This totally wins my case, except it is highly confidential secret information,
if this is president I could have declassify it, now I can't.
>> You just heard what appears to be a pretty damning piece of evidence
against Donald Trump in the classified documents case against him.
Now, the recording you just heard,
a portion of the recording you just heard dates back to July of 2021,
when he was at a meeting in his bedminster, New Jersey club.
He was talking in a room with an individual who's working on his former
chief of staff, Mark Meadows's, book, his memoir,
along with two other staffers, and Trump knew he was being recorded.
Nonetheless, he decided to talk about a classified document that presumably was in
his possession as he was talking to the individuals in the room.
Before we hear more from that recorded audio, which was later leaked and CNN
obtained it, it's important to understand the context of what they are discussing.
So the conversation centered on Donald Trump's
foreign policy toward Iran when he was in office.
The recording referenced in the federal indictment against Trump, features Trump
describing a multi page document that he alleges is about possibly attacking Iran.
He was apparently frustrated that the press was reporting that
General Mark Milly was the one who was trying to keep Trump
under control in order to prevent a hot war with Iran.
Trump argues that it was the other way around, and
he presents what he refers to as classified,
a classified document to the individuals in the room as he's making this argument.
Without further ado, here's the leaked audio.
>> Well, with Millie, let me see that, I got to show you an example.
He said that I wanted to attack Iran.
Isn't it amazing?
I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up.
Look, this was him.
They presented me this is off the record, but they presented me this.
This was him, this was the Defense Department at him.
>> Wow. >> We looked at some, this was him,
this wasn't done by me, this was him.
All sorts of stuff, pages long, look.
Wait a minute, let's see, yeah,
I just found, isn't that amazing?
This totally wins my case, except it is like highly confidential, secret.
This is secret information.
>> Highly secret confidential.
Important to keep that phrase in mind.
And here is, I think, the most damning part of that leaked audio and
then we'll go to you, Cenk.
Let's watch.
>> Look at this.
You attack.
>> And Hillary would print that out all the time.
>> She send it to Anthony Weiner, by the way, isn't that incredible?
>> Yeah. >> was just saying, because we're talking
about and he said he wanted to attack Iran,
this was done by the military given to me.
I think we can probably declassify it.
>> Yeah. >> If I were the president,
I could declassify it, now I can't.
Isn't that interesting?
>> Yeah.
>> It's so cool, and you probably almost didn't believe me,
but now you believe me, it's incredible, right?
Bring some cokes in, please.
>> Bring some cokes in, please, that's my personal favorite part of that recording.
And again, Trump knew he was being recorded, but he still felt that it was
a great opportunity to talk about his possession of classified documents.
Which Cenk referred to as highly confidential, and
then talked about how he could have declassified those documents as president,
but can no longer do so now that he is no longer in office.
>> I have two points that I loved in that.
One was the staffer going, now we have a problem [LAUGH].
He's like, it's highly classified, it's secret, and I can't declassify it.
Here, you wanna look?
And she's like, now we have a problem, [LAUGH] Okay.
So my second favorite quote was, Trump has been saying to Brett Baer and others,
these are just newspapers and magazines, they're not classified.
I mean, I said it was classified, but it's not classified.
Well, first of all, there are no newspaper articles or
magazines that are classified because they're public by definition.
But if you aren't convinced yet, the audio tape, he's like, this is him.
This is him, Milley, this is him.
Look at all these pages and pages of documents, this is him.
Yeah, Millie did not write our invasion plans of Iran in the New York Times or
on Newsweek.
>> Yeah, that's such a great point.
And so what Cenk is referencing is,
some of the lies that Trump told prior to CNN airing the audio you just heard,
and part of that conversation took place during an interview with Bret Baer.
So that happened a few weeks prior to CNN publishing that audio that you just heard.
So why don't we take a quick look at that snippet from that interview, just so
you have the full context of where that light comes from.
>> That wasn't a document, Bret, there was no document.
That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and
other things, and it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document.
I didn't have a document, per se, there was nothing to declassify.
These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.
>> So there you have it, that was a lie.
The idea that Mark Milley had an outline of this
invasion in Iran in news article is ridiculous.
>> There's literally only one place where we would have our secret
plans to invade Iran in top secret classified documents.
We don't make those public by in fact, if they're public, show me,
show me where they are, because he says it's not.
Now, his new thing is it's not classified, it was just newspapers and magazines.
Okay, then, great, show me where it is.
>> Okay.
>> Okay, there is no such thing, of course, but, look, guys, at this point,
their right wing is basically given up.
They're just using the third grade thing of like,
yeah, I might have done that mommy, but Susie also did it.
>> The what aboutism.
>> Exactly right, and every parent knows this, and
that's why he's a petulant child.
>> Well, to that point, that recording gave me a little hint
into his motivations in keeping the classified documents.
I don't think this is necessarily the full reason why Trump would wanna take those
classified documents home with him and refuse to hand them over,
once the Feds demand that he hands them over.
He wants to maintain or possess some level of evidence to clear his
name because he believes that everyone's constantly lying about him, right?
So in this case, look, honestly, I'm skeptical that Mark Milley
wasn't the one pushing him to go to war with Iran, right?
Honestly, I think it's totally believable that Milley would be pushing for Iran.
So maybe Trump wanted to maintain those documents in an effort to provide evidence
against some of the mainstream media narratives against him.
I don't know.
>> Yeah, I don't know either, so let me clarify a couple of things.
First of all, on Damage Report this morning,
I said the same exact thing as Anna.
Where I said, look, this is,
in one aspect of the case, not the legal aspect,
but the sense of how damaging it is politically.
The slightest little exoneration potentially, why, Trump is screaming,
I'm exonerated, it was a perfect call.
No, you're toast legally, you're definitely guilty.
You had classified documents, you knew they were classified,
you kept them anyway, etc.
But I always assume that since Trump is obsessed with money,
that he took the documents to sell them.
And we've talked about that, but now when you look at that tape or you hear that
tape, you think, well, no, maybe it could be a couple of other reasons.
Never underestimate how unintelligent Donald Trump is.
It's possible that he wanted to keep them to prove his case,
as Anna just pointed out, or as I said earlier today,
just because he wanted to show off because he's a child.
And you see in the tape,
he's like, you wanna see the highly classified top secret documents?
And so it doesn't exonerate him as a human being or legally but
I now think maybe he didn't wanna sell them, right?
Maybe he was just an idiot but
let's also keep in mind, he might have wanted to sell them.
And remember, Jared Kushner's son in law got $2 billion
right after the election from Saudi Arabia.
And Donald Trump got millions upon millions through the live golf tournament
from the Saudis right after the election.
So they've already been paid.
We don't know if it was through the documents or just because the Saudis
didn't like the fact that Trump let them chop up a Washington Post reporter.
>> So I have a little bit of a, I don't know, maybe a spicy take.
I don't know how people are gonna react to it.
But I came across a story today about Jen Psaki, who's now a host over at MSNBC.
>> Of course.
>> And she floated a theory, she speculated that Trump took the documents
because he might have wanted to show the documents to dictators,
which he has so much admiration for, right?
I just think that it's a little irresponsible to just pull random,
speculative theories out of your, you know what, can we just wait and find out.
There's an investigation happening as we speak and I think you start losing.
Well, with someone like Jen Psaki over at MSNBC, I mean,
she's literally a political operative.
She worked for Biden's administration,
but it just starts making people look kind of unhinged and conspiratorial.
We don't know.
>> But let me make a distinction here.
So, first of all, there is no distinction between MSNBC and
the Biden administration, that's their one organism.
Okay, now onto the distinction in the speculation.
There is some evidence that he took them home to brag, that's the tape.
He's bragging on the tape, so there's some evidence of that.
Is it definitive?
Not at all, there's some evidence that he wanted to prove his case, and
that's why he kept some of the documents, the one Anna just said,
because he says it on the tape.
So, again, not at all definitive, but
maybe could be that at least there's one piece of evidence.
And there's some evidence that he kept them to get paid, because he already has
gotten paid a spectacular amount of money from the Saudis.
So that doesn't mean that it's definitive at all, not even close, right, but
it's one piece of evidence.
Is there any evidence that he has given them to dictators for free or for giggles?
No, there's not one piece of evidence to that,
that's just speculation out of thin blue air, right?
So I think that there is a real distinction there between those things but
I think it's also human, Anna, for people to speculate.
When a guy takes home top secret documents for no goddamn reason and
exposing himself to massive liability and criminal consequences, etc.
I think it's legitimate to ask, why the hell did he do that?
>> No, I understand.
I think part of what I feel burned by, was the narratives that were drummed
up in corporate media in regard to Trump's relationship with Putin and
Russian interference in the election.
They would take something, and they would take two different elements of that story.
There'd always be, like, the missing piece, right, connecting the dots, that
really proved that Trump was working with Putin to interfere in the 2016 election.
But nonetheless, a lot of that was drummed up, and a lot of weird connections were
made to kind of give the appearance that it was an open and
shut case, that Trump definitely was working hand in hand with Putin.
There was definitely election interference taking place, that there was collusion
with Trump and Putin, and honestly, the evidence didn't bear that out.
You get what I'm saying?
>> Yeah, but look again.
>> And it was overplayed, there was a lot of speculation in the press, and
I just think it's irresponsible.
Just stick to the facts.
There's an investigation taking place, if you're gonna speculate,
be clear that you're speculating.
>> Yeah, see, that's my law.
>> Don't plant seeds in people's heads, which then germinate into insane
conspiracy theories that are not born out of any evidence.
>> Yeah, I hear you, but I think we got to be able to make distinctions.
So, first of all, to be clear,
the Russians did interfere in the 2016 election.
It's just that Trump did not participate with them.
>> Exactly.
>> There was not a coordination.
>> Right. >> So I wanna
be clear about the facts that we definitely know, right?
And then in terms of, since the Russians appeared to be helping him and
it turns out they were, that leads to understandable speculation as to why.
But then when you go into that speculation, you have to base it on
something, but most importantly, you have to clearly identify it.
You can't just say, yeah, Trump did it, or, yeah,
the Trump is getting paid by the Saudis, we know for sure.
No, you don't know that for sure, right?
So I think you could have a normal human conversation about it, especially on talk
shows, as long as you're being clear about what's facts and what's speculation.
>> The one thing that's also clear to me in this story is how Trump has lied over
and over again about his possession of these classified documents, and
he's changed his story on multiple occasions.
So just to give you an example of other lies that he's told, specifically
in regard to these classified documents pertaining to foreign policy toward Iran.
In a recent interview,
Trump claimed that he was unaware of the Iran document being among the materials in
the boxes recovered at Mar-a-Lago by the FBI and Justice Department.
He also continued to claim that everything he took with him was declassified.
I mean, lies, absolute lies.
So from that audio, it is abundantly clear that he is in possession of
those classified documents pertaining to Iran.
He is talking about them, he is talking about his inability to declassify them,
now that he is no longer in office.
It's just on record, it's so clear.
And so those who are trying to provide cover for him are now twisting themselves
into insane, ridiculous pretzels, and they're gonna have to continue doing so
because this isn't the only recorded audio that prosecutors have.
So I want to talk about that a little bit as well.
So prosecutors 49 page indictment outlined two instances two instances
in which Trump disclosed sensitive papers in unsecured environments,
post-presidency to individuals who lack the necessary security
clearances required to view any classified information.
Let's go to graphic six here.
The second instance, so the second instance is one that we haven't heard yet.
Described in the indictment was an August or
September 2021 meeting where Trump showed an unnamed representative
of his political action committee a classified map of country B and
expressed to the individual that he shouldn't be sharing the map.
>> Devastating.
>> What are you doing?
Okay, so guys, look, at this point I don't think it's a question anymore as to
whether he's guilty or not, and I say that not as a matter of law and evidence.
We had crossed that bridge a while back.
Now that evidence, we don't just know that it exists, we've heard it, right?
In a sense, we've become a part of the jury,
at least in the court of public opinion.
But you can also tell because man, right wingers,
including right wing media, including Fox News Day,
are struggling mightily to try to justify this and they just can't.
And a lot of them are going, okay, yeah, he kind of did it, and so
then they, but somebody else did it, but this, but that, and now,
the only question that's remaining is, how is he gonna get out of it?
Not whether he did it or
not, and there's three ways he can get out of it jury nullification.
One of the jurors on the case is MAGA and goes, I don't care, I just don't care.
>> Yeah, it's a good point, that could happen.
>> I'm on a jury.
>> I'm not sure, I disagree.
>> Yeah, one juror is MAGA and he goes, no, I'm not convicting him.
I don't care if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue and you have tape of it,
I'm not convicting him, okay?
So that's totally possible.
Judge nullification doesn't normally happen, but
there's kind of a MAGA judge here.
So she could be like, I toss out all the evidence, I'm exaggerating, but
she could toss out critical evidence.
At the end she could even say, the jury's decision is unjustifiable by the law,
you're free to go and so that could happen.
>> That would be a crazy scenario.
>> It has happened before, it's not like unprecedented, okay?
And then the last thing is politician nullification, where either he wins,
another Republican wins, or maybe even Biden wins and they pardon him.
You think Biden wouldn't pardon him, I mean, we've gone through this many times.
>> Can we nullify Biden?
>> I know, well, there is a way to do that, it's called the primary.
So there are three possible outs he has left, but none of them are legal.
He billion percent did it, and at this point, this is as close as I've
ever seen to the right wing going, uncle, yeah, he did it, okay?
And last thing, guys, that Iran document that's top secret that Trump told
you about, he never returned it.
We still don't know where it is.
It was not at Mar-a-Lago, it was in New Jersey.
So this dude's still hiding documents.
>> I flushed it down my golden toilet, that's what I do.
>> Speaking of golden and toilet, by the way, to the earlier conversation, I think
we have a ton of credibility because we call out people on our side all the time.
The Steele dossier that people that on MSNBC, etc, were going nuts over.
I told you I didn't believe that for a second, right?
And we said that from day one to now.
So why, by the way, they're like, Trump is in the golden showers and
stuff like, no, he's not, he's a germophobe.
>> Right. >> It just doesn't make logical sense,
you have to with the facts.