pleading not guilty. donald trump enters his plea in the georgia election interference case, waiving his right to appear in person in court next week. and serious questions today about mitch mcconnell's health

and his future in the senate after the minority leader froze mid press conference for the second time. what is next for one of the most powerful republicans in washington? idalia's wrath. the storm lashes the carolinas after carving a path through florida and georgia. survivors now face the work of rebuilding, after some of them lost nearly everything they own. we are following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "cnn news central." former president trump has officially pleaded not guilty to a stack of racketeering and corruption charges in fulton county, georgia. it's trump's fourth time entering a not guilty plea in a criminal case, twice in federal court, twice in state courts, new york and here in georgia. trump is the latest of several

defendants in this specific election subversion case to enter a not guilty plea, and that means he's skipping next week's in-person arraignpment. i want to bring in zachary cohen and former prosecutor rinatto mare ati to talk about this. walk us through the mechanics of this. >> on a big picture level, four times trump has entered a not guilty plea in response to criminal charges against him since leaving office a few years ago. in georgia that means he had a right to waive his first appearance. we won't see him in court next week. that was the deadline the judge set for these defendants to show up and for their arraignment. trump waiving that right in this case along with other defendants we've seen who have pled not guilty, sidney powell a lawyer who is working for trump on his post-election challenges, entered a not guilty plea via court filings yesterday as well. trump following that trend and a his trend since leaving office in the various criminal cases he's been involved in.

>> any advantage to doing it this way? >> well, one thing he avoids is the media circus that would surround his first appearance in court. he made a calculation he gets most of the benefit and less downside from not appearing personally, not paying a bunch of lawyers to be there for an appearance that's generally perfunctory where you plead not guilty and the judge sets some sidelines. the bottom line is that, you know, he's got a long road ahead, unlike the other defendants, he's not interested in a speedy trial, so i expect this matter to drag on for quite some time. >> yeah. to that point, you have the d.a., zach, pushing for all the defendants to go to trial in october. the ones that want a speedy trial, sure a couple of them. it's hard to see that happening with the others. what are you expecting here? >> fani willis has been consistent since the indictment dropped a couple weeks ago. she wants to try all 19 together and reiterated that position as

well. we have different defendants going different ways. two of them, sidney powell, the lawyer we talked about and ken chesbro another pro-trump attorney want to hurry this up and want a speedy trial, the opposite of what donald trump wants. he wants to delay it as long as possible. you have mark meadows who is still trying to get this case moved to federal court, so a lot of moving pieces here. at the end of the day it does, you know, raise a lot of questions about can fani willis try all 19 defendants together as she wanted to or she will have to make a compromise? >> what do you expect and what are the challenges with juggling multiple trials, breaking some off from one another? >> so first of all, i do expect the judge ultimately to let some of these defendants have separate trials. it's not easy to have a trial with that many defendants in the first place, and as a practical matter, the judge can be in a difficult position when you have some defendants exercising their right to a speedy trial, which

is unusual, but i think a valid tactic here for some of the defendants, and you have others who will say they need more time to prepare for trial. i think that the judge is going to let them have the separate trial and i think it's going to put fani willis in a bit of a challenging position and create some obstacles for her because, first of all, does she want to show all of her cards in the early trial when she's still got the big fish, donald trump, and, you know, some of the others that she's really very focused on, in the second trial. that's one challenge. secondly, she's going to have to refocus her story and how she puts everything on in that first trial, versus the second. in the second trial, she's going to put on this entire rico case about the sprawling rico enterprise. are you going to do that in a trial of ken chesbro who really wrote a memo and gave some legal advice, but otherwise had a small role? i think she's going to have to refocus her evidence and potentially refocus the case.

a narrow targeted set of proof against chesbro then is going to draw arguments from his lawyers as why he's part of this broad indictment. it presents challenges, not that she can't overcome them. there's a reason why the defense is doing this. >> zach, what are you looking for with this deadline today at 5:00 p.m. for mark meadows. the judge wanted more information from him as he's trying to take this out of state court into federal court. >> really interesting question raised by the judge here. he wants both prosecutors and mark meadows' lawyers to come back with arguments about whether or not, you know, if one of the acts that mark meadows allegedly committed falls under his role as chief of staff. that's his argument as to why it needed needs to be moved. if one of them qualifies is that enough to move the entire case to federal court, and so 5:00 p.m. today he wants to see arguments from both sides. it raises questions will the judge decide on this matter before next week when mark meadows is supposed to show up for his arraignment. >> signaling that some of what he did clearly did not fall

under that purview, certainly. thank you so much to both of you. >> thank you. this just in to cnn, joseph biggs, leader of the proud boys who led the far right organization's infamous march on january 6th, 2021, was sentenced a short time ago to 17 years in prison. cnn's evan perez is with us. evan, looking at this here, was this sort of sentence expected in the range for the charges he was convicted of? >> reporter: yeah, jim. this is a pretty stiff sentence. this is the second longest after a member of the oath keepers stuart rods who got 18 years and the judge listened to the defense, he listened to joseph biggs who tearfully said he wanted another chance. he said i'm not a violent person. i want to get a chance to be able to take my daughter to school. he said he was sorry for what happened and that he is --

january 6th was the last time he was ever going to do anything as a member of the proud boys. the judge said that this was a very serious offense, that one of the things that the members of the proud boys did on january 6th was that they broke the tradition of peaceful transfer of power in this country, something forever lost. one of the things judge kelly said from the bench, the nature the constitutional moment we were in that day is something that is so sensitive it deserves a significant sentence. the prosecution had requested 33 years for joseph biggs. they did not get that, obviously. but this is just one of a number of proud boys that we're going to see sentenced here at this federal courthouse in the coming days. you have enrico tarrio ethan

nordian hearing their sentences. one of the things the prosecutors argued members of the proud boys were vanguards of political violence for a number of years, and that's one reason they believe the violence at the capitol, just a few hundreds yards from where i'm standing, deserved to be treated this severely. 17 years is what the judge ended up deciding on. jim and brianna? >> of course the open question is, donald trump now on trial for his involvement, will he face consequences? turning to health questions surrounding one of the most powerful men here in washington, senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, is now privately reassuring his allies and donors he's fine. this after he froze during a news conference yesterday, the second time this summer this has played out in front of the cameras. >> running for re-election in 2026. >> oh. that's a --

>> did you hear the question, senator, running for re-election in 2026? >> yes. >> all right. i'm sorry y'all, we're going to need a minute. >> deeply concerning to watch. cnn's manu raju joins us from capitol hill. manu, as you have noted in this incident going back to july, you have witnessed and others have witnessed a number of incidents and you've always asked mcconnell's team, what's happening here? you concerned? have their answers changed over time? have they grown more serious or expressed increasing seriousness about his health? >> they provide very little information, jim, in fact, about

what happened here, other than saying he felt lightheaded at the time and paused. that's the same reason they gave for the 30-second pause that happened in july. s what not been explained is the underlying medical reason for this, and whether it was tied to his recent fall that occurred in march, hit his head, suffered a concussion. mitch mcconnell has a childhood, survivor of polio, walks with a slight limp, incidents of falling in the past. it's really unclear what has happened. he has tried to move behind the scenes to reassure his allies and donors he is fine. he went to a republican fundraiser yesterday and talked to a number of top republicans as well who reported back saying he sounded like his normal self. there are major questions about senator mcconnell. i spoke to one republican congressman kevin hurn of oklahoma about what he had witnessed, and he said it appears things are worse with mcconnell than it seems. >> did you see mitch mcconnell

yesterday? he froze up. what do you think about that? >> i think it's tough. obviously, the fall he had was more -- if that's what it's connected to, it's more damaging than most people thought. >> yeah. >> do you think he should stay as leader? >> that would be for the senate to figure out. >> reporter: the big question is how long will mitch mcconnell continue to stay as republican leader. that is a question that remains in the hallways here in the capitol. he has indicated, along with his confidants, they fully expect him to serve as republican leader through the end of this congress. he's the longest serving party leader in history having done it for 16 years as a senate leader. what will happen at the end of next year is the focus of a lot of republican senators. will he try to continue the job afterwards or step aside which would open up a leadership race among a handful of members that are eyeing that position here. a lot of questions about his future, but one thing that's clear, jim, they've been on recess for the past five weeks

and come back into session next week and he will have to answer questions from his colleagues wondering what happened. >> let's speak to dr. sanjay gupta, chief medical correspondent. sanjay, good to have you on. you're a neurosurgeron. you can't diagnose from afar but you can look at the episodes. what do you make of them and do you see them as connected? at this point there have been a number of issues. >> yeah. i think there probably is a connection between them. obviously, the almost same thing happened in july and now again just a -- over the last couple days. we don't know how many times it's happened in between that as well. this is just what we are seeing, jim. i think, you know, i see what i think everyone else is seeing, and i think freezing is probably the right term for it. when you watch the video you see somebody who becomes frozen in place, but also frozen in terms of speech n terms of face, in

terms of the body. you see someone who is clutching the sides of the lectern really tightly as well. something else that i noticed as well, when his aide comes up to him, you'll see she's standing on the right side of him and talking to him. he doesn't really look at her. he does not even -- can't turn his head. another person comes to the left side he's able to turn his head to the left side. there may be -- that may be another clue here. i think what is particularly striking, other than the fact that he has these freezing episodes that last about 30 seconds, is that his aides, obviously, came to his side, but they didn't seem particularly alarmed by it, which gives you the sense this is something that does happen may have been evaluated, and is not that surprising to them. things like a seizure, like a petite mall seizure that's called or medications to treat certain things that are wearing off, when those medications wear off for things like parkinson's

you can have a freezing episode. it's a long list. i've gotten so many e-mails from colleagues, people rendering their diagnoses. it's hard to do as you point via television looking at that video. but there's clearly something going on there, and the sense i get, his aides and doctors probably already know what that thing is. >> mcconnell, as we mentioned, has had several health scares just this year. can you walk us through them so we understand? >> yeah. i mean, you know, there's been a couple pretty significant falls going back to february. even back in 2019 he had a significant fall where he fractured his shoulder. he had polio as a child so he's had difficulty walking. these falls, especially the one in march, was really concerning. he had a conclusion there, broke his ribs, was in the hospital for some time. he's had trouble hearing reporters, has asked them often to repeat questions. it's hard to tell sometimes if it's hearing loss, which is quite possible, versus just losing train of thought again.

and then i think, you know, most recently again, these two episodes of freezing. we hear, from manu's reporting and scott jennings, it comes, and it goes, these symptoms. he can have a pretty quick rebound. and therein lies another clue, that can happen with petite mall seizures where you have a loss of time. i would be curious to ask him, does he remember that time? if he doesn't, that's another clue as to what this might be. bottom line, jim, i hope he's getting it evaluated. my guess is that he is and the doctor are aware of this. if not it needs to be addressed so it doesn't get worse or happen again. >> understood. dr. sanjay gupta, so good to have your expertise. it was the strongest storm to hit florida's big bend region in 125 years, and it left a path of destruction and just massive flooding across the southeast.

up next, we'll speak to a florida business owner whose restaurant was battered by idalia. important disclosures released by supreme court justice clarence thomas and samuel alito raising only more ethics concerns. ahead, what we're learning about expensive trips they took and who paid for them. a horrifying situation in south africa. dozens dead after a building goes up in flames. we'll have the latest on the search for survivors. ♪ chevy silverado has what it tatakes to do it all. with up to 13 camera views. and ththe z71 off-road package. ♪ you ok? yeah. any truck can help you make a living. this one helps you build a life. chevy silverado. from big cities, to small towns,

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(ping) ( ♪ ♪ ) ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ don't goooooo! ♪ ( ♪ ♪ ) ♪ don't go away ♪ ( ♪ ♪ ) ♪ please don't go ♪ . some of the areas hit by hurricane idalia may never look the same again. that is the word from fema officials today. this after a category 3 hurricane made landfall in the northern gulf coast of florida yesterday morning. president biden has just declared a major disaster in the region, which will make federal funding available to the areas hardest hit.

after landfall the storm dumped record-setting rain in parts of southeast georgia and the carolinas. look at this from just outside of charleston, south carolina, just a scary moment when strong winds sent this car flying. idalia is now a tropical storm as it heads offshore. it is still causing heavy rain and gusty winds on the north carolina coast. vick mickluchi is live in horseshoe beach, florida. i wonder in the wake of this, what are you seeing there? >> good afternoon, jim. we are seeing devastation, destruction everywhere. you know, we here in florida are used to these storms coming this time of year. almost every year. this is a bad one, especially for people here on the northern gulf coast. want to show you some of the history that just washed away. this is a home originally from 1939. it's about a block and a half

away from the gulf of mexico. you can see it is just flattened. back here, we have the hall family. they have graciously let us on their property, allowed us to be here through this difficult process. today is the first day that they have been back on this peninsula, in this coastal town, and they're just looking at the damage. they said looking at this, they were hoping that they would be able to find some mementos from their parents, from their grandparents. it's been difficult. they have this chair right here, a couple items they're going to keep, that they're going to pass along to their children. other than that this home is flattened. storm surge here would have been well over my head yesterday. we are talking about 10, 11 feet in some parts. you'll see a lot of homes are built up on estimates because they're used to tropical weather. even those, even those high up homes built for hurricanes, got hit, got damaged, got water inside. so the family members looking around here and this is a sight

that we see all throughout this town. i'll tell you the mayor told me, 40 to 50 homes are leveled. they are just gone. we see the foundation. the good news is, we're not aware of any injuries, no fatalities. i asked the mayor why, he said he and the police officers, the sheriff's deputies they came around and knocked door after door and told everyone to leave. only one person stayed. that person is okay. want to leave you with these images. we don't have enough time to show you everything, but truly devastation here in this part of florida, jim. >> yeah. for sure. so nice to hear no lives lost, but you feel for the families who lose those things you can't replace, mementos and memories of relatives. thanks so much for being there for us. our next guest owns fiddler's restaurant and resort, a restaurant in steinhatchee, florida, one of the hardest hit areas from this storm. ana king is with us. thank you for taking the time to be with us.

we understand your home is okay. your restaurant most certainly is not. what kind of damage are you seeing? >> um, we got 3 feet of water in the restaurant, 4 in the hotel room. i'm right here out front now, and we've got debris everywhere. 3 to 4 inches of just like this silky mud that is awful smelling. we're fortunate we didn't have any structural damage. just a lot of cleanup. >> so tell us about that. what is that going to mean for you? i can only imagine if you have 4 inches of, you know, stinky mud and drywall and all the like? >> we right now have crews here giving us ideas on how we should move forward. our biggest goal is to be getting -- we have three bars on-site. we're going to try to operate out of our front bar, which is much easier to clean so we can get propane cookers and cook meals to get warm food in people. we know we're going to need a place for people to decompress and take a break, so we're trying to get that operational.

we have a wedding center we're going to open up and do food out of and use as a chommand center for people to come in talk to their insurance agent and get a break. it's going to be fully powered with an ac and generator as well. >> you are doing that as a service to your community, while you're dealing with your business suffering so greatly here. do you have a sense of how much this is going to cost to get the -- to get everything back on track? >> guessing, it will be up towards half a million dollars because we're having to totally gut all of our hotel rooms, rip everything out of the restaurant, replace -- i don't -- i can't even put a number on it in terms of work, but that's what we're guessing right now. >> it's overwhelming i can tell as i'm talking to you, it's so much to deal with. we know that the president just declared an official disaster.

that includes taylor county where you are. do you know the first steps of accessing the federal funding that will be made available to rebuild? >> not off hand. i've lived through a few storms where we've actually been declared a disaster and i know that fema will come through and start looking into like each property and kind of talking to people. my family lives on a creek and was flooded and my granny was able to get fema funds to raise her house. i'm familiar with it, but we have people here ready to get resources for that and talk to them and handle that. we have a lot of community leaders in place to get through it. >> that is good news. i'm sorry you're dealing with this, but it is amazing to see what you're doing to come through for your community. thank you so much for talking to us today. >> thank you, all. >> jim? two supreme court justices are disclosing new details about paid trips they accepted. ahead, who exactly picked up the tab and explore ongoing ethics

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. security justices alito and clarence thomas have leased

their 2022 financial disclosure statements both accused of ethics violations and a lack of transparency involving failure to report luxury trips and other personal transactions paid for in some cases by wealthy friends. cnn's supreme court analyst has reviewed both of the justices filings and, joan, with particular attention to clarence thomas's filings here, what are the details of this. >> that's right. earlier in the spring propublica revealed trips he had taken by the harlan crow, the republican billionaire to fancy places, the first time in years clarence thomas is acknowledging that. he's acknowledging two sets of trips on the dime of harlan crow to dallas and also acknowledging he went to his private resort, beautiful place, up in the adirondacks for summer last year. he is catching up with something he did in 2014 when harlan crow purchased properties of the thomas family down in savannah,

georgia, naputting that on reco too. this takes place against the backdrop of the court not having a formal ethics code, having issues with lack of transparency and a lot more public scrutiny on the just tises off bench activities. >> in cases like this involves justices or lawmakers, one of the defenses will be, you know, flimsy or not, will be, everybody does this kind of thing to some degree. is thomas taking unusual liberties in terms of the kinds of gifts and value of the gifts he accepted? >> okay. first let's tell people what clarence thomas' lawyer said here. he said that this is all inadvertent, that any kind of mistakes that were not reported before was inadvertent and put out a statement that said that the attacks on justice thomas are nothing less than ridiculous and dangerous and set a terrible precedent for blood sport, political blood sport, through federal ethics filings. now so they're saying that this is all part of the controversy, but to your question of is what

clarence thomas doing different? yes, he has a very tight relationship wait single person, harlan crow, although as p propublica demonstrated last april, he's gotten lots of great trips and gifts from other big gop donors. the other justices have not done it to the extent that clarence thomas has done it, and other justices, for the most part, have disclosed it. what's different here is that clarence thomas is saying, he's disclosing it himself, he didn't believe he had any kind of rules or regulations hanging over him to disclose before. there is a difference, although he's saying it was inadvertent. >> with the blood sport comment, the agencies have rules, the state department you can't take gifts over $100. there are rules the court does not have. in light of this and declining

confidence in the court, for a host of reasons we should note, including disagreement with decisions, is there a push, any real momentum towards establishing fixed standards for the supreme court? >> there's a momentum among senate congressional democrats to try to pass legislation to get the court to formalize some of its rules. the legislation is probably not going to go anywhere with the political makeup of the congress right now. but the justices themselves, responding to the low public approval ratings, responding to some of these media reports, responding to the congressional push, that they are actually discussing it. this summer when they left for their recess, they were at a stalemate but chief justice john roberts would like to get unanimity on rules, but justice thomas and alito feel they're abide big the rules. >> if there were rules they would apply to all, whether conservative or liberal. that would be the way it would

be. joan, thanks so much. >> thank you. rescue and recovery efforts are under way in south africa where 73 people are dead, dozens more injured, after a fire burns through a building full of families overnight. we're going to take you there. plus, the controversial search and seizure of equipment at a kansas newspaper has spawned a federal lawsuit. new details next on "cnn news central." ( ♪ ♪ ) experience the sanctuary of handsfree highway driving with lincoln bluecruise. it's the final days of the lincoln summer invitation event. right now, get 3.9% apr and $1000 trade assist cash on a new 2023 lincoln. your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly deliversuality candidates

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right now there is a frantic search under way for survivors of a deadly fire in the biggest city in south africa. officials say at least 74 people are dead and that includes many

children, and dozens of others who are injured as well after the fire ripped through a fire-story building in johannesburg overnight. cnn's senior international correspondent david mckenzie is near the scene of the tragedy. david, this is awful. tell us how this started and tell us about this building. >> reporter: brianna, it is awful, and at least a dozen children are amongst those dead, burned in that inferno that started in the early hours of the morning. many people struggled to get out. at least one witness told us there were areas of the building that were locked off, preventing people from getting out. i spoke to one man who managed to survive, just barely. take a listen. >> people, they make noise. fire, fire, fire. i wake up. i see the fire.

when i enter, i come, to my room. then, i broke the window. the smoke was coming for me. yeah. after that, i don't know anything from now. >> he blacked out and then came to. three of his family members are still missing. like many in that building, hundreds of families, at least, here is a migrant from another part of the continent. this building, extraordinary as it sounds, brianna, was highjacked, taken over by gangsters, owned by the city of johannesburg, but it was taken over and then rented out to poor migrants who could only afford this kind of accommodation. a short time ago the south african president was on the

scene. he said this is a wake-up call for the country to deal with these illegal takeovers of buildings. the skyline behind me that you see, many buildings in downtown johannesburg are taken over like this. it speaks to the levels of crime in this country and the lack of public services for the most poor who ended up, many of them, dying overnight. >> that's the thing about a building like this. they're often huge safety problems, and this is just one of many, many of these kinds of buildings. >> reporter: oh, that's right. they are investigating the cause of this fire. there are people who were crammed into building, into apartment, many at a time any number of causes could be for this terrible inferno. they are investigating, and it's shocking to south africa, i think this whole region, to see what unfolded. it's now officially a recovery

operation. the police are now taking over, and that building is deemed unsafe to even step inside. brianna. >> shocking to south africa, shocking to the world. 74 people dead, and that number could rise. david mckenzie live from south africa, thank you. >> so sad to see that there. to the other headlines we are watching this hour. the u.s. envoy to japan is slamming china's response to the fukushima water release calling china's ban on japanese seafood hypocritical. china imposed the ban after japan's fukushima power plant began releasing slowly treated waste water into the ocean. japanese officials insist that water is safe. here in the u.s., a new deadline in the government's case against hunter biden after the broken plea agreement. a federal judge is ordering both sides to submit an update by wednesday. the same judge refused to accept the initial deal, calling it outside the norm. a reporter involved in the

controversial police raid on a newspaper in kansas is filing a federal lawsuit against the police department. marion county record reporter deb gruver says the department, and its chief violated her first and fourth amendment rights. they say it was part of an investigation into whether governments records had been obtained illegally but the prosecutors has cited insufficient evidence. quite an interesting case there. opening their minds, the federal government could change course on marijuana with a major rethink on how it regulates pot.

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. some breaking news in to cnn. we've learned that former president trump's legal team has formally asked a judge to sever his case from his co-defendants in fulton county, georgia. this is according to a court filing. trump's attorneys say he will not have, quote, sufficient it time end quote to prepare the case for trial by october 23rd and say forcing that trial date would, quote, violate president trump's federal and state constitutional rights to a fair trial and due process of law. much more on this at the top of the hour. jim? >>. the biden administration is pushing for a major shift in policy on marijuana. hhs secretary xavier becerra confirmed his department is asking the dea to reclassify

marijuana to a less restrictive category of drug. right now marijuana is on the scheduled 1 list, the most restrictive that includes drugs like heroin and lsd. health and human services wants to move marijuana to schedule 3 alongside tylenol with codeine, anabolic steroids. secretary becerra was following a directive from the president. let's speak with paul, a nonprofit lobbying group that has pushed for the full legalization of marijuana, wrote the book "marijuana is safer, so why are we driving people to drink?" . thanks for joining us today. first i want to ask a question about the effect of this. recreational pot is legal in 23 states, legal for medicinal use in 38 states. what would be the practical effect of a natural move designating marijuana to a less restrictive class of drugs?

>> well, on the one hand it's refreshing some 80 years after cannabis was initially removed from pharmacies in the united states, that federal government is once again finally recognizing its medical utility. that said, as a matter of policy, this proposed change by the biden administration does little to address the widening divide between state legal marijuana laws and federal law. in fact, every state legalization law you just mentioned that is currently in conflict with federal marijuana laws today, would remain in conflict with federal law going forward when and if the administration goes through with the schedule 3 classification. >> i understand that difference between state and federal laws, but there are dangers here. 2021 study found cannabis use disorder is on the rise, a 2020 analysis found 22% of users would develop an addiction during their lifetime and that rate is higher for younger people who smoked weekly or

every day. about 33%. i wonder, why downgrade marijuana's classification, when we are seeing evidence of some risks for some people? >> look, marijuana is here to stay. it's part of our society. that's why states have moved in this direction, to regulate cannabis accordingly. if criminalizing and prohibiting cannabis worked, you and i wouldn't be having this conversation right now. the federal government would be having these conversations right now. the reality is, is that cannabis is not innocuous. that is why it ought to be regulated accordingly. any risks from cannabis are best mitigated by a policy of legalization, regulation and education. those risks are only compounded and exacerbated by a policy of prohibition, stig mytization and criminalization. >> i understand there is a difference between

criminalization and greatly widening access and i do understand that you actually propose a descheduling of marijuana which would remove it from the controlled substances act. i guess i just wonder, as this is moving -- it's moving very quickly in some places and this would be a national step -- is it possible it's moving too quickly and we're doing so without being conscious of the risks? >> absolutely not. we've had prohibition in this country for over a century. the american public knows it doesn't work. most politicians know that it doesn't work. look, the reason that we call for removing cannabis from the controlled substances act altogether is so states have the flexibility to regulate cannabis as they see fit. tobacco and alcohol are not in the controlled substances act. those are substances that pose far more greater hazards to

health than cannabis. we should at least treat marijuana equally. >> paul, interesting conversation. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. brianna? >> ahead on "cnn news central" trump's legal team is asking to sever his case from his co-defendants who want a speedy trial in georgia. we're following the very latest. ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ please e don't go.. ♪ ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ please don't gogo ♪ ♪ don't goooooo! ♪ (♪) ♪ don't go away ♪ (♪) ♪ please don't go ♪ (dad we got our subaru forester wilderness

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