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Trump Signs Executive Order Easing Restrictions on Marijuana; Trump Takes Questions in Oval Office; Trump Says Troops Will Get $1,776 Bonus by Christmas; Sources Say Six People Killed in North Carolina Private Jet Crash. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired December 18, 2025 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:01:08]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Continuing to watch this announcement from the Oval Office at the White House where President Trump is signing an executive order reclassifying marijuana to a lower drug classification.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": That's right. CNN, Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has done some extensive research and also, many documentaries on cannabis. He's with us now. Sanjay, how is marijuana classified and what exactly is changing here?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, so we refer to it as a schedule and these are controlled substances and there's five schedules, Schedule I through Schedule V. And what President Trump and others were sort of referring to is the fact that for a long time now, cannabis has been con considered a Schedule I substance. And I don't know if we have this, we can put it up on the screen. It has very specific language there in terms of what that means. One of the headlines is that it has no accepted medical use. OK? So, that's what a Schedule I is. It also has high potential for abuse and to give context, heroin is a Schedule I substance, LSD, Ecstasy.
So there are five schedules. We're now talking about cannabis going to be a Schedule III substance. First thing you'll notice if you look at Schedule III, is it no longer says this language about not having any accepted medical use. It says it does have moderate potential for physical dependence. But again, the context, ketamine, anabolic steroids, testosterone, those are examples of Schedule III substances. So this is not making cannabis a legal substance in the sense that you can just get it over the counter or gas station or something like this. But it is acknowledging for the first time in a long time that there are potential medicinal benefits to this, which I think for many in the medical community, they've sort of known this for a long time.
SANCHEZ: And what does this mean for research and for access to not only marijuana, but also CBD?
GUPTA: Yeah, so it's interesting, this idea that understandably people want research to show that something works medicinally. Obviously, everyone will want that research. But keep in mind, again, if you classify something as a Schedule I substance, you're already pre-ordaining that it doesn't have any medicinal benefit. So under Schedule I, it was really hard to get this research done. That was a large target of our seven documentaries that we've sort of produced on this. Now, as a Schedule III substance, that preordained no medicinal benefit is no longer there. And I think it opens up a lot of research funding.
You also heard from Dr. Oz there talking about the fact that at the Innovation Center for CMS, Center for Medicaid Services, they're going to start doing trials and targeting people over the age of 65 as well, providing cannabis, providing CBD specifically for different conditions, including chronic pain and sleep and things like that. So, not only will it be easier to collect data, it sounds like from this announcement today, they're going to start doing that at the federal level.
Again, we've seen this for some time. I used to profile -- I profiled a little girl named Charlotte Figi in one of our documentaries. She had intractable seizures. She had tried everything. She was having hundreds of seizures a week, went on CBD and was able to diminish those seizures significantly. And she was emblematic of so many other children out there. So again, anecdotally, we've known for some time, but now they want to collect the data.
KEILAR: Yeah. Standby for us, Sanjay. Let's listen to the president.
TRUMP: -- many others. I mean, again, it's -- I've never been inundated by so many people as I have about this particular reclassification. And I don't know that you have anything to say. Howard, if you'd like, you could say whatever you want.
HOWARD KESSLER, BILLIONAIRE FINANCIER: I just want to help the people 65 and over and make a difference in their lives. And we have machines and talent that could do it, not in eight year clinical trials, but in a year.
[14:05:00]
And we're going to prove that to be -- make change in the world, really in healthcare. So thank you, Mr. President.
TRUMP: And I'm far younger than 65, so this does not pertain to me.
(LAUGH)
TRUMP: Thank you.
KESSLER: Thank you.
TRUMP: I don't want it. OK? I'm not going to be taking it, but a lot of people do want it. A lot of people need it. And thank you, Howard, for --
KESSLER: I appreciate it. TRUMP: -- really opening a lot of eyes. OK. We'll sign it. We'll take some questions from the press. You can ask the doctors some questions and it's an honor to do this.
That's a good one. Thank you. I like that.
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TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you very much everybody. Any questions please.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President?
TRUMP: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A health related question on your healthcare plan. You've said you want to make direct payments to Americans, but these Obamacare subsidies are expiring now in a matter of just a few days. More than 20 million Americans are now bracing for their premiums to skyrocket. Are you going to let this happen or will you intervene?
TRUMP: Yeah, they will skyrocket because it was never any good. I'd like to see the money that is going to the insurance companies by the hundreds of billions of dollars, their stocks are up 1,400 percent, 1,800 percent, and 1,624 percent. Stocks are up through the roof over a fairly short period of time because they're getting vast amounts of money. I want that money to go to the people directly and let the people buy their own healthcare. And they'll get much better healthcare than they get with the Unaffordable Care Act, as it's known by a lot of people. It is virtually unaffordable for people. It's a bad thing. We can have a great thing. Let the money go directly to the people and let them buy their own healthcare.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But this is an urgent problem, Mr. President. Is there anything you can do now, Mr. President?
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: This is going to be -- this is going to be right now as far as I'm concerned. Go ahead.
DR. MEHMET OZ, ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & MEDICAID SERVICES: We just got data today. We have federal exchanges where people come shopping for the ACA and the president hasn't heard this yet, but we've talked to the team. The percentage change from last year was down 2.7 to 2.8 percent. Not the massive numbers that have been predicted. And there's many possible reasons for this, but right now, Americans are signing up for these programs despite all the things that have been going on. 2.8 percent is a tiny fraction of what many had claimed would happen. And I think it speaks to the fact that the American people appreciate these ACA plans are already subsidized over 80 percent. So it's a good deal. Even if you don't get the extra 15, 20 percent. TRUMP: It's a great -- it's a great solution to much better healthcare at a much lower cost. Yeah, please.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But do you want Congress to extend these ACA subsidies?
TRUMP: Well, I'd like not to be able to do it. I'd like to get right into this and I'd ask Oz this question in particular. But I'd like to see us get right into this. I don't know why we have to extend. This could be done rapidly if the Democrats would come along. We have a problem. The insurance companies own the Democrat Party. They own it. And the Democrats having a hard time. They give a lot of money to the Democrats. Very little money to Republicans, by the way. A lot of money to Democrats. And they're going to have to decide, do they want to do the right thing or do they want to be beholden to the insurance companies. They're making a fortune. I want the money to go to the people. Go ahead. Oz, how would you say that?
OZ: I agree with the president. We have some ideas out there. Congress is working through some concepts, but I want to emphasize that the ACAs are not imploding based on the data we just received from the federal marketplace.
TRUMP: This can go very quickly actually. Yes, please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, can I ask you -- clarify something for me on the Federal Reserve. How many people are you interviewing for the Fed Chairman and what did you think of Chris Waller?
TRUMP: I think he's great. I mean, he's been a man who's been there a long time. Somebody that I was very involved with in the sense of his career and he's a fantastic man. I met him yesterday again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So how many people are you looking at?
TRUMP: We're talking to three or four. I think every one of them would be a good choice, honestly. We'll be making a decision pretty quickly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Michelle Bowman on that list too? Are you going to interview her?
TRUMP: She's fantastic. She's a fantastic president. Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President, some GOP lawmakers have written to you in recent days saying they're concerned this executive order could normalize drug use for youth. How would you respond to them?
TRUMP: You're talking about this, particular today? Yes. I think I'd let one of the doctors respond to it because they could do it a lot better than me.
[14:10:00]
But I can only tell you that when you see polls of 82 percent of the people want this, when I have friends that are really, really sick and they've gone through, I guess you could say, fortunately I don't want to become too involved in it because I don't want it happening. But these are people that really know what's going to -- very smart people. This is one of the most successful people in the country and a very brilliant guy.
And when they go through this horrible ordeal of cancer or other things, and they realize that this is something that makes them feel better without all of the side effects of some of the drugs where you are just totally knocked out and out of it. But I'd like to have one of the doctors maybe respond because you people do it better than anybody.
DR. NORA VOLKOW, PSYCHIATRIST: I'm happy to respond.
TRUMP: Yes.
VOLKOW: I mean, and my answer is, we have had cannabis scheduled for how long? And it hasn't protected neither the adolescents nor the adults. We have 20 million people in the United States with a cannabis use disorder. This is not legalizing it, it's making easier to do research so that we can use it when it is indicated and optimally.
TRUMP: So it's also a big part of this is research. In other words, you'll now have a much larger sample and you'll be able to see if it's as good as many people say it is. I mean, people say it is beyond good. And you'll be able to find that out now.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On housing, you talked in your address last night about housing.
TRUMP: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you still considering a national emergency over housing?
TRUMP: I'm looking at it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would that look like?
TRUMP: I'm looking at it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would that mobilize?
TRUMP: I have two -- there's two thoughts on housing. You have a lot of people have housing that because we have such a strong time and such a strong market there, houses are very valuable. It's a big part of their net worth, their house. I don't want to knock those numbers down because I want them to continue to have a big value for their house. At the same time, I want to make it possible for young people out there and other people to buy housing.
In a way, they're at conflict. In other words, you create a lot of housing all of a sudden and it drives the housing prices down. So I want to take care of the people that have houses, that have a value to the house that they never thought possible, that have sort of made them wealthy and happy and especially in their later years. Got to be careful with that. I want to keep them up. At the same time, I want to make it possible for people to go buy houses. Daniel Flynn (ph)?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, you announced the warrior's dividend.
TRUMP: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last night in your primetime speech, very patriotic, very generous. What was the rationale and the thought process? How'd you come up with the idea? What made you want to give back to (inaudible).
TRUMP: Well, $1,776, it was easy to come up with because we were actually at $1,775, the number was $1,775. And I said, wow, I think we can afford one more dollar.
(LAUGH)
TRUMP: But we actually, they came up to me, it was $1,775. So I said, well, let's add a dollar to it. I think we could find that. And very simple, we've had a military that, in my opinion, by other presidents was not treated well. They're incredible. They are our finest people, they're protecting us. And because of tariffs, we're taking in billions and billions of dollars more than we ever have before, with no inflation, by the way. With no inflation, you saw the inflation numbers. They just came out today. What? Great timing. Practically no inflation. And yet, we're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars. And this is small potatoes by comparison, but it's a way of taking care of our warriors, our soldiers. And I appreciate that question, Daniel. That was an easy one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. Karoline Leavitt, she just posted on X, your Press Secretary, that the board members of the Kennedy Center unanimously to rename it the Trump Kennedy Center. What is your reaction to that?
TRUMP: Well, I was honored by it. The board is a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country. And I was surprised by it and I was honored by it. We're saving the building. We saved the building. The building was in such bad shape, both physically, financially, and every other way. And now, it's very solid, very strong. We have something going on television, I guess, on the 23rd December. I think it's going to get very big ratings. And the Kennedy Center is really -- really back strongly. It was in very bad shape -- very, very bad shape physically.
And we were also to get Congress to put up a lot of money and other people to put up a lot of money. We had a lot of donors come in for record setting numbers. So, we saved the Kennedy Center and I was really -- this was brought up by one of the very distinguished board members and they voted on it, and there's a lot of board members and they voted unanimously. So I was very honored by it. Thank you.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, will you be seeking any authorization from Congress for any land attacks on cartels in Venezuela?
TRUMP: For any what?
[14:15:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For any land attacks on drug cartels in Venezuela?
TRUMP: I wouldn't mind telling them, but it's not a big deal. I don't have to tell them. It's been proven. But, it wouldn't -- I wouldn't mind at all. I just hope they wouldn't leak it, people leak it. They are politicians and they leak like a sieve. But, I have no problem doing that.
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TRUMP: Yes, please.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, there's a meeting this weekend on Ukraine in Florida. What are you hoping will come out of that meeting?
TRUMP: Well, they're getting close to something, but I hope Ukraine moves quickly. I hope Ukraine moves quickly because Russia is there. And every time they take too much time, then Russia changes their mind. 27,000 soldiers were killed last month, think of that. What do you think of that doctors? It's 27,000. It's like a half a football stadium, were killed in one month. And it's that way. It's anywhere between 20,000 and 30,000, mostly soldiers. Also some people from Kyiv and other people places. But largely it's the soldiers. They're losing their lives. Nobody's ever seen anything like this. It's the worst since World War II.
You've heard me say, I settled eight wars, some going on for 35 years, one going on for 37, one going on for 32, and eight wars. And I thought this would be an easier one. This is because of the animosity, the hatred, it's a little bit more difficult than we thought. But there's a chance we can get this done maybe soon. Remember that 25,000 to 30,000 people being killed a month, young people being killed a month. Steve, please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When do you expect to make your announcement about the new Fed Chair, sir, before the end of the year? What do you think?
TRUMP: Over the next couple of weeks. I mean, I don't know, before the end of the year, but pretty soon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then the Rocky Mountain, North Carolina tomorrow night. Tell us what your message is going to be there, sir.
TRUMP: Say what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you go to Rocky Mountain, North Carolina tomorrow night, what's your message going to be there?
TRUMP: Well, it's not going to be that much different from what I did last night. I mean, we've had tremendous success. We're bringing prices down. We inherited a mess. And part of what we inherited was the worst inflation in 48 years. I say history, but we had the worst inflation. It drove prices up, and now we're bringing those prices down. But I'll be talking about that.
I'll be talking about the fact that we secured the border where literally nobody can come into our country illegally anymore. They came in from prisons and mental institutions and drug dealers and a lot of bad people from all over the world. Venezuela emptied their prisons into our country. We had Tren de Aragua, which supposedly, the doctors don't know this. It's the meanest gang of them all. OK, doctor? You don't have to know about it. You got other problems.
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TRUMP: But, they let a lot of bad people in here. And so, I think I'll be talking about that. I think I'll be talking about the tremendous success we have by sending the National Guard into various cities. And D.C. is the ultimate example. People walk to work and they thank me all the time. People in the White House, they just walk to the White House from 10 blocks away. Before I came into office, they couldn't do that. They were getting badly hurt in many cases and beyond hurt, killed. So, we were losing people. We were losing, on average a person a week. Can you believe it? More. And now, we haven't lost anybody in a long time.
I consider the two people that got so badly hurt, the National Guard. There is a difference. That was terrorism. That was terrorism and probably terrorism, may be terrorism because they were unhappy with the tremendous success we've had, because they don't want to see this country be successful. But Washington, D.C. now is a safe, beautiful city where the restaurants are booming, the town is booming. People walk to the restaurants with their wife or their children and have a good time. We were losing all the restaurants. We were losing our life in this, we were just the whole -- the whole heritage of Washington, D.C. was down the drain. And we brought it back.
And now, everybody is thrilled to be here. It's the hottest. It's a part of the hottest country anywhere in the world. We've become, in 10 months, the hottest country anywhere in the world. And we were -- and I say it all the time, we were a dead country one-and-a-half years ago.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you expect to meet Prime Minister Netanyahu while you're down in Palm Beach?
TRUMP: Yeah, he would like to see me. We haven't set it up formally, but he'd like to see me. We've had great success, peace in the Middle East, aside from everything else. We now have peace in the Middle East. Yeah, he'll probably come to see me in Florida.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Egyptians as well? Are they coming too? TRUMP: I'd love to have him. El-Sisi, he's a friend of mine. Yeah, I'd love to have him. Thank you very much, everybody.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Thank you, press. Thank you. Let's go. Thank you, press. Thank you, press.
[14:20:00]
SANCHEZ: We've been listening to President Donald Trump during this Oval Office announcement, the signing of an executive order reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug from a Schedule I, that would allow for more research. The President also asked a number of questions, notably on expiring Obamacare subsidies, saying that the premiums of many Americans will skyrocket. He says that insurance companies have been getting funds that should be going directly to Americans, though the White House hasn't really provided the details of a comprehensive replacement for Obamacare, an alternative to Obamacare despite promising one for months.
Also, the president asked whether he would seek permission from Congress to launch on-land attacks in Venezuela. The President saying that he doesn't even have to tell Congress if he doesn't wants to. He talked about politicians potentially leaking his plans. Of course, that flies in the face of what many Republicans in Congress have said about congressional authority to carry out those kinds of actions.
KEILAR: Yeah, certainly, for the military to carry out those actions. A lot to discuss, but let's go back to the issue at hand of this executive order and bring in our Sanjay Gupta who has covered cannabis so extensively. What stood out to you in this announcement? How is this going to change things? What is it not going to change?
GUPTA: Well, it's not making cannabis legal. I think that that was one of the big points that was made over and over again. It is still a controlled substance. And this was -- the discussion was really around medicinal use of cannabis, not recreational use. So keep in mind again, there are these schedules of controlled substances and they're basically scheduled from one to five based on how much benefit versus harm these substances may have. And cannabis, I think, somewhat inexplicably was sort of in the highest schedule for a long time. Meaning, it had no perceived medicinal benefit and had a lot of potential harms, such as heroin and LSD and ecstasy.
And I think, a lot of people, many of the doctors in the Oval Office there, many of whom I've interviewed over the years for these documentaries, they have been making this point that it's very hard to collect the data showing the medicinal benefit if you've already classified it as a Schedule I. So classifying it as a Schedule III sort of changes the optics of it, if you will. And I think the other big thing that stood out to me was this idea that at a federal level, at the Innovation Center for -- at CMS, Dr. Oz talked about this, they're going to start doing these trials and they're specifically going to do it in people over the age of 65.
They're going to look at conditions like pain and sleep, and they're going to collect data. So, people over the age of 65, I think they said they will have the ability in these trials to have up to $500 worth of CBD provided to them to be part of these trials to see how well this works and compare it to other things that are already out there. So, it's a significant step on the accelerator with regard to cannabis. I think a lot of people have been waiting a long time for something like this. Howard Kessler, who President Trump referred to a couple of times, someone that I talked to pretty regularly about this, on background for our documentaries.
But they were saying, look, this is something that's going to likely happen. We thought it might still be months, if not years. And all of a sudden, it happened this afternoon.
SANCHEZ: And Sanjay, something that the president was asked about here, I think it'd be great to get your take on. A reporter in the room mentioned that there had been several lawmakers that reached out to President Trump to express concerns --
GUPTA: Yeah.
SANCHEZ: -- over this move, potentially leading to more recreational use and opening the door for potential harm. I wonder what your thoughts are on that.
GUPTA: Yeah. That was a good question. And Dr. Nora Volkow, who is the Head of NIDA, National Incident on Drug Abuse, sort of took that question. This is not legal legalizing cannabis. It is still a controlled substance and to give you some context, it's controlled at the level of schedule of things like ketamine. So, is there abuse of drugs like that? Yeah. And there has been abuse and recreational use, obviously, of cannabis for a long time.
But if you look specifically at what this executive order is doing, this is really on the medicinal side. And I think, it's hard to predict all the ripple effects this might have, but I think the biggest one will actually be on research overall, research that a lot of people have been asking for, but unable to obtain because it was a Schedule I substance. So a concern, but probably not as big a concern given that this is focused on medicine.
SANCHEZ: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, appreciate the expertise. Thanks for joining us.
GUPTA: Got it.
SANCHEZ: Still to come, has brand new details about this deadly plane crash in North Carolina, including who was on board. Plus, after initially denying any connection, police are now looking into potential links between the attack at Brown University and a deadly shooting at a nearby school two days later. Stay with CNN. We'll be right back.
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[14:29:17]
SANCHEZ: Breaking News to CNN. Right now, crews are on the scene of a deadly crash involving a private jet in North Carolina. We've confirmed that six people were killed. A federal source says a person associated with NASCAR was onboard the plane. This crash happening at about 10:20 this morning, as a Cessna jet was landing at the Statesville Regional Airport, which notably has no control tower.
KEILAR: This was located about 40 miles north of Charlotte, and a witness captured video moments after impact that appears to show where the plane skidded across the field, digging up ground. CNN's Pete Muntean has been following all of the developments. Pete, what more do you know about what happened and who was on the flight?
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, investigators of course, will be looking at all of this video as they try to piece this together. And we're getting some new information now from sources who have been briefed on this, telling us that six people were onboard this Cessna Citation Jet, a pilot --
