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IDF Says, Working to Intercept New Wave of Missiles from Iran; Iranian Health Ministry Says, At Least 224 Killed in Israeli Strikes; A.P. Reports, Suspect in Minnesota Lawmaker Shootings Caught. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired June 15, 2025 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

BRIAN ABEL, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to all of you here in the U.S. and around the world. I'm Brian Abel in Atlanta.

We are following breaking news this hour with -- beginning with tonight, Israel, where the IDF says Iran launched a new wave of missiles towards the country. You are taking a live look right now over Israel. Israel's military says it was working to intercept the latest in a series of back and forth strikes over the weekend, as the IDF seeks to wipe out Iran's nuclear program. You see rescue workers right here, first responders sifting through the rubble from the latest strikes.

Iran state affiliated news agency confirming an Israeli strike in Tehran on Sunday resulted in the deaths of two high ranking officials, the intelligence chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and his deputy general. You see right now residents, it appears, coming out of the area that was just impacted in Tel Aviv as those first responders work to get everybody out and assess the situation. At least 224 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since Friday, according to Iran's Ministry of Health. More than 1,200 others have been injured in the strikes as well.

The IDF targeted multiple weapons production sites in Iran on Sunday, including a site that produces navigation and missile systems, one that makes fuel for various types of missiles and another that produces missile engines. And this is some of the retaliation from Iran's towards Israel right now with this latest strike.

Other sites were hit as well on Sunday, including the library of Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran, according to an official. The IDF also hitting Mashhad International Airport in what it claims is the longest range strike since the operation began. Israel's military chief of staff says strikes will only get more intense from here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. EYAL ZAMIR, CHIEF OF STAFF, ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES: We will continue to intensify our operations, and in doing so, strengthen our security for years to come. Defending our home front is a critical component of this campaign. As I told you from the beginning, there will be difficult moments. We are in the midst of a challenge unlike those we have faced in the past. We knew there would be a price, and it underscores why we act now before it became too late.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABEL: And as we've said, Iran has responded with strikes of its own on Israel. And right now, we have Nic Robertson on the phone with what the very latest information is. Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, there were a number of strikes around Central Israel area close or sort of around the Tel Aviv area about 40 minutes ago. And literally now standing out in the early morning air, the sun is just on the verge of coming up here. What you can smell here is the smell of explosives, of cordite in the air, and that is not normal. And that really speaks to the volume of outgoing intercept missiles that we were seeing in this area, also able to see from this location as well, what appeared to be a number of impacts.

It's not clear yet precisely what may or may not have been at those impact sites. My colleague, Jeremy Diamond, is on his way at the moment to give us a firsthand assessment of some of what he may be about to see in this area. But definitely just about 40 minutes ago, quite a large barrage of intercept missiles fired, loud explosions, one very big detonation, not far away from where we are standing, really loud.

And this is becoming the norm now. It seems. Iran steps up its strikes overnight. There have been strikes in the north of the country as well, a major port city in the north of the country, not clear the damage there or what may have been targeted or what may have been hit. But what we are seeing here are civilian casualties. We know from Israeli officials so far, 14 people have been killed, more than 380 injured.

[22:05:04]

And that was before we went into this latest round of strikes.

And it wasn't just the strikes at 4:20 A.M. here. There were strikes again, sirens going off in the center of Israel and other parts of Israel, with intercept missiles being fired incoming Iranian missiles. So, it's been quite an intense night, I would say, if you sort of look across the whole of the country, a number of times that people will have been woken up here and told to go to their shelters, responding to the sirens that go off in the cities, the alarm systems on -- through, through messaging over phone apps, all of that getting people out of their beds in the middle of the night multiple times to go take shelter and be safe.

ABEL: Nic, I know you've been on the ground reporting and taking a look at damage from previous nights. Based on what you are seeing and/or hearing at this moment and the barrage of missiles that you are describing at this moment, are you getting any sense that more Iranian missiles have gotten through Israel's air defenses than usual? ROBERTSON: Yes, I think it's very, very hard to say, to make that judgment at this time of day. I mean, typically, the military will give their assessments. We'll hear from political officials. Statistically, what we were hearing from the prime minister's office yesterday, they were saying that this was yesterday afternoon, saying that there have been 200 Iranian missiles fired into Israel so far that have been counted and that they have been able to detect, 22 impact locations, which means about one in ten of the missiles were able to get through. And it's not clear if that statistic has changed overnight tonight. We just don't know the number of incoming missiles.

We certainly, in the early part of the evening, were seeing some very high intercepts, very, very high intercepts and a lot of intercepts with no real evidence of anything impacting. I would say this latest barrage possibly more impacting, but it's very hard to make an assessment at this time.

ABEL: Nic, I know, I know you're in Bat Yam. We're also looking at pictures in Petan Tikva and and there's also been images from Tel Aviv at this hour. Is there any sense of how much of the impacts from missiles tonight are residential versus military targets?

ROBERTSON: Again, quite literally, I think we'll look to our colleague, Jeremy Diamond, who is -- who will be trying to make that very, very early assessment for us. But from where I'm standing, in the center of Tel Aviv, it is very hard to know precisely what was hit and what wasn't.

Certainly, I can say that the impact that I saw on the big explosion, the detonation I saw and felt this morning, that is certainly to me looks as if it's in a residential area, absolutely. But without being there on the ground, I couldn't give that firm assessment.

ABEL: And, Nic, also you were describing hearing explosions overhead. Do you feel at this moment that the barrage is over for the evening?

ROBERTSON: There has been an all clear warning put out. So, it does appear at the moment that that was that salvo. It seems what Iran does is it appears to launch salvos of missiles and an assessment of why they would launch salvos of missiles rather than, you know, one or two. And then a few minutes later, another couple, is because what they try to do is swarm an overwhelmed the defense system. And they try to do that by putting multiple, multiple warheads, rockets, missiles in the air at the same time towards similar locations so that they can try to overwhelm the air defenses.

And, again, not clear at this stage if they were able to do that. But what we can say is that that particular salvo is over, the sun is coming up here and, typically, you know, looking, obviously Iran is further east, the sun will be up there, and, typically, they don't do the majority of their missile launches during the day because for technical reasons about fueling missile systems and the obvious possibility of being spotted doing it and therefore targeted, particularly as Israel now has greater dominance, safe dominance of the airspace over Iran. We were hearing some of the Israeli airstrikes overnight and going into the night last night, that Israel was targeting not just facilities, missile-making facilities in and around Tehran, but also they were targeting potential missile launch sites in Western Iran.

[22:10:10]

So, as Israel gets greater air dominance in Iran taking out surface- to-air missile systems, it can then target those missiles on the ground, the so-called surface-to-surface missiles that take off in Iran and smack right down here in Israel.

ABEL: And as you were talking, Nic, we're seeing new video, including what appears to be victims on stretchers getting pulled out from areas impacted by these missiles.

International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson for us on the ground and Bat Yam, Nic, thank you.

Let's go to Cedric Leighton at this moment, if you are with us. Cedric, what are you making of these incredible, stunning images that we are seeing here as some of those missiles make their way through Israel's defense systems?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Brian. This is one of the areas where the defense system has to fail once for there to be spectacular images. They might get 99 percent of the missiles and drones that are coming into Israel, but if they miss just one missile out of that a hundred, that's going to be -- you know, it could result in catastrophic situations, like the ones we're seeing that Nic was reporting on just now.

So, what we've really got here, Brian, is a situation where we can clearly see that the Iron Dome and the associated missile and air defense systems, such as David's Sling and the Arrow 2 and the Arrow 3 systems, they are not completely foolproof. They are not, you know, the kind of seal that, you know, we've, in some cases, been led to believe that Israel has over its key target areas, such as its main cities.

So, the difficulty that the Israelis have is that they really have to find a way in which they can get at all of the Iranian launch sites. So, they're working very hard at doing that. You know, all the reports that we see from the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, indicate that they are actively targeting the missile launch areas. But a lot of these missiles are mobile missiles. And the fact that they can launch very quickly and launch basically undetected until they've actually reached a certain trajectory, a certain height, that, you know, makes it really difficult for the Israelis to defend against these incoming missiles.

ABEL: And, Colonel, forgive me if you aren't fully briefed on this, but it is our understanding, our reporting, that some of these missiles are new missiles for Iran that have the ability to pierce through these various Israel defense systems. Do you have any sense whatsoever the capabilities of those missiles when it comes to targeting, whether they can be accurate within so many yards, so many feet, area that is close to a military site versus residential?

LEIGHTON: Yes, one of those missiles, in fact, Brian is something called the Haj Qassem missile. And it's a solid-fueled rocket basically that -- it provides the fuel to it. It has a range of about 1,200 kilometers. So, that puts it within range. If launched from Iran, it puts Israel within range of that missile.

So, if it is a hypersonic missile, like initial reports indicate, it will have speed to such an extent, basically, we're talking somewhere above Mach 5, Mach 6, six times speed of sound, and once or greater. And once it reaches that kind of a speed, it becomes really difficult for the standard missile defense systems to detect this kind of a missile.

And the other part of this is that you mentioned the targeting part, can they actually be very accurate in their targeting? The answer is yes. They -- you know, some of the capabilities that the Houthis have exhibited recently indicate that the Iranians -- because the Houthis and the Iranians are working together, that indicates that these missiles could in fact be very accurate and they can also basically be maneuverable. And if they're maneuverable, that makes it even more difficult to track them and makes the current missile defense array that the Israelis are employing makes it not necessarily obsolete but makes it a lot harder to track these kinds of missiles than was possible with the other kinds of missiles that the Iranians have used before.

ABEL: All right. Colonel Cedric Leighton, I appreciate your expertise, as always. I'm sure we'll be talking with you as the night progresses. Thank you, sir.

LEIGHTON: You bet.

ABEL: Let's bring in now Aaron David Miller, former State Department Middle East negotiator, joining us from Washington, as well as David Sanger, CNN political and national security analyst, who is also with us.

[22:15:03]

And, gentlemen, I'll go to you first, Aaron. When you take a look at these images tonight and all that we have seen over the last handful of nights, it seems to be somewhat of a case of more of the same, yet at the same time, a little bit different in terms of just how many of the missiles have gotten through tonight on the Israel side.

AARON DAVID MILLER, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT MIDDLE EAST NEGOTIATOR: Yes. I mean, look, you can't -- thanks for having. You can't hermetically seal a country. I don't care how competent Israelis are and how multi-layered their defense is, supplemented, I might add, by RF-35 Aegis Cruisers and THAAD, the terminal high altitude defense. No matter, you are going to see strikes that get through.

I think of the 380 missile -- ballistic missiles that have been launched, including the new hypersonics, there may have been 25, 26 strikes, that is to say a missile impacting an urban area, destroying lives and buildings. Some fall on open ground. So, that's out of 380. We're talking still a fairly low percentage. But when they do get through, as they have -- and remember, this is not April and October of 2024 when the Iranians are telegraphing their moves and looking for specific military targets. When you launch this kind of volume of a missile in highly densely populated urban areas, you are going to destroy buildings and you are going to kill people.

And the upshot of this, I think, is unmistakably clear. The Israelis are going to continue to identify nuclear sites and ballistic missiles and production, but they are going to launch at civilian or urban areas. And I suspect next week at this time, we're going to be having the same conversation because there is no end in sight for this round between Iran and Israel.

ABEL: And to that point, David Sanger, we seem to be in this conversation where we're talking about potential off ramps. Yet when we see what's happened this evening in Israel and what's happened over the last 72 hours between these two countries, it doesn't seem to be that either one of these countries are at any point willing to stand down at this moment. If anything, they're accelerating.

We did see Israel issue a warning to Iranians, if you live near weapons development centers, facilities, get away from them. And then we saw Iran do the same towards Israelis, and it seems to be that that was a little bit more than bluster tonight, David.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: And, you know, I'm with Aaron on this. I don't see an easy off-ramp here. I know the president on his way out of the White House this evening when he was getting ready to fly to the G7 in Canada, said there's easy space here for a deal. Maybe so, I don't understand quite what the easy space is, and here's why.

For the Israelis, they feel as if they've got the advantage here of having taken the initiative, that they had the element of surprise little more than 48 hours ago, Friday evening our time, that they still are able to get much more into the Tehran aerospace than the Iranians can get into Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

So, I think the Israelis believe that the only thing that makes sense for them right now is to proceed with the mission. And the mission is to cripple the Iranian nuclear facilities. And, frankly, I don't know if Aaron agrees with this or not, but my look at this is they have made a dent, but they've got a huge way to go if they really want to take out all of the nuclear facilities.

For the -- and I'm sorry, I was just going to say, for the Iranians, you know, their only move right now is whatever missiles they can get in, even if it's under 10 percent of what they shoot.

ABEL: And back to you, Aaron. Let see if you agree with that analysis.

MILLER: I do. I think -- well, first of all, David knows this issue up and down, sideways three times over. Look, I think, the Israelis have a dilemma. And the dilemma flows from a sort of diffuse set of objectives here.

I mean, the security cabinet guidelines talk about crippling or damaging the nuclear program, but the reality is I'm not sure that given what we've seen, particularly tonight, the notion that Israel will not be able to essentially destroy the program and it's going to be very hard for them to stand down if in fact the program more or less survives.

[22:20:02]

And that's the dilemma that I think that the Israelis are going to face.

And for the U.S., I think dilemma is acute as well. President Trump does not want to get involved in this war for so many reasons, but at the same time, he can't end it. And what that suggests to me is, I don't want to trivialize here, but this is going to be wash, rinse, and repeat for a significant period of time to come.

The only things that I could see that could possibly change the trajectory is if some of these ballistic missiles get through, get through and cause a mass casualty event in Israel, I think the Trump administration will be under tremendous pressure to join the fight or, alternatively, the Iranians make a mistake or willfully target American forces or assets, which would bring the U.S. in. But other than that, I think we have at least a couple more weeks of this at some level.

ABEL: And, David, jumping off of what Aaron's just saying there about basically the red line for the US to get involved if a ballistic missile from Iran is to create a mass casualty incident. Is that what Iran wants?

SANGER: You know, I don't think so. I think what Iran wanted to do was keep the negotiations going, probably drag it out as long as they could. President Trump said the other day that, you know, they had gone beyond his two-month deadline that he had set, but hadn't really talked about that deadline publicly previous to that.

But I think that there's one other thing that could make the United States go in, and that is if Prime Minister Netanyahu could persuade President Trump, that the fastest way to get the nuclear program taken out was for the U.S. to come in and use its bunker busters and its much larger capacity bombers to go join it.

But that runs contrary to President Trump's understandable desire to stay out of another war in the Middle East. Meaning he campaigned twice on the concept that we've been in too many wars in the Middle East and we are unable to win them and we are unable to pull out from them.

So, he doesn't want to get American pilots up in the air there. He doesn't want American soldiers on the ground. It's very much what Joe Biden concluded about Ukraine. So, you know, I think the president sort of stuck here for just the reasons Aaron described. ABEL: Aaron David Miller and David Sanger, please stay with us. I do want to go back now to Nic Robertson joining us from Tel Aviv live. And, Nic, it's our understanding that you've been able to, you and your crew, get up to a safe position and. And now with the daylight starting to come out, what are you seeing?

ROBERTSON: Yes. What we're seeing and hearing through local media here at the moment, as our colleague, Jeremy Diamond, it gets better positioned on the ground. We are seeing images and hearing reports as well of people who were taking shelter close to where some of the explosions were coming out of their shelters, people being led away by rescue recovery services from near impact sites. We have seen images of some injured being recovered from the scenes.

But, again, it is still very early here to have that assessment of how many people may have been injured. I think the fact that we haven't heard so far, it's been probably about an hour now since the impacts, we haven't heard yet of one particular instance of one location where there may have been a significant number of casualties. And maybe that's indicative of the fact that most people were sheltering and that there has not been such an incident in this latest round of strikes.

But, again, I do have to stress it is very early at the moment to have these fully informed assessments. Typically, the rescue services go in, the medical teams go in. Their priority is to get people that need to go to hospital, to hospital, if there are people who are in a precarious situation under rubble, get them out. It's when they've done that, that's when they typically pass on some of the facts and figures of what's happening.

ABEL: Nic, you mentioned people coming out of bunkers. Playing off of that, what kind of announcement ahead of time, what kind of alerts did people get, and just how safe, how strong are those bunkers are they able to take to withstand these ballistic missiles?

ROBERTSON: So, I think a couple of points there.

[22:25:01]

One is, and I think it's right to say this, Israeli authorities don't want a detailed analysis of their air defense systems and their early warning systems being talked about in detail. Because they think that that gives information to the Iranians about how they could better target, where they could better target, all that sort of thing.

That said, in a city like Tel Aviv, that is more than a thousand miles from where these ballistic missiles which fly high into the sort of low atmosphere and then come down at huge speed. It gives an amount of time. And, typically, what we've seen in this city is that there is enough time from those warnings, the early warnings that people get to get to the shelter. And that's the way the system is designed. And then people will go to the shelter and then there will perhaps be another round of warnings to say, this is really close. This is really, really close. So, people have adhere, at least in this part of Central Israel, because the missiles are coming in such a distance, better amount of time to get to the shelters. Clearly, for the elderly, the infirm, it's not as easy and it's harder.

And, typically, most modern buildings in Israel these days are built with safe rooms. It's standard building procedure. So, because Israel has been under pressure from Iran's proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, for such a long time, buildings have a room that is a safe space.

It has to be said, however, with the type of missile systems, the heavy, large ballistic missiles that Iran is using, that if a building takes a direct hit, even these safe rooms are not going to be sufficient. But what we are seeing, and I saw it today in a house less than a hundred yards from where there have been the massive impact in Bat Yam, where half the side of an 11-storey apartment building had collapsed and been sheared off and literally walls, exterior walls ripped off buildings 20, 30, 40 meters away. I was in a building where the windows had been ripped out. The window frames hanging off, the door frames inside the building, steel door frames inside a concrete building, had been ripped off.

And I spoke to the elderly couple in one of the apartments there and they told me they'd been in their shelter. They'd been in their safe space when the big missile had hit. And as terrifying as it was, and as devastating as it was to come back into their out of the safe space and just find glass strewn everywhere, their property ripped apart, belonging, strewn everywhere, they were safe.

And so I think that speaks to the fact that while these safe spaces may not have been built to withstand a direct impact, people in the vicinity, if they're in their buildings and they're in those safe spaces, they are proving to be safe.

So, I think that's perhaps the best analysis we can look at the moment. I hope it is a good analysis.

ABEL: And we are seeing some of those images that speak to what you're talking about, Nic, about the ability of these missiles to have significant damage. We're seeing a concrete building here with drones as well as people searching inside what's left of that building for any survivors. So, when they do hit they can be quite impactful.

Nic, I want you to stay with us and I know you're continuing to work your sources. I want to bring back in Colonel Leighton, if we can. And, Colonel, if you're able to still hear me, if you're with us, you know, the earlier in the day, over the last 24, 48 hours, we did hear from both sides of this conflict warn each other's citizens. Does that give you any sort of sense that either side is trying to minimize the amount of civilian casualties here?

LEIGHTON: Well, that seems to be the case certainly for the Israelis, Brian. And one of the things that you have to look at is you know how they're accurate their targeting is. And it seems as if both sides are looking at certain specific areas. Now, when you look at residential buildings being hit, like here we see in Petah Tikva and in Israel, right near Tel Aviv, there are, you know, certainly indicators that the Iranians may not care as much about civilian casualties because their missiles are certainly hitting residential areas if they are, in fact, trying to get people out of there because there's also another installation there where they just want to create damage. You know, that could speak to you know, maybe a more nuanced approach to this effort.

But, historically, the Iranians, you know, have not cared as much about civilian casualties. The Israelis are more tolerant of them than some other armed forces are, for example, the U.S. tries very hard to minimize civilian casualties when we engage in military operations. But as we know, we're not always successful in doing that.

[22:30:01]

And so the Israelis have tried various methods of warning civilians in places like Gaza. Some of them have been more successful than others. But it doesn't avoid the destruction and both sides seem to be bent on destroying the infrastructure of the other side. At least that's what seems to be playing out right now.

ABEL: Well, Colonel, you do mention, at least from a United States perspective, the intention to try to minimize civilian casualties, and those are the rules, at least internally of engagement that the U.S. plays by. What rules are Iran and Israel playing by at the moment?

LEIGHTON: So, both countries should be following the laws of armed conflict, and basically what's sort of euphemistically known as the rules of war. But the Israelis are much more -- you know, basically they're much more developed in terms of their judicial system and their ability to punish their own should something go wrong.

Now, they're not perfect at it and there certainly are going to be instances where they've basically been reprimanded or censured by international legal bodies. The Iranians have basically never really submitted themselves to any type of international court or any other type of international proceeding. And that, you know, basically speaks to the fact that they don't have as developed a legal targeting process basically, when the U.S. for example, and also Israel, when they go through the targeting process, there are legal elements. There is, you know, basically the judge advocate general or the equivalent will look at whether or not the targets are legal entities that can be hit, can be struck under the laws of armed conflict. And if it passes muster, then that target can be struck. That's basically how the U.S. system works.

The Israelis are a bit more lenient. Their structure is a little bit different. The Iranians don't really have that kind of a structure, so they're going to be more willing to basically cause damage on civilian entities because to them, that's not an illegal act and that's basically how they how they enter into this.

ABEL: Colonel, thank you for breaking down those rules of engagement for us. I do want to go back now to Nic Robertson in Tel Aviv with new reporting. And, Nic, what more are you learning?

ROBERTSON: Yes. Medical officials here with Magen David Adom, the sort of Red Cross Emergency Service here, they are now giving some of their first statistics. These could change, but they're reporting 29 people injured, 29. We understand three moderately injured, the other 26 with more mild injuries. I think we can expect these numbers to go up as the assessments come in.

And we're also hearing that there are three locations where people unable to get out of the buildings trapped by rubble, trapped at the moment, have been located in communication with the people that are coming to rescue them. So, that is also ongoing, a situation very much like yesterday, as we saw in Bat Yam where buildings collapse, people who were in their shelters are safe. This is the picture that's emerging. But, obviously, some casualties and some people trapped, so 29 injuries reported so far.

ABEL: All right, Nic, thank you.

Let's bring in now Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, who is also with us now. And, Trita, I want to see what you are making out of the last, not even 24 hours, the last handful of hours. What stands out to you?

TRITA PARSI, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, QUINCY INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT: What stands out is that the Israelis clearly committed a huge mistake starting this war in the first place because they underestimated the Iranian ability to regroup. After the Israelis very successfully targeted the top leadership of the Iranian military and managed to kill several of them thinking they had disrupted the Iranian command and control, but that was quickly restructured. And now we see that the Iranian missiles are quite successful in penetrating all layers of Israel's air defense systems, including the American THAAD system.

I do want to say something in regards to what was talked about earlier on, whether the Iranians are targeting civilians, et cetera, the number speaks for themselves. More than 300 to 400 Iranian civilians have already been killed because Israelis have been targeting apartment buildings, city centers. Today, they said on Israeli news that they set off five car bombs inside of Tehran, which is essentially the definition of terrorism.

Mindful of what Israel has done in Gaza for the last year-and-a-half, killing scores, I mean, we're talking about more than 50,000 people. I don't think they have any care, whatsoever for international law. They have run a campaign to essentially erase the norms of the use of force, and now we see how that is coming back to haunt.

[22:35:00]

ABEL: And they did provide at least that warning to Iranians in the last 24 or 48 hours or so, that if you live near military installations, weapons development facilities, to get out of the way because you're in harm's way there, there is that.

I do want to ask you about what you just mentioned with saying that Israel might be regretting starting this conflict, or at least this chapter of it with Iran, based on what we are seeing. Do you believe that there was any sort of calculation that there is an acceptable amount of response that they are willing to tolerate, willing to absorb in order to carry out the attacks that they have done on Iran?

PARSI: There's been some figures that have been circulating on social media by Israeli journalists saying that Netanyahu had in a cabinet meeting said that somewhere between 800, 5,000 Israeli deaths is a total tolerable level. We don't know if that is entirely true. But, you know, clearly, there must have been some level of understanding on the Israeli side, that this is not the same thing as bombing refugee camps in Gaza. There would be a response.

They have underestimated what that response has been. This is part of the reason why it took them less than 24 hours to go back to Donald Trump. And after first having told them, you don't have to do it, just let us do it, they've gone back to him and said, you know what, actually, why don't you come in and do it, which clearly is not something they would've said had they not been unsuccessful.

ABEL: Trita Parsi, thank you. Stay with us.

I want to bring back David Sanger now and discuss some of the political implications of what we are witnessing right now. David, does this change any sort of calculus for either Benjamin Netanyahu or the Iranians at this moment?

SANGER: I don't think anything you've seen tonight changes the calculus. I think the next big pressure points we're going to see will be actually at the G7, where President Trump has arrived tonight.

So, President Trump basically says he wants a deal to end this, but he clearly knew that the Israelis were going to conduct this. He said that himself. He knew it by, you know, roughly a week ago, continued on calling for the negotiations, but knowing that there would be this military action, or there would likely be that military action in between.

Now he's got to decide does he go help the Israelis, does he call for a peace agreement and try to get the Israelis and the Iranians into one room on this issue, or act as the mediator between them, or does he side with the Europeans who naturally will call, I suspect most of the other G7 countries, for this war to simply stop right now, to be frozen where it is. And for the reasons we discussed before, I just don't see that dynamic right now.

ABEL: David, to that point, can there come out of the G7 any sort of collective mediation beyond saying, stop the war? And also we do know that President Trump floated the idea of Vladimir Putin being a mediator in this. How realistic is that?

SANGER: So, President Putin has every reason to want to go do this. Obviously, Iran is in the China, Russia, North Korea orbit right now, and they've been a major supplier to the Russians in the war in Ukraine. For Putin, the advantages of doing this are huge, right? I mean, on the one hand, he doesn't want to see this war continue anymore than anybody else does. But more importantly, if he can act with President Trump to end this, then he suddenly has got a joint project with the United States that has nothing to do with Ukraine, and in which the U.S. basically can't say, well, we have to end the war in Ukraine first.

So, it's completely in Putin's interest to both enter this as -- you know, offer his role to talk to the Iranians and hope that he'll get relief from the U.S. and European pressure on the Ukraine war.

ABEL: All right. David, I appreciate your time. We are going to go catch in a quick break. We'll be back with more reporting from Nic Robertson and Jeremy Diamond on the ground.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:40:00]

ABEL: The breaking news just into CNN, the manhunt in Minnesota is now over. The Associated Press says authorities have caught 57-year- old Vance Boelter, the suspect in the fatal shooting of a state representative and her husband. He's also been linked to a separate shooting that left a state senator and his wife wounded.

Joining us now is Steve Moore. Steve, what do you see as the element that really broke the back here when it came to trying to find the suspect?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I'd, I'd have to know more, know more about it, but what I'm, what I'm thinking is they let something, let something slip in one of their press conferences where they said he was communicating with people but they didn't know if those people were helping him. What that means is they knew from one side of the conversation that he was communicating with people. And once you know who he's communicating with usually means you know how he's doing it, and that zeros you in real quick.

ABEL: Does that allow authorities to triangulate a cell phone signal, trace things back? How does that work, Steve?

MOORE: Well, what it means to me is they did -- that they knew -- they somehow got onto a communication device that he was using. I would assume that it wasn't his original one because it wouldn't go with his planning that he had set out, you know, so carefully beforehand, apparently. But if he had gotten a burner phone or something like that, talked with one person who told the police what that number was, then, yes, they can, and I'm theorizing here, but if you have their number on even a burner phone, you can triangulate them, find out where they might be and where they've been in the past time.

[22:45:10] And even if they communicate to somebody, you can actually beat them to that person and have that person cooperating by the time they meet.

ABEL: We do know in that second press conference that they said the suspect's wife was cooperating. There's also been roughly 400 tips that have come in. When you hear that amount, is that something that was normal, that could have helped this along, or is that an abnormal amount?

MOORE: No, I don't think that's an abnormal amount at all. I think that's probably par for the course. But you have to realize that of those 400, probably 350 had very little investigative value. And that's one of the issues when you're doing a large case with this kind of publicity. You're going to have to spend a lot of your manpower trying to wade through tips that really aren't very good.

But, yes, it's possible that in those 400, there were some very valuable ones. It's a very small percentage. The other thing is his wife, as you say, was apparently cooperating and that can be useful. But I've seen both sides. I've seen people who were about to do something horrible and didn't tell the wife in order to protect them, and then I've seen it the other way where the wife knew about it the whole way in.

ABEL: All right. Steve Moore, thank you.

I want to bring in Juliette Kayyem now. And Juliette, I do want to ask now that this suspect is caught, Juliette, where does this investigation move from this point forward?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, I mean, there are just basic questions that have to be answered at this stage. The first is, of course, were there any co-conspirators? Maybe there wasn't. The police said today the wife was being cooperative. The A.P., who were citing as well on this, has said that he was found sort of close to one of his properties or properties. So, he was clearly did not have an exit plan. He had planned on keeping -- being able to keep the car on the night he did -- or the morning he did these killings.

So, that's just going to be sort of the methods questions that I have is sort of how did he do this? How long have you been thinking about it? How did someone who wasn't sort of particularly radicalized -- we certainly know, we've seen videos of him on air about things that he said, he went abroad, affiliations with a church clearly an anti, you know, either progressive or Democratic animus, did he have ties to any political causes, all of those things.

The second is actually, in some ways, I want to -- you want to -- it's like the harder thing, which is -- or the harder next stage, which is two elected officials were shot in a premeditated manner for a political purpose. That is terrorism. I mean, it is, it is to terrorize our democracy. And we've seen a lot of really not great stuff online by politicians sort of already politicizing this as if these weren't human beings with children. And that piece of it because it had to be -- ABEL: And, Juliette, forgive me for interrupting here, but we do have Whitney Wild that's live in Minneapolis for us, and I do want to go to her and. And, Whitney, what are you hearing about what brought this to an end?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: We are still waiting on these details of when, where, and how. But what we know for sure is that this man is in custody. And this follows a nearly 48-hour intense manhunt that involved local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. As we had said on CNN several times today that bears repeating, every single person in Minnesota with a gun and a badge was on high alert to try to find Vance Boelter.

And so what we know is that earlier today, law enforcement had zeroed in on a car of interest. They had been tracking this car. They knew where it was, at least by earlier this morning. And so they were able to again zero in on that car. And then there's began this real on foot manhunt this area surrounding the car, and then as well as the forest that was, surrounding this vehicle. So, really spread out. And this was a boots on the ground, a very old school law enforcement approach, to try to find him.

So, there are many more details that we need to answer. We are expecting more information from law enforcement by 10:30 Central Time, so we are working to bring you more details. But the good news is that they do have this man in custody and that he no longer poses a risk to the public. Back to you, Brian.

ABEL: All right. Whitney Wild, thank you, for us in Minneapolis.

Let's go back to Juliette Kayyem now.

[22:50:01]

And, Juliette, one of the questions I had throughout this, even through today, is given the amount of resources that you heard Whitney just mention there, why potentially it took this long to find this suspect and how he was able to get out of the perimeter in the first place after that shootout?

KAYYEM: Well, I mean, that's going to be part of an after-action. It was early in the morning when they encountered him. Remember, they go to the house simply as a patrol and then apparently see the door open and realize this is more than a patrol. So -- and he has some training. He has security training. I don't know how real that was. A lot of people sort of put a shingle, you know, in their home and say, I'm a security expert, but he clearly knew how to use weapons and to acquire weapons and to maintain weapons, and to have this car that looked like a police car. So, he knew what he was doing to cause the most amount of harm. So, that's how he got away.

Then it's nighttime. You have a lockdown. You have an ability of a person maybe to hide for some period of time, even if he didn't plan on it. Then he moves around at nighttime, which is clearly what happened. But his movement may have been, as we're reporting, the thing that gave him away, that eventually the movements make it clear to others that he's moving around or that he's back at some property that he viewed as a safe haven.

So, that's sort of how -- this is -- it seemed like a long time for a manhunt. We're sort of used to them ending quickly. It's not that long. Manhunts can take a while, especially in areas where someone knows the vicinity. We certainly know in Boston it was almost five days before the siren of brothers (ph) were found. So, there's there was a lot of focus.

But people can still hide. I know there's lots of surveillance, lots of cameras. People can still hide and he clearly knew how to.

ABEL: And Juliette, I did interrupt you earlier. I want to go back to the point you were making about the political rhetoric in the country as the backdrop to this and the ramifications on law enforcement, the burden that is now placed on them as a result of that rhetoric.

KAYYEM: Yes. It is impossible. I'm just going to say this directly. It is impossible to protect every person who is a public official. Because you're not just talking about electives, you're talking about state cabinet secretaries, you're talking about a mayor's deputy mayor. Everyone is vulnerable and they feel it.

And there's very little agreement in this country right now, but I think we can agree that political people who are killed should not be trolled. I don't want to get into the politics of this, but we certainly know Senator Mike Lee put out things on Twitter today that sort of defy even trolling or being funny. We have to be super careful about these things because others who may not get the joke, right, who may not think that this is funny or were trolling Democrats or may not see it as funny, then take it to the next step.

There's not a -- look, radicalization is not a direct line. Someone doesn't say X, and then this person does Y or Z. I've been studying radicalization for a long time. It is complicated. It's a variety of sources that get someone triggered, who then does, who premeditates an attack like this. But we can all contribute in important ways to ensuring that we do not help or aid or guide or create, you know, create a connective tissue from what we say as people with platforms, politicians and what's happening out in a world that is exceptionally violent for politicians throughout the world. We can all do our fair share of trying to lower the, the temperature. There are children who have lost their parents. I think we have to remember that.

So, we'll find out his ideology. We know certainly he was targeting Democrats, at least in the first two, and what may have been on this list and progressive causes. Was he tied to any political group? Did he have an affinity to any partisan or political group? We'll learn that. But we all can contribute right now to universal shaming of the killing of politicians.

ABEL: Juliette Kayyem, I appreciate your time. Thank you, as always, for your analysis.

Let's bring back Steve Moore, who's still with us now. And, Steve, I do want to talk briefly about the physical evidence that was found between that vehicle, between the hat being found. When you heard about that, did that give you some hope that this thing might come to a close soon?

MOORE: Yes, because, excuse me, they were -- obviously, they had a point at which they could focus their efforts.

[22:55:07]

When you just -- when you have nothing, when you just have, you know, a region in the state of Minnesota, you can't put in aggressive measures. You can't put in -- I think you can't do aerial surveillance effectively. You just don't even know where to start. But once you got that car and realized that he had gotten to that point, then it helps you zero in, it helps you reset perimeters, and it takes it from being a region in a state down to a specific location where a reasonable perimeter could be valuable.

ABEL: I know this investigation, this case is in its infancy, Steve. In the very brief time that we have left, based on what you saw, are there any instant takeaways that law enforcement can have about how this played out?

MOORE: I think it's going to be just another data point in what causes people to go over the edge or what people do when they're going over the edge anyway. I mean, if you look at this guy Bolter or Boelter, however his name's pronounced, you could see that his life was starting to crumble. He was running out of money. His roommate said he was having financial problems. He was having mental illness problems. He boasted big about he and his wife making decisions, but he was living in a room of a friend's house. So, it seemed as though his life was collapsing in on him. And we know that that's a --

ABEL: Steve, we do got to leave it there. I thank you for your time.

I'm Brian Abel. We are back with more of our breaking news coverage from Minnesota and the Middle East in just a few minutes.

Stay with us.

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