Evening.
We begin tonight with breaking news.
We have obtained
what is expected
to be
a central piece of the government's
case against Donald Trump.
The actual
audio recording, recording of the former
president talking
as if he is showing
a highly classified document on U.S.
warplanes against Iran
with people
not clear to even know it exists,
let alone what's in it.
In a moment
only on CNN,
you will hear what jurors will hear
one day.
The recording was made two summers ago,
July 20, 21
at the former president's club
in Bedminster, New Jersey.
You will clearly hear
the former president as he is
speaking to several people.
According to the special
counsel's indictment,
they include a writer
working on Mark Meadows.
His memoir,
the publisher
and two of Trump's staff members.
The president was aware
he was being recorded.
Is the first time it
is being played publicly.
These are bad, sick people.
But that was your cue,
you know, against you.
Well, it started, right?
It's like when Bill is talking about,
oh, you're going to try to do it.
They were trying to do that
before you even were sworn in.
That's right.
Trying to overthrow your alliance
with Milley.
Let me see that.
I'll show you an example.
He said that I wanted to attack Iran.
Isn't it
amazing to have a big pile of papers?
This thing just came out blown
this was him.
They presented me.
This is off the record,
but they presented me this.
This was him.
This was the Defense Department and him.
We looked at him.
This was him.
This wasn't done by me.
This was saying all sorts of stuff.
It's pages long
adamant.
It was a symbol of
evil.
Yeah, I just.
Isn't that amazing?
Just totally wins my case, you know?
Except it is, like, highly confidential.
There's a secret informant
that looked into this.
You attack,
and Hillary
would print that out all the time.
You know,
he say it either she said that
Anthony Weiner.
Yeah. Program,
by the way.
Isn't that incredible?
Yeah, I was just saying,
because we were talking about and,
you know,
he said he wanted to attack Iran.
And what he said is pretty well,
this was done by the military given to me
I think we can probably do
a lot of the for, you know, to
try to deflect Iran
since president I couldn't do it.
You know, I can't you know, but this is
a problem.
Isn't that interesting?
You know, it's so cool.
I said, look, we here and I have
and you probably almost didn't
believe me.
But now, you know,
I think it's incredible right now.
They bring some bring some jokes.
And Bush
joining our CNN
anchor and chief correspondent
Kaitlan Collins,
also our senior legal affairs
correspondent, Paula Reid.
Caitlin, first of all,
what do you make of this?
The first time we were hearing this
audio, we'd seen
a transcript was more in this audio
than we actually had seen,
I think, in the transcript.
What stands out to you? Yeah.
There is more in this.
And this is a two minute
clip of what
a recording that we're told
is over an hour long
But this is,
of course, the part that is at the center
of Jackson's investigation.
And we knew about this.
You've seen in first reported
that this existed in that Jack Smith's
prosecution had it in their hands.
But to hear it,
I think, really just drives home
and it undercuts
everything that Trump has been saying.
I mean, even as of a few days ago,
he was saying
there was no document per se.
But you can hear him
very clearly in there
referencing something in his hand.
You can hear him
filing through papers,
shuffling through papers.
And he's not just saying, here's
this document.
He very clearly appears
to be showing it to them
because, look,
only the people in the room
could know that.
But you can hear in that
why this is so critical
to Jackson's case,
because it's Trump acknowledging,
I have this document.
It is secret, it is classified.
I cannot
declassify it now
because he's six months out of office.
And it's just remarkable
to hear him actually saying it.
And I was talking to
to someone in Trump's orbit about this
because obviously
a lot of people,
several people in his orbit
have heard it themselves
when they found out about it
in mid-March.
And we were talking about comparing it
kind of to the Access Hollywood tape,
how if you just had a transcript of that,
it wouldn't have been maybe as
controversial and contentious
as it was
when you could actually hear it
saying, would this the fact that
we could read the transcript.
But hearing it, I think drives it home
so much more.
Paul, it
you've reported extensively on this case.
What your reaction to hearing
actually hearing
that audio,
Anderson, is remarkable
how casual this conversation is.
The former president knew
he was being recorded
during this meeting.
His own aides were in the habit
of recording him
any time he talked to journalists
or people working on books
and in the room with him
were two people
who were working on an autobiography
for Mark Meadows.
But even though
he knows he's being recorded,
you hear him
sort of casually discussing
classified documents,
admitting that
he cannot declassify these.
And then just a few moments later,
calling to someone
to bring them some Coke.
It's very conversational.
That's one of the things
that really sticks out to me.
And I think it's important
for people to really hear exactly what
this sounds like.
There's a lot of laughter
in that recording as well.
One of the other things
that stands out to me
is the fact that he
and the people around him in that room
were joking
about former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton's
use of a private email server
that is something
we previously didn't know about
because it was not included
in the indictment.
Now, from a legal standpoint,
it makes sense that prosecutors wouldn't
include that, right,
because it's not incriminating.
It's not really relevant to their case.
But in the court of public opinion,
the fact that he's making jokes
about Hillary Clinton,
other people in the room
making jokes about Anthony Weiner
as well,
that I think really comes off
as some hubris.
We have the
we have the benefit of hindsight here
right now.
This is being used
as a key piece of evidence
in a federal prosecution and killing.
There's
there is that moment where he says,
you know, that
these are the papers
and you can hear them.
And I want to play that again
because it's it's instructive
to actually kind of visualize
what he's doing. This play this
I was just saying, because
we're talking about
and, you know,
he said he wanted to attack Iran.
And what he said is pretty well,
this was done by the military given to me
that wasn't in the indictment.
That part of it,
I think, was not in the indictment.
Why do you think there is?
It's unclear
what he's talking about there,
that he for
people are watching it
super closely is Chairman Mark Milley,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
And he's basically
saying this is proof
that he wanted to attack Iran, not me.
We should note that the document
that is
in question here, we are told
it was predated Milley.
It wasn't
actually something that he produced,
but it speaks to something
that we've heard
the former
national security
officials in Trump's orbit talk about,
which is
this is not just any kind of information,
any kind of document.
This is the nation's secrets,
which don't just change on a daily basis.
You don't just come up with a new attack
plan for Iran
that he is
just brandishing
you proudly to random people in the room.
These are random autobiographies
who are working for Mark Meadows
that are in the room.
They don't have security clearances
that he's showing this to.
And I just think
I think this audio changed a lot
about the way
that Trump's legal team viewed this case.
They told me and Paula and I
are their colleague,
Kelly, we've been covering this
for months.
We had heard
they weren't worried about
this investigation,
that they had this argument
that you know,
he just took what he had with him.
It wasn't nefarious.
He's trying to use that now, saying
it's just golf clippings.
You can see there
he knows exactly what he has.
He knows that it's not declassified.
It's his own words
and it's why he is showing it to them
and to to bolster his own case,
to show himself, to brag, essentially.
And there
is reporting on how the DOJ and the FBI,
it kind of struggled as they were
investigating this.
They knew that there was classified
information that had not been returned,
but they obviously had questions
about Trump's intent.
This is before they knew that, you know,
there are surveillance videos of him
moving boxes around
before his attorneys come to search.
And I think this also speaks to
to his intent here.
I also wonder at the end
where he says, you know,
bring us some Cokes.
I wonder if not
his body man is in the room
because he is now also facing charges.
And that was
not his primary job in the White House.
He was his valet.
He did
he did things like go and fetch Diet
Cokes and Cokes for Trump.
But of course, he's on
getting a arraigned tomorrow.
Yeah, pull it.
With that in mind,
I want to play what Trump said
to Fox last week in this interview.
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 made up,
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.
I'm just so he's downplaying the papers.
He's holding his articles in magazine
stories.
Clearly,
that does not seem to be the case
when you hear this audio.
And he says, these are the papers.
And he said, look, this just popped up
yeah.
And it's significant
because these are the papers,
that specific quote
that was not included
in the transcript
that the special counsel
included in its indictment.
And now it has taken on more significance
because he has sort of
altered his defense here to say,
no, I didn't have a document per se.
There were no documents.
And we reached out
to the special counsel's office to ask
if this was an intentional omission
or a mistake.
Special Counsel's Office
declined to comment, but I understood.
Know your team's been working all day
to try to get our own transcript.
I helped them a little bit,
and it appeared
it took about a dozen iterations
before everyone agreed on
exactly what they were hearing.
So it is most likely just a mistake.
And it's unclear
at this point
if the special counsel
will make an amendment
to the indictment to include that line.
It is an interesting idea, though,
if it was an intentional omission in
in order
to see how the president would react.
I mean, maybe that's like thinking
just too much in advance,
or maybe I'm overthinking this.
They had the opportunity.
Look, to go on background with us,
to go on the record,
say, hey, we made a mistake there.
As you can hear there,
there are a lot of different layers
to the audio.
And at this point, it's just unclear
if this was a mistake,
if they didn't hear it, if it was a typo
or an intentional omission.
But it is likely to come up
in the course of this case
because, again,
this is a really significant
substantive line now
and pull it beyond that.
In terms of the other people in the room,
do we know exactly who they are
beyond being incredibly sycophantic?
Yeah, no, you make a great point.
Among the people in the room,
Liz Harrington,
one of the people who works
with the former
president on communications,
Mark Martin,
one of his longtime aides
and two people
working on an autobiography
for former White House
chief of staff Mark Meadows.
And it is really surprising
when you hear this recording,
these voices that even
the special counsel
have has labeled as staffer
egging him on.
Laughing again, like you
said, being sycophantic.
It sort of encouraged him
throughout this feedback
that he was getting from the room
and in hindsight,
you have to ask whether his staffers
were really serving his best interest,
given their responses
throughout this exchange.
Even at one point,
one of the staffers acknowledged.
Now we have a problem,
but they're still sort of laughing
even nervously.