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U.S.-Iran Nuclear Talks Underway Amid U.S. Military Building In Middle East; Soon: New Testimony In Trial Of Accused School Shooter's Father; Law Enforcement Officials Seen At Nancy Guthrie's Home Amid New Tips. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 26, 2026 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:31:20]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now in Geneva nuclear talks are underway between the United States and Iran. This is the third sit- down between the two nations. This time it's viewed as quite possibly the last time -- the last chance for diplomacy to win out.

President Trump continues and has suggested and threatened a military strike on Iran if diplomacy does not win out. He's also ordered the largest Middle East building up American forces in more than two decades over this. And yesterday the administration imposed new sanctions on more than 30 targets tied to illicit Iranian oil sales and the country's ballistic missile production. A lot going on here clearly with these talks underway.

With me right now is CNN political and global affairs commentator Sabrina Singh, and CNN White House correspondent Alayna Treene.

Alayna, what are you hearing from the White House today? I mean, this is ongoing as we speak, but what their position is now about this third sit-down.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Obviously, talks are in a very sensitive place, particularly with this large threat of that massive military buildup that you referred to, Kate, in the region on the Middle East. Now I know that is largely for now seen as leverage for these talks and really a threat to Iran to try and come to the table on the things that they are laying out in Geneva.

But look, the big point and I think one of the key parts of the discussion today is what the U.S. wants out of this, which is essentially they are saying they do not want Iran to ever have a nuclear program. Now for the Iranian part they are arguing that they don't want that anyway. Of course, there's lot of distrust there on behalf of the U.S. of whether or not they actually mean that but that is something they are saying.

But then when it gets trickier is this red line for the Iranians, which is that the U.S. doesn't want them to have any nuclear enrichment or enrichment of uranium more specifically. And that is something that the Iranians have really struggled in these talks with and that's really been a key sticking point throughout all of this.

Now from my conversations with people in that building behind me in the White House, I am told, and they say the president is sincere when he says that he wants diplomacy first. He really does want there to be some sort of deal or negotiation.

But they do remember that there were talks, and I'd remind you as well, there were talks last year in the early, you know, first few months of the president's first year in office where they were trying to get to some sort of agreement on this as well. When those talks fell through that's when you saw the United States join Israel in striking the Iranian nuclear facilities.

And so these are in a very precarious state. There's a lot of distrust on both sides when -- involved in these negotiations. But for all intents and purposes there is still a belief that progress -- real substantial progress could be made on a deal.

The other complicating factor of all of this is that -- and we heard this from Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday -- is that they do want to expand these talks eventually to also include Iran's ballistic missile program and the idea that they have, you know, a large amount of ballistic weapons that could really affect different U.S. bases in the region and, of course, Middle East allies of the United States.

So there's a lot that's going into this. But at the end of day what we are looking to see -- what I'm being told or what the negotiators specifically, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on the U.S. side are looking to get from the Iranians is this commitment to having no nuclear weapons, to not making a nuclear weapon, and potentially putting those ideas on paper and seeing if they can move forward with some form of text. Of course, we really have to wait and see what comes out of this meeting today.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, and Alayna has great reporting on this.

[07:35:00]

And Sabrina, to that point, The Wall Street Journal kind of just going -- dovetailing right off what Alayna is talking about in terms of what they want to try to get on paper. The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that the U.S. -- in terms of parameters, the U.S. reportedly is expected to demand that Iran dismantle its three main nuclear sites and deliver all remaining enriched uranium to the United States.

That is -- put that in perspective of kind of what level of demand that is to the Iranians.

SABRINA SINGH, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR, FORMER DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY (via Webex by Cisco): Well, I think what you're going to see here is the Iranians certainly are going to push back on that. I can't imagine that they agree to some of the U.S. demands even though the -- you know, if that's what's being reported and being put forward. I mean, that is significant. We know those three nuclear sites that you -- that you listed out are

not -- have not been operational since that 12-day war back in June. I think there are limits that the U.S. can try and impose on Iran to limit its nuclear enrichment program, but I think there are certainly some red lines that the Iranians will be dug in on. And, of course, the U.S. side -- this administration will have its own red lines.

So even though Donald Trump wants to use diplomacy until the very end it does seem like we are heading into this off-ramp where strikes are almost inevitable. I mean, just the amount of firepower in the region -- you haven't seen this accumulation of firepower since 2003, which you'll remember was the beginning of the Iraq War.

So, you know, with two carriers in the region, with talks ongoing, it does seem likely that we are headed to some type of kinetic action by this administration.

BOLDUAN: It does -- that question does linger out there. Like, is a military strike -- undefined to what level, it is inevitable when you have this level of firepower in the region.

Sabrina, decipher something or help decipher something for us. The reporting is that a key adviser to Iran's supreme leader has said today that an immediate agreement between the United States and Iran could be within reach if the subject of talks is confined to Iran's "nonproduction of nuclear weapons."

What is this adviser to the supreme leader signaling?

SINGH: Well, I think what this adviser is signaling is that you -- I think what they are saying here is they understand that Iran is in a very weak spot that it's -- that it hasn't been before. I mean, that 12-day war that we saw in June where the U.S. did target its nuclear facilities -- we have not seen the Iranian regime this week since those strikes.

And then, of course, you have the internal economic unrest that's happening within the country. I mean, you're still seeing protests. Very brave students going out and protesting on the streets against the Iranian regime.

So it does seem like there are some people around the supreme leader that do want to see and off-ramp. But I think what one of the red lines is that Iran is going to draw is their ballistic missile program. Now that is something that is not only concerning to Israel but, of course, to the U.S. as those ballistic missiles can reach U.S. bases in the region and target our own men and women in uniform, which we saw unfortunately during the Biden administration as well.

So it remains to be seen if that's something that they will negotiate on but, of course, the nuclear program is something that the U.S. remains laser focused on with this administration.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

Sabrina, it's great to see you. Thank you so much. Alayna, as always, thank you for your reporting on this. I really appreciate it -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Tomorrow the president heads to Texas where he is expected to deliver a speech focused on the economy and energy. This is as the White House looks to hammer home the message that the president delivered in the State of the Union that he is shepherding what he calls a new golden age for the economy. We should note the trip comes just a few days before a hotly contested primary election in Texas on March 3.

With us now is Rick Newman, founder, editor and publisher of The Pinpoint Press. Rick, always great to see you.

The president's State of the Union address -- and I know you watched it very carefully -- it included a lot of minutes, right? A hundred -- well over 100 -- an hour and 47 minutes. But how much did it include in terms of new proposals to address affordability?

RICK NEWMAN, FOUNDER, EDITOR, PUBLISHER, THE PINPOINT PRESS (via Webex by Cisco): I think the substance-to-word ratio in that speech was very low -- perhaps record low -- because he didn't really say anything new on affordability.

And I think one thing to keep in mind here is Trump thinks that his big affordability plan for 2026 is the tax cut that he signed into law last year. And it is true that we're going to see a lot -- some people will see bigger tax refunds this year. Some people will see lower withholdings. And Trump seems to think that's really all he really needed to do. I mean, even in the speech on Tuesday he was -- he was dismissive of the idea of affordability like it was a made out -- made up word.

Now he is going to be talking about he's got this idea for health care, something else for food, but it doesn't look like any of this will actually take the form of congressional legislation. And even if it did it's not like the president can just push a button and lower prices.

So I think Trump is going to have a hard sell in Texas and for the rest of the year.

[07:40:00]

BERMAN: You write that the president, to an extent, is falling into a trap that President Biden did and even Barack Obama did when he was president. Explain.

NEWMAN: It's this problem of trying to convince voters that they're better off than they feel they really are. And you can look at aggregate economic data, and it does show the economy is growing pretty strongly but the aggregate economic data doesn't apply to a lot of people and that's problem.

So Biden struggled with this during the inflation spurt in '22 and '23 and he was trying to say look, we understand inflation is bad -- we've got -- we're working on it -- but other things are good. Voters didn't buy it. Obama had the same problem in 2010 in those midterm elections. And also, just to point out, the Republicans when they passed the tax

cut law in 2017, they thought voters would love that because they cut everybody's taxes, and that is not at all what happened. Voters generally did not like that tax cut though. They thought it favored the wealthy and businesses too much and they lost in the 2018 midterms.

I mean, that was Trump. That was the same guy. So he seems to be going right down the same path he's already gone before.

BERMAN: If you were advising the White House, what would you suggest that they do between now and November to address affordability?

NEWMAN: I advise the White House all the time; they just never listen.

I think first of all, prioritize affordability. I mean, it's not everything under the sun. The biggest affordability problem really is housing. It's not a simple problem to solve. That's almost everybody's biggest expense. And we just don't have enough housing in the country.

So Trump has this idea he's going to try to ban investor -- institutional investors from buying homes. That's not going to make a difference for most people.

If you really want to make a difference start doing things to incentivize states and cities to improve zoning. You can do federal incentives for that. So there are other things you could do with housing. I would take on housing, and I would tell people look, we can't fix this overnight, but we are going to be serious about it. There's going to be real legislation.

I would also do something about health care. I mean, there is no plan in letting those subsidies for Obamacare enrollees expire and it's really going to cause pain for a lot of people.

BERMAN: He made it a lot more expensive for them, which gets to affordability.

Rick Newman, great to see you this morning.

NEWMAN: That's right.

BERMAN: Thank you so much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Speaking of health care, the Trump administration is withholding more than $250 million in Medicaid funds from Minnesota claiming widespread fraud. This comes amid an escalation of pressure on the state's Democratic leaders. Vice President Vance -- he announced this move Wednesday and he blamed the governor, Tim Walz, for allegedly failing to police the program. Vance also warning that more states could also be targeted here.

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J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The main source of fraud, whether it's a small business or a bigger company, is you have people who are billing the government millions -- tens of millions -- billions of dollars -- saying that they are providing a service but there's no actual confirmation. There's no follow-up to ensure that they're actually providing those services. We want to see that follow-up from Minnesota.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now, Governor Walz has responded and has said that withholding the Medicaid funds has nothing to do with fraud in his view; it is only about the administration wanting to punish blue states. Governor Walz also saying that withholding these funds hurts veterans, families, and people with disabilities.

So there are a ton of questions still swirling about the FBI operation that happened at the home of Alberto Carvalho. He's the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Agents were seen carrying out boxes of material from the house yesterday. CNN has learned that search warrants were executed at two other locations as well, the school district's headquarters and a home in Miami. Carvalho previously was the head of the public school district there.

The sprawling L.A. Unified School District is the nation's second- largest with more than 500,000 students covering more than two dozen cities. The FBI staying very tight-lipped right now about what this is all about. The school district is only saying it's cooperating with the investigation.

Carvalho has been -- he has been a vocal critic of the president's immigration crackdown working to keep ICE agents out of his schools. Just last week the Trump administration actually joined a lawsuit against L.A. Schools, accusing the district of discriminating against white students -- John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning new calls for Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales to resign. He is accused of having an affair with a member of his staff and sending her lewd text messages. She later took her own life. Gonzales does face a primary challenge next week and is refusing to resign.

The husband of the woman who took her own life, Regina Santos-Aviles, spoke to CNN -- listen.

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ADRIAN AVILES, HUSBAND OF REGINA SANTOS-AVILES: I don't care two cents about the whole political matter behind it. I don't care that, you know, it's two seats in the -- I don't care about all of that, you know. I care about facts. I care about what he has done and how he's continued to lie on Regina's name, you know.

[07:45:00]

He's sitting there and just -- he's boldfaced lied about it -- you know, about everything. And to say that the facts are going to come out, I would bet that he does not want me to release all of the messages that show how gross of a man he is. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. New this morning, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is threatening to suspend a TSA precheck just days after the department reversed a decision to pause the program. They say it's due to the partial government shutdown. Noem says they have to prioritize staffing at regular airport security checkpoints.

Now strangely, Noem now says they never reversed the earlier decision because they never put it into action. They only talked about it. The Global Entry program though, Kate, is still paused.

BOLDUAN: Oh, I mean, so we should not be confused, is what you're trying to tell me?

BERMAN: Exactly.

BOLDUAN: The Olympics are over, but it appears the fight is not for the U.S. women's hockey team. The captain of the gold medal-winning team is now having to respond to a comment from the president, President Trump.

When he was on the phone inviting the men's hockey team to his State of the Union, you'll remember that Trump said in that call, "I must tell you, we're going to have to bring the women's team, you do know that." And then going on with a laugh saying if he did not invite them, he would "probably would be impeached."

Now captain Hilary Knight is being forced to field questions about it.

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HILARY KNIGHT, CAPTAIN, U.S. WOMEN'S HOCKEY TEAM: The joke was distasteful. Women should be championed for their amazing feats and not have to sort of sit - and anybody who has to sit in front of you and explain someone else's behavior. It's not my responsibility. So --

(Applause)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The women's team -- they declined to go to the State of the Union though it did inspire Flavor Flav to invite them to come party with him in Las Vegas, and it sounds like it's happening.

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ALEX CARPENTER, U.S. OLYMPIC WOMEN'S HOCKEY TEAM PLAYER: I'll take the reins on this. We're just going to have a good time.

KNIGHT: I think we'll be well-fed and well-hydrated is the sound of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Hydration is very important. But wait, there's more. Flavor Flav also just invited the bobsled and

skeleton team that he sponsors, along with every female Olympian and Paralympian.

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FLAVOR FLAV, RAPPER: I want to see everybody bring your body to the party, all right? Flavor Flav and full effect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Everybody bring your body to the floor -- John.

BERMAN: All right, thank you so much.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

BERMAN: Still ahead the trial of the father accused of murder in a mass shooting allegedly carried out by his son. We're learning the father could be about to take the stand in his own defense.

And monkey on the lam in a garage leading to the question who do you call when there is a monkey on the lam in your garage?

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[07:52:08]

BOLDUAN: As prosecutors are wrapping up their case -- moving to wrap up their case, the attorney for the man who is on trial now for the deadly mass shooting carried out by his son -- he says -- Colin Gray -- that father who is on trial, the attorney says, will now likely take the stand in his own defense. Colin Gray has pleaded not guilty, saying that he did not know that his son was plan -- what his son was planning and that his son was planning the 2024 attack on Apalachee High School in Georgia.

This week the jury heard from the boy's mother and sister who testified that her father pressured her to lie to investigators.

CNN's Jean Casarez joins me now. It was pretty unbelievable hearing from that mother and also Colt Gray's sister and what they said on the stand, but now what?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, yesterday was all about Colin Gray. He actually did two interviews with law enforcement the day of the shooting. It was an audiotape -- a 1 1/2-hour interview the jury heard, and yesterday 2 1/2 hours of Colin Gray videotaped talking to one of the investigators.

And he told him that the reason he had gotten him the rifle was because his son stayed in his room all the time. He was a loner in the room watching videogames. We now know that he was on so many sites -- through the night he was.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum. CASAREZ: And he -- and when he was a kid his father would take him out hunting. And he said I want to get him outside to the wilderness and nature and I have a friend who has a son and they go hunting so I thought maybe he can get a friend here and we can do this.

But he said he was seeing changes in the personality. That Colt was becoming so aggressive that he would bullrush him where he would run for his father and start to just beat him up. And he said sometimes I would just hold him until he calmed down but at times, I would just take it. He would try to put holes in walls and doors. He would try to -- he would break the windows.

And he said I knew I had to do something, but he said I had my construction job. I was raising the three kids by myself because my wife was in inpatient meth treatment. And he said I'd come home, I'd cook, I'd clean, I'd wash the clothes. And I kept giving pep talks to the kids who was -- who were affected by the family dynamic, to just get through this.

But then the pivotal question came about the guns. How did you store the guns? Listen to the summary from the investigator Jason Smith.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON SMITH, BARROW COUNTY, GEORGIA CRIMINAL INVESTIGATOR: He mentioned on two separate occasions that Colt had actually gone into his bedroom and that Colt had retrieved the firearm from the -- from Colin's bedroom and taken it into his room to clean or mess with. Ultimately, towards the end of the interview Colin admitted that Colt was allowed sometimes to keep the rifle in his room leaned up in the corner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:55:05]

CASAREZ: There was also an issue about therapy because Marcee had just gotten out of rehab. She wanted him to go to inpatient therapy. And he had actually gone to the school to sign a waiver and they -- the next week -- like the day after the school shooting, they were going to bring a state-certified counselor to the school to talk with him. He didn't want inpatient therapy for his son though and he really thought he could to it himself is what it is appeared to be.

But the question is how will the jury -- this was a family dynamic --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

CASAREZ: -- a family in crisis and he is facing life in prison --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

CASAREZ: -- for the actions of his son.

BOLDUAN: Do you really think he's going to take the stand? CASAREZ: Well, it's all up to the client, right? And yesterday the defense attorneys told our team in Atlanta -- in the courthouse that Colin wants to clarify some things -- some things that his daughter said on the stand, some things in her recording. The defense, yesterday, got to play the entire recording interview that she gave to law enforcement the day after the shooting. But that could change, I think.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

CASAREZ: You know, calm down, cool down. Do you really want to take the stand?

BOLDUAN: The details of -- that are coming out in this trial are just -- they make your heart stop.

CASAREZ: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: They make you so sick --

CASAREZ: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- at your stomach.

Jean, thank you so much.

And you can watch more of Jean's continued coverage of the Colin Gray trial on CNN All Access, cnn.com/watch -- John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning two men are in custody after police say they robbed a truck stop at a busy Los Angeles intersection. Two vehicles, you can see there, blocked the truck as it approached a stoplight. One suspect then cut the lock on the trailer and then grabbed thousands of dollars of computer equipment apparently from the back there and just ran off with it. The men were arrested a short time later while trying to get on the freeway. Always hard to travel around Los Angeles.

Melissa Etheridge among the 17 artists or groups on the list of the 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees. Other first-time nominees include Phil Collins, Jeff Buckley, the Wu-Tang Clan, INXS, Pink, Shakira, Luther Vandross, New Edition, and Lauryn Hill. Now, second- time nominees, The Black Crowes, Oasis, Sade, Billy Idol. And for third-time nominees, Mariah Carey, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order. They are all third-time nominees.

I just basically listed every group in the history of music there, so we'll see who ends up being announced in April.

All right, monkey on the lam. A family was shocked to find a Capuchin monkey inside their garage. Apparently, they do not see many monkeys inside their garage. This was the animal handler who helped catch the thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL BERAN, ANIMAL HANDLER: When they told me that there was a monkey in the garage I was 100 percent sure that it was just a raccoon. This is the first time in 60 years it was actually a monkey.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The punchline here again is there was a monkey in the garage. After showing the proper permits the monkey got reunited with his owners. Apparently, no information on how the monkey broke in, in the first place, Kate.

BOLDUAN: That's the key question to you is how the monkey broke in?

BERMAN: Don't you want to know?

BOLDUAN: Yes.

BERMAN: How do you monkey-proof your garage?

BOLDUAN: I'm going to go on Amazon.com and look that up.

Uh, all right, here we go.

There is new reporting this morning about the search for Nancy Guthrie nearly a month after she disappeared. There is now heightened police activity at the 84-year-old's home, and it comes after the family announced a new reward of $1 million for information that leads to Guthrie's recovery. That new offer fueling a surge in new tips and leads.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Tucson with the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The law enforcement activity we saw at Nancy Guthrie's home yesterday significant for a couple of reasons. Really, it's the first time that we have seen that level of law enforcement presence here at the home in more than week.

We saw several agents spending several hours here at the home. They were walking around the property, going around the back as well. It's not clear exactly what they were up to. We've reached out to FBI officials, and they would not explain what brought investigators back to this property.

But it did come about 24 hours after Savannah Guthrie and her family released the video announcing the million-dollar reward with -- for information leading to the recovery or where Nancy Guthrie might be. So it's significant on that front. We do not know if those two -- the visits here at the property yesterday were connected to that.

In the past investigators have told us that this is -- the visits that they've made here is part of the follow-up of the investigative process and that sort of thing. That's what we've been told in the past. But we do know that in the initial day of that Savannah Guthrie video and the million-dollar reward announcement that FBI officials told us that caused a surge of about 750 credible tips into the FBI tip line.