good morning, everyone. it's friday. we're so glad you're starting your day with us. >> good morning. >> good morning. it's friday. we made it through the week. it was a good week.

there was also a lot of news, as there has been all week. >> there's more today. let's get started this friday, august 18. this breaking overnight, hurricane hillary intensifying in the pacific. it is now a major category 4 hurricane that's expected to bring flooding and rain to california and the southwest over the weekend. more breaking news, maui's emergency management administrator quit abruptly a day after he defended not sounding the island's sirens as deadly wildfires tore through la hadhaina citing health reasons. and also this just in, fema's disaster fund is slipping into the red and hurricane season hasn't even peaked yet. now pressure is on for congress to pass a spending bill. former president trump wants to push back the trial date in the federal election subversion case by a lot. the special counsel wants january, months from now. trump's team wants april of 2026, about three years from now. and federal prosecutors are recommending the toughest january 6 sentence yet for two leaders of the proud boys, 33

years in prison. prose cnn "this morning" starts right now. and we're going to start with breaking news this morning. a major storm threatening the west coast. hurricane hillary has intensified into a powerful category 4 storm as it nears cabo san lucas. it could bring heavy rain, flooding, and powerful winds to california's baja in the southwest. >> the hurricane is expected to weaken as it heads north. if it hits california as a tropical storm it would be a rare and unprecedented event. the first one to do so in 84 years. we begin with our meteorologist derek van dam. i think anyone waking up this morning hearing a hurricane is heading to southern california will be very confused, as i was. it doesn't happen a lot.

>> yeah, you have to go back to 1939, the last time we had a tropical storm made landfall in southern california this is significant and people are going to be caught off guard with this system. we're closely monitoring it, but this storm intensified by 75 miles per hour just in the past 24 hours. it is a cat 4, winds right now at 145 miles per hour. when will we feel the impacts? the baja peninsula here, this is part of mexico, of course, they'll feel impacts by saturday morning. but as early as saturday evening into southern california, certainly into the day on sunday, and once again on monday across much of the southwestern u.s. but this storm is going to encounter some significantly cooler water compared to where it's moving across right now. and this is going to significantly weaken the storm as it approaches california. it's likely and explicit wording from the national hurricane center, this will pack the punch of a storm as it reaches, let's say, san diego, perhaps into los angeles. now this is a game of miles.

if this storm stays offstore, we have more coastal impacts -- erosion, large waves, rip currents, and even urban flooding because of the proximity to the larger cities. but if it moves inland, it starts to get sheared apart by the baja peninsula, it brings the flash flood more inland, mud slides and the flooding is a big concern here as the potential exists for upwards of a year's worth of rain, if not more, out of this storm system within a period of a day or two really, a significant rainfall threat for much of the southwestern u.s. including our largest populations from l.a. to san diego. >> a year's worth of rain. derek, we keep your agile in your job. no shortage of weather events you're dealing with. we've been following the wildfires in canada. thousands are under evacuation orders. what's the latest on that? >> yeah, look at the smoke just billowing out from these fires across the northwest territory. the fires that are impacting

yellowknife with over 20,000 people being evacuated from this capital city, this is significant because we have a cold front that's going to move through this area. so what that will do is bring the potential for thunderstorms. so more ignition chances for additional fires to form. of course we need the rain, but it won't be enough to quell the wildfires because the winds will pick up with the passage of this front, 25 to 35 miles per hour, not to mention the degradation of the quality of our air we continue to breathe across the midwest. we have air quality alerts stretching from central canada all the way into the northern portions of the country. just look at this, poppy and phil. this year's wildfire burned acres eclipsing the past 40 years for canada. >> that puts everything into perspective. keep in mind with hurricane hilary heading towards the west coast, fema is already running out of disaster relief money before the atlantic season even

starts to ramp up. it's been a record-breaking year with more than a dozen billion-dollar weather disasters coast to coast from catastrophic flooding to tornado outbreaks to crippling winter storms. that's not even counting the recent historic floods across the northeast and that devastating maui wildfire that has become the deadliest u.s. fire in over a century. >> a fema official tells cnn the relief fund could be used up by the end of this month unless congress acts. from the white house this morning, that's terrifying. is there an assurance congress will act? >> reporter: it's going to be top of mind when they return, but the bottom line when i talked to officials about this is it would delay that critical recovery if fema does not get these funds. as you mentioned, it's been a record-breaking year for expensive disasters, and that's put an intense strain on their funds which could be depleted by mid to end of august. the white house has been monitoring this, and in their

supplemental request to congress, they included an additional $12 billion for these funds. the fema administrator was asked about this at a white house briefing this week and she also conceded that they have enough funds for the initial response to maui, but they still need more to get all the recovery there. take a listen. >> we have enough funding to support the ongoing response efforts, because we take events like this into consideration, but it would delay -- if we don't have additional funding, it would delay some of the recovery projects and push them into next year. >> reporter: now a fema official also tells me that a lot of these funds go to prep. so if we know a hurricane is coming, for example, that you just mentioned, or any other sort of natural disaster, they can start to send supplies and people there knowing there's going to have to be recovery efforts on the back end. if they don't have those funds, they might not be able to do that work. and so all of that would slow down recovery. of course this is fueling

concern within the agency, and the ask is going to congress for them to work on this as these natural disasters continue to happen. >> congress that is not currently in session for the month of august, and that supplemental request included ukraine, too. the pathway is up in the air. priscilla alvarez, thank you. maui's emergency management chief has resigned. this as outrage grows in the wake of the catastrophic wildfire that has killed at least 111 people. he was facing serious criticism for not activating warning sirens as this wildfire closed in on lahaina. also under scrutiny this morning, we're learning a state official may have delayed giving permission to use extra water to fight the flames as the disaster unfolded. the atf says they are sending in investigators to figure out how the fire started. close to half of the disaster

area has been searched. more than 40 cadaver dogs are on the scene searching for human remains in the scorched rooms. our randi kaye has been digging in on all of this. here is her reporting. so many of us residents felt we had absolutely no warning. >> reporter: hawaii has one of the largest public safety outdoor siren warning systems in the world, sirens that were silent as wildfires raged. the question is, why? first, it was this -- >> it would not have saved those people. >> do you regret not sounding the sirens? >> i do not. the sirens, as i mentioned earlier, is used primarily for tsunamis. >> reporter: that's what the head of the emergency management agency said before resigning a day later. even before that press conference ended, his reason had changed. this time suggesting the sirens weren't used because people wouldn't have been able to hear the warning. >> it's an outdoor siren, so a

lot of people were indoors, air conditioning on, they're not going to hear a siren. plus, the winds were very gusty and everything. i heard it was very loud. and so they wouldn't have heard the sirens. >> reporter: the same story with hawaii's governor. first this -- >> sirens were typically used for tsunamis or hurricanes. to my knowledge, at least i never experienced them in use for fires. >> reporter: minutes later, another explanation. this time the governor suggested at least some of the sirens were broken. >> the sirens were essentially immobilized, we believe -- we believe -- by the extreme heat that came through. some were broken and we're investigating that. >> reporter: yet that doesn't all track with the county's own webpage, mauisirens.com which clearly states how the siren system is capable of alerting residents to multiple disasters including wildfires. >> emergency alert.

>> reporter: we also found this explainer about the sirens' uses on hawaii's emergency management agency's webpage. >> we often use sirens for hurricanes, brushfires, flooding, lava, hazmat conditions, or even a terrorist event. >> reporter: this map also from the county's page shows where the warning sirens are located. according to the state, there are about 400 sirens statewide including 80 on maui. and in the historic town of lahaina where more than 100 people were killed in the flames, there are five sirens. five sirens that were not used to warn those in grave danger. instead, officials say they chose to send alerts by text message to cell phones as well as alerts on land lines and through tv and radio. >> it is our practice to use the most effective means of conveying an emergency message to the public during a fire. >> reporter: while that may have worked in some cases, the wildfire moved so swiftly, it

knocked out power and cell service, so how were residents supposed to receive those warnings? >> there's no warning at all. there's not a siren, a phone alert, nothing, not a call. >> reporter: randi kaye, cnn. >> critically important reporting and so many unanswered questions this morning. >> and recognition this is going to take so much time in the recovery for the families themselves but also trying to figure out what went wrong and why. >> so it doesn't happen like this again. randi, thank you for that. special counsel jack smith wants trump's trial to start next years. trump's lawyers want it to start in 2026. >> trump suddenly canceled a news conference where he claimed he was going to produce evidence of nonexistent fraud. new reporting behind that change of plans is coming up. , news si. then i went to experian. now i can see them in one place.

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>> what they're really saying is they're complaining about how much they have to go through to prepare for this trial. they're saying there are millions of documents, 11 million pages of records, that they're going to need to read one by one. that's not exactly how it works in preparing for trial. the government does turn over to defense teams lots and lots of information, but they also spell out for them, these are the important documents you should look at. but the trump team saying so many records. we would have to read the equivalent of "war and peace" so many times to get ready. donald trump has other things he's needing to prepare for. there's going to be hearing dates for other criminal indicted -- criminally indicted cases before this trial as well, and so everything is going to converge in a way we need a lot more time, april 2026 is what

they're asking for. they say that the government's subjective is clear to deny president trump a fair ability to prepare for trial. the court should deny the government's request. poppy and phil, whether the judge will buy that argument still remains to be seen. she is going to have them in court in a couple weeks to talk about a trial date. there are a couple reasons why this trial may need to go to trial quickly, and the justice department has argued that one reason is that the american public deserves to see this case settled because it is about an election. >> katelyn, a number stood out to me what the justice department is asking for in terms of the length of the prison sentence for the leaders of the proud boys. you've got some reporting on this about the their in the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol. what can you tell us? it is a long time. >> it's a whopper of a number from the justice department

asking to sentence the leaders of the proud boys on january 6 to essentially three decades in prison each. they're asking for 33 years in prison for the chairman of the proud boys who wasn't even on the grounds on january 6th but was purged from washington, d.c., and cheering on the others over texts. they're asking for 33 years for joseph biggs, zachary reel, another man who bashed in a window, one of the first pieces of the capitol to fall, for 20 years. but this court document was a reminder when you read it just how serious the violence was on january 6th, how there was now asserted by a jury's finding here, that there was an effort of people who came together who plotted out how they would lead a mob inside the capitol if they had the opportunity. the justice department wrote about these four members of the proud boys convicted of

seditious conspiracy. they brought that army of violence to the capitol to exert their political will. for years these defendants intentionally positioned themselves at the vanguard of political violence in this country. they brought that violence to the capitol on january 6 in an effort to change the course of american history, and the sentences imposed by this court should reflect the seriousness of their offenses. so the seriousness should not be lost of january 6 as we head forward and still watching them be sentenced in court. this sentencing will not happen for another couple of weeks. it is certainly a court proceed that go will have quite a bit of importance especially if these men get the most severe sentence related to january 6th and even a longer sentence potentially from what the justice department is asking than the oath keepers and others. >> wow. katelyn, thank you for that reporting. and now a sign of the weight and potential magnitude of the charges outlined in the georgia

indictment, a somewhat rare move from former president trump. he's scrapping his plans, or at least stated plans, for a monday night news conference in new jersey where he was promising to introduce new evidence of fraud in georgia's 2020 presidential election. no fraud has ever been substantiated. trust me, people have looked. the about-face is unfolding as trump's legal teams fine-tune plans for his surrender, the deadline to turn himself in is one week from today. i don't recall a lot of times when it seems like trump is listening to either his advisers or his legal team. is that what happened here? >> reporter: i think so, yes. my colleague kaitlan collins and i have been hearing a lot about this press conference and i think there was a lot of skepticism about it and understandably so. part of the reason for that, phil and poppy, many of his advisers were caught off guard when they saw donald trump was posting about this, quote, major

news conference he was going to be holding on monday. we spoke with some people immediately after he made that post, and i think a few people in trump's inner circle and some advisers didn't know he was going to be saying that. behind the scenes there was some concern from donald trump's team and some of his lawyers about holding a press conference on the baseless claims that he's being charged for at the same time and that he's going to be surrendering for at some point next week. and so that's kind of how this has been playing out behind the scenes. i did want to share with you some of what he had said last night in announcing that he's no longer going to be holding this. donald trump posted, rather than releasing the report on the rigged and stolen georgia 2020 election, my lawyers would prefer putting this, i believe, irrefutable evidence of election fraud and irregularities in formal legal filings. he went on to say, therefore, the news conference is no longer necessary. and, of course, i have to highlight, again, phil and

poppy, these are the same false claims that donald trump has been making for years now and what he is being charged for in part in this indictment. and both georgia's secretary of state and governor both of whom are republicans, have repeatedly said that the georgia election was not stolen. i think this is the key reason why he's not moving forward on monday. >> fascinate to go see if his lawyers actually use that information as the former president says they're going to in their filings. >> reporter: right. >> i wouldn't hold my breath on that one, alayna treene. next, she was the face of a viral liberal twitter account. she didn't run it. cnn tracking down the real face behind the fake erica marsh. >> are you erica marsh? >> no. >> but that's your face. >> seems to be. ♪ it takes two to make a thing go right ♪ ♪ it takes two to make it o outta sight ♪

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so a woman in florida is speaking out for the first time after she became the face of a liberal twitter account that went viral earlier this year, an account that turned out to be fake. cnn tracked her down, and she

says she had nothing to do with it. live from atlanta this morning, good morning. what did she say? >> reporter: good morning to you, poppy. for so long she felt she was just screaming out into the void as she saw this account just take off saying that her face was stolen. she was not actually saying all of this. now she is ready to tell her story and set the record straight. her name is courtney. >> erica marsh. >> erica marsh. >> erica. >> reporter: erica marsh quickly rose as a viral left wing voice on social media. her tweets ultra liberal and politically charged drew millions of views, and the ire of republicans. tweets like, do you agree that drag story hour should be implemented for elementary students? and, why does it seem most republicans are pedophiles? the account had nearly 130,000 followers. marsh's top tweet, more than 27 million times, twitter, goes by

x, took down the account. it was a fake. but the photos were not. now cnn exclusively shares the real face that's on the notorious account. are you erica marsh? >> no. >> reporter: but that's your face. >> seems to be. >> reporter: why are you talking to us? >> i want to tell the world that that's not me. my name is not erica marsh. i am courtney. >> reporter: she lives in a rural part of the tampa bay area in florida. she showed cnn her original photos nearly a decade old. she says they were stolen from her facebook page. the photos on the account are from when courtney was still a teenager. she has since gotten married and had children. courtney, let me have you read erica marsh's probably most popular tweet that got over 27 million views and then tell me what you think about it. >> today's supreme court decision is a direct attack on

black people. no black person will be able to succeed in a merit based system. >> reporter: what do you think? >> i'm speechless. >> reporter: speechless because while this viral fake account shares courtney's face, they do not share the same politics. are you liberal? >> no, ma'am. no. >> reporter: are you a republican? >> yes, ma'am. >> reporter: can i ask you which way you voted? >> of course i voted for trump. >> reporter: so you sense the irony here, be right? >> yes. >> reporter: some people thought this was an ai-generated image. >> when i saw that, that was -- also made me laugh. i was like, they don't even think i'm real. >> reporter: it was her friends who first alerted her. >> hey, there's this twitter account, is it yours? they are posting crazy things. >> reporter: over months, marsh only grew more popular. >> i think there was even an elected representative that

interacted with the account with my face. so that is shocking. >> reporter: courtney only grew more concerned about its message. twitter has a policy against impersonation. once the account was removed, courtney felt relieved but not safe. >> i don't want to be out in public and someone notice my picture that was on the account, approach me, approach my family. who knows what someone would do that didn't agree with what erica marsh was saying. >> whoever is running this account knows what people like, and knows how to get attention. >> reporter: a professor at clemson university studies disinformation and trolling. what is erica marsh, a parity, a troll, disinformation, what is she? >> erica marsh is a fake online influencer. she isn't a troll in the way that a lot of viewers may think of a troll. >> reporter: he believes this was the work of a professional.

>> this is not an imager, no. it would be hard for an amateur to get that many follow yours in such a short amount of time. she looks all american. she looks friendly but ultimately it's about influence. it's meant to engage with a very specific audience and to get people a little bit angry. >> reporter: whether the goal of the account was to generate money or sow division, he says the real owner of erica marsh is likely still operating on the platform. is there any way to tell who is responsible for erica marsh or where they come from? >> that's the million dollar question, isn't it? >> it's just fake. it's fake. the whole thing was fake. >> reporter: and the profile claimed she worked for the biden campaign. like everything else that was all made up. experts say this easily could have been the work of a foreign government or group or perhaps even a ploy to make money from all the clicks and attention the account was getting. either way, there is a real

concern here about these sorts of fake accounts and the influence they could have leading up to the 2024 presidential election. poppy, phil? >> no question an amazing job tracking her down and finding her. what a story. >> what a story. >> thanks, isabel. a drone shot down over moscow. all the details that are coming in now. also, ron desantis, what his debate strategies are leaked a week before he takes the stage next. ving with liberty mutual, mom. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooooh, let me put a reminder on my phone. on the top of the pile! oh. only pay for what you needed. ♪ liberty. liberty. libeberty. liberty. ♪ - [narrator] this is my coffee shop. we just moved into a bigger space, brought on another employee, and ordered new branded gear for the team. it was so easy. and placed my order. products, added our logo, bring your own team together with customear. get arted today at customink.com. rsv is in for a surprise.

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- [announcer] do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. live pictures of the statue of liberty and the base of the

washington monument. you might ask why are we showing them. they look beautiful. that's true. they're a key to a new push by former president donald trump's attorneys. they're arguing that we should move the trial date not just for the federal election itself to 2024 but because moving it two and a half plus years away would be necessary given they're buried in prep work and if all the documents were stacked up, the stack would be eight times taller than the washington monument and about 16 times the height of the statue of liberty. show don't tell as they say in journalism. team leader for bloomberg, mario parker. money and politics reporter for "the new york times" rebecca o'brien and michael moore. i want to start with beyond the visualization which, again, i appreciate. didn't see a lot of stuff related to the 2024 election in the ask to move it to 2026. why not? >> i think they know that on its

face that's not going to be enough. the truth is the request to move to 2026 is almost as ridiculous as the request to set the trial in january of next year. there's no possible way that's going to happen. it's almost a pr move, and i think this is sort of the trump team response to that. every defendant in court has a right to have effective representation, the sixth amendment guarantees that. there's no way can you look at 11 million documents in a relatively short time especially if you think about the amount of time it's taken the government to put together the case in their investigation and compare that now as the trump team tries to review it, that it would be four or five months. i think it was an effort probably to get the judge to split the baby somewhere and look for a date, which i think, frankly, will be very close but more likely right after the election. >> is it the idea of we have so much work because our client has been indicted so many times, have pity on us, a viable

presentation? >> it's not a legal defense. it's sort of maybe a little bit of a common sense thing. the problem is they're trying to capitalize, i think, on this idea that he's being piled upon by case after case and to make a statement now in a public filing that they can't be ready to defend either one, as he goes into this he's still presumed innocent. he's just like any other american. he still has the constitutional right to be presumed innocent and to prepare each case. so i think they're pushing that narrative, too. i fear that some of the efforts to compress the schedule plays right into his hands that he's being treated differently. and it makes it look like the government's efforts are to get all these cases heard right before trial so -- right before the election so everything can know about it. that's not how cases are handled. in a case like this especially of any complexity, you would expect there would be at least a year delay, typically more. interesting how many people have

sat in jail on january 6 charges, relatively simple cases about trespassing on the capitol grounds and those kinds of things, versus how quick they're trying to move this trial. >> mario, one thing interesting the growing chorus of republicans who aren't total trump cheerleaders like chris christie and bill barr who are questioning this georgia indictment because they're saying jack smith did this, and usually a federal indictment would supersede something on the state level, and it just seems like piling on. i'm paraphrasing here. you have a good point about trump canceling his press conditions on monday to try to debunk and try to refute the georgia indictment. phil is making fun of me here. >> that's not true. >> because your point is it shows how seriously trump is taking it that he canceled it, right? >> no, no, we've been expecting this georgia indictment to drop for a while now, ever since going back to shortly after the

2020 election was even conducted, and this one, while it may be tough for americans to wrap their hands -- their heads around the privileges that a former president may have with handling classified documents, some of the ambiguity in the new york manhattan case. you heard the former president on the phone saying, hey, find me 11,000 plus votes so i can win the election after it was conducted. you have the governor of georgia, brian kemp, a republican, right, the secretary of state, all of those saying that the election was held fairly and it was run fairly as well and that the former president is delivering falsehoods essentially in saying that it was stolen from him. this is serious business and you can see the trump attorneys are taking this one particularly serious. >> and he's listening to them. >> for now. for the moment.

>> for this minute. >> rebecca, i want to ask, your colleagues had a big scoop yesterday related to a campaign prep memo from a super pac for ron desantis. i have bored you over the last several hours, but you keyed on something i'm interested in. the actual dynamic between the super pac and the campaign itself. who is spending the most money? who seems to be directing things to some degree? i think there's some tension there, too, between the two even though they've shared employees back and forth at various points. fair? >> i think one of the things that first struck me about the story, which was great, is that elaborate choreography, it's almost comic the way you have to not coordinate but -- >> it is explicitly comic. not even almost. >> it's explicitly not supposed to be coordinated, and yet you post it -- what i liked about the story it says -- it lays out

because they can't coordinate they have to put -- or it's not uncommon to put prep debate material in a corner of the internet where people may not be able to find it but it comes out. i think it raises all these questions not just for governor desantis but for other candidates as well all of whom have their own dynamics with the super pacs, the various kinds of political committees that are aligned with them, how those entities coordinate or don't coordinate or kind of signal to each other and to the campaigns. it's fascinating to me. i think in the case of governor desantis, this pac, super pac, has a tremendous amount of power and money. they've raised $130 million and are spending very big not only on ads but they're kind of acting as a shadow campaign in some ways. a lot of ground support for his efforts around the country. >> can we take a minute and

listen to what bill barr said? after that great interview kaitlyn did with him. let's listen to what he said on fox. >> i explained if i thought one of two people would end up as president i wouldn't throw my vote away. i would try to make a decision who would do the least damage to the country. but if there were other options i would also consider -- >> would you just not vote for president -- down ticket? >> no, if one of two people is going to do it, i would have to make that bitter choice. if there are other options -- >> is it conceivable bill barr could vote for donald trump? >> as i said, i'll jump off that bridge when i get to it. >> i don't know, mario, it's interesting who bill barr will vote for but i'm more interested in what you think as you apply that to the rest of republicans in america. >> what you're saying is a slow realization, a gradual realization republicans maybe

about six months ago thought they had exorcised donald trump from the party. you had mitch mcconnell shortly after the disappointing 2022 midterms saying trump had been -- his political capital had been diminished. these cases we spoke about essentially supercharged trump 's political capital, rallied the party around him, and now people like bill barr, like mitch mcconnell start to hedge more because essentially the base, that 30% trump has this iron tight grip on in these legal challenges and they're going where the winds are. >> rebecca, michael, appreciate it. we'll speak with candidate chris christie ahead of the first republican primary debate. you won't want to miss that. mortgage rates are very expensive if you've tried to get one recently. the highest in 21 years. what this means if you're look to go buy a house.

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emergency crews have converged on moscow where air defenses shot down a drone near a city center. russia is blaming ukraine calling it a terrorist attack. the civil aviation authority said it had to suspend traffic to four major airports because of this. cnn has learned the u.s. committed to approving the f-16 fighter jets to ukraine as soon as pilot training is complete. it was expected to start this month. it's not clear exactly when it will start or how long it's expected to take. a big change in u.s. policy. mortgage rates in the united states have soared to their

highest level in more than 20 years. the 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged above 7% over the week ending yesterday. a year ago just over 5%. cnn's julia chatterley is here. if somebody wanted to buy a house hypothetically because they were moving their family to new york recently -- >> anyone we know? >> what impact would that have on a buyer? >> it would be a huge problem. you can tell me perhaps better than i can tell you in this case. first and foremost about this interest rate, it assumes a 20% down payment, it assumes you have an excellent credit score, which we'll assume that you do, phil -- >> phil mattingly has an excellent credit. >> you're probably being offered -- be. >> worse. >> that's the first thing to remember, this is just one component of actually what is combined to be the worst affordability crisis in housing we've seen for four decades. you have sky high mortgage rates, you also have a lack of supply of homes on the market. then you also have actually near

record home prices, too. combine all those things a triple whammy is having a devastating effect. let me show you, to your point, what mortgage rates have looked like the last few years. if you were lucky enough to lock in rates of august of 2021, well done. let's say your mortgage repayment was $1,000. today your option is paying double that even for above income, average income families, that's a huge whack. it's great, let's be clear if you're a homeowner, if the big american dream is to own your home, leave that money to your kids one day, that's getting further and further away and it doesn't really change until the federal reserve brings rates down, these things ease, people sell their homes, and that will take some time. >> rent prices remain very high with the stickiest part of the inflation issue. >> and that's the cash crunch. >> a guy who ran on the rent is too high. >> thanks, julia.

>> have a great weekend. this just in, cnn learning ex clues ichl the alleged architect of the fake elector plot during the january 6 riot. plus -- >> with great reluctance the court has no choice in this matter but to grant the motion for a mistrial. [ bleep ] >> the mother of the black fedex driver who was shot while making deliveries in mississippi just outraged and devastated after a mistrial is declared. hearing overnight reaction from that driver ahead. refi at sofi.com you could save thousands and get to your goals faster. sofi. get your money right.

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scary moments in last night's preseason game between the eagles and browns as two players were carted off the field with neck injuries. andy scholes with more. good morning, guys. after last year where we saw the

scary injury to damar hamlin and tua, the cart did have to come out twice in last night's eagles/browns game both for neck injuries. the first tyree cleveland, his head slams into the ground while he was trying to make that catch. the cart came out. later defensive lineman moro ojomo was chasing down kellen mond. his head hit a teammate causing it to get bent back. both scary moments. the good news was the team announced both players had movement in their extremities afterwards. the nba announcing the regular season a schedule yesterday, the brooklyn nets borrowing a page from the tennessee titans' video from earlier this year. they went to coney island and asked tourists to name that logo. watch how it went. >> the new york yankees -- ♪ >> insurance -- ♪

>> buffalo's, right? ♪ >> this is the brooklyn bridge, basketball. ♪ >> two question marks trying to make will have. ♪ >> tigers. lsu tigers. ♪ >> the exploding field goal. ♪ >> i never thought the san antonio spurs logo looked like an exploding field goal but now i can't unsee it. >> you'll never unsee it. if you don't think i'm trying to work through how to make this a segment with you, me and poppy going forward -- poppy was getting every single one of them right and it was very impressive. very impressive. andy scholes, thanks as always. >> cnn "this morning" continues right now. good morning. let's get started with five things to know for this friday, august 18.

this just in, new and exclusive cnn reporting that reveals trump ally kenneth chesbro followed alex jones around the capitol on january 6. it shows chesebro as they enter the capitol grounds where mobs of then president donald trump supporters broke in. hawaii has one of the largest public safety outdoor warning systems in the world. so why were they silent during the deadly wildfires? maui's emergency management administrator steps down. and hurricane hilary a major category 4 storm. the southwest bracing for flooding and mud slides. health officials bracing for three virus this is fall warning covid, the flu and rsv could all hit at the same time. and start spreading the news, or don't if you're a yankees fan like me, the yankees are the worst they've been in decades. it's unfortunate, but cnn "this morning" starts right now.

and we're going to start this morning with that major storm we're tracking posing a threat to the west coast. hurricane hilary intensified overnight into a powerful category 4 storm as it nears cabo san lucas, mexico. >> it could bring heavy flooding to baja, california, that peninsula in the southwest of the country, by the weekend. hurricane hilary expected to weaken as it hits north. if it hits as a tropical storm, it would be unprecedented, the first one to do so in 84 years. our meteorologist derek van dam tracking it all. what does it look like it's going to do? this will be in a significantly weakened state by the time it impacts the southeastern u.s., that's extremely important as a weather communicator that people understand that just because we have a category 4 storm lurking off the coast of the baja peninsula does not mean we'll