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Sources: Trump Admin. Debating Releasing Transcript Of Ghislaine Maxwell Interview With Justice Dept.; House Oversight Committee Subpoenas DOJ For Epstein Files; Report: Titan Submergible Got Stuck In Titanic Wreckage, Suffered "Irreversible" Damage In Earlier Dive; USCG: "Inadequate" Maintenance, Inspections Contributed to Implosion; TX House Fails to Reach Quorum Again After Dems Left State. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired August 05, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: A debate at the highest levels of the White House, whether to release a possible transcript of the recent DOJ interviews with Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. But her attorneys are fighting the release of her testimony to a grand jury.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Vowing to fight fire with fire, Democrats say they won't stand aside as Republicans in Texas try to move ahead with the plan to redraw the state's congressional map. President Trump says his party is entitled to those seats in Congress.

And the truth about Titan. A new report explains what caused the deadly implosion of that submersible. Blaming a toxic workplace culture is one important factor. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: Happening now, a major debate inside the Trump administration, three senior officials tell CNN that it is considering a release of a transcript of the Justice Department's recent interview with Jeffrey Epstein's jailed associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who once served as President Trump's personal lawyer, conducted that two-day meeting with Maxwell last month. A week later, Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a lower security facility in Texas.

Meantime, in a new court filing, Maxwell is now opposing an effort to unseal grand jury transcripts in the investigations into her and Epstein. The DOJ is asking two federal judges in New York to make public five days of grand jury testimony. Let's go live to the White House with CNN's Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, what more are you learning about this debate about whether to release these transcripts? Well, Boris, it's coming at a time where the White House feels like it has really been on the defensive when it comes to this information regarding the Epstein case. And that's not a place that this White House and this president likes to be. So, they have been seeking to take control of the narrative, to take control of the optics. And speaking to one White House official, this would be a way to do it.

Now, there are two newsy factors in our reporting. One is the fact that this video and transcript exists at all. Excuse me, I said video, I meant to say audio. There is no video. It's just audio. This audio recording and this transcript that they exist at all. That in itself is not necessarily standard procedure. The other part of this is that there is a debate going on about whether or not they are going to release this information.

Now, of course, some of it would have to be redacted. We know the Department of Justice has spent a better part of the last several weeks since that interview, which was last month, going through these transcripts, picking out what sensitive information would have to be taken out of them in all part of this negotiation as to whether or not they will actually release these transcripts and potentially even snippets of the audio itself.

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Lots of questions here as to what exactly good that would do. I heard from one expert saying they believe there was more risk than reward here. But when I talked to some of his biggest supporters in his MAGA base, they want to see everything. They want to have transparency into everything. One of the things they've been accusing the White House of is trying to have a, quote-unquote, "cover up" when it comes to the Epstein case.

And one other point here, the White House officials I've spoken to, they have been very frustrated about the fact that they've been on the defense, about the fact that this was rolled out in a way that they felt that they didn't have complete oversight over and the pushback the President has gotten. So, there is some belief that if they are to release these transcripts, it would be a sign of good faith that they are trying to be more transparent in this endeavor.

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes, live at the White House. Thank you so much.

Joining us now to discuss is former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. He also served as deputy assistant attorney general.

Thanks so much for being with us, Harry.

How much wiggle room do you think DOJ has in responding to the House oversight subpoena for the Epstein-related files?

HARRY LITMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So, that's a very interesting point. It just happened. And of course, the subpoena by the Republican committee goes to such folks as Merrick Garland, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, and the difficult - normally, it would be a nonstarter. And we've seen Republicans and Democrats, but especially Republicans over the year, ignore them. But the combination of a Republican House Oversight Committee and the

Pam Bondi-led Department of Justice poses the risk that if they resist, as would be par for the course right now, and the House committee refers the matter for contempt proceedings to Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice, that those could ensue. So, that makes the calculations much more tricky for these folks who, at least on the surface, would have absolutely nothing to do with the whole Fisher brouhaha.

KEILAR: So, Harry, talk a little bit about the range of possibilities for compliance here, right? Because there's a way to fulsomely comply and release everything. But there are also sensitivities in that. I mean, we just talked with the Democrat on the Oversight Committee was talking about getting videos. I mean, if there's videos and there's victims, there's huge concerns about privacy. And the victims have even said they have those concerns.

What are the range of possibilities in how DOJ could comply or sort of comply?

LITMAN: Yes, great question. So, Brianna, first all this worry about victims being released in any scenario that doesn't happen, so that's not really on the table. But we know there are some 300 gigabytes, which can translate to over a million pages. And yes, the White House could play it as an open hand. And the issue now is whether they fail to do so, will they get any piece at all from the drumbeat of we want to see everything, we want to see everything.

So, it's certainly on the table to play it as an open hand. This is very different from the grand jury stuff, which is not coming out and which really we can talk more about, but has nothing to do with this. So, I think that the folks who were clamoring for this expected a kind of full Monty presentation with all the names, et cetera. And the department or White House yet could do it.

One important point, and this goes to Kristen's reporting, there is now this debate in the White House that they should have had earlier between the sort of conventional school that says, get everything out, get it out early and take the cost versus withhold. But it's clear from that reporting that this is not the decision-making level. I think this is going to go to Blanche, maybe Stephen Miller, maybe Trump himself. And this debate is sort of setting up that issue for them.

My best sense is they are all over the map here because everything they've tried so far has not bought them peace, which is what they really want, first and foremost.

SANCHEZ: Do you anticipate that we would see something in those transcripts of the interview between Blanche and Maxwell that would indicate why she may have been moved from that prison in Florida to the lower security camp in Texas?

LITMAN: Yes, even if it's not expressed, I think we will see Blanche looking for her to be helpful in a way from which we can infer, I think pretty easily, that the quid pro quo was giving her what so many prisoners want, excuse me, a much easier housing situation, which she was not eligible for under the law. She was ineligible for.

So, I think it will be readily apparent - I think it already is that this is a solid they were giving her because of her two days of discussions with the deputy attorney general.

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KEILAR: Really interesting. All right, Harry, thank you so much for your insights on that.

Ahead, the U.S. Coast Guard just released a scathing new report on its investigation into the doomed OceanGate submersible that imploded two years ago, killing all five people on board. And investigators are citing many critical factors for causing what they say was a preventable disaster. And this includes an unproven carbon fiber hull, inadequate design, as well as lax maintenance and inspections. The report also accuses OceanGate of sidestepping regulators and using intimidation tactics and a fraudulent letter to the Coast Guard even to evade regulatory scrutiny.

SANCHEZ: A whistleblower actually alerted safety issues to OSHA back in 2018, but that investigation apparently went nowhere. This new report also says that the Titan submersible actually struck some of the Titanic's wreckage during a dive in 2022, causing irreversible damage to the craft. And a year later, the sub imploded. Our next guest was on that 2022 mission. Alfred Hagen actually went on two dives in that Titan submersible. His friend, Paul Henri Nargeolet, was one of the five people killed in the implosion.

Fred, thank you so much for being with us.

So, it was during one of the dives you were on, this dive 80, that the carbon fiber hole sustained irreversible damage. The Titan apparently got trapped for a moment. The pilot was able to free it. What do you remember about that dive? When could you tell that something had gone wrong?

ALFRED HAGEN, WENT ON OCEANGATE DIVE TO THE SHIPWRECK IN 2021 AND 2022: There was nothing apparent during the dive itself that we had trouble. We always had issues with the Titan. I'd been on it previously. There were always a series of issues. I don't think us getting momentarily caught in the wreckage of the Titanic had anything to do with the eventual tragedy.

But when we were coming back to the surface from over two and a half miles of depth, as we neared the surface, there was a loud bang that sounded like a gunshot. And that's what the Coast Guard keeps referring to. And they've interpreted that as the moment when the hole began to show signs of distress and decay that led to, you know, the eminent failure.

KEILAR: And then, of course, you had this submersible sitting over the course of a very cold winter there outside in Canada, where obviously, you know, water in some kind of crack or fissure isn't going to do anything but expand. And there's big questions raised in this report about that. This is a report, Fred, that shows the liability waiver signed by passengers in the submersible had not been certified by any regulatory body and mentioned death nine times.

Did you, when you were going on this, and did the crew, were you given any sort of sense of what the risks really were?

HAGEN: Oh, absolutely. You know, everyone understood the risk. We discussed it. I certainly understood it. There were incidents before I went down that I recognized as dangerous. And as PH said, you know, he understood that if he died, it would all be over in a moment. And he said repeatedly to me, I'd rather die like that than die of old age in bed.

Now, he didn't want to die. But what we're forgetting here is that these men - this was a noble effort. I know everybody gets caught up in a tragedy and they want to find some ways to fall. They want to cast blame. They want to jump on the bandwagon. And I get that. And this is a tragedy. It was a tragedy for me. I miss PH every day. But they were engaged in a noble effort to Democratize the abyss.

The future of life on Earth is fundamentally bound to the health and the bounty of the ocean. And they were trying to access that. And I've always likened it to the early age of flight. You know, early pilots, they flew on experimental planes. They died in droves. Did we stop flying? Did we then say we're no longer going to try to escape these early bonds of Earth? Of course not. We adapted. We learned from our mistakes and we moved on. And that's what we're talking about here.

Yes, mistakes were made. I have no defense for the fact that they left it outside. There were money problems and they were obviously handicapped by that. And mistakes were clearly made. And you can't blame anyone outside of the OceanGate family for those mistakes. But the ultimate goal was a noble pursuit - pursuit of a noble cause. And we forget that. And everybody wants to cast blame. Oh, it's preventable. These were all preventable.

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Everything's preventable. We - they could have all stayed at home and sat on their couch and nobody would have died. That's not what happened. Everyone understood the risk. I understood the risks. Stockton understood the risk and so did PH.

SANCHEZ: And yet, Alfred, the mistakes that you're describing that were made by the OceanGate family, the investigative board said they would have referred criminal charges to Stockton Rush had he survived. So, I wonder if there was negligence that they found that contributed to the crew's deaths, what you think accountability looks like.

HAGEN: I understand their position. I disagree with it. I don't think it was criminal. There were mistakes made. There were pressures that Stockton was under. And he was pursuing a dream and a goal. It is tragic to me that paying passengers lost their lives. And yes, they probably did not fully comprehend the risk. And there were mistakes made.

But the - it was an effort to advance the science, to access the bottom of the ocean, as I call it, to democratize the abyss so that people like me could go to the bottom of the sea. I understood the risk and I accepted it. And they - you can file criminal charges if he's alive or dead. It doesn't change the fact that what he was doing, in his mind, was a noble goal.

No, he wasn't always right. He didn't make all the right decisions. In fact, Stockton and I disagreed about certain things. But his intent was good and it was a noble pursuit of a noble goal. And I persist in that belief.

KEILAR: And yet, the report shows that he misrepresented significantly details about Titan in some regulatory reports. Was there - and in testing and concerns about that, I mean, the hubris of thinking that you could defy the laws of ...

HAGEN: That's all very - that - yes ...

KEILAR: I was going to ...

HAGEN: That's all correct. And you - but, yes, go ahead

KEILAR: I was going to say the hubris of thinking you can - and I hear what you're saying about early pilots, right? But these were, like you said, tourists who were on this craft. Was there a hubris? Like, what is there to be learned about the hubris of thinking that you can defy the laws of physics and nature and the lesson to be learned about putting innocent lives, tourist lives at risk here?

HAGEN: Well, that's - that is the tragedy, the innocent lives that were lost. But I don't think he was defying the laws of physics. He was trying to redefine a way to meet the challenges of going to the deep. And he was doing that outside of the regulatory framework. And he was doing that intentionally, because in his mind, overly regulated innovation - regulation can stifle innovation. And that's true.

And you do need regulation. And at the same time, you need to have a happy compromise. And out of this tragedy, what I hope happens is we find that we continue the work that Stockton and PH were engaged in, and we put logical regulations in place that does not inhibit or stifle innovation, but allows it to progress. And everybody keeps talking about these preventable deaths. And the world is all excited and frothed up about the loss of five lives.

And I - can I ask you a question? I've been talking to Navyn Salem of Adesia Nutrition in Rhode Island, who has had 185,000 cases of lifesaving peanut butter paste that would save the lives of thousands of children a day. And it's been sitting in a warehouse for months while these children are dying.

KEILAR: We've covered it, Fred.

HAGEN: There was 500 tons of food supplies in Dubai that the United States paid for already, just like the cases from Adesia. They're paid for, and they're now destroying them at a cost of $130,000 because USAID has been eradicated, and nobody knows how to ship it the last month. Thousands and thousands of children are dying every day. Where is the comparison? I mean, everybody wants to condemn it - and I get it, and we do need regulation.

But there seems to be that this was a pursuit of a noble goal. This - that's a criminal act when you've got thousands of children dying a day for want of nutrition in an easily preventable circumstance. You know, I'm outraged about that. And I don't understand why everybody's frothed up about the loss of the Titan when every day you've got thousands of kids dying for want of nutrition that's sitting on a shelf that's already paid for. Explain that to me.

SANCHEZ: We've covered those stories extensively, Fred. I do want to point out that every life matters.

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And even as you said, you believe that the folks on the vessel, they may have been given a false impression of what the safety standards were and what the danger was. Nevertheless, we have to leave the conversation there. Alfred Hagen, we appreciate the conversation.

HAGEN: I didn't say they were given a false impression, I said they failed to recognize it.

SANCHEZ: You said that they - you didn't say that it was misrepresented? Did I mishear you earlier?

HAGEN: I agree that they - well, I didn't - I said they probably did not fully understand. They all signed that same piece of paper that mentioned death eight or nine times. They were told, they read it, they signed off on it. But the feeling is that, oh, that's not going to happen to me. It's just - you know, in our society, we're so litigious and we're so afraid of lawsuits that no matter what you do, you've got to sign off a hundred different things. And we become numb to that. It's just like, you know, every time somebody comes out with a new medicine ...

KEILAR: Well, Fred I hear you on that.

HAGEN: And they have to tell you 500 different ways that you're going to have a negative effect.

KEILAR: Fred, we're going to have to leave the conversation there. I will say, maybe people will think about it differently when they sign the next waiver as they go into a submersible.

Fred Hagen, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate you.

HAGEN: All right. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, after arrest warrants did not immediately do the trick, Texas Republicans are trying a new tactic to get Democratic lawmakers to travel back to the state so they can vote on gerrymandered redistricting maps.

Plus, a fast-moving wildfire in California is joined by two more nearby. Evacuations are underway right now. We have the latest for you. KEILAR: And later, DOGE regret. The National Weather Service is set to

hire back hundreds of positions that were cut under Elon Musk. That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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SANCHEZ: We have breaking news in the Texas redistricting fight. The Republican state speaker gaveling out just minutes after he gaveled in, the state house once again failing to reach a quorum with dozens of Democrats still absent. Democrats are doing this to block Republicans from redrawing Texas' congressional map in a way that favors them. Ed Lavandera is live for us in Austin at the state capitol.

And Ed, the state speaker, called again for the arrest of these Democrats. And he brought up disaster efforts.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and that's been one of the points of contention, and as we've talked about this redistricting bill being brought up in this special legislative session, the redistricting bill is actually just one of several issues that we're specifically supposed to be focused on in this special legislative session. Listen to the way the House Speaker talked briefly while the Republicans were in the chamber here just a little while ago.

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REP. DUSTIN BURROWS (R-TX): Today, the Disaster Preparedness Committee is meeting to consider five priority pieces of legislation. Each will address the catastrophic flooding that has devastated homes and entire communities. That's the kind of important work that is being done in the House. And all elected members should be here representing their districts in those conversations.

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LAVANDERA: Of course, we should point out that Democrats have been pushing back on the Republicans on that, many of them saying that in the first several weeks of this special legislative session, much of the focus, if not, has been on redistricting hearings and that sort of thing, that there have been very few hearings. In fact, the very first bill being brought up to the floor was the redistricting bill and Democrats saying that that kind of showed where the focus was for Republicans.

So, you know, the politics of, you know, both sides here going back and forth over the priorities or what issues were made priorities in this session is very much a focus here. But we've been talking about how is this going to continue to escalate. We're starting to get new details on that as well. We have Sen. John Cornyn urging, writing a letter to the FBI director, urging the FBI officers to step in in the search for the Democrats who are outside of the state of Texas. And just a short while ago, the attorney general, Ken Paxton, put out a statement saying that the Texas Democrats have until Friday to return. If not, he will begin the process of filing court documents to begin the process of having the Democrats legally removed in a statement saying that dereliction of duty is grounds for being fired and they need to show up to work.

So, that is kind of the next sign in the continuing escalation between the Republicans and Democrats here in Texas, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Ed Lavandera, live for us at the State House, thank you so much.

Up next, hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza are all but gone this hour. Israeli media now reporting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to urge a, quote, "full conquest of the enclave." We'll be right back.

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