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The Situation Room

Manhunt For Escaped Inmates Continues; Billy Joel Diagnosed With Rare Brain Disorder; Interview With Former FBI Director James Comey. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired May 28, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:32:26]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: The FBI says it's stepping up investigations into several unsolved cases of what it calls potential public corruption. And those include the discovery of cocaine at the White House, pipe bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters here in Washington just before January 6, the insurrection, and the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Here to discuss this and more, the former FBI Director James Comey. He's also the author, by the way, of a new novel entitled "FDR Drive."

And we will talk about that in a moment, Director Comey. Thanks so much for writing this book, an excellent read, indeed.

But let's talk a little bit about the FBI decision to go ahead and reopen these cases, which have been something supported by a lot of conservatives out there. What do you make of this?

JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: It's a little confusing to me, honestly. I'm sure it's a huge adjustment to go from being a podcaster to being the deputy director of the FBI, but I don't understand this tweet.

First of all, I assume that the investigation of the pipe bomb that was found on January 6 was never closed. The FBI never closes such a thing. So I guess it means they're going to focus on it more. And, as to the other things, I thought the Supreme Court marshal had investigated the leak of the opinion, the draft opinion.

(CROSSTALK)

COMEY: I don't know what the FBI's role is there. Cocaine at the White House, I thought the Secret Service investigated that. So I don't follow it and understand it.

I also don't understand who the audience is for this tweet. The FBI often calls for public assistance or, in matters of great public concern, will announce an investigation to reassure the public. This seems much more narrowly targeted, maybe to a former podcast audience.

BLITZER: That's potentially what's going on.

I want to get your also reaction to an exchange the new FBI director, Kash Patel, had with Democratic Senator Patty Murray during a recent congressional hearing. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA): Director Patel, where is the F.Y. 2026 budget request for the FBI?

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: It's being worked on, ma'am.

MURRAY: Have you reviewed it? Have you approved it?

PATEL: Not yet.

MURRAY: When will we get it?

PATEL: As soon as I can get it from my interagency partners and get it approved.

MURRAY: That is insufficient and deeply disturbing. No response?

PATEL: I have given my response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Are you concerned that the FBI will still be able to fulfill all of its important duties with Director Kash Patel leading the bureau?

COMEY: I hope so. That -- I cringe at that clip. I actually feel kind of sorry for the guy. It's like showing up for a final exam with no pencils and no paper and you didn't even know there was a final exam.

[11:35:02]

And so I hope the career people are able to support the director and the deputy director. There are lots of people in the FBI who know what they're doing. I hope these two guys are letting them guide them.

BLITZER: You think they know what they're doing?

COMEY: The career people know what they're doing.

BLITZER: No, no, no. The career people know what they're doing, but the new director and the deputy director?

COMEY: Nothing in their life or their career gives me confidence that they know anything about leading an organization like that. And so I would have serious doubts. I bet they do internally about whether they have doubts.

Great. Let the people who know what they're doing give you advice, and listen to them.

BLITZER: You famously drew the ire of President Donald Trump, as you will, of course, remember. He fired you back in 2017. But now you're back in his crosshairs, posting a photo online of seashells spelling out 8647, which has become a popular social media code for removing Trump from the presidency.

You said you willingly met with the U.S. Secret Service about all of this, so you took the post down and said you did not realize at the time it could be associated potentially with violence, and you assumed it was a political message.

What did you think the message was?

COMEY: I thought it was a message of political opposition to Donald Trump done in a very clever way in seashells on a gigantic beach.

And I had never heard, actually still haven't credibly heard, the numbers 86 associated with murder. But if people were going to say that, which never occurred to me, I don't want that on my Instagram post. And so I took it down.

BLITZER: What do you say to those who are claiming you're seeking the spotlight with posts like that and speaking out against President Trump?

COMEY: Yes, I don't get that. My Instagram posts are a series of family, politics, and books. And so I want my followers, which is not the world, to follow it and to be amused by it, educated by it, enjoy it. That's my goal with Instagram.

BLITZER: You called the Trump's attacks against you life-altering. What did you mean by that?

COMEY: Well, when the president of the United States aims at you, it changes your life a number of ways. Obviously, it gives him rental space in your head temporarily. I think I have now got him out over the garage in my mental space, but it causes people to aim at you, aim at your family members, which is my biggest concern, with hate, with bad language, with social media abuse.

And that's not a good place to be.

BLITZER: Are you worried about your security?

COMEY: I am always worried about security. I'm a giraffe, so I stick out. But almost everybody I come into contact with is friendly and supportive, even if they see things differently than I do.

BLITZER: You're very tall. That's why you're a giraffe, right?

COMEY: Yes, I'm 6'8''.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK) COMEY: And so it's a -- I stick out in the crowd.

But I worry most about people who haven't been through what I have been through. I have been through a lot of security threats in my career. I worry about the people that president targets who have never been through the rodeos I have been through. That has to be life- altering in a very bad way.

BLITZER: Well, what advice do you have for others who find themselves at the receiving end of Trump's personal attacks?

COMEY: Do two things at once that seem contradictory. Take it seriously, be clear-eyed about the threat, but don't let it come to dominate your life.

There's a tendency when you are targeted to see the boogeyman under every bed on which you sit. Don't give him that. Don't give him the benefit of that. He wants to roar and have that effect on you. Shut it out. Be clear-eyed about the risk, but don't let this dominate your life. That's our lesson, I think, as a country, not to let a lot of what he does freak us out.

Be clear-eyed about the threat, but don't let him take over your life.

BLITZER: Yes, good advice.

Before I let you go, I want to talk about your new thriller, the novel that you write. You write about a prosecutor and an investigator confronting far right political extremists who are influenced by the Internet.

It could almost be mistaken for nonfiction. Tell us, what was the inspiration for this topic?

COMEY: I try to write sort of nonfictiony fiction. The stories are made up, but I want it to be about threats that are real and current. So I have done Cosa Nostra. I have done corruption at a hedge fund.

And I thought, this is an important part of American life today, is figuring out, so where is protected speech, which we have to have, but when does it cross the line into criminal activity? And especially with so many loud voices, angry, violent voices in our public square today, I thought this would be a cool topic for a thriller.

BLITZER: What more needs to be done to confront online extremism?

COMEY: Well, most of all, we need to make sure that people are being responsible with the way in which they participate online. We can't throttle that speech from the government. It's just not the government's role.

The government has to understand when it's clearly crossed the line into planning for violence, but the rest of it is up to all of us to decide, in our lives, we're going to communicate in a better way.

BLITZER: Former FBI Director James Comey, thanks so much for joining us, and thanks for writing this new novel, "FDR Drive," a very, very powerful thriller, a great read. Appreciate it very much.

COMEY: Thanks for having me.

BLITZER: All right, there's more news we're following. We will take a quick break. We will be right back.

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[11:44:17]

BLITZER: New this morning, a promising tip has fizzled out in the search for one of the two New Orleans jail escapees.

Antoine Massey and Derrick Groves have eluded authorities now for almost two weeks. They're the last two fugitives of the 10 inmates who broke out of the facility earlier this month. Groves is a convicted murderer, and both men are considered armed and dangerous.

CNN senior national correspondent Ryan Young is following all these late-breaking developments for us.

Ryan, a police tip goes nowhere. Now what?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's a lot of tips out there, Wolf, right now, and that's the good news.

The public has been calling police, giving them information. We just talked to the U.S. Marshals Office in the last hour or so, and they're telling us, look, they brought in additional resources. They are still reorganizing just to make sure that they can continue their concerted effort to find this.

[11:45:07]

You have got to think, there's New Orleans, there's Texas. And there are other jurisdictions that have been working on this. I even talked to a Mississippi sheriff's -- who was telling us they don't think the two are in their area as well.

Now, Massey is wanted for rape, kidnapping and is accused of domestic abuse. Derrick Groves, at the time of the jailbreak, was waiting to be sentenced after being convicted of two counts of second-degree murder, in addition to two separate counts of manslaughter, so both of these men considered armed and dangerous.

We were talking to the same Marshals Service yesterday, who told us they believe these two guys are very street-savvy. So they want to make sure the public understands, look, call 911, call the FBI tip line. Do not approach them.

But listen to the DA's office from New Orleans talk about the pressure they're trying to apply on these two men.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON WILLIAMS, ORLEANS PARISH, LOUISIANA, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: We have got a lot of leads. The Crime Stopper tips are coming in. My office, my digital forensics team has been scouring through hours and hours of jail calls, using some A.I. software, to figure out who they were in contact with the night before, hours before, to figure out where they may have been heading.

Their circle is tightening. As people who are assisting are being arrested, that circle is tightening around these last two.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Yes, Wolf, we even talked about this on your show.

So far, 14 people have been arrested in connection with just this escape. That's not only people who helped in the initial hours. These are family members as well who may have even given someone a ride or given them some money. So, you can see authorities are sort of tightening the dragnet around these folks, trying to make it difficult for them as they move around the public.

But, at the same time, these tips are coming in very fast to Crime Stoppers. We do know there's still that investigation into that jail. How could 10 inmates escape through a hole, go through a back wall, go across a highway? These are all questions that still have to be answered, but, at this point, two still on the loose, tips coming in, but, right now, no green light in terms of that arrest.

And as soon as we have that information, Wolf, we will bring it to you.

BLITZER: We will stay in close touch with you.

Ryan Young, thank you very, very much.

Coming up, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has answers to your questions about the rare brain condition that forced Billy Joel to cancel his concert tour.

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[11:51:52]

BLITZER: Billy Joel's diagnosis of a very rare brain condition has many of his concerned fans asking questions.

Normal pressure hydrocephalus can affect memory, thinking, and movement. It has forced Billy Joel to cancel his upcoming tour.

CNN's chief medical correspondent and neurosurgeon, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, has some answers to your questions about it.

Robert in Maine asks, what causes this disorder?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, that is the big question here.

Let me show you, first of all, because I think a picture is worth 1,000 words. This is what hydrocephalus looks like. And let me be more specific. When you look at sort of an image of the brain, you have brain matter around here, and then these black areas over here, that -- those are normal fluid-filled spaces.

Now, if you compare that to this brain over here, normal pressure hydrocephalus, you will notice that those spaces are much bigger. So, hydrocephalus is a lot more fluid sort of in the brain. That's basically what it is. Normal pressure means that fluid is not under high pressure. It's not pushing on the brain around it.

It can be caused by all sorts of different things. A lot of times, we don't know what causes it. Sometimes, it can be an old head injury. It can be an old stroke. Sometimes, it happens in babies. But it does happen in older adults as well, typically over the age of 65. And when it happens, it's often associated with pretty classic symptoms, Wolf. It's associated with difficulty walking, difficulty with cognition, such as memory, and difficulty with bladder control.

So, that's basically what it looks like. Let's see if we can get to a couple of other questions.

Patty in Bradenton, Florida, says: "My mom is 82 years old, recently diagnosed with NPH," normal pressure hydrocephalus. "Next week, she's having a spinal tap. Can you tell me if it will make things better?"

Well, this is the question. I think there's a good chance it could make things better. When you think about hydrocephalus, normal pressure hydrocephalus, it's not common, but it is very treatable. So, again, imagine this fluid bathing the brain, bathing the spinal cord.

What Patty's talking about is her mom having a lumbar puncture. So this is the spine over here. This is a needle. And, basically, you put that needle in between a few bones of the spine, and you can drain some of the fluid that's circulating around the spinal cord. That also drains some of the fluid here in this image that you see here.

So, when you put that together, if that fluid, removing that fluid, actually makes somebody better, their walking improves, their cognition improves, their bladder control improves, that's a good sign that doing a more permanent procedure could actually be helpful. And, again, a lot of times, it does work if that's the correct diagnosis.

Let's try and get to one more question here. Laura had a question also about her mother. She asks: "What are the chances that my mother can get some or all of her mobility back with the brain shunt procedure?"

OK, so this is sort of moving one straight to the next. Lumbar tap, and then, if that works, then the question is, can you do a more permanent procedure to drain the fluid regularly? This is a shunt. This is actually a catheter that's inside the brain, inside those fluid-filled spaces I was just showing you. And it's draining fluid then into the abdominal cavity.

[11:55:05]

Let me show you here. So this is the brain. The fluid-filled spaces would be deep in there. You got to get through the skull. We do that obviously with a drill. You actually drill a little hole on top of the skull there. You open up this area outside the brain, and you put in this catheter that goes into one of those normal fluid-filled spaces.

And then you attach that catheter to this little -- this little tubing here that drains fluid into the belly. So that often does work. I would say, 60 to 70 percent of the time, people get benefit from this. This might be the discussion that Billy Joel and his family are right now having with doctors, possibly to get a procedure like that and hopefully working for him just as I described.

BLITZER: And we hope he gets a speedy recovery.

Our special thanks to Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, thank you very much.

And, to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media @WolfBlitzer and @PamelaBrownCNN. We will see you back here tomorrow 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

"INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" is next, right after a short break.