Former President
Trump is
no stranger to making a lot of comments
that make a lot of headlines.
Caught on tape
between the Access
Hollywood tape that emerged
just before the 2016 election
the recording of him asking
Georgia election officials
to, quote,
find votes
to help him
change the results of the 2020 election.
Now his history of potentially damaging
audio tapes adding a new chapter.
As we've been reporting this morning,
federal prosecutors
have obtained a recording
of former
President Donald Trump acknowledging
he held onto a classified document
about a potential attack on Iran
after he had left the White House
and also suggested
in that recording
that he wants to share the information
but was limited in his ability to do so
by his post-presidency ability
to declassify records.
Joining us now, CNN political analyst
and senior political correspondent
at The New York Times, Maggie Haberman,
make a great to have you with us.
So the way this has been detailed
to our team of reporters,
when they broke this
about the recording,
there are sort of three parts
to it, right?
The fact that there was this document,
reportedly,
that there were conversations about it
and that the former president
acknowledged in those moments
he wanted to share it.
But there were those limitations
really gets to a number of the quote
unquote explanations
that we've heard
from the former president.
And these don't square.
Now, look,
there's been a lot of news
breaks in these documents investigation,
various news outlets.
We've had some you guys have had some.
This one is very meaningful.
And it's a big deal
for the reason you just said there.
It gets to number one documents
that were in his possession
documents that he had with him
at Bedminster,
which is a different location
than Mar a Lago
where the search had been focused.
But more specifically, whatever
that document actually was,
because Trump is not
the most reliable narrator
about what that document was.
And, you know,
we know
and you guys have reported,
Mark Milley did not actually produce
this document. Right.
What matters is Trump
most is Trump saying again,
I haven't heard the tape. No one has yet.
But our reporting is also that Trump says
something about the limits
of his classification abilities.
Know, he expresses
some regret
about not having declassified
this particular thing
while he was president.
That undermines the excuse
that they have made over and over again
that he had this ability to do that.
He automatically declassified everything.
I saw Jim Trusty
on this network
last night, Trump's lawyer
saying exactly that,
and then specifically not answering
whether this document was declassified.
And.
Yeah, and so I just
I don't see that question, by the way, of
is it now with the National Archives?
That's right.
And there's
I understand why he does
want to answer those questions,
but then don't go on TV to say,
I'm not going to sit here
and not answer these questions.
You know,
other than making the client happy,
this this tape is
multiple sources have described it
as very problematic for Trump.
Now, again, you know,
this investigation is still ongoing.
We don't know where it's going to end up.
But of all of the evidence
that we know of
this is the most damning I've heard of.
And it reminds us there's so much
we don't know
about what prosecutors have,
so much we don't know and
so much else
that could be out there,
especially when it comes to recordings,
because recordings were made often
with the former president.
Well, so actually,
that's,
I think, another piece
that's really striking to me about this
Number one,
Trump is very paranoid
about people taking notes
and he's very paranoid about tapes.
He was notorious
when he was a businessman for claiming
he was taping other people.
People at Mar
a Lago
always thought that
conversations were recorded.
This was
he knew that he was being taped,
that his own aides were taping
because they thought it was
it was for a Mark Meadows book
that there is an irony
to the fact that this relates
to Mark Meadows, who
whose sort of existence has been central
to investigators
in various parts
of the January six investigation
and so forth.
And he had not been a key
part of the documents investigation
that we knew of before.
This is this is significant.
But Trump was aware
that they taped routinely his aides
because they were taping
all of these book interviews.
My book interviews with him
that same year were all taped.
He was aware of it.
So it's not as if
this was some secret recording,
but he has this impulse,
you know, in certain
settings to sort of show off.
And that's really what this seemed like.
You have some really interesting
new, new reporting,
you and Jonathan Swan in The Times
about the particular interest,
the special counsel
in the federal probe,
Jack Smith,
has taken around Trump's mindset.
When he fired Chris Krebs,
this was after Krebs
said, look,
the 20, 20 election was the most secure
election we've had.
He was the top cybersecurity
official under Trump.
Why does Jack
Smith want to know
what Trump was thinking
when he fired Krebs?
Well,
what we believe he's trying to do,
as is the case of the documents case
as well,
and part of why this tape is important.
It goes to mindset.
It goes to what exactly he was thinking
when he made certain decisions.
And so is the idea, you know,
that these subpoenas relate to personnel,
office officials in the White House.
You know,
who would compile this
dossier about, you know, misdeeds
the Krebs
supposedly committed, which, you know,
I think a lot of people looking at
it would have a different view.
But that's basically
something that Smith is looking
at, is trying to figure out
how the White House
interacted with Krebs, with the DOJ
as various actions were being taken
by Trump
in relation to his efforts to claim this.
The other probe, the Jackson part.
Yes, this is correct.
There is Jackson.
This team is up to a lot.
And so, you know,
the documents
investigation is the one that is sort of,
I think, the most distilled
and narrow fact
that because it's clear
we know what we're talking about,
the January six investigation
into your question about
why does he care?
There are so many different offshoots
of that investigation.
And this is one of them.
And part of that, too,
in your reporting in this piece
you also mention this quote
unquote, loyalty
test around that same time.
That's important, too,
when it gets to mindset,
when it gets to
where everyone was exactly
and they have been
asking questions about this loyalty test,
which my colleague
Jonathan Swan
broke the news of
when he was at Axios
that this thing existed.
But they were basically trying to
with political appointees
and Krebs was a political appointee.
Trump had appointed him.
Trump had the right to fire him.
But, you know, trying to figure out
whether this person
was personally loyal
or any random person
was personally loyal to Trump versus,
you know,
the government at large is part
of what Jack Smith's team has
been asking questions about.
Pretty solid byline.
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
I'll take it.
I'm really happy, right?
Yeah, that's right.
Thank you.
This is really interesting, Maggie.
We appreciate it.
So let's unpack this more.
This developing story
we want to bring in, CNN
national security
analyst and former deputy
director of National Intelligence,
Beth Sanner.
So nice to see you this morning.
You know,
the classified documents
here in question
or document in question
was something
as sensitive as plans
on a potential strike on Iran.
Do we know anything else
about the document
and who the president
wanted to show it to?
I don't know anything about this
particular document,
but I do know that it is
General Miller's job
as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
to respond to requests by the president
to provide
military options
for something
that the president would want to do.
I don't see the Joint
Chiefs of Staff
role as freelancing
in proposing war plans.
War plans are proposed and provided
in response to a question.
And of course,
you would want to have that plan
be pretty robust.
I mean, this is what the Pentagon does
shock and awe for an attack to
on on an adversary like Iran.
So I think that's probably
what was going on here,
but I can't say in particular.
So let's listen to a few clips of what
the former president
has said about his handling
of classified documents. Listen
to this.
It doesn't have to be a process,
as I understand it.
You know, there's different
people say different things.
But as I said, that doesn't have to be
if you're
the president of the United States,
you can declassify just by saying
it's declassified,
even by thinking about it.
I have no classified document
And by the way,
they become automatically declassified
when I took them.
When it comes to your documents.
Did you ever show those
classified documents to anyone?
Not really.
I would have the right to.
By the way,
they would have survived after.
Not that I can think of.
So presidents have the power
to declassify documents,
but there is still a formal process,
correct?
Is he half right here?
What's what's your reaction?
President Trump is absolutely right in
saying that any president
has the right to declassify any material.
They are literally the men.
They do have that authority in law.
But
the details here do matter.
There's no such thing
as automatic declassification.
That, to me, sounds absolutely absurd.
There are two things
I'd like to say here.
First, there should be a process
about how you go about this for a reason.
But first, there should be a purpose
and no one's really talking about that.
Like the idea
that you would declassify a war plan
or any of the hundreds of other documents
that were found.
There should be a purpose.
For example,
when President Biden
declassified information
to warn China not to sell weapons
to Russia, that's a purpose here.
I can't discern a purpose.
So it shouldn't be a whim.
Just because you can doesn't
mean you should.
But the reason for the process
is it gives the Pentagon in this case,
or the intelligence community,
a chance to say like,
oh, if this information gets out,
lives are at risk. U.S.
national security is at risk.
We should not do that.
And usually a president would respond
and say, okay, or can we redact again?
Because there would be a purpose.
The intelligence community
would have to figure out
how do you extract
someone whose lives is at risk
or how do you
how do you protect this information?
Fascinating.
All right.
Senior national security
analyst Beth Santer,
thanks so much for all that context.