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Rescuer: First Survivors Is Safely Out Of Flooded Cave; Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Is Interviewed About Trump In Situation Room For "Final Determination" On Iran Deal. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired May 29, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:23]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: 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.

And we begin with major breaking news right now. Rescuers say one of the five survivors who have been trapped inside a flooded cave has safely made it out, repeat, safely made it out. Four others remain inside the cave and are awaiting assessment before they are evacuated. Will Ripley is on the scene for us in Laos, right near the opening of that cave. What's the latest information you're getting, Will?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Wolf, yes. We've seen some really ecstatic videos that are coming out from the cave divers, and in fact, we're going to have an interview in about 30 minutes with one of them who we were on the phone with earlier when we were able to break the news of this successful rescue because just by a matter of luck and timing, we were on the line and we heard people shouting in the background, he's out, he's out, and now he is. And we actually have a statement as well from his father, the father of the first man to exit from the Laos cave, expressing his deepest gratitude to the rescue team.

He was speaking minutes after his son was safely brought above ground. He said, I'll just read you this quote, Wolf, thank you so much to the rescue team. I want to express my deepest gratitude. He added, my brothers, sisters, children, and grandchildren, thank you all so much for leaving your work behind and coming all this way to help us.

They have a lot of international diving experts who have descended on this very remote corner of central Laos. We are in a very mountainous area, we're surrounded by jungles, it's a very treacherous area, dirt roads, there's live ordnance in the woods, and yet this particular area, the reason why these villagers went into that cave 10 days ago is they were searching for gold, but what they found instead was a dangerous situation when monsoon rains suddenly hit and flooded the caverns.

Now, we know that there's still an operation happening inside the cave, it's unclear if anyone else is going to be coming out tonight, but we do suspect that if people feel strong enough and are going to try to make an attempt, that we may see more rescues in the coming hours. Basically, this could be happening around the clock. It's already just after 10:00 p.m. here, and the reason why they might try to do it tonight, if the villagers are physically capable of getting themselves out, and they had to go through obviously a lot to get this, they were trained for several hours on dive -- specialized diving equipment, they had to put on wetsuits to learn how to swim for about 100 feet under this pitch black water, holding onto their instructor's leg, to then get to a secondary chamber where they then have to climb out more than 800 feet to get to the surface.

So now we know that the first villager is, for the first time in 10 days, breathing fresh clean air again outside, and the hope is that the others will soon follow, but it could take many more hours, or potentially even days, if some of the villagers are not up for it, because they have to come out on their own steam. And obviously we're still hoping that the weather stays dry. It's rainy season, and if the rain were to hit, that could make this a very dangerous situation very quickly for both the remaining villagers, including two who are still missing, and also for the dozens, about 100 rescuers that have descended on this area as well.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and just to follow up with you, Will, do you know if the divers were able to give them any sort of reinforcements, anything to get them strong and ready for this very treacherous journey, and how they were able to mentally prepare them? Because we were just talking to a cave diver who said, you know, it's a panic diver will kill you, essentially pull you under the water and make you drown if you're trying to rescue them. And so their mental state, their psychological state is so important going through this as well.

RIPLEY: Absolutely. And we've seen some really incredible videos from the moment that the initial divers, including the one who we're going to be speaking with in about 25 minutes, they were the first to actually find these villagers. And they were obviously very emotional, and they kept saying to them, you know, don't cry. What's important now is that you're alive. You're going to be OK. They were able to give them fresh water was the first thing they wanted. They were able to bring them food. They were able to check them out physically.

And even though some of the villagers have been complaining that their health and particularly their breathing is deteriorating because the air quality in the cave has been getting worse and worse. You're dealing with rising CO2 levels. You've got all that muddy water. You've also have decomposing bat eggs, rotten bat eggs that are leaking a toxic chemical that they've been breathing in. But they spent several hours actually training these guys, basically going over step by step, exactly what they're going to need to do to get out of the cave.

[11:05:20]

So just kind of telling them, you know, this is -- they showed them the maps of the cave because they've sent in, they had a 3D imagery. They were able to use a drone company's radar to kind of map out the cave. So they exactly what to expect step by step. Because remember, they came in and then the route that they took was completely flooded and now they're having to find a way out that they've had to pump out the water and now they have to climb out. But it's a very difficult climb.

Not only the diving portion, which is probably the most dangerous, you know, 100 feet in pitch black and they will have headlamps, but with ice cold water being physically diminished somewhat because of the ordeal that they've been through, to have to go through that and then on top of that, to then have to climb out and climb at such a steep angle for such an extended period of time. All, of course, with the full knowledge that if there were to be another rainstorm that could happen very suddenly this time of year during monsoon season, all bets are off. I mean, the cave could flood very quickly again.

So just having to keep them calm, keep them focused and let them know that they have a lot of people waiting for them up at the mouth of the cave waiting for them and rooting for them and wanting them to come home. And they've been able to exchange video messages as well. It's one of the miracles of technology that they dragged Internet cables down there and they've had WiFi and have been able to allow these guys to communicate with their loved ones. And I'm sure that thought is helping keep them going throughout this, this literally is the climb of their life that's happening right now to get them to safety.

BLITZER: And as you point out, they were trapped inside that cave because of monsoon like flooding that started. What's the weather forecast? Are they expecting more heavy rainfall, more monsoons, which could dramatically impact what's going on?

RIPLEY: That's a good question, Wolf. Kocha, I'm going to go back to Kocha our wonderful producer here. Are you across the weather forecast? I haven't seen what the forecast is for tomorrow.

KOCHA OLARN, CNN PRODUCER: Yeah, it's going to rain. Actually, the rain is forecast to have to become heavy starting this evening and tomorrow onwards as well.

RIPLEY: Did they say what time this evening? It's now 10:00 p.m.

OLARN: I think it's, you know, they've expected rain since like around 6:00 today, but it's late already. It's still dry. We are quite lucky.

RIPLEY: Yes. You know, looking at the clouds, I'm looking above, we can still see the moon but it's getting a bit more obscured. You know, it was blue skies earlier in the day when we arrived here. And then the clouds have been kind of rolling in throughout the afternoon. And so as Kocha just said, they were expecting rain to possibly start at 6:00. It hasn't started yet. But that is going to change the dynamic very quickly if it does, if the heavy rain does come back. And it will come back because this is the rainy season and it had been raining every day until today. This is the first break in the weather that they've had which is what has allowed them to attempt this rescue operation.

BLITZER: Yes. They've got to get them out before that heavy rain restarts. All right, Will Ripley, thank you very, very much. We'll stay in very close touch with you.

We want to follow some other breaking news right now. The former U.S. attorney General Pam Bondi is appearing before the House Oversight Committee on her controversial handling of the Epstein files. But this closed door interview is not what Epstein survivors and many lawmakers of both parties have been demanding. The committee subpoenaed Bondi back in March in a stunning bipartisan challenge of the Trump administration. But a month later, President Trump fired her, abruptly changing the requirements of her appearance today. Today's appearance is now downgraded, no longer under oath and no longer videotaped. It will be transcribed. It will be a transcribed interview that presumably will eventually be released.

Joining us now is Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. He's a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He's also the author of a brand "New York Times" bestseller entitled "Stand." There you see the cover right there. We'll talk about that, Senator, but thanks so much for joining us. But according to the opening statement obtained by CNN, Pam Bondi tells lawmakers, and I'm quoting her now, justice and transparency in this matter have been delivered at the direction of President Trump and his administration. How do you respond to that, Senator?

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): I mean, that's a stunning misrepresentation of the facts. We know that this administration claimed that they wanted to be transparent and open. But yet during the entire time not only were they not transparent, not open, we had to pass legislation, bipartisan legislation forcing their hands. And even then, we didn't get all the documents. But what we did get, unfortunately, is a re- traumatizing of many of the victims. While they took great pains to redact the names of the people who could be responsible for these crimes, what they did often do is show names and pictures that again, violated the privacy and the sanctity of those victims who have been suffering for far too long.

[11:10:10]

BLITZER: Presumably more questions will be asked of Pam Bondi during the course of this interview. On another story, an important story we've been following. U.S. officials now say the U.S. and Iran have reached what they describe as a tentative agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and to begin talks on the nuclear program in Iran. President Trump is in the situation room right now, we're told, to make what I'm quoting now, a final determination on the deal. The President also posted that the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports will, quote, now be lifted. What's your response to these latest developments?

BOOKER: Well, again, we've seen misdirection and outright lies from the administration for a long time. And this deal that they're saying is not a conclusion of the crisis that Donald Trump plunged us on. It's actually a furthering of the disgrace. Because what Donald Trump is doing right now is trying to claw back and just get back to the point we were before this whole crisis started. But the damage is done. The regime is more extreme, not less. The regime still has their highly enriched uranium, and he has no plan to get it out. He said that that was going to be part of further discussions. What this is just about is the Strait of Hormuz, which was not closed before this all began. And my worry here is that this Iranian regime, because of this opening, is going to be able to receive billions of dollars in oil money that they're going to use to further their low-cost drones that are still plaguing the area, funding of their proxies that are doing terrorist activities throughout the Middle East and endangering Americans, and ultimately strengthening them to continue to resist what, frankly, we should have been continuing to do with the Iran deal that Obama made. So this is a President that this is shameful. He is failing. And this is no great deal. It's a furtherance of the disaster that he created.

BLITZER: Trump just posted on Truth Social, and I'm just going to read the first two sentences for you and get your reaction, Senator. Iran must agree that they will never have a nuclear weapon or bomb. The Hormuz Strait must be immediately open, no tolls for unrestricted shipping traffic in both directions. All water mines, bombs, if any, will be terminated. And then he goes on to explain some more. If all this happens, will you support this agreement?

BOOKER: Well, remember, this is my first point. Before he took office, the Strait of Hormuz was open. There was a deal in place in which they pledged never to have a nuclear weapon. We had insight into their milling, their mining cameras and spot inspections to ensure that that commitment they made wasn't there.

You had a leader in place that created a fatwa against ever having a nuclear weapon. Well, Donald Trump took all of that and blew it up. And we are now in a situation where he's trying to scramble to get back to where we were before he was president. So, again, I don't believe him that there's some kind of great bargain that's going to end this war. That's why I'm going to continue to fight in the United States Senate to force these war power resolutions, because right now we are still in crisis. We weren't in crisis before he was president, a crisis of his creation.

And most, perhaps, painful is that every American is paying the cost for his incredible disaster at the pump, with higher prices, and really with the pain that their families are facing economically.

BLITZER: Senator, I want to turn to the truly boiling tensions right now between ICE agents and protesters just outside of the Delaney Hall Immigration Detention Center in your home state of New Jersey. You're among several lawmakers who actually made it inside that facility for an oversight visit amid deep concerns about conditions there. The New Jersey governor, Mikie Sherrill, was among those not even allowed to enter that facility. So what specifically did you observe when you were inside?

BOOKER: I observed conditions that are an affront not just to the dignity of the people that are in there, but to our common dignity and sense of decency. I saw more of Donald Trump's immigration policies that are cruel, but even the right-wing Cato Institute has called them out for its hypocrisy, that they are locking people up that did not commit crimes, that are no threat. Many of them have been in this country not just years, but decades.

And so I talked to those people, people that have American children and even grandchildren, people who have committed no crimes and were trying to comply with immigration laws, but got rounded up, many of them, as their paperwork was still in process. This is a level of cruelty that's unacceptable, and the conditions there are an affront to human dignity.

And, finally, it's all being done by a private, for-profit prison that we are paying over a billion dollars to, over a billion dollars to people who are profiting off of the pain that they're causing. They're making money off of the misery that they're inflicting. This is a facility that should be closed and should not exist. It's a moral stain on our nation.

[11:15:04]

BLITZER: I know, Senator, you've repeatedly called for this facility to be closed and you've pointed out several times that many of the detainees there do not have any criminal histories. But the Trump administration argues that if these individuals actually are in the United States illegally, if they enter the country illegally, that they have committed a crime. So to be clear, Senator, do you believe these detainees should immediately be released?

BOOKER: Again, that's a holistic statement. What I'm saying is what the Cato Institute has said is only about 5 percent of the people that they're rounding up from our streets and from our communities have committed any crimes. Donald Trump said he was going to go after the most dangerous of dangerous people, and he has taken resources, our taxpayer dollars, away from the ATF, away from the FBI, who are investigating serious crimes.

Remember, the number one killer of our children is gun violence. But yet he has focused this on, and overwhelmingly locking up people that pose no threat. And many of them are very integral parts of the fabric of our communities. So this is disastrous. It's morally wrong. It's not making us safe. In fact, it's making us less safe.

And so, yes, I believe there are people in there that are wasting taxpayer dollars and making this private corporation that has showered the Trump and Republicans with campaign contributions. It's making them rich and all of us less safe and more poor.

BLITZER: While I have you, Senator, quick turn to politics. I want to play what the former First Lady Jill Biden said in a recent interview about President Biden's now infamous 2024 presidential debate performance. It was against then candidate Donald Trump. Watch and listen to this.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you horrified as you saw it unfold? JILL BIDEN, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: I wasn't horrified. I was frightened because I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since, never.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Or since?

BIDEN: Yes. Or since.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've never seen him like that.

BIDEN: Never. No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened?

BIDEN: I don't know what happened. I mean, when I -- as I watched it, I thought, oh, my God, he's having a stroke. And it scared me to death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: What went through your mind, Senator, when you heard that?

BOOKER: You know, as I'm dealing with the Delaney crisis, the Delaney Hall crisis, as I'm dealing with a war that this President started, as we're dealing with the pain that New Jerseyans across my state tell me about higher costs. God bless the Bidens. They were in office over 18 months ago. That was over two years ago. I hope there's an accounting for everything that happened. But right now, I'm in the huddle we have serious challenges before us. We need to fight forward and not dwell in what happened two years ago.

I know that Donald Trump would love to be talking about Joe Biden. He can't stop talking about Joe Biden. But I'm concerned about the people of New Jersey who are getting screwed by this president, who are losing their health care, by the hundreds of thousands who are seeing their costs go up, collectively paying hundreds of millions of dollars more just for gas. We have issues to deal with today and let there be accounting of what happened in the past some other time. But there are real crises that the President himself has caused that we should be dealing with.

BLITZER: Important point. The account from the former First Lady stands in sharp contrast to what she said publicly about President Biden at the time back in 2024. In your new book, and here it is, here's the cover, here's the book. Excellent new book, very powerful, entitled "Stand" is all about using challenging times in our nation's history to push the country forward. Are these latest comments from Jill Biden productive in doing that for Democrats?

BOOKER: You know, I'm really happy that Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham and Henry Louis Gates, historians, wrote blurbs and support for the book because it goes to the moments in history where what mattered was not who the president was or who the senator was, but how Americans, through exercising the best of who we are, dealt with the worst of times. This book was meant to be answer to people's questions, what can I do in a time of crisis in my country? This book to me is not just inspiration, it is really instruction. And so I am one of those Democrats that is tired of my party's failures in moments of crisis. There are so many great leaders. And I'm not painting with a broad brush, but I think what Americans are demanding right now is for leaders to stand up, not just what they're against, but to begin to talk about what they are for. And that's what I wanted to write a book about, that it calls from our history to point to who we can be in the future and ultimately talks specifically about how we can get there together.

BLITZER: It's really an important book and I've gone through it and learned a lot reading this book entitled "Stand." There it is right there. All right. Senator Cory Booker, thanks for joining us. Thanks for writing this important book. We'll all learn a lot from the history that you share with our viewers and people who read this book. Appreciate it very, very much.

BOOKER: Thank you. Thank you, Wolf.

[11:20:01]

BLITZER: Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Wolf. We are following the breaking news on this very busy Friday. The first survivor is safely out of that flooded cave in Laos. Just a stunning development. And we're getting incredible video from the rescue mission right here. Look, this is brand new video of that survivor walking out, getting fresh air for the first time since being stuck in that cave, flooded cave, for more than a week. Much more on that just ahead.

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[11:25:15]

BROWN: All right, let's get to that breaking news. We are getting brand new video of the first survivor coming out of that flooded cave. And I just want us to all take a moment together and watch this video.

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(Speaking in Foreign Language)

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BROWN: Wow, just incredible watching him come out of that cave for the first time. I'm sure there were so many moments when he was deep inside not knowing if he would get out alive. And the father of this rescued man is now speaking out, saying thank you so much to the rescue team. I went to express my deepest gratitude, my brother, sisters, children and grandchildren, thank you all so much for leaving your work behind and coming all this way to help us.

So joining us now is Greg Moore with the National Cave Rescue Commission. Greg, I first just want to get your reaction to that video we just saw and how remarkable it is to even just get one survivor out of that flooded cave.

GREG MOORE, NORTHEASTERN REGIONAL COORDINATOR, NATIONAL CAVE RESCUE COMMISSION: Well, I think it was clear you could hear from the excitement how happy everybody was. And it was always is a great feeling when you get people out like that. So I kind of share the enthusiasm and how happy they are.

BROWN: And just, if you would, help us better understand the complexity and just how treacherous each time is because we know time is of the essence. Rain is supposed to be on the way. There are four more in that part of the cave that need to be rescued and two more that are missing. And each time carries risk.

MOORE: Certainly this is not like your commercial cave where people are walking through. This is cave with water in it. And the flood situation definitely makes it a lot trickier, as we saw several years ago with the Thai cave rescue. It complicates things. They will be having to use cave divers to bring folks out like this. And so it'll be a slow but methodical solution. This is a case where you don't want folks rushing things too quickly rather than take their time and get things right the first time.

BROWN: And how did they prepare those in the cave who are inexperienced with all of this for just the mental and physical toll that could come from getting out of the cave, going through these tight crevices with water and, you know, just the psychological impact of being panicked perhaps in a moment and what that could do to the entire mission.

MOORE: Sure. And I can only speak on kind of a general level because obviously I'm not there. I do know, you know, one advantage we have here over the Thai rescue is, you know, these are adults, a little easier to explain risks to them and to have them understand it. And my understanding is there's only really one sump. So they're going to have them kind of follow the other diver through that.

So I think a lot of it's just going to be a calm mental preparation. It sounds like these folks have been in the cave before, so it's not a entirely alien environment for them though it's certainly a new situation for them. So a lot of it's going to be just keeping them calm and talking them through and preparing them the best that they can.

BROWN: And my understanding is they're going out a different way than when they and how they got in. And the way that they're getting out is, you know, much tighter, but it's really the only way because the way they got in is still flooded and there is more rain on the way, which is expected to be on the way, which is a big concern. Tell us more about the kind of training that these cave divers get to embark on a mission like this.

MOORE: Certainly cave diving is a specialty sport. Even here in the United States we consider that separate from what we call, you know, dry caving. A lot of training that the National Speleological Society gives through their cave diving section. Whereas open water divers have their own training, they have the advantage, they can always, you know, surface fairly easily. With cave diving, obviously you have rock above you, so they take a lot more special precautions. They -- whereas they might do an hour on a tank and a scuba dive here they would do 20 minutes, something like that. So they're going to pre- position things. They're bringing headlamps.

[11:30:00]

You know, cavers here in the States will go to a Walmart and buy a headlamp for a dry cave. The cave diver headlamps are specialized. They're robust, virtually indestructible. Things like --