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Father of Alleged Georgia School Shooter Found Guilty; Trump on Iran's Next Leaders, Most of the People We Had in Mind Are Dead; Israel Hits Tehran & Beirut as Iran Strikes U.S. Gulf Allies; Israel Bombs Compound of Group That Picks Iran's New Leader; U.S. Embassies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait & Lebanon Now Closed. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 03, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:24]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Colin Gray, the father of the alleged Georgia school shooter, Colt Gray, has been found guilty of murder and manslaughter. A jury deliberated for fewer than two hours before convicting him on all 27 charges. Prosecutors accused Gray of buying his son the rifle used in the attack, despite warnings that his son was a danger to others.

Remember, two students and two teachers were killed. Nine others were wounded in the massacre. Colin Gray now faces decades in prison. He did not visibly react to the verdict.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We've Breaking News on the U.S. and Israel's conflict with Iran. Just a short time ago, President Trump taking his first questions from reporters on his decision to go to war. The president saying that he, quote, "Felt very strongly that Iran was going to attack first." The president later saying the worst-case scenario for Iran would be if somebody takes over, who's as bad as the previous person, and then addressing the major power vacuum.

Actually, let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have someone in mind right now, because you said all the people you did have in mind have been taken out --

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, most of the people we had in mind are dead. So, you know, we had some in mind from that group that is dead and now, we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess, you have a third wave coming in pretty soon. We're not going to know anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The president they're appearing to reference one of Israel's latest strikes on the compound of the group that is actually responsible for choosing Iran's next supreme leader to replace the Ayatollah. Iranian state media says it was evacuated before the attack. We are standing by for the full Senate to receive its first briefing on the war as Americans in 14 different countries are being urged by the State Department to leave the region immediately.

Just over two hours ago, the U.S. closed its third embassy, this one in Lebanon where Israel is ramping up its operation against Hezbollah. Earlier, the U.S. embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait closed after they were hit by drones. CNN's Erin Burnett is live in Tel Aviv.

Erin, what's the latest that you're hearing this hour?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT: All right. Well, where we are, there have been ballistic missiles that have come in during the day today, some of them successfully hitting right outside Tel Aviv where we are. We have also seen evidence, we believe, of the back-and-forth going on between the new threat, the new front in this war, between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel.

The IDF here has been intercepting Iranian missiles. They say they have been conducting strikes both in Beirut against Hezbollah and also in Tehran. Jeremy Diamond is here with me right now. And Jeremy, you know, as we go through -- and the pieces are moving so quickly. You know, Brianna talking about how the U.S. is closing embassies, I also want to add to that. Some of these embassies don't even have ambassadors.

We're coming into, they said evacuate 14 countries that you can't even evacuate from because there's no commercial options and almost half of them don't even have a sitting ambassador, right? Just an incredible moment for the United States. Then there's these strikes today against apparently a meeting -- they apparently were gathering again, senior clerics, to elect a supreme leader and this meeting was hit.

Now, we don't know if it was evacuated before or what, but you're learning a whole lot more about how they knew where it was, how they targeted it. What have you found out?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, so this is actually, as it relates to the strike on the Ayatollah Khamenei on Saturday morning, and we know that this was years in the making actually.

BURNETT: Years?

DIAMOND: Years in the making.

BURNETT: Wow.

DIAMOND: As we know, these intelligence operations happen for years quietly and then suddenly a strike takes place that capitalizes on all that intelligence that's been gathered. And I'm learning according to a source who was briefed on this operation that one of the key elements of this involved hacking Tehran's traffic cameras, traffic cameras in the city of Tehran giving the Israelis real-time information on their potential targets, including the bodyguards to some of these senior Iranian officials as they were coming to work, where were they coming to work, Erin, at the compound where the supreme leader was ultimately killed in that first wave of strikes on Saturday morning.

And I'm told that this was just one piece of data, combining it with satellite imagery, signals intelligence, human intelligence all fed into an A.I. system that the Israelis have that allowed them to kind of develop a map of targets, a grid of Tehran that allowed them to carry out these strikes in real time once the opportunity presented itself.

[14:05:00]

BURNETT: I mean, first of all, it is stunning when you talk about, even with all that sophistication, which they have demonstrated before, pagers, et cetera, right, that that was in place so long, I mean, talk about pagers. OK? That's pre-A.I.

DIAMOND: Yes.

BURNETT: That there, the A.I. was still so instrumental, but also that they took the apparatus of one of the most intense policed states known and used it against them.

DIAMOND: Absolutely.

BURNETT: Hack into those traffic cameras.

DIAMOND: Absolutely. And this is often how the Israelis operate. They identify one key piece that they can use against their enemy and they weaponize it very quickly, combining it with real-time targeting information, in this case, the knowledge that the supreme leader was going to be at this compound as well as a slew, you know, dozens again, that they say that they have killed of senior Iranian leaders who are all there around the same time.

BURNETT: All right. So now, as we stand here tonight, obviously, there were some strikes. We got sirens, but we didn't get sometimes now, what comes to your phone, which is the pre-warning the pre- warning.

DIAMOND: Yes.

BURNETT: The pre-warning usually comes when the missiles are coming from Iran. We've gotten those as well, one of those broke through today. One thing that stood out to me from this here is that it's relentless. It's constant. It makes it hard to sleep or go about your day because it keeps happening, but it's not happening in those numbers of 30 or 40, 60 or 70 as happened.

Now, is that from what you're reporting is, strategic on the part of Iran or is that by necessity because they've been damaged in their capability?

DIAMOND: Well, remember last night, we were talking about the fact that Israeli officials were anticipating, right, that the damage that they are doing to those Iranian ballistic missile launchers is going to be degrading Iran's capacity to launch those missiles and so we expect that that is actually what is happening right now. I don't want to put a firm hundred percent on that yet, but that was the expectation of Israeli officials. It seems to be reproducing itself now in real time.

We had a big gap this morning. We actually were able to get a bit of sleep, I think, both you and I.

BURNETT: Yeah. So it was a few hours.

DIAMOND: A few hours of sleep, thanks to the fact that there were not those ballistic missiles being fired. We saw one round in the afternoon and then missiles from Hezbollah fired tonight, again, without that early warning system, just a minute and a half for people in Tel Aviv to get to their bomb shelters. But it certainly seems like the Iranian threat has been degraded to an extent. We will see whether that holds in the coming days or if the Iranians can kind of get their act back together.

BURNETT: Right. Yeah, to determine you know how much strategy, how much desperation. It is very hard to tell. But incredible reporting there from Jeremy Diamond. I mean, Boris and Brianna, just to think about that what Jeremy is reporting that they were able to hack into the traffic cameras to figure out what the schedule was of the bodyguards and where they were going for years in advance of that strike is a pretty incredible thing to imagine.

KEILAR: Yeah. Really unbelievable. Erin and Jeremy, thank you so much for that. If you can stand by, U.S. embassies across the Middle East are shutting down because they're increasingly being targeted by Iran.

SANCHEZ: There are now three embassies that have closed, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and just today, Beirut, Lebanon. Americans in the region have been told to leave immediately as the U.S. reduces its footprint in several other countries. CNN International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson is live for us in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where there were drone strikes overnight.

Nic, what more have you learned about threats to that area?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah. There still is an active threat of incoming ballistic missiles or drones that's been issued for U.S. citizens in Tehran and in particular, around the U.S. Consulate in Tehran in the east of Saudi Arabia. And that's a particular concern because last night, the embassy, the U.S. embassy here in Riyadh was hit actually by two rounds of drone strikes.

No injuries that we are aware of but there was an amount of damage. There was a fire. It is not quite clear what was damaged yet, but there was an amount of damage at the embassy here in Riyadh. So, that's why it was closed. A shelter-in-place warning issued for staff there, warning -- the same issue -- same warning issued for consular staff at the U.S. Consulate in the west of Saudi Arabia in Jeddah. So, there seems to be a level of cognition of incoming Iranian threats on specific locations because the second round of strikes on the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh last night, actually there was a warning specifically about that less than an hour or so before the impacts. Saudi has been intercepting many of the missiles that have been fired in and around Riyadh. It said it intercepted about eight around here yesterday, five of them fired at a massive Saudi air base that's just outside of the capital here.

But all of this points to the way that Saudi Arabia feels that it's being drawn into the conflict here and that sort of diplomatic tightrope that it walks, does it want to go full scale in it. It has reiterated that it reserves the right the option to respond to the aggression. But does it actually want to make that big step and it would be a very big step for Saudi Arabia to do that.

[14:10:00]

So, concerns exist and that threat, imminent threat in the east of the country that's still active as far as we know.

SANCHEZ: Nic Robertson live from Riyadh for us, thank you so much.

Still to come, the stock markets reacting to the war with Iran, all of the indices, major indices down today. Investors worrying this is going to keep energy prices elevated and fuel more inflation. We're going to analyze the economic impacts.

KEILAR: Plus, new details about Kash Patel firing IRA-focused counterintelligence staff just days before the U.S. launched airstrikes, what it can mean for the FBI's ability to track down threats. That and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:15:21]

SANCHEZ: We are closely watching markets this afternoon. Stocks tumbled sharply this morning and even though they're still trading lower, they did bounce back a bit. Fears of the war with Iran are driving the volatility with investors worried this conflict could significantly disrupt the global flow of crude oil. CNN's Richard Quest joins us now live from New York.

Richard, what are you watching for?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: I'm watching to see how the markets take it in its stride, which essentially is what they've been doing so far because, perhaps foolishly, they believe this is going to be relatively short-lived. So yes, we've had the predictable dramatic rise in the increase of oil and gas, four percent, five percent of example. If that stays elevated, if we get over $80 a barrel for a protracted time, that will feed into an inflationary spiral everybody, you, me, the lot, will all feel the cost of that.

But moving away from that, you're looking at things like gold, you're looking at the dollar. You're looking at how those companies that are those global companies that trade are worried that trade will slow down, fears of recessions, fears of what might come next. And when consumers stop spending, that's when you get the self-defeating cycle really taking off. We're a long way from that yet, but the president says four or five weeks, that's containable within the ambit of reasonable economics. Any more than that and bets are off.

SANCHEZ: Richard, I also wanted to ask you about some of the travel disruptions to airlines that we've been seeing across the Mideast and there's video from Lebanon today that shows a commercial airplane taking off amid smoke and explosions after Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut. How bad is it right now? How bad might it get?

QUEST: Oh, it's pretty bad in the sense that the three big global hubs now are in Dubai DXB, Abu Dhabi with its airport, and Qatar with Doha. Now, over the last 15 years, they have become the locus and the center for much of global aviation, and they are the three airports that are badly hit, Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways. All the passengers going in, going out, whether it be from the U.S., Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, or down to the subcontinent, those three hubs have dramatically been hit because, essentially, the last thing you want to be doing is flying aircraft when there are stray missiles in the area.

Now tonight, I can tell you that certain limited flights are starting to fly again from Dubai and from Abu Dhabi. Qatar will make its decision overnight, but let's be clear here, Boris. If we get more missiles, if this situation deteriorates, then those hubs will once again have to suspend operations and the ripple effects, we've all got people we know we've gone via the Gulf three hubs, the ripple effects will really spread.

SANCHEZ: Richard Quest, thanks so much for the reporting.

Still to come, the president's base largely still backing him, but the war with Iran may lead to new criticism of Trump from voices on the right. We'll hear what they have to say. Plus, a race that could reshape the balance of power in Washington. Right now, voters in Texas are heading to the polls in a high-stakes Senate primary. That and much more coming your way in just moments.

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[14:23:38]

KEILAR: Just days before the U.S. launched a major military operation in Iran, sources tell CNN, FBI Director, Kash Patel fired a dozen agents and staff members from a counterintelligence unit that was cast with monitoring threats from Iran. They were ousted because each was involved in the investigation of President Trump's alleged retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

CNN Senior Justice Correspondent, Evan Perez is with us now. Evan, it seems like these are just the kind of folks that you might want to have in their jobs at a time like this. What are you learning? EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. Exactly. And this is a team that has been known to thwart other attempts by the Iranians to carry out attacks here in the United States, according to the Justice Department. So, it is very curious that this is the time that you would choose to get rid of these analysts and these agents.

This is a unit called CI-12, which is a counterintelligence unit that is based here at the Washington field office. And what we know is that they've fired or pushed out as many as 10 people who are associated with this unit. Now, they also, as you pointed out, had been involved in the investigation of the classified documents case at Mar-a-Lago, the case that brought those charges against the president. And that's the reason why they were ousted.

But now, obviously, it would be really good to have that level of experience.

[14:25:00]

We've talked to people who told our Hannah Rabinowitz that we've got decades of experience that have just been tossed out the door.

Now, the FBI responded to our questions here, and they said that our teams remain fully engaged across the country and are prepared to mobilize any security assets. Obviously, there are very much a lot of concerned that the Iranians could try to carry out attacks here in the United States in reaction to the events in the Middle East.

I should note, this is a team that has thwarted attacks against the president of the United States, against President Trump, against Mike Pompeo, John Bolton. So that's the level of threat that this unit has been involved in over the last few years.

KEILAR: It's a question of whether personal grievances are getting in the way of national interests, I guess.

PEREZ: Right, and national security --

KEILAR: Right.

PEREZ: -- which is usually one of the things that -- we've seen this come and go between Democratic and Republican administrations. One of the things that's always been is that national security was bipartisan, and that no longer is the case, in part because the president is so focused on carrying out his retribution agenda.

KEILAR: Evan Perez, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Still to come, more of our coverage of the war in Iran. Are there lessons from past wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that could be applied today? We'll discuss with a military historian. Stay with CNN.

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