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Diver on Cave Rescue Mission, They are Coming Out; Now, Bondi Faces Lawmakers Behind Closed Doors on Epstein Files; Federal Judge Halts Work on Trump's Anti-Weaponization Fund. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 29, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, they're coming out. CNN is live from the cave rescue site and talking with divers who are working to get those trapped out of the cave.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they're coming out.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And then the phone disconnected. So, again, nothing official, but --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So dramatic. We're following the very latest on this urgent rescue operation happening right now.

Plus, massive fireball, Blue Origin's rocket explodes during a ground test. What led to the catastrophe?

And later, Pam Bondi behind closed doors. Right now, the former attorney general is speaking to the House Oversight Committee about her handling of the Epstein files, but she won't be under oath, and her interview won't be videotaped.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And reckless incursion, that's what the U.S. is calling a Russian drone strike on an apartment building in Romania, a NATO ally. The U.S. ambassador to NATO now vowing to defend, quote, every inch of the key military alliance.

Plus, one-on-one with Democratic Senator Cory Booker. I'll speak to this key member of the Foreign Relations Committee about the negotiations to try to end the war in Iran and the very tense clashes outside an ICE facility in his home state of New Jersey.

And later, spelling showdown. There's a new National Spelling Bee champion. We have all the record-setting highlights. That's coming up.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

The breaking news, they're coming out. Those words just moments ago from a diver working to rescue five people trapped in this flooded cave. And we've just learned that one of those trapped has now made it out of the flooded chamber, and is going through the rest of the cave.

Specialist cave divers are navigating through very narrow tunnels to reach the stranded men. You can see those conditions here. The men are more than 800 feet from the cave's entrance, and have been stuck inside for over a week. Two more people who are thought to have also entered the cave are missing.

CNN Senior International Correspondent Will Ripley is reporting exclusively for us from the scene. Will, update our viewers.

RIPLEY: Hey, I just want to play for you the last 15 seconds of a phone call that we were just on right before this live shot with a rescue diver inside the cave, just as we were wrapping up the interview. Just listen. I hope you can hear it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are they coming out?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are they coming out?

RIPLEY: So, Kate, they're coming out is what he said. So, obviously, it was kind of chaotic there. We had talked to him for about ten minutes. He was explaining to us how they've been working with the villagers trapped inside the cave actually having them put on wetsuits and train with diving equipment. Because even though they've managed to drain some of the water, he said the water levels are still very high, so they've actually had to teach them how to dive through the water while holding onto the legs of the expert divers that are in there to try to rescue them. They also said the water underground is ice cold. And so it's obviously very difficult, very perilous.

But right at the end of that conversation, you heard people in the background on the phone call saying, they're coming out, they're coming out. And then the phone cut off. So, obviously, they're busy inside the cave right now. We don't have anything official, but you heard it on the phone. It sounds as if somebody has come out, and they've been engaging in this rescue operation for several hours. So, if this is the case, an extraordinary piece of good news.

Obviously, still unconfirmed, but you heard it right there. We were on the phone with the rescue diver inside the cave. Kate?

BLITZER: All right. Will Ripley reporting from the scene for us. Will, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: Yes, very dramatic as this is ongoing. And actually Will Ripley is here on the phone. I want to go to him now. Will, so tell us what's going on.

RIPLEY: Hey, Pamela. Yes, we actually had to very suddenly stop broadcasting.

[10:05:00]

We are still here at the -- basically right at the edge of an access road where it's about a 40-minute hike to get up to the mouth of the cave, or sometimes they're taking heavy equipment, heavy machinery up the cave, or 4x4 SUVs. But a lot of people have been walking on foot, and particularly the family members who've been waiting there.

Anyway, we've been broadcasting from here for the past several hours, and we were suddenly told by government officials that they want us to stop for the night, but that we will be able to come later on. It'll be the morning hours here, evening hours in the U.S., and we might be able to interview the governor about what we believe to be a successful rescue operation.

Although nothing has been officially announced, we were on the phone with a source of our -- a Bangkok-based producer, Kocha Olarn. We were doing a telephone interview, and right at the end of the interview, he basically cut off the call, and we could hear people shouting saying, they're coming out, they're coming out.

And then we later confirmed that one of the villagers -- and this is about an hour ago -- one of the villagers had successfully made it from the chamber where they are -- have been trapped for the last ten days. He had to dive in pitch black, icy, muddy water about, and had to swim for about 100 feet.

And these are villagers that were being trained for several hours on diving equipment that they've never used before. They walked down into that cave on foot before monsoon rains caused flash flooding and filled up the caverns.

So, the rescue divers had to go down, put them -- fit them in wetsuits, train them on this specialized diving equipment that -- and then what each of them are going to have to do is they're going to have to dive and swim about 100 feet to get to a secondary chamber, and then they're going to have to climb about 800 feet out of the cave. They're going to have to crawl sideways through spaces that are 23 inches wide in some areas. Basically, they have to wiggle themselves through, and then they have to climb up at 45-degree angles.

This is not the route that they took to get into the cave. That route is completely flooded out. This is a different route, but it's the only route available, the only path available for them to get up and to eventually breathe fresh air.

It's taking the experienced professionals about three hours, two to three hours, and these are people that do this for a living, to get out of the cave, to follow, to swim and then climb that 850 feet or so. And these villagers who've been trapped underground for ten days, who are now complaining in some cases of breathing problems because of things like CO2 levels rising, rotten bat eggs, which are making it very difficult for them to breathe, they're now going to have to do a dive with specialized equipment that they've just been trained on within the last few hours, and then they're going to have to physically climb, and they're going to have to do that, all of them, hopefully in time before the next rain hits.

They've had a rare break in the rainy season here. Huge storms can pop up on very short notice. If another monsoon rainstorm were to come and they're still in the middle of the rescue operation, it could flood the entire cave and it could become a very dangerous situation not just for the villagers who are trapped down there, but also for the rescuers themselves.

So, it's really touch and go. It's quite sensitive. I suspect that's the reason why they don't necessarily want -- we're the only media here. There's no other local or international media here. We are the only ones. And they basically -- the governor came up to us and said very politely but firmly, it's time for us to stop broadcasting from that location for the evening.

So, we're now driving back a few miles to a guest house, the only guest house in this entire region that we -- it's a ten-hour drive from the capital of Laos or about an hour helicopter ride. And we're going to go work from there and try to gather more information from there.

But right now we're in the car just leaving the scene and heading back to a different location to get our workstation set up there.

BROWN: Wow. Oh my goodness. So, how long do they think that this could take ultimately? Because as you said, time is of the essence. They want to make sure to get them out before there's more rain.

RIPLEY: Well, you know, if you're imagining an experienced professional it's going to take three hours, and you're talking about there's villagers that have never done this before, that are physically weak in many cases from the lack of food, and they've now been given food. They've been given some first aid, and yet still they're going to have to climb in a highly technical way to get out of this cave, and they're going to have to do it with their own power. If they were had to be, if they had to be carried out, it's an even more complicated situation.

So, you're talking about a matter of hours for each individual villager. Not to mention the fact there are still two other villagers that are believed to be in the cave who are still missing, and there have been no official announcements about their status. Although the cave diver who we were speaking with on the phone right before the call was disconnected he said he did not want to comment about the other two, in his words, victims.

[10:10:03]

I don't know what that means, but we're obviously trying to get updates because we actually interviewed the brother-in-law of one of the two men who's missing. He said his brother -- his family's not very hopeful because he was actually sick when he went into the cave ten days ago. Why were all these people going into the cave? They were going in there because word had spread around these villages that there was gold that was found in the cave, and people wanted to go and see if they could do some mining and find some gold, and bring back gold for themselves and for their families.

And so you had a group of people go into the cave, all on their own trying to get in there when this huge storm hit and trapped seven of them. Five of them have been found alive. The status of the other two is unknown. But the families have been gathering outside the cave every day. The wife of one of the men who was found alive said she hasn't -- she'd barely eaten and hasn't slept in nine days, and she broke down in tears when she was talking to me.

I don't know if you guys have that sound available, if you had played it earlier, or if you want to play it, but it was a pretty powerful moment. I'll let you play it if you have it, or if not, I'll toss it back to you guys.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: What the first thing you going to say to him when you see him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: And so here we are now waiting for word about whether her husband was the first one out. She obviously is very much hoping, so as are the families of the other five. And word is quickly spreading. People have been gathering at that site waiting to see who's going to come down. Are they going to put him in an ambulance? What's going to happen? And we are obviously monitoring as well. We're going to have to do it from a bit of a distance for now.

I will say it's -- we're driving down a road right now that's so bumpy, I don't know if you can hear how the car is shaking. I mean, it's very difficult even to get a vehicle in here. And it's certainly not going to help, it's been, for them to get the heavy equipment, the generators that they've needed to power the pumps that are trying to pump water out of the cave to make this rescue possible. A rescue that is very much in progress, not going to be over any time soon, likely many hours to come, could even go into tomorrow or the next day. It really is going to depend, the divers said, on whether these villagers feel they're strong enough to take on this monumental challenge, really to climb and dive for their lives. And they're going to have to do it through their own power and make it out before a storm hits.

BROWN: Wow.

BLITZER: Our Senior International Correspondent Will Ripley on the scene for us in Laos. Will we'll stay in very close touch with you. Thank you. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, let's bring in an expert on this topic. Gretchen Baker is the national coordinator of the National Cave Rescue Commission. Thanks so much for being here.

You just heard Will, and just walk us through just how treacherous this is, and how these villagers who are already suffering from low oxygen and other issues, how they're just being trained for the first time on this equipment, and they're going to have to use their own power, their own might to get out of this cave. In your view, how dangerous is this mission right now?

GRETCHEN BAKER, NATIONAL COORDINATOR, NATIONAL CAVE RESCUE COMMISSION: Good morning. This is a very complex mission with the tight passageways, the water in the cave, the low oxygen levels. So, it's really good to see that the villagers have smiles on their faces, the rescuers have smiles on their faces, because having a good attitude is going to really make the difference in this rescue.

And so my kudos to all of them as they are preparing for this. It's going to be a big mental challenge as well as a physical challenge to get out of this cave.

BLITZER: Gretchen, it's Wolf. How much of this mission, in your opinion, every step of this mission, how much of that has actually been mapped out in advance?

BAKER: The rescuers are trying to figure out every little step along the way, but that's really difficult because there are always little components that come in that are unpredicted. And so even with the best planning, there can be some snafus and difficulties that they weren't planning for.

And so these rescuers look like they're well-prepared. They have folks from different countries who have been on the Thai cave rescue. And so they know that the challenges that they're facing, and they are doing their absolute best to make this as successful as possible. But it's going to be a real challenge. This is not an easy rescue, by all means.

BROWN: Right. And, of course, they're up against the clock because it is rainy season in Laos, and, of course, once those villagers got down there, they got flooded out, and there is concern more rain could eventually be on the way.

[10:15:03]

The first trapped miner is on his way out. How long do you think that this could take overall?

BAKER: I think Will's estimate of a few hours per villager is a really good estimate because each person's going to need time, and they're going to have to focus on one at a time as they move through there. And it also depends on how strong each person is because being in there without food for days is going to definitely weaken them. And so they'll need to have enough strength so that they can get through those really difficult parts.

When you're trying to shimmy and move through those tight constrictions, especially if it's going uphill, and then partly through water, that takes a ton of energy out of you, and so that's going to be a real challenge.

BLITZER: What are the doctors looking at when a person is actually rescued from a horrible environment like this, and then immediately, of course, rushed to the hospital?

BAKER: The doctors are going to be looking for overall health. There's definitely going to be concerns about dehydration, about malnutrition because of not being able to eat for a while. And then just checking the normal vitals and making sure that all their -- that their vitals are looking good, their organs are looking strong and that they can regain some of their strength.

BLITZER: Well, let's hope that happens.

All right, Gretchen Baker, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to, of course, continue to monitor what's happening at this rescue staging area, and we'll go back to Will. Stand by for that.

BROWN: We are wishing them the very best. And those rescuers are so incredibly brave.

BLITZER: They're heroes.

BROWN: They are heroes, absolutely.

And still ahead here in the Situation Room, crowds are gathering this morning outside a New Jersey ICE facility that's been the center of clashes between protesters and federal agents.

And coming up in our next hour, we'll ask about the situation at that facility when we're joined by New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker.

BLITZER: Plus, massive fireball. Blue Origin's rocket explodes during a ground test. What led to this catastrophe in Florida?

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[10:20:00]

BROWN: All right. We have some more breaking news we're covering right now. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is appearing before the House Oversight Committee on her controversial handling of the Epstein files. But this closed-door appearance is not what Epstein survivors and lawmakers of both parties have been demanding based on the subpoena.

The committee subpoenaed Bondi back in March in a stunning bipartisan challenge of the Trump administration. And then a month later, President Trump fired her, abruptly changing the requirements of her appearance today.

Now, earlier this week, Bondi told CNN she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and is undergoing treatment, but, fortunately, she's doing okay. So, let's go live now to Capitol Hill and our Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid. So, Paula, how does today's interview differ from the original plan for a deposition?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So, Pam, originally, when Bondi was still attorney general, she received a subpoena from lawmakers. But after she was fired, left the department, it wasn't clear if they could still enforce that subpoena, so they negotiated today's voluntary, behind-closed-doors interview.

Now, this will not be broadcast. This will not be even recorded. There will be a transcript that we expect we'll likely get next week. I will also note she is not sworn in. She's not testifying under oath, but you still can't lie to Congress. Chairman Comer laid out here what happens if you do. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): If she says anything that's not true, that's a felony and she'll be prosecuted.

If you come in, you know, we're doing the interview and we'll release the transcripts, it'll be 100 percent transparent like everything else, and hopefully that will be good enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: So, until we get that transcript we're relying on our sources, on lawmakers, and on Bondi to tell us what is happening inside this hearing.

Now, before she headed in, Bondi sent out her statement. I want to read some of this. She said, quote, I have spent my entire career fighting for victims, and I will continue to do so. I'm deeply sorry for what any victim has been through, especially as a result of that monster. If they have any information to share with law enforcement about anyone who has hurt them or abused them, the FBI is waiting to hear from them.

But we expect she's going to face a lot of tough questions about why there are no active ongoing investigations as of now about her handling of redactions, the release of sensitive information, including victim names. And she might even get some questions about why Ghislaine Maxwell was moved from one prison to the other.

This hearing could go for a few hours. It could go for the whole day.

BROWN: All right. I know you'll bring us the latest when you can.

I also want to ask about another important story that's breaking right now. We're learning a federal judge has ordered that all work stop on President Trump's so-called anti-weaponization fund. What more can you tell us about that?

REID: So, this is interesting. We know that, of course, this has been a hugely controversial decision to create this fund, $1.8 billion roughly, where people can apply to get an apology or money if they feel they've been wrongly investigated by the Justice Department. This faced bipartisan blowback.

So far, the Justice Department has not amended this plan at all. It has faced lawsuits. And here, the judge is saying that the Justice Department cannot take any more steps to create or fund this program.

Now, I want to note, I sat down with the acting attorney general last week, and he told me that he is going to be the one who will select the five members who oversee this. But he hasn't done that yet, and nothing has been done to establish this fund. He needs to pick those five members, one with Congress.

[10:25:02]

They'll set up the rules.

So, the Justice Department is a long way from being able to establish this, and it appears that this judge's temporary order will even restrict the Justice Department from taking those initial steps. We've reached out to the Justice Department to ask what they'll do next.

BROWN: All right. Paula Reid, thanks so much.

BLITZER: All right, she's good. She knows what she's talking about.

Also, there's breaking news we're following. We have just now learned that the first survivor is out of the flooded cave. Four others remain inside and are awaiting assessment before evacuation. The search for the two remaining missing persons will also resume tomorrow. We're going to bring you all the very late breaking developments just ahead.

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