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3 Killed in Mosque Shooting, Police Investigating It as Hate Crime; Polls Open in Kentucky Primary as Trump Looks to Unseat Rep. Massie; Ebola Outbreak in DRC and Uganda Linked to More Than 130 Deaths; NTSB Hearing on Fiery UPS Plane Crash that Killed 15 in Kentucky. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 19, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's risen the river levels across northern Missouri. Look at this, Kansas City to St. Louis under flood watches right now. The severe weather threat shifts eastward. It's diminished compared to yesterday but we still need to keep an eye to the sky across this area. Damaging winds and large hail a possibility.

And by the way, Sara, if you're feeling the heat, near record highs in New York and Philadelphia for the day today and tomorrow.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: We are feeling it but we are appreciative looking at what's happening in other parts of the country. It's like these summertime storms are already upon us and it's really severe weather. Derek Van Dam, thank you so much for walking us through all that.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, we now know the identity of the security guard hailed a hero for his actions as an attack on a mosque in San Diego was playing out. We also have the very latest on the investigation into the two gunmen.

And it is election day in America. Voters heading to the polls for primaries in six states, setting up another major test of President Trump's political influence and power.

And there's also a new twist in the case of that of Hawaii doctor found guilty of attempting of attempted manslaughter for attacking his wife. Why he is now demanding a new trial.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman and Sara Sidner. This is CNN New Central.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, the father of eight and a hero. The security guard who was killed protecting San Diego's largest mosque during a deadly shooting has been identified as Amin Abdulla. He is among three victims killed in the scene.

This morning, this is being investigated as a hate crime. The suspects, two teenagers, 17 and 18. They are also dead. Police say they were found dead with apparent self inflicted gunshot wounds in a car near the mosque.

There was a school on the grounds there and video shows children holding hands as they were evacuated. The Imam there says all students and teachers are unharmed. One nine year old described the terror as he and other students huddled inside a classroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ODAI SHANAH, 9-YEAR-OLD STUDENT AT ISLAMIC CENTER OF SAN DIEGO: I heard like a bunch of bad stuff like gunshots and plus I went out. I went inside the closet with my whole class. We heard like 12 or like 16 gunshots and then the SWAT team said, if you open up and they opened the door and they went inside, they told us to put our hands up and form a big line.

And then we saw a bunch of bad stuff. People laying down and yes, bad stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Oh, bad stuff. No child should ever have to go through that. Just hours before the shooting, the 17 year old suspects mother called police saying her son, her car and three weapons were missing.

Law enforcement officials tell CNN that hate speech was scrawled on one of the weapons used in the attack and they say a suicide note was found containing writings about racial pride.

Let's get right to CNN's Kyung Lah on the scene this morning in San Diego. Kyung before dawn there. What's the latest?

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you heard the terror from that child and we could see it from the parents who came here to the school to pick up their young Children. I want to stress john that the Children at this school here at this mosque, their third grade and under. So these were talking about really young children and the person who they who greeted them as they're dropped off here at school is a man they referred to in this community as brother Amin.

A large security guard, a man who really took the time to say hello to these children and got to know the parents. And I want you to listen to one of the parents who dropped off his son that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAM HAMIDEH, FRIEND OF SECURITY GUARD KILLED IN MOSQUE SHOOTING: I know that he knew he was sacrificing his life for the kids because if he didn't take that bullet, they would easily walked up stairs and then there's just innocent eight and younger and women and you know, people that couldn't defend themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: This is currently being investigated as a hate crime. According to the San Diego police chief, the emphasis of the investigation today is going to be looking at the 17 year old, the mother of that 17 year old called law enforcement two hours before this active shooting to say that her son was missing, that she had found that concerning note and he had gone off with an 18 year old friend, both dressed in camo and she just could not find him.

[08:35:10]

There wasn't, John, anything specific targeting this particular mosque, this particular school or any of the other area schools. But it was that general threat alert that law enforcement says did heighten them to be able to pay attention and respond just within four minutes here to this mosque -- John.

BERMAN: It was a quick response. Kyung Lah, it's good to have you there. and our hearts go out to the family of brother Amin and his eight children without a father today. Thank you very much for that -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, John.

Happening now, it is election day in parts of America, a big day of primary elections across six states. The polls are now open in Georgia, Alabama, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, home to maybe the race with the highest stakes and the most expensive House primary race ever.

The Bluegrass state is latest stop on President Trump's revenge tour as he tries to unseat Republican incumbent Thomas Massie. Congressman Massie has clashed with the trump White House overspending, the Iran war and he pushed for the release of the Epstein file.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny on the ground in Covington, Kentucky. The administration has an all out blitz, uh, in Kentucky in favor of Massie's opponent. It's early, very early. What do you see in so far as far as turnout goes?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Sara, good morning. I mean, voting has been underway for about two hours here in Kentucky, and there has been no Republican who has infuriated President Trump more than Thomas Massie. But it's the voters of Kentucky that will decide here in the fourth congressional district if Massie wins a primary and goes on to a general election.

But as you said, one of the most expensive House races in U. S. History, more than $30 million spent. You can see that and feel that in here that watching television advertisements here and voters here are exhausted by all of it, there's no doubt. But we spent time in the campaign trail with both of the candidates yesterday to hear their closing messages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): I learned a lot of good lessons here, and people don't bully me. It's not what we do.

(APPLAUSE) MASSIE: So, you know, they call me an obstructionist. I'm actually kind of honored about that for as much of the crap is D.C. does to you, don't you want somebody obstructing that? I wish I was better obstructing the insane spending, right?

ED GALLREIN, (R) KENTUCKY CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: If we do not take advantage of this narrow window of opportunity we have, history will punish us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was on the campaign trail yesterday with Ed Gallrein. He is the Republican challenger to Thomas Massie. That was very unusual in and of itself. We have never seen a secretary of defense, certainly during a time of war out on the political campaign trail. He said he was doing it in his personal capacity.

But today is about the voters. Voters will be weighing in and several thousands, tens of thousands of Kentuckians have already voted early. So there's no doubt that the outside focus of this race has been very intense. But voters in Kentucky are deciding on an array of issues.

And again, it's that loyalty for President Trump in a state that he won very handily in a 2024 versus the loyalty of Thomas Massie. I mean, he has won here again and again, and people know him. But Sara, there's no doubt the outside forces here are taking a toll on the race.

And Thomas Massie knows he's in the fight for his political life -- Sara.

SIDNER: And it has been a nasty one, according to those from Kentucky. Jeff Zeleny, we will see what the outcome is. I know you will have it for us. Thank you so much. I do appreciate it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: There is new word in from the World Health Organization now. Why the chief says that he is deeply concerned now about the Ebola outbreak.

And Alex Murdaugh. He is now suing the former court clerk who is at the center of his murder convictions being thrown out. Details on that.

And why a surprise appearance at a graduation ceremony by a dog named Honey brought the house down. Oh, look at that little cat.

[08:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: This morning, the head of the WHO, the World Health Organization, is sounding new alarm about the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa, saying that he's deeply concerned with how quickly the virus is now spreading. Overnight, we learned that there are more than 130 deaths linked to the virus centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC's health minister says that there are more than 500 suspected cases. An American missionary doctor is among them working in the DRC is among those who have tested positive. His wife, also a doctor, is being monitored there as well.

Let's bring in CNN's Dr Sanjay Gupta for much more on this and just a lot of questions and a lot of worry. Anytime you hear the word Ebola, of course, Sanjay, you've done so much reporting on this over the years.

How did this outbreak start? And how would you describe in the moment kind of where what the status is of this outbreak?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, good morning, Kate. You know, I have spent a lot of time in that part of the world. And I can tell you to the second part of your question, we're not entirely sure where things stand right now. And that's often the case for outbreaks.

Looking at those numbers that you just cited almost assuredly, an undercount of how things are going right now. Let me give you a little bit of a timeline of what has happened over the past few weeks. It was back in April 24th, about 3.5 weeks ago, where there was a suspected case. It was a health care worker who got sick, had a lot of the symptoms of Ebola, weren't quite sure. May 5th is when the World Health Organization gets this alert that there's an unknown illness sort of going around. And then there's that gap, about 10 day gap between the time of that alert going out and then the confirmed cases of Ebola.

[08:45:00]

And that gives you some sense of just how long it took to even after there was a notification to confirm those cases. And there's all sorts of different reasons for that. And then, as we know, May 17th was this declaration of a public health emergency of international concern, which basically means that this was a serious event, a sudden event, an unexpected event, and that there's implications beyond the borders that you're seeing there.

So this is sort of the north part of DRC, just along the border with Uganda. But we know there's cases in Uganda as well. So it's already crossing borders -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: You mentioned in showing how long it took for the world to learn about this outbreak. What are the reasons that you're hearing that what led to that gap? I mean, there's been a lot of talk about cuts to public funding and cuts to staffing in public health -- public health funding and cuts to staffing in public health.

Is that contributing to this?

GUPTA: I think that is probably contributing to it. But, you know, let me just paint a picture of that part of the world. Again, we've been in that area, done a lot of reporting there.

It is a volatile area, Kate. You know, we're sort of used to sort of thinking about how public health infrastructure should work. It's very hard for that public health infrastructure to work, especially when you have conflict.

Second of all, you know, there have been 17 Ebola outbreaks really since the mid-1970s, but only three of this particular type, Bundibugyo. So a lot of the testing equipment -- this is just the practicalities of things -- but a lot of the testing equipment is designed for other Ebola viruses, not so much this one. So even just doing a PCR test or something like that, you might not have the right reagents and that might still affect things going forward.

You're probably going to have these huge gaps between suspected cases and confirmed cases. You'll see that over the next several days because it's just very hard to test. And then, yes, these cuts.

USAID probably in particular, you know, when I covered Ebola in 2014, you saw USAID on the ground and they were doing a lot of surveillance in those initial sort of days as well to get better counts. So if you sort of combine all these things, lack of testing, volatile area, some of the cuts, it's not surprising to have a situation like we see unfolding right now.

BOLDUAN: And you also have this strain that there's no vaccine for and no proven therapies for. So if you have that, how are they treating people?

GUPTA: It's hard. It's challenging. I will say what was interesting, you know, you go back to 2014, we saw when there were patients that came to the United States and they got very early treatment, you had a much lower mortality rate than the mortality rate that's often quoted with these viruses, anywhere between 25 to 70 percent mortality, certainly lower in the United States.

So supportive treatment, giving fluids, replacing those fluids, treating bleeding if it's happening, things like that, that can make a difference. But your point is that there's no vaccine, there's no specific antiviral, there aren't the monoclonal antibody therapies that we heard so much about during COVID. I will say that a couple of those things are being tested right now -- they were being tested even before this outbreak.

New antiviral or an antiviral for this Ebola virus specifically, and also some of these monoclonal antibodies. We'll see if some of those things start getting used depending on the size and scope of this outbreak. But you're quite right. I mean, we don't have a sort of silver bullet at this point to try and treat something like this.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And just, you know, you see these images of how geared up these physicians are to go in to help people. It is understandably terrifying and concerning to everyone who's watching.

But watching very closely and you're reporting on it is so critical. Thank you, Sanjay -- John. BERMAN: All right, I was watching those outfits they're wearing.

BOLDUAN: I know, they have to put their names on it and the time that they're going in.

BERMAN: Incredible, just incredible. All right, we're standing by for an NTSB hearing on the catastrophic UPS plane crash that killed 15 people in Kentucky.

And then evacuate now, the order going out to tens of thousands of residents in California, as wildfire rages. The winds forecast for today could make things even worse.

[08:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Very shortly, the National Transportation Safety Board will begin a hearing on the deadly UPS plane crash in Kentucky last year. The UPS cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Louisville, killing 15 people, including the three members on board. 23 other people on the ground were also injured.

CNN's Pete Muntean is live at NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C. Pete, what do we expect from this hearing, which does begin very shortly?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, this hearing just gaveled into session and investigative hearings by the NTSB like this are rare. The big question for investigators. Did problems with this Boeing MD-11F cargo plane exist silently in the background for years?

Investigators here will essentially lay out a new timeline. They will show raw security video never before seen of the left engine of this plane going up and over the wing at the worst possible time right at takeoff. They will also release an animation of the failure of the engine pylon itself that held the engine onto the (INAUDIBLE). The focus up till now has been on the hardware internal to that structure.

Investigators at the scene of the crash in Louisville found a broken lug sheared in two clear pieces. They will detail those problems with that lug because Boeing back in 2011 issued concerns about that lug nut to airlines and operators. But it was not severe enough for Boeing to issue a mandate for inspections.

Some really big questions here. Were these problems missed? Was there a need for additional oversight? Was there a need for additional inspections?

This is a courtroom style proceeding here and those who testify are under oath. That includes Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration and UPS.

The large question here.

[08:55:00] Did these problems really exist in a long and drawn out way for years here leading up to this crash? That is what investigators may find out in the end.

BERMAN: All right, a lot of new data points being presented for the first time in public. Pete, I imagine we'll get a chance to see them shortly. It's great to have you there keeping us updated as this progresses. Thank you very much -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, john.

Up ahead, it's primary day in several key states. How heated races in Georgia could be an early test for both parties nationwide. We'll take it there live.

And why a dog named Honey made a surprise appearance at a graduation ceremony? Look at that beauty.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: The San Diego community is reeling this morning after the deadly shooting at the city's largest mosque. A security guard is among three people killed. He has now been identified as Amin Abdulla, a father of eight who police say undoubtedly saved lives during the attack. That is a picture of Mr. Abdulla.

Police say two teenagers, ages 17 and 18, were found dead in a nearby car from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

[08:30:00]