congress, and he couldn't get it done.

He said he was going to balance the budget in four years, and he left with the biggest deficit of any president in American history. He said he was going to retire the national debts in eight years, and he added $8 trillion to the national debt in four years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Let's bring in our panel. Joining me now, we have "The New York Times" business reporter Emma Goldberg, podcast host Josh Barro, former organizer for Hillary Clinton Kaivan Shroff, and Republican strategist Jason Osborne.

Jason, I will start with you. Is Chris Christie trying this radical honesty approach, hoping that other people will jump on board? What is this the purpose of this approach he is taking?

JASON OSBORNE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I mean, if you look at everything that he has put out there from a fundraising standpoint and then some of the statements, get me to the 40,000 donors and the 1% in the polls so I can take Trump on in the debates, that, I think, is his goal.

I kind of looked at Chris Christie getting into this as he is the face of a Super PAC for anybody but Trump. And he is doing a very good job at it. I think him stepping out in front on this is making other candidates realize, wait a minute, we don't have to play in Trump's sandbox.

And I'm interested in hearing what you had to say. I love your post on it. I agree, there is a certain amount of drafting aspect to this, although what I think is being lost in all this is that while these other candidates are drafting behind Christie, they're organizing. In states like Iowa and New Hampshire, if you have the best organization, it doesn't matter what the polls say, you can still win.

CAMEROTA: And so, is he giving others the permission structure to follow suit?

JOSH BARRO, PODCAST HOST, "VERY SERIOUS": He's giving it to them, but it remains to be seen whether they are actually going to take it or not.

[23:30:00]

I think what Chris Christie understands about this race is that Donald Trump is the front runner in this race. A race with a quasi-incumbent is always going to be about that candidate. If you are making an argument for you have to be the nominee, you have to make an argument for why Donald Trump should not be the nominee because that is (INAUDIBLE) outcome.

And it is even more true when it is Donald Trump, who is very interesting, who is very media savvy, who is willing to say outrageous things all the time. The other candidates are boring. I mean, the idea that they are going to get media attention from boring aspects of their platforms when Donald Trump is out there is just crazy.

If you are going to be on television, you have to be talking about him. And if you are going to be talking about him, you have to be talking about why you shouldn't nominate him.

So, Chris Christie seems to get that. The rest of the candidates in this race, I don't really understand what it is that they think they are doing because whatever they're doing, it might make Donald Trump voters less mad at them on their way to the polls to vote for Donald Trump. But none of them is articulating a theory of how they're going to convince people to not vote for Donald Trump which you have to do before you can get them to vote for you.

CAMEROTA: Emma, your thoughts?

EMMA GOLDBERG, BUSINESS REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I do think we need a model in this race for substantive engagement and transparency. And I think it's refreshing to see someone who is willing to, you know, call out Trump. And we have seen the way Trump response to his critics and it is so often with belittling people, taunting them.

And so, to have someone who is coming to the race with a real commitment to transparency and substantive engagement is, I think, refreshing. That being said, I also think it is important not to paint (INAUDIBLE) a picture.

I mean, if you look at the morning consult numbers from May, it was Trump was at like 56%, DeSantis at 22%, and Christie wasn't on there. And we also saw, you know, Christie's last campaign go down in flames, and then he jumped on board in the Trump train. So, I think -- I think we have to kind of hold both truths in our hands.

OSBORNE: I think you also have to look at 2007. At this point in time, Rudy Giuliani was in the lead in all the polls.

KAIVAN SHROFF, SENIOR ADVISOR, THE INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATION: Yeah, but I think to Josh's point, unless we see a cascade here where Nikki Haley and DeSantis and Pence pile on and actually get something done, I kind of put this in the Lincoln Project bucket of it's really exciting to a lot of Democrats but also, number two, you know, if it's not super effective in changing vote, is it sucking up attention and resources that could be better used with the ultimate goal in mind of actually defeating Donald Trump?

CAMEROTA: Jason, why don't they jump on him?

OSBORNE: Well, because I think what you are seeing is a little -- you know, they're putting their foot in the water, seeing how far they can go across -- you know, across the battle of Trump. Right?

CAMEROTA: Very tepidly. So --

OSBORNE: Yes, but it is much more than it was three, six, nine months ago where everybody was petrified of saying anything about the guy. Now, you have actually four or five candidates actually saying, wait a minute, I think Christie is on to something here.

And as they start moving forward, they are hearing from folks on the ground that, wait a minute, these charges and these indictments as they continue to pile on, we need an alternative. And who is that alternative? Right?

And to your point about all the candidates being boring, I can think of two candidates in the history or in last 30 years that haven't been boring, and that's Trump and Obama. Right? Candidates by nature in campaigns are boring. So, Trump is bringing some liveliness to it, but Christie is making it a little bit more entertaining because it is continuing.

BARRO: The problem with the other Republican candidates when they criticize Donald Trump for, you know, waving classified documents around at people in meetings, we don't have security clearances or storing them on a stage, it's a crazy behavior. The things he had to do to get to the point of being indicted, first of all, are crazy. So, there's so much material that they -- that they -- that they can only sort of gingerly attack on is crazy to begin with.

But also, they echo his own talking points at the same time they criticize him. They say, you know, the DOJ can't be trusted, but this indictment is very serious. The indictment came from the Department of Justice. If you are going out there and you are trying to tell voters they should take seriously what is in the document, you don't lead by echoing Donald Trump's that you shouldn't believe any of this stuff that comes from the government.

I think Christie deals with this well where he basically says, you know, you want to get mad at the prosecutors here. Trump is the one who did these things. He focuses on the substance of what is in it, whereas the other candidates, they all want to echo these stories that are essentially excuses for Trump to basically say, don't listen to what the Department of Justice says.

I don't think that you can send that sort of mixed message if you're actually trying to take him down.

CAMEROTA: Friends, thank you very much for all of those perspectives. We are following right now a developing story we want to get to. At least three people are dead after a tornado has struck Matador, Texas. This is in the west central part of the state. The tornado hit around 8:00 p.m. central time. Matador's mayor tells CNN that there are many injuries and many structures destroyed, and that the town needs help.

More than 80 storm reports issued across the central U.S. today, extreme storms. More than 20 million people remain under a severe storm threat through early Thursday. We will keep an eye on this and update you as we get more numbers.

Okay, a new report shows that some graduates of community colleges can make a lot more money than their peers with degrees from elite universities. Mike Rowe is here to say, I told you so, next.

[23:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: We all know about the rising cost of four-year colleges and universities, and the tens of thousands of dollars in student debt that millions of young Americans are saddled with.

Well, a new report in the "Los Angeles Times" finds that many graduates of community colleges and technical schools actually make a lot more money than their peers from elite schools.

This news will not shock Mike Roe, and he joins me now. Mike, great to see you. You've been vindicated.

[23:40:00]

You've been vindicated.

MIKE ROWE, CEO, MIKEROWEWORKS FOUNDATION: If I had pearls, I would be clutching them. I can't believe it.

CAMEROTA: So, what's funny, Mike, you and I have obviously spoken about this very topic several times, but to see it in dollars and cents, just the -- you know, how it may not be worth it to go to a super expensive private university -- let me just spell it out for you. The "L.A. Times" follows this one student, Elijah Calderon, after a yearlong training program at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. He is poised to earn about $105,000 annually as a power lineman. Once he becomes a journeyman in three to four years, he stands to make about $165,000 and potentially much more with overtime.

They compare that to the median annual four-year after graduation income for a Stanford University political science major, $75,000, a UC Berkeley sociology major makes about $64,000, and UCLA history major, $47,900.

I mean, those are attention-getting numbers. So, your reaction?

ROWE: Well, guess which one of those students doesn't have $200,000 in outstanding debt? That would be Elijah Calderon. My foundation has trained close to 2,000 people, probably 30 or 40 linemen. I don't know any who are making less than six figures, and I don't know any who are walking around with a lot of debt.

Now, on the negative side, they're going up telephone poles and electricity poles and all kinds of poles. The wind is blowing and it is hailing. It is tough work. But it is so important to look at the stigmas and the stereotypes and the misperceptions that keep people out of these trades. And at the same time, look at the unbelievably, oh, generous PR that our four-year institutions have been enjoying for years and years and years.

I don't -- I don't take any pleasure in seeing people finally come to the realization that there is more than one way to skin the cat because for a lot of people, it feels like it is too late. But for the next generation, the time is now. We need to take an honest look at what it cost and what you can expect to make on the other side.

CAMEROTA: There's another interesting report today, this is from CNN, and it finds that test scores for 13-year-olds in the U.S. in math and reading have been declining for the last decade. So, it was exacerbated by COVID, but not solely by COVID. Do you have a theory on what is going on in grade schools?

ROWE: Oh, man. Well, that's a little out of my lane, but I do think the idea that the best path for the most people is the most expensive path does begin in grade school. Now, paradoxically, we do have giant problems in reading and writing and arithmetic. It is the basics that, I think, are freaking people out a little bit.

I don't know what to say about it. I mean, I know there is a union conversation. I know there is a funding conversation. I know there is a parental conversation. For my money, I just wish in grade school, all of the options were on the table.

We have talked before about the unintended consequence of getting shop class out of middle school and high school. If I had my way, that would all go back in and it would even go in earlier, including home ec, by the way, and financial literacy, and a ton of different things that you would just put under basic survival skills and not a liberal arts degree. It has to start early. And look, great teachers are always in demand. I don't want to cast aspersions. My folks both taught public schools. But I have no idea what to say about my hometown in Baltimore that was graduating virtually. No students competent in math. It is horrifying.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, and there are some kids who really take two home ec and shop a lot more than math class. And so, you know, I take your point that it is really important to give kids all of those options. Mike Rowe, as always, fantastic to see you. MikeroweWorks is doing fantastic work and your foundation is at it, as always. So, thanks so much for being here. We will see you again soon.

ROWE: At the risk of a shameless plug, a million dollars in work ethics scholarship coming up in two months. You can apply at the website.

CAMEROTA: Fantastic. Thanks, Mike.

And we are back with our panel, Emma, Josh, Kaivan, and Jason. So, Jason, on the community college front, you have a trial in community college right now. Has that been a satisfying experience?

OSBORNE: Yes. Let me shout out to Hudson and his teammates at Northeast Mississippi Community College in Boonville, Mississippi.

CAMEROTA: Watching us right now, I assume.

OSBORNE: Watching us right now, apparently, and not going to bed. But I think it has been -- I mean, (INAUDIBLE) has only been there for a couple weeks.

[23:45:01]

But it is -- you know, any time somebody goes to school or college, whether it's a community college or a four-year school, it's an adjustment. Obviously, being away from home.

But I think what they are learning there and their ability right now during the summer is very limited. Coming this fall, I think there is a number of these folks, his teammates, et cetera, and other school at school that are going to start working on trade and learning how to be plumbers, who to be electricians, how to work in electronics and do AI work.

I think at the end of the day, they're going to be much more fulfilled in two years with the degree than a lot of the folks in the four-year program. My daughter is in a four-year at LSU. She is in accounting. But there are folks, to Mike Rowe's point, in liberal arts. I mean, they shouldn't make as much money as folks in the trades because those folks -- I mean those are many people across the board.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Kaivan?

SHROFF: Yeah, you know, I think it's not comparing people who choose a four-year program or community college or people who choose a trade or humanities because it is both and we need all sorts of people to run a successful country.

I think what we absolutely lean to agree on is that sort of the shame or stigma around people that do go straight to a trade school. I think it should be a flip, much younger. We should start explaining to people that that is an option for them and that's very lucrative as we're talking about and important option, too. So, I think it really needs to start a lot earlier, this conversation.

CAMEROTA: That's what Mike and I were talking about because great test scores are falling. It's not for everybody. Algebra isn't for everybody. Even in grade school, you can sort of figure out if you're going to be a really academically-minded, international kid or not. And if you're not, you don't have as many options anymore as you once do with shop and home economics.

Well, your thoughts, because I know that you've done some articles on things like this.

GOLDBERG: Yes, I think with generative AI, so many industries are going to be disrupted and I think really fundamentally reshaped in ways that we really can't predict right now. And I think for a long time, there is a narrative that, you know, maybe truckers would be really displaced because of self-driving cars. Now, it's like paralegals, translators, executive assistance, copywriters. I think so many professions are going to be radically destabilized by generative artificial intelligence.

And so, I think people are going to need to be nimble and agile across professions. And in some cases, what that means is not taking on crippling debt. You know, graduating four-year college but $30,000 in debt or more I think really limits people in terms of how many career switches they can make. So, I do think we need to open up more educational opportunities.

CAMEROTA: We have 10 seconds.

BARRO: I mean, stick up for four-year programs. The wage premium for people with bachelor's degrees is something like 80% compared to people who only hold a high school degree. It is substantially lower than that for a two-year program.

Obviously, it depends entirely on exactly what you're studying, whether it is a two-year program or four-year program. There are four- year degrees that won't teach you anything useful. There are two-year degrees, as Mike is describing there, that can get you into a trade the pays very highly.

But a lot of people, it's a good decision they make to go to college even if they have to incur debt because they do get a really substantial wage premium from that four-year degree.

CAMEROTA: Thank you for that other side. Appreciate that. Thank you for all of the perspectives. All right, up next, the latest from the ongoing search for the missing submersible. A former commander of the Royal Navy tells us what he thinks went wrong on the sub.

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[23:50:00]

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CAMEROTA: The window to rescue five passengers aboard that missing sub is narrowing.

Joining us now is former Royal Navy commander, Ryan Ramsey. Ryan, thank you for being here. I know this is a tough question, but do you think that rescue is still possible?

RYAN RAMSEY, FORMER ROYAL NAVY COMMANDER: In all honesty, I'm a complete realist, I don't think rescue is possible. My thoughts go to the families. The discussions I've had with other mariners, we all feel the same way that this is an absolute tragedy. There is a collapse in timeframe with the window here and they have not even located this submersible. So, to deploy rescue forces to find that submersible is going to be extremely difficult and long.

CAMEROTA: So, if they were to find it in the next five minutes, you think that it's not possible to bring it up? I mean, why have you reached that conclusion?

RAMSEY: For two reasons. The first one is the depth of water. So, 4,000 meters. I know they've sent some remotely-operated vehicles that can operate down to 6,000 meters which means that they may be able to locate the submersible. But actually, a recovery from that depth has never been done before. And that's not to say that it cannot be done. It just means it takes time to be able to do it.

Humans are really resourceful about how they deal with incidents, how they deal with events, and they become ingenious about how to recover from it. But time is -- there is a collapsing timeframe. It's not so much the oxygen that everybody talks about that's running out, but it is actually the carbon dioxide that ends up being the killer.

You're breathing out carbon dioxide in small -- five people in a small submersible or breathing out carbon dioxide with no ability to remove that carbon dioxide for this length of time becomes the problem.

CAMEROTA: That is interesting because I do keep hearing about the oxygen. Another thing that had given, I think, people hope was that the U.S. Navy has something called this Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System that's capable of retrieving objects or vessels from the floor at 20,000 feet. And the Titanic is just 13,000 feet down. So, it seemed as though maybe it could retrieve something if it were stuck in, say, the Titanic wreckage.

RAMSEY: That's correct.

[23:55:00]

But two elements go against that. The first one is the Titanic wreckage. So, that's over 290-meter ship that split into parts. The submersible itself is 6.4 meters. So, it's trying to find the submersible within that wreckage.

And the second thing is if you are going to use that, we should've deployed it days ago, almost on the moment that it had gone missing, it needed to deploy to give it sufficient time to search the area and deploy that capability.

And as I said just previously, time is totally the enemy here. We are running out of time. To deploy complex operational capabilities needed to recover this submersible is going to take significant time.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Well, former Commander Ryan Ramsey, we appreciate your expertise. We pray that you're wrong, of course, but we really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us. Thank you so much.

RAMSEY: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: Tomorrow on "CNN This Morning," of course, we'll be continuing coverage of the search for the sub with insight from an explorer who once got stuck in the Titanic shipwreck. That starts at 6:00 a.m. Eastern.

Thank you so much for watching us tonight. Our coverage continues now.

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