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First Survivor Emerges From Flooded Cave; Congress Set to Interview Pam Bondi. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired May 29, 2026 - 10:30   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: All right, let's go listen in to Chairman Comer, the Republican who leads the House Oversight Committee, as we await to learn more about this interview with former Attorney General Pam Bondi that's happening today.

Let's listen.

REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): So, we want to thank everyone for being here today.

This will be our 13th interview thus far in the Epstein investigation. We will be having former Attorney General Pam Bondi. This is the second time she's come voluntarily. She came a few months ago for a briefing.

Unfortunately, the Democrats got up and walked out of that briefing. Many of the Republicans asked her questions for a couple hours during -- during that briefing. And I'm appreciative that she's coming back today voluntarily for a transcribed interview.

We have -- as I said earlier, this was -- this is the 13th interview. We have six more on the books. On June 9, we have Lesley Groff, who is Epstein -- an Epstein assistant, June 10, Bill Gates -- I think everyone knows who that is -- June 26, Leon Black, June 30, Doug Band, July 15, Kathy Ruemmler, and, July 23, Jes Staley.

So we're continuing to move along. And hopefully today will be beneficial. I'll be happy to answer a question or two.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Chairman Comer, what is your message right now to many of the Epstein survivors who are here today? They were here behind the attorney general, the former attorney general, back in February when she testified to the committee. She wouldn't turn around.

What is your message to them today about accountability and transparency? Because many of them say that the Justice Department still has yet to meet that.

COMER: Well, I've said this publicly many times. The government has failed the survivors. There's no question about that. And that dates back five presidential administrations.

We're taking...

BROWN: All right, clearly, the video froze, but we just heard there from Chairman Comer.

He also said earlier that -- reiterating it is a crime to lie to Congress, even though she's not coming there and speaking under oath, and that she would be prosecuted if need be. So that's what the chairman says at this hour.

I also want to go and listen to -- talk to Jennifer Freeman. She's an attorney for survivors of Epstein's abuse and a partner at Marsh Law Firm. Thanks for coming on.

So, first, just want to get your reaction from what we just heard from Chairman Comer.

JENNIFER FREEMAN, ATTORNEY FOR JEFFREY EPSTEIN SURVIVORS: Well, thanks for having me, Pamela.

My reaction is, I'm so glad to hear him say those words again, the government has failed the survivors, because that is exactly what has happened for way too long, for five presidential administrations, starting with, in 1996, Maria Farmer, the whistle-blower, who reported Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's crimes against children.

And what did the government do? Absolutely nothing. So we are -- I have been saying this for way too long. I have been screaming it. I have been bringing lawsuits about it. And I'm very glad to hear this echoed by government Representative Chairman Comer.

So, very, very glad to hear that. And I'm very much looking forward to what Pam Bondi will say. Hopefully, she will start to take accountability for her failures.

BROWN: Well, she released an opening statement -- or, I should say, CNN obtained it.

And Bondi tells lawmakers in her opening statement that justice and transparency in this matter have been delivered, at the direction of President Trump and his administration. How do you respond to that?

FREEMAN: Well, there have been so many errors and so many failures, the failures -- for example, the two big failures, the failure of redactions, the under-redaction of the failure to redact, as required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act specifically, to redact victim identities and identifying information, and then the over-redaction, which includes wiping out pretty much any name that might be an alleged perpetrator, and release of nude photos.

So that is a tremendous failure. Another tremendous failure is the failure to follow investigative leads, because there are tons of them in the files. We have seen them repeatedly. We heard Sarah Kellen talk about names.

There are names that are identified. And what has the government done? Pretty much nothing there too. In fact, we heard witness after witness, whether it's Les Wexner or whoever, say, no one talked to me before. No one even made an effort to speak with me.

Those are tremendous failures, and then the failure I don't like to talk about, because it hasn't happened yet and I hope it never will, and I don't want to give it air to talk about it, but I think we must, which is this concept that perhaps there might be a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell. That would be a tremendous (INAUDIBLE) to the survivors.

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BROWN: Well, and on top of all of this, as you know, Pam Bondi was subpoenaed when she was attorney general. Now she is no longer attorney general because President Trump fired her.

And so this is a different setting and a different situation than what was required under the initial subpoena, given the change in circumstances. So, rather than a deposition, Bondi does not have to be sworn in under oath. As we have been saying though, making false statements to Congress is still subject to criminal prosecution.

Does this change anything in the eyes of the Epstein survivors and their lawyers, like yourself?

FREEMAN: The fact is that it's only a transcribed interview, it's disappointing.

And I do not believe that the fact that she's not attorney general means that she gets to skate with a transcribed interview. That was a discretionary choice. So, there are plenty of others, like Les Wexner, who appeared by deposition, like Hillary Clinton, who appeared by deposition.

So I don't think it's simply because she's no longer attorney general that she's not appearing under oath.

BROWN: And I'm just learning that some Epstein survivors are actually questioning Chairman Comer. It seems like you know this. What -- do you know anything more about what they're asking and what they're looking for out of today?

FREEMAN: Well, some of my clients are right there with him, thank goodness, some people like Liz Stein, who has been an outspoken advocate.

And they're asking many of the same questions I have been asking, is, where is the accountability? What happened with the redactions? Why were the investigative leads not followed? Why were there so many failures? And what did you do about it? And what action have you taken since those failures? BROWN: All right, Jennifer Freeman, thank you so much for coming on

the show. We appreciate it -- Wolf.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, there's more breaking news.

We just learned that the first survivor is out of that flooded cave.

CNN senior international correspondent Will Ripley is on the scene for us.

Tell our viewers what you're learning. We're seeing the pictures, the video coming in, of that first survivor.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.

So, yes, you're seeing video from the mouth of the cave. We can confirm this is the outside of the cave. And so that survivor, after making it on a very perilous dive through around 100 feet of ice cold water, then getting into a secondary cavern, and then climbing at -- sometimes at a 45-degree angle, that first survivor has now made it out, covered in mud, exhausted, obviously needing medical care.

We are now stationed along the kind of main road out of this area. We were asked to leave the area where the ambulances had been gathering, standing by to take survivors. We're actually -- we have got to get back in the car now. We have got to leave this particular area. But I'm going to stay on the line with you.

The police are coming. OK. OK. Where am I going? Which car? This one? OK. OK. Should I get in back with you?

KOCHA OLARN, CNN PRODUCER: OK, yes.

RIPLEY: OK. Hold on, Wolf. I just got to climb into the back, and we got all the seats full, so I'm getting in the back of a pickup truck. Give me a second.

OK. I'm in the back of the pickup.

Kocha, can you tell me what -- what did the governor tell you? Can you update us on the survivor?

This is our Bangkok producer, Kocha Olarn.

OLARN: Sure. OK.

So the governor says that we can...

RIPLEY: Go.

OLARN: OK.

RIPLEY: Go, go. The police are coming. Go. OLARN: OK. They may be able to allow us to come back here again. They hope to hear more good news and success that all of the five can come out of the cave, yes.

RIPLEY: But they want us to stay away from the area where they're actually bringing them out, because this is obviously a very sensitive operation.

And there's a chance still that things could go wrong. And this is a very dangerous operation. Even experienced divers can be injured or killed in an operation like this, in that. So they just felt that live broadcasting right by the area where it was happening could potentially put something on TV (INAUDIBLE).

OLARN: Yes, that's -- exactly.

And this is the -- one of the secretive countries in the world. And what we have done so far, it's been a miracle to be -- have been able to report facts straight out of the cave.

RIPLEY: So, I don't know if you can hear the wind blowing, Wolf, but, to set the scene, Kocha and I are now in the back of a pickup truck driving down a very bumpy -- we're on a very bumpy dirt road. We have now just turned onto the paved road, so things are a little smoother.

But there's the -- we have got the wind in our hair here. We're heading back to the only guesthouse within probably 100 miles of this area. We're in Long Tieng, which is -- people familiar with the Vietnam War, there was a secret CIA base very close to here.

There are millions of American bombs in -- that fell in the jungles around here during Vietnam. And some of them are still unexploded, so it's actually very dangerous to actually trek in the area where this cave is located.

The reason why the villagers went there is because they heard that there was gold in the cave, and so a group of them went 10 days ago looking for that gold . And then a huge rainstorm hit, and it flooded the cave tunnels.

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It's been dry today. In fact, we can see the moon shining through some thin clouds right now as we sit in the back of this pickup truck. And this break in the weather, along with days of bringing heavy equipment and generators in to pump the water out of the cave, that's the only reason that they're able to actually attempt this rescue operation right now.

But it's still incredibly dangerous, because they have had to train these villagers on diving equipment that they have never used before. They have had to learn how to dive and, again, swim 100 feet under this pitch -- in this pitch-black water, basically holding onto the leg of an experienced diving instructor to get into the secondary cave cavern, and then to climb out another 800 or so feet to get to the surface. So it's taken several hours. They were -- they been down there for,

what was it, Kocha, four or five hours training?

OLARN: Yes, I think it's more than, like, three hours training them.

So they're -- they're still, like, fast, and we don't know anyway if this training speaks for all of this -- if all of them would feel comfortable to come out at the same time.

RIPLEY: Right.

So, what they were saying is that -- is that, basically, they're -- they have to see if the -- if they feel physically up for it, they're going to try to get them out tonight while the weather is good, because, obviously, if another rainstorm hits, it could change this dynamic very, very quickly, Wolf.

BLITZER: So, that first survivor is out of that flooded cave. But here's the question.

I know they want to take this survivor and the other survivors, God willing, once they're all removed to a hospital. How far is a hospital from where -- from where this flooded cave is?

All right, I think we -- I think we may have lost Will Ripley.

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: But Gretchen Baker is with us once again, the national coordinator of the National Cave Rescue Commission.

Do you know, Gretchen, how far a hospital is from this flooded cave? Because that first survivor is now out, and I assume they're going to want to get the survivor to a hospital as quickly as possible.

GRETCHEN BAKER, NATIONAL COORDINATOR, NATIONAL CAVE RESCUE COMMISSION: I don't know exactly, but it is a long drive just to get up to that cave.

So, if they're taking the folks by a vehicle, it's going to be possibly hours to get to hospital. But if there's helicopter support, that would be a bit faster.

BLITZER: Yes.

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: Helicopters would be critical, potentially, because we don't know what kind of condition the survivors will be after spending, what, a week in that horrible, horrible cave.

BROWN: Yes, they have been there more than a week.

And 10 days ago, they went to this cave to try to find gold. There were rumors going around that there was gold there. They got trapped because of the floods. And we heard Will talk about the health conditions of them. They have low oxygen. They're weak from not eating.

Tell us more about what that does, Gretchen, to the body and how much of a physical and mental strain this is on those villagers, who are also using diving equipment that they were just trained on for the first time.

BAKER: When these villagers went into the cave, they weren't prepared to spend overnight in the cave. They thought it would just be a one- day trip into the cave. So they didn't have a lot of food and a lot of water with them.

And so they quickly went through whatever supplies they had. So they have had to rely on just water in the cave, which is not necessarily very healthy to drink. And then they have had to just not be -- have food until the rescuers made contact with them.

So that makes you pretty weak. It makes you just very lethargic and not able to do a whole lot. And so I'm sure they're all really eager to get out.

BROWN: Yes.

BAKER: And so that a little bit of adrenaline will help them.

But since it's a long way to get out of the cave. It's going to take more than just adrenaline. They have to build up their resources a little bit to have that strength.

BLITZER: And all this is happening, as you know, Gretchen, in Laos.

And Will made an important point that some of us who remember the Vietnam War, the U.S. was bombing various targets in Laos repeatedly, and there potentially in that area around the cave are a lot of unexploded U.S. bombs still.

How worried should the rescue teams be about all those unexploded U.S. bombs in Laos?

BAKER: Well, I'm probably not qualified to speculate on that.

But I will say that it sounds like there is a determined road into the cave entrance and that people know the way there. So, getting to the cave entrance itself doesn't seem like that's a huge difficulty. It's just very bumpy and rough and takes a long time to do that.

BROWN: And just to follow up with you, so the good news is, one of the villagers is out. So they have four more to go from that group. Two more are missing.

I just wonder how they would assess who should go first, second, third, fourth, fifth? Like, do they look at their health conditions? Do they take the one who might be in the worst condition first and go from there? How do they decide?

Because, as you pointed out earlier, they're all desperately wanting to get out of this cave.

BAKER: Right. So that is going to be up to the rescuers to decide.

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And, sometimes, it can be the strongest person first, because they're going to have the most energy. Sometimes, it's going to be the person who is most injured, because they need the medical care the most. And so it really will depend on those exact conditions and what the rescuers can do to assist those folks out of the cave.

BROWN: OK.

And just as we continue to watch this, just one more question for you, Gretchen. It took several hours for this first villager. And they're actually going out a different route from where they went in initially 10 days ago.

Tell us more about just how treacherous this is, each rescue mission, one by one.

BAKER: So, to get each person out of the cave, they have to be moving through really tight passages. And these aren't just, like, continuously tight in the same way.

Caves are very three-dimensional, so you might have to be climbing up and over something, and then squeezing, and making a hard right turn and then hard left turn. And so doing those complicated maneuvers can wear you out even faster, not only the rescuers, but also the patients, the people getting rescued.

And so that combination makes it a very challenging and complex rescue. Plus, there's water, and, plus, they have to go up a bunch. And so any time you have any type of verticality, and then dealing with that cool water is going to -- saps your strength and make it even harder.

BROWN: Wow, just incredible watching this and these amazing rescuers who are risking their lives to try to get these villagers out. So far, they have been successful with one. We're continuing to watch this.

Gretchen Baker, thank you so much.

We will be right back.

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[10:51:11]

BLITZER: We're continuing to follow the breaking news right now, and it's important breaking news.

At least one, one of those individuals that are trapped inside that flood -- flooded cave in Laos has now been removed and is out. And we're hoping for the best for him and for the others. There are at least four others who are still trapped inside and two others who are missing.

So, we're watching all of this unfold. This is major, major breaking news.

I want to bring in cave diving expert Edd Sorenson right now.

What's your assessment, Edd? What does it look like?

EDD SORENSON, CAVE DIVING EXPERT: Well, from everything I'm seeing and hearing, for one, hats off to the rescuers on site. They're doing a fantastic job in the most terrible conditions.

So it's fantastic that they got one out, four more to go. And then we got to find the other two. So, terrible conditions, and it's just been fantastic and almost nothing short of a miracle that they got the first one out.

BLITZER: And...

(CROSSTALK)

SORENSON: So, hopefully, they can do it four more times.

BLITZER: It's really amazing, because these rescuers who risk their own lives to go into that flooded cave with very, very -- very, very narrow areas, and it's very, very dangerous, they didn't have a whole lot of experience in rescuing individuals in a cave like this, did they?

SORENSON: So, it looks like there's -- was one and now two cave rescue divers and then their teams.

So, I don't know anything about their teams and their experience level. But, I mean, they're used to going in and out of these mines. It's their home country. So there's nothing quite like the experience. Plus, these miners were in and out of those tight, cramped conditions. So they were very familiar with the tunnels.

So it's just the fact that they got them trained on scuba and were able to get them to the water-filled section safely. That's one of the biggest drawbacks -- or the biggest advantage, because that can go sideways real quick.

BROWN: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I'm just going to do one quick follow-up. Then Pamela has a question, Edd.

In your experience, how extraordinary, how unusual is this, what's going on in Laos, inside this flooded cave right now, where individuals went into that cave? They were told there was some gold, gold at the end of the tunnel over there. Clearly, they risked their lives to do so.

And now we're seeing all of this unfold, very dangerous situation. Have you ever seen or heard anything like this before?

SORENSON: No, but they -- they -- this is almost the exact same time frame as the Thai cave rescue, and very close proximity.

So, they know it's the monsoon season. But I guess, when you're -- when you don't have a lot or any, risking your life for some gold I guess makes sense. But, yes, it's -- yes, I wouldn't want to be doing that during the monsoon season, because it's -- those flash floods can pop up so quickly.

And when you're that far away from the entrance, there's no hope of getting out under a flash flood.

BROWN: Yes.

And that is why time really is of the essence here, right, because they're trying to get all of the villagers out that they found, the five they found, two so missing, before more rain comes in. It is rainy season, as you point out.

If you would, Edd, try to bring us there. Like, what are these rescuers going through mentally and physically in these tight spaces and the water, as we're watching this video, and they're trying to get these villagers out, and the villagers holding on to their leg, going through these tight crevices?

[10:55:01]

I mean, I can't imagine how daunting all of this must be for them.

SORENSON: It is.

The biggest concern, when you take people that are not used to -- like, cave divers are used to being in zero visibility underwater, breathing on open-circuit scuba. So -- and even getting -- even having a certified cave diver in those kind of conditions and not panic is rare.

So, it's very dangerous to the rescuers, because a panicked diver will kill you every time. I have been doing this for 30 years. They're all different. So, you never know what you're getting into until you're there and you can assess the situation firsthand.

So, they're doing a great job. They are putting their lives on the line. People asked me for the last 30 years, because I have probably more cave rescues than anybody, how -- why do you do this? Why do you put your life on the risk -- on the line?

And I just tell them all, I'm -- I do this for the good of humanity. So, I don't think about the risk to me. I don't think about the danger. I'm fairly good at what I do. I have been doing it a really long time. And when I go in the water, I don't think about it. I just get the job done.

BROWN: Wow. Well, you are braver than I am, Edd, because...

BLITZER: He's a good man.

BROWN: You're a good man, because, as someone who suffers from claustrophobia, I can't imagine what this would be like to go into a cave like this in tight spots, and not knowing what you're going to get, as you pointed out.

And just to follow up on what you said, you said a panicked diver will kill you every time. Tell us the -- more about the psychological impact here and what happens if you do panic, because they're going in and they don't know exactly what they're going to find each time.

SORENSON: Well, that's the scariest part about rescue; 99 percent of the time, what I do mostly is completely water-filled caves, not dry caves that have been flooded.

But when a -- when a victim panics, they don't -- all rational thought goes out the window. It's just a fight or flight. So they are going to kill you every time. So that's the most dangerous thing. In rescue jumper class, the first thing they teach you, never approach a drowning victim from the front.

You are no -- nothing but a stepladder to get out. So, you -- it's just -- that's probably the most dangerous part of the job.

BROWN: Because they just could pull you right under.

BLITZER: Yes. It's really amazing what's going on.

SORENSON: Yes.

BLITZER: And those rescuers are heroes.

SORENSON: Rip your mask off, rip your regulator out.

BLITZER: Yes.

All right, Edd Sorenson is -- we really appreciate your expertise. And we appreciate everything you have done over these many, many years.

BROWN: Yes. Thank you.

BLITZER: Thank you very much for joining us.

SORENSON: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you so much.

BLITZER: And we will have more news from the scene -- Will Ripley is there in Laos right -- after a quick break.

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