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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Coast Guard: Operation 100 Percent Still A Search And Rescue Mission For Five Aboard; Questions Surround Safety Standards of Missing Titan Vessel; Navy Salvage System Prepares For Mobilization; More Banging Sounds Heard As Sub Air Supply Dwindles; Rep. Adam Schiff Censured In Partisan Vote; Special Counsel John Durham Defends Report In Testimony To House Judiciary Committee; Ukraine Claims Advances In The South, Says Russia Conducted Several Unsuccessful Offensives. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired June 21, 2023 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:23]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening.

Tonight on 360: More sounds from under the sea as the race to find the Titan submersible grows more urgent by the hour. We'll also show you what it's like inside the Titan and talk to someone who raised doubts about its safety.

An exclusive CNN reporting from the frontlines in Ukraine showing just how difficult to counteroffensive underway has been.

Good evening.

We begin tonight with the most urgent deadline there is, for the five people you see here aboard the OceanGate Titan submersible missing somewhere in the North Atlantic on the way to the wreck of the Titanic.

British businessman, Hamish Harding; British Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood and his teenage, Suleman; French maritime explorer, Paul-Henri Nargeolet; and OceanGate founder, Stockton Rush. They are now the subject of a multinational search involving military and civilian ships, aircraft and expertise, which grew larger in size and capability today. The question is, is it enough and do they have time?

This is new video from a Canadian Air Force playing normally used to hunt military subs. The entire effort is running on hope that underwater sounds, which were heard again today are coming from the Titan.

But it's also running up against the sub's limited oxygen supply and the possibility that locating a vessel the size of a large car in an area twice the size of Connecticut will simply take more time than they have.

CNN's Jason Carroll is in Boston for us tonight where some of the Coast Guard searchers are based.

Jason, what's the latest?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the US Coast Guard says that they are in close contact with family members. As you can imagine, Anderson, the wait for them is agonizing. Those sounds, those underwater sounds that have been detected have offered them some hope, but time is running very, very short.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAPT. JAMIE FREDERICK, RESPONSE COORDINATOR, FIRST US COAST GUARD DISTRICT: When you're in the middle of a search and rescue case, you always have hope. That's why we're doing what we do.

CARROLL (voice over): With what could be less than 24 hours of oxygen left onboard Titan, hope at this point may rest on noises detected by sonar.

The Coast Guard revealed more noises were picked up this morning after a Canadian aircraft dropped a sonar buoy.

FREDERICK: With respect to the noises, specifically, we don't know what they are, to be frank with you.

The P3 detected noises, that's why they're up there. That's why they're doing what they're doing. That's why they put sonar buoys in the water.

CARROLL: The sounds are described as banging and first picked up by a Canadian plane yesterday and heard again today. All the acoustic information sent to the US Navy for analysis.

Additional resources sent to search the area where the sounds were detected. The Coast Guard cautioned about drawing conclusions before experts can weigh in.

FREDERICK: We moved assets and we're searching there and will continue to do so.

TOM DETTWEILER, OCEAN EXPLORER: It is encouraging that there did seem to be a pattern to it, and you know, we're going to continue to hold out hope.

CARROLL (voice over): Time is crucial. The rescue window continues to shrink.

SEAN LEET, CO-FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, HORIZON MARITIME SERVICES: We are very aware of the time sensitivity around this mission.

CARROLL (voice over): The vessel was headed to view the Titanic wreck that sits nearly 13,000 feet deep, but lost contact on Sunday, just one hour and 45 minutes into its descent.

Five onboard including OceanGate CEO and founder, Stockton Rush.

STOCKTON RUSH, CEO, OCEANGATE EXPEDITION: I'd like to be remembered as an innovator. I think it was General MacArthur who said, you're remembered for the rules you break. And you know I've broken some rules to make this. I think I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me.

CARROLL (voice over): Now questions surrounding the safety of the vessel, which was not inspected and classed by an independent group that set safety standards. Most charter vessels are carefully inspected, reviewed, then classed.

OceanGate argues the Titan is not due to the technology being so new that it is not incorporated into existing standards. Two former employees of OceanGate separately brought up safety concerns about the vessel and the thickness of Titan's hull.

There was additional testing since the time the employees left the company in 2017 and 2018, so it is unclear if their concerns were addressed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And Jason, what more do you know about those banging sounds, what they could mean?

CARROLL: Well, Anderson, that was one of the questions that I put to the captain at the US Coast Guard here earlier today specifically, what more can they tell us? What specifics can they tell us about those sounds because the reality is, the ocean is a noisy place.

[20:05:07]

I mean, these sounds could be anything from wreckage from the Titanic shifting, it could be sea life, it could be other vessels that are in the area. That is why the acoustic information, all of that data that they have gathered, has been taken to the US Navy, so their experts can look at that and try to determine exactly what it is.

But again, the time is running out. That's the bottom line here.

COOPER: Yes. Jason Carroll, appreciate it.

If the missing sub is trapped at the bottom of the ocean, it could be in water many times deeper than any rescue ever successfully done before.

CNN's Tom Foreman joins us now with more on some of the challenges involved, and Tom, there are huge challenges, obviously.

We don't know how deep this vessel was when contact was lost or where the currents may have taken it, but just try to put it into perspective for us just how deep down this vessel might have gone.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is an area that is just so incredibly forbidding and so terribly deep. In comparison, the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building and so on, Grand Canyon, Mount Fuji. It is important to bear in mind, before you get to the Titanic here, this is roughly where the deepest underwater rescue ever occurred in 1973, at that level. This is roughly where nuclear subs operate.

So this gives you an idea of how forbidding it is and a three- dimensional environment, Anderson, you're right. We have no idea where it might have gone since being up here on the surface.

COOPER: I mean, it is incredible when you see -- when you put it in perspective like that.

The different types of vessels that have been called into help, obviously, there's air assets, there sea assets.

FOREMAN: Absolutely. And right now, those that are on the surface here, the Polar Prince was the launching vessel for this, these and many of the things in the air, their best skill is going to be searching up above.

Jason mentioned a while ago the searching, those that have been used to look for submarines, while we showed you the regular submarines are way up higher up there.

Really important at this point in the equation, things like these probes that could drop down lower, much lower and give a sense of what's happening on the bottom. But you remember the search for the Malaysian airplane, they were using things like this, and it's a tremendous job to try to cover all of that space down there.

If they can find something, then they will turn to a robotic vehicle like this that would be able to go down and possibly attach a line to it to bring it back up.

But again, huge job that absolutely takes hours and hours. It's what they don't have much of left.

COOPER: That robotic vehicle that you just circled, I think that's from a French ship that's heading to the area, but to your earlier point, it only goes down to, I mean, is 6,000 feet the limit on where it goes down?

FOREMAN: Right. That's the problem with so much of this. There are very difficult challenges to even get near this thing.

One engineer I'd spoken to at one point said that he thought the only way to raise it really would be to try to get some kind of buoyancy on it using robots that can go down lower and attach that way, but all of this takes so much time and there are so many possible failures.

I mentioned that earlier, deepest rescue ever, they were on scene for many hours and the people were in the water at that much lower level for more than 80 hours before they were rescued. And they had full communications the whole time and they knew where they were for most of the time. That's very different than what we're dealing with here.

So even if they find what they're looking for here, it could be a huge challenge.

COOPER: What do we know about the interior of the submersible itself? FOREMAN: The interior of the submersible is really interesting, because let me see if I can get this to come up here at this moment.

If you look at the inside of this sub here. It is fairly large, in a way, if you include everything involved, but not gigantic. Five people, they're pretty close together. They can't really move around a lot inside there and life support for 96 hours for the entire crew. That's a give or take thing depending on how much they regulate their breathing, how much they control things.

But the bottom line is, you can see, they're all fit together in a small space here, Anderson, no matter what's happening, this is not comfortable. It would be a very anxious time and very difficult for these folks so close together.

COOPER: Yes, it is just sickening to think about this as the hours go by.

Tom, appreciate it.

Once again, tonight, we have the perspective of Per Wimmer, who has himself been involved with two missions attempting to reach the Titanic.

Per, how optimistic are you that these banging noises could have come from this missing submersible?

PER WIMMER, ADVENTURER AND FRIEND OF MISSING SUBMERSIBLE PASSENGERS: I'm extremely confident, not hundred percent sure, of course, but they're very confident that these banging noises come from the submersible for several reasons.

First and foremost, because there are not that many banging noises like that out in the middle of the Atlantic. It is in a very remote place 700 kilometers from Newfoundland where the Titanic lies. That's one.

Number two: The noises came as we understand it on the half hour and on the hour, i.e. with 30 minute segments in between them, signaling that there clearly is a human watch behind it. It's quite inconceivable that nature would be so perfectly attuned to send banging noises on the half an hour.

And in fact, it is common practice within naval distress situations that you bang on the hour and on the half an hour and the reason why you do that is because you allow three minutes of banging to make sure that people know you're there, you're in distress, and then another 27 minutes to be quiet, so that the expedition looking to find you can identify you and it's quiet around you, and then on the 30-minute again, you bang again. It is common practice within naval -- and you do have on board, the French Navy person, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and he would know that.

COOPER: It's interesting, I had not considered that the idea that banging on the top and at the half of each hour, which is not a natural-occurring cycle and nature would indicate that there is an idea, I mean, that there's a human behind that or an intention behind that banging, that is not just some sort of ocean noise that would be occurring every 30 minutes.

WIMMER: No, exactly. I mean, imagine, I mean, how unlikely is that nature would precisely on the half an hour do that banging noise. I mean, it's pretty much inconceivable.

So therefore, I think we have a very high degree of confidence that those banging noises come from the submersible and that was actually the good news I learned today that, you know, they are there. They are most likely alive and we're in with a chance, a fighting chance, so that's a good news.

COOPER: So, if the people on board have less than a day's worth of oxygen left, are there things that they can do to try to stretch that supply out? I mean, obviously, you're trying to remain calm, I guess, sleeping in order to reduce the amount of breaths you're taking.

But is that all that somebody can do?

WIMMER: Absolutely. I think that that is what you can do. Take it easy, don't stress, don't panic, use as little energy as you can.

COOPER: Which is obviously easier said than done in this situation. It's would be hard not to be freaked out.

WIMMER: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, anybody in that situation would be horrified and panicking, but the good news is, I mean, people like Hamish Harding, who is on board, who is a very experienced adventure/explorer, he would be calm under stress.

He has been under stress before. I know he wants to the south pole with one of my friends and with Buzz Aldrin, so he has been in the extreme situations before and there were some problems that happened on that expedition as well.

So he would have the calm and I would have full confidence that he is a good player to have on board.

Stockton, as well, experienced explorer as well would also help to keep the calm. But having said that, one thing is the oxygen side of things, and there is also the CO2 that is being breathed -- that people are breathing out and there comes a point obviously, where there will be too much CO2 and too little oxygen effectively.

So it is really a race against time, and something close to, I wouldn't say miracle or something, but will have to happen pretty soon because we are really, really running a tight rope here.

Ideally, the submersible would start to come up by itself.

COOPER: So unless that vehicle can somehow surface on its own, I mean, that is where -- that's where the hope really still lies, and that is obviously the best case scenario for the vehicle to be able to surface on its own somehow even though it seems it has not been able to do that. I mean, because all of this -- the aerial searching, all of which is important because not only placing sonar devices, which is why we know about the banging sounds, but also in case this vehicle has surfaced, it is critical to get to that vehicle even though it has surfaced because the people inside can't get out until it's actually recovered.

WIMMER: Yes, that's correct. However, with all the airplanes in the air there at the moment and provided that the weather is okay or decent, one should be able to locate the submersible should it come up to the surface, hopefully relatively quickly.

COOPER: Per Wimmer, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

WIMMER: Thank you very much.

COOPER: Coming up next, the safety issues surrounding the OceanGate Titan and we will talk with explorer, Josh Gates, who had concerns of his own after a test dive on it.

And later, we'll talk Congressman Adam Schiff on his confrontation with special counsel, John Durham over his investigation of the Russia investigation today and the Republican vote tonight to censure Congressman Schiff for his role in it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:18:47]

COOPER: It goes without saying that any trip by humans at the bottom of the ocean carries considerable risks. There are not many submersible vehicles that can even reach the depths where the Titanic lies. That said and as Jason Carroll touched on his report, there are specific questions about this specific vessel.

In a moment, someone who took a test dive on it and came back with questions of his own, but first CNN's Gabe Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL KOHNEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, HYDROSPACE GROUP: We are all in a position right now saying what could we have done?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Will Kohnen remembering back to 2018 when he says he penned a letter first obtained by "The New York Times" to OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush warning that what he called the company's experimental approach could have serious consequences.

KOHNEN: This is an extremely difficult situation to be in.

COHEN (voice over): Kohnen who heads the submarine committee of the Marine Technology Society was concerned that OceanGate wasn't following the same safety standards as other vessels because the Titan hadn't gone through independent testing and wasn't certified by an industry group, which he says isn't required to dive in international waters, but is an industry standard. KOHNEN: There are 10 submarines in the world that can go 12,000 feet and deeper. Out of those 10, all of them are certified except the OceanGate submersible.

[20:20:07]

COHEN (on camera): You believe this expedition would be too dangerous without being certified?

KOHNEN: Yes.

COHEN (voice over): He says he spoke to Stockton Rush and voiced those concerns.

KOHNEN: We agreed to disagree, and many of us do feel that it may have been preventable if the vehicle had been certified.

COHEN (voice over): In a 2019 blogpost, OceanGate defended the company's decision saying certifying Titan could take years and stifle innovation and while they've used those standards as a benchmark in the past, "by itself classing is not sufficient to ensure safety."

RUSH: Acrylic Plexiglas.

COHEN (voice over): Rush, who is one of the missing crew has touted his Maverick approach to innovation.

RUSH: You know, I've broken some rules to make this. I think I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me and the carbon fiber and titanium. There's a rule you don't do that, well, I did. It's picking the rules that you break that are the ones that will add value to others and add value to society.

COHEN (voice over): But that approach drew criticism from some of his own staff.

CNN has learned two former OceanGate employees, neither of whom are engineers raised safety concerns when Titan was built.

In a counter lawsuit, one claimed OceanGate hadn't performed adequate testing on the Titan's hull to check its structure and the other told CNN he was concerned when that carbon fiber hull arrived and was only five inches thick rather than seven inches as he says the company had assured. Both said their concerns were dismissed by Rush and OceanGate management.

And the company faced lawsuits in recent years seeking to recoup payments from those who had hoped to go on Titanic excursions after several equipment or weather issues caused the trips to be delayed.

As the frantic search intensifies, Kohnen says there is one component he wishes were on the vessel, a working beacon.

KOHNEN: It would be making a huge difference if it had a beacon so that someone could direct themselves in that direction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: And Anderson, CNN has reached out to OceanGate about these various claims. So far, they've declined to comment -- Anderson.

COOPER: Gabe Cohen, thanks so much.

So those are some of the safety concerns. We're joined now by someone who had a chance to assess those risks himself firsthand after a test dive with OceanGate on the Titan.

Josh Gates is the host of "Expedition Unknown" on our sister channel, Discovery.

Josh, thanks for being with us. I want to talk about your experience on Titan. But first just, I'm wondering what's been going through your mind over the past few days, having been on this thing watching this?

JOSH GATES, HOST, "EXPEDITION UNKNOWN," DISCOVERY CHANNEL: It's been very surreal. It has been haunting.

You know, I spent quite a bit of time with Stockton, and quite a bit of time at the OceanGate headquarters up in Everett, Washington and took a dive on Titan as they were putting it through its paces to get ready for the initial Titanic missions in 2021.

So having spent time in the sub, you know, my mind reels to think about it. I also know Hamish Harding, who is aboard, who is a fellow member of the Explorers Club and so it's obviously a really difficult challenging time.

COOPER: What was it like being inside the Titan back in 2021?

GATES: You know, I think the thing that people have to understand is how novel this vessel is, you know, there are, as was just said, in the previous piece, there are very few submersibles that can reach Titanic's depths and all of them with the exception of Titan are made in a much different way.

There is a personnel sphere, which is made of -- held together with titanium or with steel, and Titan's pressure hull is completely different. It is made of carbon fiber and carbon fiber, as you know, is this, you know, kind of miracle polymer, it's what's in the Boeing Dreamliner, it's what's in the Airbus A350 and with it comes this lightweight machine.

And because it's more lightweight, it could be made bigger. So when you see Titan up close, one of the things that really strikes you is it is fairly large. It can hold more people. All of the other vehicles that go down to Titanic can only hold two or three people.

But because of this carbon fiber design on Titan, it can be made larger, and five people can go inside of it. And so -- but with that innovation, with that novel design comes a really important trade off, which is how much do we know about how this carbon fiber can perform at depth and in terms of the pressure and the temperatures and in terms of fatigue? And there just isn't a lot of data out there about that.

And so, on one hand, you have this incredibly innovative novel design; on the other hand, there are a lot of unknowns.

COOPER: So that -- I mean, I assume that's a business decision that this company made because they wanted to be able to bring paying passengers who were paying a lot of money to come down, so you need an interior space that allows for several passengers. Are there other --

GATES: Look, I think that's true. I also think it's true though that if you've ever been in any of these smaller submersibles, they are extremely claustrophobic and you are really pinned in and a trip down to the Titanic is a fairly long expedition.

And I think that one of the things that Titan was also offering is the ability to just have a little more room and not be in such a claustrophobic environment.

[20:25:05]

So I'm sure it was business driven, but I also think that Stockton really saw it as an innovation in terms of the design of these subs and how roomy they could be.

COOPER: I understand you were on Titan because you wanted to perhaps do an episode of your show highlighting OceanGate's technology and ultimately decided not to go forward with it. Can you talk about why you've made that decision not to try it?

GATES: Yes, you know, we were up there in 2021. So this was just before the season where they were going to bring the first passengers out to Titanic. This was really a shakedown dive to see how the sub would perform.

And we went up there, really to see how we might film this. You know, we knew we'd only be able to put one camera operator inside the sub with me and so we were really interested in how we might mount cameras and make things work.

In the course, though, of going out on Titan and diving down inside of it. It just became clear to us at that time that there was a lot that still needed to be worked out with the sub. It had just come back from the East Coast where it had undergone some pressure testing, it had just been rebuilt effectively.

And a lot of the systems worked, but a lot of them really didn't. We had issues with thrusters and issues with computer control and things like that. And ultimately, it was a challenging dive. We were inside Titan for two or three hours and there were a lot of things that weren't really ready for primetime it seemed.

I think beyond that, there were real questions about the support vessel that was going to be used with Titan. They hadn't really formalized that deal, and we started to have real questions about the timetable. As you know, you know, making a television program, you need to have some reliability of when this can happen and the window in which it might happen.

COOPER: Yes.

GATES: Ultimately, I just felt by the end of that trip that I just couldn't get comfortable with Titan at that time. I felt that it needed time to go out and do missions and kind of get into a groove before we were going to go and film with it. It just wasn't for me.

COOPER: And Josh, this is supposed to have the ability to drop weight so that if something happens, it will naturally surface. Are you aware of what those systems were that were in place at the time that you were on it?

GATES: Yes, you know, a lot has been said about, I think things that are not that important, the video game controller and in the simplicity of the cabin.

There were a lot of other systems on board Titan that offered real redundancies in terms of safety and the weight system is one of them. There were effectively at least to my understanding in 2021, there were four different ways that Titan could shed weight to come back to the surface.

There was first of all a computer-controlled weight release system that could release weights. There was also a manual valve system where you could turn a valve and actually inject air into you know, exterior ballast containers and floated up to the surface.

There was also a hydraulically-controlled system that could drop weights. And finally if you if you look at Titan, it sits on a kind of sled. That entire sled could be ditched manually, which takes a ton of weight off the vehicle and can help it back to the surface.

So you know, hypothetically if there is an emergency aboard Titan, there are a lot of systems to shed weight and bring the vehicle back to the surface.

COOPER: Right. The question is why hasn't it come back to the surface? And we simply don't know that.

Josh Gates, I really appreciate you being on. Thank you.

GATES: Absolutely. Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: Still ahead, a look at other deep ocean search and rescue missions and what they tell us about the options ahead for saving those onboard.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:32:00]

COOPER: As rescuers race to get to the search site, the question remains about what they can do when they actually get there, even if they locate where the sub is underwater. You heard our earlier guest, (inaudible), talk about that. A rescue would be incredibly challenging and complex, but it is not unheard of. Here's Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A different ocean decades earlier and a frantic search more than 1,000 feet beneath the surface. It was 1973 and rescue teams were searching for a commercial submersible known as the Pisces III. It had disappeared off the coast of Ireland. Two British sailors, Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman, spent three days trapped in the vessel, which was about six feet in diameter. They had been laying trans-Atlantic telephone cable when the rope connecting their submersible to the main ship snapped. They survived on a single sandwich and some extra oxygen they had onboard. Mallinson spoke with Sky News.

ROGER MALLINSON, SURVIVOR OF DEEP OCEAN RESCUE: Luckily, before we started the dive, I stole a bottle of oxygen. And because we stole it, I'm still here. Otherwise, we certainly wouldn't have been here.

KAYE (voice-over): The Pisces III was trapped more than 1,500 feet below sea level, around 150 miles off Cork, Ireland. The men inside avoided speaking to conserve air. Rescuers were reportedly able to locate the vessel using SONAR by making one of the sailors sing high notes. Crews were able to bring the crew to the surface using a tow rope. By the time the men were freed, they had just 12 minutes of oxygen left. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it was the deepest water rescue ever.

MALLINSON: It took 84 hours to rescue us.

KAYE (voice-over): About a decade earlier, officials lost contact with the USS Thresher, hundreds of miles off the coast of Cape Cod. The nuclear attack submarine was doing deep diving tests when its communications became garbled.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No sooner I had (inaudible) reported something amiss, the Navy search teams went into action. There was optimism at first. Maybe her communication equipment was faulty. With the hours, hope waned.

KAYE (voice-over): 129 officers, crew men, and civilian technicians perished when the USS Thresher sunk. What was left of the submarine was eventually located by other ships about 8,400 feet below the surface. In 1939, the USS Squalus submarine sank during a test dive off the coast of New Hampshire. 26 people onboard died immediately, but dozens survived.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A marker was spotted, and the Navy put new rescue techniques into operation. A bell was attached to the sub, and 33 men of the 59-men crew were rescued.

KAYE (voice-over): More than 30 crew members reportedly survived using smoke bombs and Morse code to signal for help. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You couldn't see anything, I'm sure. So we didn't

do any moving around.

[20:35:00]

We had battle damage. Just like big flashlights, hardliners (ph) they call them, electric. But they tried to conserve those because they didn't know how long we were going to be down.

KAYE (voice-over): More recently in 2000, the Kursk, a Russian nuclear submarine sank 350 feet below the surface during a training accident in the Arctic Circle. Rescue missions failed due to high waves and strong winds. Also, the hull of the sub had trouble attaching to the rescue vessel.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): There were very few chances for rescue, but some exist.

KAYE (voice-over): In the end, all 118 sailors onboard perished. It took months to pull the 18,000-ton vessel from the ocean floor and recover the bodies. Randi Kaye, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: As we mentioned, time and oxygen are both running low. For more on that, I want to bring in Dr. Aileen Marty who is a retired Navy physician. She knows well the challenges at hand here. Dr. Marty, appreciate you being with us. Can you just explain the impact of the dwindling oxygen supply and also carbon dioxide?

AILEEN MARTY, PROFESSOR, FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY AND RETIRED NAVY PHYSICIAN: That's right. And I'm glad you mentioned carbon dioxide because obviously, as they lose oxygen, the carbon dioxide builds up. I don't know if the vessel has the capacity to extract that carbon dioxide, whether that submersible was built with that in mind. We also don't actually know what's going on right now. They may not be alive right now. There may have been a leak in that porthole. It might have been a catastrophic leak, in which the individuals there may already have drowned, which is horrible.

And if they're still alive and we're looking at dwindling oxygen, the decrease in oxygen getting to the brain and that increase in carbon dioxide is a very panicky situation. You feel your world closing in. It's like everything gets narrower like it's in a tunnel. And it's a horrific sensation that people get. They sense that they're dying. They can't believe that they're losing their life in this horrific way.

COOPER: Yeah, I mean, it's just horrible. I was wondering about that earlier today. I mean, not to, you know -- I mean, one knows -- you feel like. I mean, you know you're dying. You feel like you're dying.

MARTY: You can -- you sense that you become weaker. You become disoriented. You have loss of focus, and you have a loss of the ability to see. So, you lose your peripheral vision. It's a horrific way to die. COOPER: Do you then just pass out?

MARTY: Eventually they do pass out, yes. But before that, they go through this. And then, again, remember, we don't know if there wasn't a fire onboard that ship. No doubt they have batteries. The batteries can, for a variety of reasons, malfunction. And if so, there may be carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of that submersible that would already have made the individuals succumb.

COOPER: So, carbon monoxide, that's something we hadn't considered. That would come from batteries or...

MARTY: Having a fire. Any kind of other secondary problems that may have happened onboard because, right now, we have no communication. And so, that's an indicator that something else may have led to the fact that we can't find the submersible.

COOPER: Is there anything people can do to conserve their oxygen in this situation? I mean, obviously, I've read sleeping which would seem hard to do in a situation like this, with all the fear involved, and obviously not talking so much, and not getting upset.

MARTY: Well, it's also very cramped in there, which makes all five of them being able to sleep very challenging. And the fear that you mentioned, that's a huge factor because it leads to stress. And the stress, in turn, is going to affect every organ in the body. And anyone with a sensitive heart could then have a heart attack because of this situation of low oxygen and stress. So, there's a lot that's going on in that little, tiny submersible right now.

COOPER: Yeah, Dr. Marty, appreciate you being with us. Thank you.

MARTY: My pleasure.

COOPER: Coming up, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff was censured today. It's only the third time this century that a U.S. Congressman has been censured. His fellow Democratic Congressmen loudly chanted 'shame' at House Republicans in response. Congressman Schiff joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:43:37]

COOPER: Breaking news, just over an hour ago for only the third time this century, a member of Congress was censured, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff in a deeply partisan vote, led by the majority House Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN MCCARTHY, SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: The Ayes are 213 and the Nays are 209 with six answering Present, the resolution adopted. Without adoption, the motion to consider is laid on the table. House will be in order.

(CROWD CHANTING SHAME)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: In the background there, you could hear Democrats in the chamber shouting 'shame' and later 'disgrace.' We're joined by Congressman Adam Schiff. Congressman, I appreciate you being with us. What's your response to this censure?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, look, it's a badge of honor, as Roosevelt said in his time, that sometimes you could judge a person by the enemies they make. And this was a MAGA resolution that Donald Trump threatened if any Republican voted against, as many had last week, that they would be subject to a primary challenge.

So, this is basically Trump and MAGA world going after someone they think is effective in standing up to them. And so, I feel like I've earned their opposition and was proud to stand with all my Democratic colleagues and oppose this flagrant abuse of the House process.

COOPER: Do you have any regrets on how you handled the Russia issue?

[20:45:00]

Obviously, the former president was never criminally implicated for anything involving Russia.

SCHIFF: No, not at all. I think the investigation of his misconduct was very important. It ultimately led to his impeachment, which I was proud to lead, and it led to the first bipartisan vote to remove a president in U.S. history. I was also proud to serve on the January 6th Committee, and I would do all of that again and I would do it the same way. But, what is really the gravel (ph) of the offense here is I feel it was effective at holding him to account. And if the need were to arise again, and God help us if it does, I would do it all over again.

COOPER: The Special Counsel John Durham also testified today before the House Judiciary Committee, which you were a big part of. I want to play part of your exchange with him, where you were asking about a June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump, Jr. and a Russian lawyer to potentially get damaging information on then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: And you think it's insignificant that he had a secret meeting with the Russian delegation for the purpose of getting dirt on Hillary Clinton and the only disappointment expressed at that meeting was the dirt they got wasn't better. You don't think that's significant?

JOHN DURHAM, SPECIAL COUNSEL: I don't think that was a well advised thing to do.

SCHIFF: Oh, not well advised?

DURHAM: Right. SCHIFF: Well, that's the understatement of the year. Do you think it's perfectly appropriate or maybe just ill advised for a presidential candidate to secretly meet with a Russian delegation to get dirt on their opponent? You would say that's inadvisable?

DURHAM: Yeah. If you're asking me would I do it, I hope I wouldn't do it. But it's not illegal. It was stupid, foolish, ill-advised.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: You clearly don't agree with Mr. Durham's description.

SCHIFF: Well, you know, what was fascinating about the hearing today was the degree to which it revealed both his ignorance of a lot of what was in the Mueller Report but also the degree to which he is a biased actor. There you saw him really trying to down play the significance of the president, the former president's son, arranging a secret meeting in Trump Tower to receive what had been represented to him as derogatory information about Hillary Clinton.

That was part of the Russian government's effort to elect Donald Trump. That's how it was represented to him. He was happy to accept it. He was disappointed during the meeting, as were others in Trump's campaign that what they got wasn't more valuable. And to see this Special Counsel talk nothing about the danger of Russian interference on our elections and down play seeking help from a foreign power, revealed a lot about his bias.

COOPER: It was interesting to see how, during this hearing, kind of both Democrats and Republicans at times seemed equally unhappy with Durham for different reasons. Congressman Matt Gaetz was calling Durham, "part of the cover-up." I'm wondering what you made of the GOP response to his testimony.

SCHIFF: Well, I mean, the Matt Gaetzs and the Donald Trumps and others are deeply disappointed because this was a four-year investigation. It was supposed to uncover this deep-state conspiracy, Biden was supposed to be indicted and Clinton was supposed to be indicted, and God knows who else. None of that materialized. The most he was able to come up with is, he believed in his opinion, the FBI was justified in opening a preliminary investigation, but not a full investigation. That was it.

Talk about a nothing burger. The two cases he brought to trial, he lost. The defendants were acquitted in a matter of hours. And so, yes, I think the MAGA world was deeply upset with that. They try to put the best spin on it they can. But compared to the expectations they set and what was delivered, they're deeply upset with him.

COOPER: Yeah. Congressman Adam Schiff, I appreciate you joining us. Thank you.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

COOPER: Just ahead, as Ukraine claims more gains in its counteroffensive, CNN's Ben Wedeman takes a trip to a recently liberated village in Southern Ukraine. What he saw next.

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[20:52:20]

COOPER: In Ukraine tonight, officials say a brutal and slow counteroffensive is pushing forward. Top military leaders today claimed advances in the south, saying Russian forces are on the defensive around the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. This come as heavy fighting continues in the Eastern Ukraine. Ukraine's military said today that Russia conducted several, what they called, unsuccessful offensives around there.

CNN's Ben Wedeman went a village in Ukraine that was recently liberated from the Russians. We want to warn you, some of the images you're about to see are disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BENJAMIN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An unknown Russian soldier lost his life here on a dirt road in this small village of Neskuchne. He was killed in Ukraine's counteroffensive which has, at best so far, put a small dent in Russian lines, hardly the turning point so many had hoped for.

WEDEMAN (on camera): This is one of the villages that was liberated by the Ukrainians, this one on the 10th of June. Clearly, the Russians were in a hurry. They left behind this blood-soaked stretcher.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): It is still too dangerous for civilians to return to these once-tranquil farming communities. And there isn't much left for them to return to.

The mortar crew of the 35th Ukrainian Marine Brigade has moved into a house recently vacated by Russian troops. This afternoon, they're busy piling up newly arrived American-made shells, far better than the old Soviet ammunition, says Andri.

ANDRI, UKRAINIAN 35TH MARINE BRIGADE (through translator): That's amazing. They're just great, he says. They hit the bull's-eye. My favorite.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): Throughout the day, shelling echoes around them. The Russians may have left the village, yet they're still nearby.

Yuri's mortar training in Britain didn't prepare him for the front. This is only his third day in the line of fire.

YURI, UKRAINIAN 35TH MARINE BRIGADE (through translator): There are moments when I want to hide, he says. But I have to stay put and wait.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): Unit Commander Alexander takes coordinates from headquarters. His men make the adjustments and prepare the rounds.

WEDEMAN (on camera): They're firing these rounds at Russian lines which are four kilometers or 2.5 miles away. WEDEMAN (voice-over): It is going to be a long, hot summer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Ben Wedeman joins us now. Ben, what are Ukrainian authorities saying about the progress of their counteroffensive so far?

[20:55:00]

WEDEMAN: Well, what we heard today is actually President Zelenskyy saying that progress has been slower than expected. He said in an interview that this isn't a Hollywood movie and things don't happen just now. And what is clear is that things are difficult.

When we were up at the front today, what we heard from the soldiers is that even when they're able to force Russian troops to retreat, they oftentimes come under intense artillery from the Russians. And the Russians have throughout this war really used their superiority in just the sheer number of artillery pieces that they have to really unleash these punishing barrages.

So there were high expectations before this offensive began, that it would be similar to what we saw last year in September in the Kharkiv region where the Ukrainians, in just about two weeks, took an incredible amount of territory, more than 4,600 square miles. This time, the going is much more difficult and much slower, Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah. Ben Wedeman in Ukraine for us tonight. Thank you so much, Ben.

Still to come, a forever honor for a departed American legend, Congressman John Lewis, just ahead.

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