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CNN Obtains Tape of Trump Talking Classified Documents; Trump Valet Walt Nauta to Face Arraignment on Charges He Helped Hide Classified Documents; Russia Drops Charges Against Wagner Group for Rebellion. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 27, 2023 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[06:00:25]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for joining me. I'm Christine Romans. CNN This Morning starts right now.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, good morning, everyone. We're so glad you're with us. Really significant developments overnight, perhaps after you went to bed. Happy to have Phil by my side. Good morning.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

HARLOW: How you doing?

MATTINGLY: You know those moments where you see a transcript of something and think, I really like to listen to the actual tape.

HARLOW: And then CNN obtains the tape.

MATTINGLY: And then the tape is just as bad, if not worst, than the transcript was. And you think, oh, wow, this is huge news.

HARLOW: And then a former president is at the center of it. That's what we're going to get started with this morning.

But, first, five things to know for this Tuesday, June 27th, 1st on CNN, what we were just talking about, that audio tape that is central to the prosecution's case of Donald Trump. Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents, you will hear directly from the former president in his own words, telling people, quote, this is secret information. Look at this.

MATTINGLY: And just hours from now, we may get a glimpse of how Trump's political rivals leverage that new audio against him, if they do at all. He and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis set to collide on the campaign trail in New Hampshire.

HARLOW: Also new this morning, Russia says it is dropping all charges against the Wagner Group, the rebel army that was prepared to march on Moscow just this weekend. But questions remain about where their leader is. MATTINGLY: And all eyes on the Supreme Court this morning. We're standing by for rulings on several consequential cases, including affirmative action and student loan forgiveness.

HARLOW: And for the first time in 20 years, cases of malaria have been contracted here in the United States. Scientists warn the climate crisis is playing a key role.

CNN This Morning starts right now.

MATTINGLY: Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome. There is a lot of news today, but we want to begin with the biggest, and it is a first on CNN. Former President Donald Trump heard on audio talking about holding secret documents that he did not declassify. CNN has obtained that recording from a 2021 meeting at the former president's Bedminster, New Jersey golf club.

In it, Trump appears to indicate he was holding a secret Pentagon document containing plans to attack Iran. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: These are bad sick people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was your coup, you know, against you. That --

TRUMP: Well, it started right at the --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like when Milley is talking about, oh, you were going to try to do a coup. No, they were trying to do that before you even were sworn in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trying to overthrow your election.

TRUMP: Well, with Milley, let me see that, I'll 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, this is off the record, but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow.

TRUMP: 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 here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my gosh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: I just found, isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like, highly confidential, secret --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: This is secret information. But look, look at this. You attack, and --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hillary would print that out all the time, you know, her private email.

TRUMP: She's send it, no, she she'd send it to Anthony Weiner.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: The pervert.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please print.

TRUMP: By the way, isn't that incredible?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: I was just thinking, because we were talking about it. And you know, he said, he wanted to attack Iran and what. These are the papers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You did.

TRUMP: This was done by the military and given to me. I think we can probably, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know, well, we'll have to see. Yes, we'll have to try to -- figure out --

TRUMP: Declassify it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: See as president I could have declassified it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Now we have a problem.

TRUMP: Isn't that interesting?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: It's so cool. I mean, it's so -- look, her and I, and you probably almost didn't believe me, but now you believe me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. I believe you.

TRUMP: It's incredible, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, they met a war they didn't want.

TRUMP: Hey, bring some Cokes in, please.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: There he is, in his own words. That audio is crucial evidence in federal prosecutors case against Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified information after he left the White House. Federal prosecutors have charged him with putting national security secrets at risk.

[06:05:01]

It didn't take long for the former president to respond. Here's what he wrote on Truth Social, quote, the deranged special prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ and FBI, illegally leaked and spun a tape and transcript of me, which is actually an exoneration rather than what they would have you believe, close quote.

Let's begin with our Senior Crime and Justice Correspondent Katelyn Polantz live in Miami this morning. Look, because of the reporting of you and your colleagues, we knew what the transcript was, what the words were. But I think, as Phil said at the top, to hear it is a completely different thing. Legally, though, is it damning?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Phil and Poppy, that's exactly what we're looking at here, right? We have the transcript of this. We knew what the words were that Donald Trump had spoken because the Justice Department confirmed them in that indictment. It was words on a page. But this brings it to life, not just for us to hear now, but it is the sort of thing, the sort of piece of evidence that prosecutors will be playing in a courtroom to tell the story of this case.

And particularly from what we can see in the indictment, they're going to want to be using this to show how cavalier Donald Trump was with these documents that he's accused of retaining after he left the White House at Mar-a-Lago, right? He's showing them to people. He's potentially disseminating them to people. And he's also showing that he has knowledge that these documents are secret, at least this one in particular, that he's acknowledging that it was classified. And he's getting that feedback on that audio recording from the others in the room. Yes, every time he's saying, look, and they're responding to him. Yes. We see it. We see it. We agree with you.

And so that's the sort of thing that we would very much expect to be used at a trial, if not once, but multiple times during witness questioning.

MATTINGLY: Katelyn, one of the big questions I think we've all had, it seems that I think to some degree, a special prosecutor has as well, these documents that the president is referring to in this tape. Do we know where they are now? Will there be further searches? What's the status there?

POLANTZ: Well, there's no indication right now that there would be further searches. It's charged in this case that we already have. But there is a big question about what happened to this document. We know it's a real document. That was part of the reporting when we first broke this story, that this type of document did exist during Trump's presidency. He would have been privy to it. He would have been able to have it and take it with him. And after the Justice Department got this audiotape, they subpoenaed Donald Trump and his lawyers for this specific document or any copies of it he had.

Now, if that indicates whether they couldn't find it or they already had it in their possession and just wanted to make sure there was nothing else out there, we don't exactly know. It is something that could come out in trial that the prosecutors might have. Donald Trump's team was not able to produce the exact document, and Trump has clearly been leaning into that even since he was indicted.

And this particular document, this episode, is part of the case against him. Here is what he has said previously about what he was waving around in this audio recording that he's so clearly showing this particular document to these others.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLANTZ: Now, will that work in court? That's going be a question for the jury to decide. But this is the sort of thing where prosecutors are going to be able to play that audiotape. And then we know that they have called witnesses. At least one of the people that was in the room witnessed this to the grand jury and very likely would call those people into the trial itself to testify what they remember exactly seeing Trump holding up during this episode. Phil and Poppy?

HARLOW: And, Katelyn, on top of all of this, someone who is alleged in the indictment to have moved a bunch of boxes, is Walt Nauta, right, Trump's right hand and aide. He's going to be arraigned today on charges that he helped hide classified documents that the DOJ had wanted back. What's going to happen today in court with this?

POLANTZ: Well, we're expecting that to be a pretty short hearing today with Walt Nauta, Donald Trump's valet, his body man, a man who still works for him and travels with him as a political aide. Walt Nauta is set to come back into the federal courthouse behind me in downtown Miami this morning to formally enter his pleading of not guilty. He didn't do it two weeks ago when we were here before for Trump's arraignment, but he's coming back in to do it. He's now very much expected to have a lawyer from Florida helping with his case, in addition to his typical lawyer that's been helping him through this.

But one thing about Nauta, remember, he's not charged in the retention. He is charged in concealing documents and making false statements as a part of a cover up to this retention case against Donald Trump.

HARLOW: Katelyn Polantz, thank you for the reporting on all of that.

Let's bring in CNN Senior Political Commentator Adam Kinzinger and CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig.

[06:10:03]

Elie, to you. I want you to listen to Trump's former lawyer. This is Jim Schultz and what he thinks about this. Let's play the first sound bite from him last night with Abby.

Okay. We don't have it.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think I saw him.

HARLOW: I apologize for that.

HONIG: I know what he said. It's okay.

HARLOW: Okay.

HONIG: I mean, he said this is very damaging to Donald Trump. This is very helpful for DOJ's case.

HARLOW: But he said both on the Espionage Act and on the obstruction front, which I thought was so notable.

HONIG: Yes, I think he's right on both of those. I agree with Jim on this. First of all, on the Espionage Act front. The Espionage Act, just to be clear, the charge here is not espionage per se. It's willful retention of national defense information. Well, what has this tape established? Donald Trump had sensitive information, confidential information relating to military plans. He knows that that's what this is. And he's sharing the information somehow or other with outsiders with no security clearance.

And then when you get to the obstruction angle, let's remember when this happens, this tape. This is July of 2021. At this point, National Archives, several months before, has already come to Trump's team and said, hey, we have some concerns. You have some documents that you shouldn't have. We need them back. Yet at this point, he's already in the process of hiding those documents from the Archives and eventually from DOJ.

MATTINGLY: Adam, I think one of the questions that I've had throughout is that this tracks the tape, the possibility that this was actually happening. I constantly hear repetition of Stringer Bell on the wire saying, like you're taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. What are you doing right now? We're actually recording this. And I think with the president -- it is a good show, Season 3.

But the idea of him saying that these are just news articles, you don't have proof, and we don't necessarily know that they have the documents at this point, however, if you look over the course of how he operated with classified information in the White House, after the White House, there's a through line here, to some degree.

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The through line is he -- look, I don't think he's out there, like I would love to show people classified information, but if that classified information makes him look good. I don't remember the details. There was something about some accusation or reality that he had revealed something classified to the Russian foreign minister at one point. If you remember, he tweeted a photo about maybe it was something in Syria that was classified at the time.

MATTINGLY: It was in Iran.

HARLOW: Yes.

KINZINGER: It was an Iran, that's it. And there were all those little things.

So, what was obvious is, to him, okay, everybody has an ego, everybody, sorry. But most people with an ego try to put national security, particularly when you are sworn in to defend that, you try to put national security above your ego. It's the opposite in this case.

And I can tell you what's going on in that room, listening to all the commotion, because I've seen it. I've met with President Trump. Everybody is sitting there smiling, right, because he's talking. And it's so amazing when he's talking. He's trying to impress them. And what I thought was interesting, it was mentioned last night, the lady that on there goes, like, wow, when he shows the document.

And I can tell you if somebody has seen classified information, the very first time I was presented with something that was, like, top secret, it kind of takes your breath away, because it's pretty big deal, right? It's kind of cool. So, it's really interesting to hear the dynamics and know that people are just feeding his ego, and he's using this as another way to be fed.

HARLOW: I thought it was interesting. Kaitlan did a really interesting interview last night with Mark Esper, who expressed concern about -- he said, we were generally concerned about the handling of classified material within the White House writ large. Just interesting to get behind the scenes and know that the top people like him were worried then, let alone after the president left.

KINZINGER: One of the things I get concerned about, guess what Trump can reveal in all that. Up until Donald Trump, there was always this feeling, Republican and Democrat, that we don't reveal classified information. This is like sacrosanct. This is about as holy as you can get in a secular government. Now you have, in essence, half of the country talking about, well, everybody is talking about overclassification, this isn't a big deal, stuff like that. That's a concern to me is what the damage is long-term to classified information.

HONIG: And overclassification certainly is a longstanding concern, as Adam says, but this does not fall into that. This is a military plan about invading Iraq put together by the national defense apparatus in this country -- excuse me, Iran. It doesn't get any more serious than that. So, this isn't some marginal document that maybe was overclassified. This ought to be the highest level of classification.

MATTINGLY: And just real quick, we don't have a lot of time before the break, but do you think that not having the document -- if prosecutors don't have the document, that this is purely kind of a 50/50-type deal?

HONIG: No. I mean, short answer, you'd rather have it as a prosecutor. But even if not, you can use this tape to show knowledge and intent.

MATTINGLY: All right. Guys, stay with us. We have a lot more to come on this and many other issues going forward in the next couple of hours, including Russian President Vladimir Putin set to speak to security forces at the Kremlin just moments from now after armed rebels marched towards Moscow this weekend.

HARLOW: And this comes just after Russia says charges are being dropped against the Wagner Group. We've got the developing details right ahead.

[06:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Breaking just moments ago, the Kremlin says Vladimir Putin will be giving a speech at any moment now to law enforcement units who helped defend Russia from the armed mercenary rebellion over the weekend. The Russian government also just announced it's dropping all charges against the Wagner mercenary group for that attempted revolt. The Russian Defense Ministry says those mercenaries are preparing to hand over heavy military equipment directly to Russian troops, but we still don't know this morning where their leader is. We have not seen Yevgeny Prigozhin since Saturday, when he abruptly ended his march on Moscow and supposedly struck a deal to go into exile in Belarus.

Let's go straight to our Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen, who joined us now. What do you expect Putin to say?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Poppy. Well, first of all, I think he's going to thank those units that were part of that. But perhaps he will also say that certainly there seemed to have been some issues for the Russians defending that territory and stopping that convoy from Yevgeny Prigozhin and those Wagner units, because, of course, some of the things that we saw unfold on that Saturday was those units marching straight towards Moscow with very little to impede them on the way there. And, of course, in the end, it took an agreement, apparently, with Belarusian Leader Alexander Lukashenko and Yevgeny Prigozhin to get them to turn back.

Now, we heard from Lukashenko earlier today, and he basically said that, look, it was painful for him to see what was unfolding because it could have been Russians against Russians fighting each other, and that's why he said that he had to step in with the blessing of Vladimir Putin to talk to Yevgeny Prigozhin.

[06:20:09]

But certainly there's still are a lot of things that are up in the air. And I think one of the things that we can see in Russia is that they themselves are sort of trying to come to terms with the chaos and sift through the chaos. You heard Vladimir Putin say that some of these Wagner fighters could go to Belarus if they want, that they could sign contracts with the Russian military if they want, or they could go home yet.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, though, last night, from his point, we haven't seen him yet, but he seemed to be talking a big game in audio messages saying he could have marched all the way to Moscow and that people were actually supporting his units.

That might be one of the reasons why, Poppy, late last night, Vladimir Putin had that very short speech where he said, look, we would have put down that uprising anyway, but we were only trying to prevent bloodshed.

So, still, it seems as though while all this is over for now, there still appears to be a lot of chaos, Poppy.

HARLOW: Interesting that what Putin is saying echoes what Prigozhin said about why he turned around to prevent bloodshed. Do we know where Prigozhin is?

PLEITGEN: Yes, we don't. I mean, that's plain and simple. We know that he's set to go to or he's supposed to be set to go to Belarus. We're not sure whether or not he's arrived there yet.

He put out a very long audio message last night where, once again, he justified what he did. He said that a lot of people were on his side. He said that there's a lot of problems in Russia that needs to be addressed, and that's why he felt that so many people were on his side. But as of right now, we don't know if he's arrived in Belarus yet, Poppy.

HARLOW: Okay. Thank you, Fred.

MATTINGLY: All right. Our panel is back with us, Adam Kinzinger joining us, and joining the table, Bloomberg Editor and Foreign Affairs Columnist Bobby Ghosh and CNN Global Affairs Analyst Kim Dozier.

Kim, I want to start with you because I feel like we, through yesterday, kind of have been following this together and trying to piece together what exactly happened here. When you listened to President Putin last night and his explanation for why perhaps it took so long to seem like they were taking any action at all for how things ended and what it means going forward for Prigozhin, what's your takeaway?

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Damage control. He's trying to send a message. MATTINGLY: But this isn't a grand plan that had always been.

DOZIER: This is all chaos in motion, the arrogance of two men playing out. What Prigozhin never understood is all of those months railing against the Russian military and, by default, against Putin, because he backed these people to guide his military, Putin was getting angrier and angrier. And the moment Prigozhin had helped win Bakhmut and withdrew his forces, a clock was ticking.

And that is when the Ministry of Defense put in this plan that said, basically, we're taking this Wagner jewel away from you. We are tired of your antics. We're putting you under our control, not just in Ukraine, but everywhere. And they underestimated what his response would be, especially once they allegedly hit some of his guys in the field that caused this counteroffensive where he rushed from Moscow.

And you have to wonder, look, there's going to be a purge to figure out, were people looking the other way to allow him to march forward, or was it simply confusion? Wagner forces look like other Russian forces, and also the Russian military is very top-down. People don't do something unless they're ordered to do something. And if they haven't been ordered to attack one of their own, they could have been frozen in inaction, which explains partly how far he got.

Now, both of them sort of realize Prigozhin was out over his skis and had a decision to make. He didn't really want power. He wanted his company back. And now you've got cleanup time.

HARLOW: Bobby, this is -- we can't forget the biggest threat to Putin's regime power in 23 years, in power. And now he has to go. And he really seems to want to be seen what he did last night and then what he's going to do any moment now. But you have said this is akin to an emperor without clothes. Can he reunite his people?

BOBBY GHOSH, EDITOR AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG: Well, he still has absolute power, but he has been exposed --

HARLOW: The question is, does he have their hearts?

GHOSH: That's the question. And does he have the full loyalty of his closest circle of people? Nobody was closer to him than Prigozhin. This is the guy who used to cook for him and rose through the ranks because of his closeness to Putin. The guy closest to him sent his troops against Moscow. As you say, that's the strongest challenge he has faced in 23 years in power.

You can't square the circle. He's going to speak to his law enforcement, and he's going to thank them for protecting the Russian state. But how does he explain to them why he's letting those people off the hook? He's saying, the Wagner forces, all is forgiven. You can go back to the battlefield. He's saying to Prigozhin, everything's okay. You go off to Belarus and there'll be no consequences. You can't square those two things.

[06:25:00] And, yes, he controls all the levers of messaging, but underneath all that propaganda, Russians are beginning to ask some pretty tough questions about how much they can trust their leader and how strong he is. And if he's not strong, he ain't nothing, because that entire edifice is based on a projection of strength. He hasn't looked weak until this past weekend. That's a problem.

MATTINGLY: Can I ask you, you wrote a column about kind of the geopolitical impact, particularly in the Middle East, given Wagner's, the scale of Wagner, which people aren't necessarily paying as close attention to right now. It's in Africa. It's in the Middle East, obviously, Syria, Libya. The effect this has on Wagner's operations, which are critical to Russia's ability to project influence across the globe, to some degree, certainly in very critical areas, does this have a significant impact? And does that undercut Putin as well?

GHOSH: Well, so, Putin has always used Wagner heap as a kind of extension of Russian foreign policy, while having a certain amount of deniability and saying, this junta in Mali has employed Wagner, we've got nothing to do with it. We all know Moscow has plenty to do with it.

But the question now is, can Putin trust anybody at Wagner anymore? That entire organization was built from the ground up by Prigozhin. All its leadership all over the world were hired handpicked by Prigozhin.

Now, all of them face a test of loyalty. And if sort of Russian history is anything go by, when a unit of a military rises up against the state, the state is never going to trust anybody in that entire organization.

So, as Kim just said, the P word is important here. There's going to be a purge. There has to be a purge. There's going to be a purge within Wagner and there's going to be a purge within the Russian state. It's only a question of timing and how to avoid the embarrassment that that might cause.

KINZINGER: I think we can't underestimate the impact this will have on global affairs. If you think about where Russia has been engaged, you talk about gray zone conflict or hybrid warfare, this is part of what Wagner is.

So, I mean, look, Crimea, Putin sends in troops. They don't have insignias. He's like they're not ours, wink, nod. Everybody knew it, but is that going to trigger a war? Wagner is everywhere, whether it's Libya, whether it's Syria, whether it's Africa, more than likely Venezuela, Cuba, other areas. This is going to have such a massive impact.

And this is the moment. And I would implore if I was still in Congress, I would implore the administration to use this moment not to sit back and say, oh, we don't want to provoke anything, but to actually push back against Russia in other areas. You may not want to directly take on Russia and Ukraine, but you can push back harder on Russia in Libya, for instance, push back harder on them in Syria, the Syrian government is on offensive right now, and push back against them. It's not going to be U.S. military necessarily, but there's other ways to do it against their interests in Africa.

HARLOW: Can you explain what those other ways look like?

KINZINGER: Yes. I mean, some of it can be, in essence, a private military company, not necessarily owned by the United States, but by companies that are out there maybe doing mining in Africa, for instance. There's a lot of ways to, in essence, push back or maybe there's, in some cases, direct conflict. If you look at what happened in Syria, for instance, 300 to 400 Wagner soldiers were killed by U.S. military. That was because they attacked them. But there's ways to get this done. And it's time to push back against Russia. If you're not going to do it directly in Ukraine, there's a lot of areas we can do it.

MATTINGLY: You want the U.S. in the business of funding proxy wars via mercenary groups?

KINZINGER: I want the U.S. in the business of pushing back against Wagner, it is a terrorist --

MATTINGLY: Whatever the vehicle or mechanism?

DOZIER: You can always offer U.S. military training to replace Wagner military training. That's just one way of saying, hey, we'll come in and give you some aid and assistance.

GHOSH: I think you're exactly right. There's an enormous opportunity here. All those countries, mostly they are military hunters that have employed Wagner. Part of the reason why they employ Wagner is to be on the good side of Putin as well. They want Russian support. They want Russian resources, Russian money, Russian expertise, Russian market access.

They're now wondering, wait a minute, did we pick the wrong side here? Do we stay with our Wagner employees? And do we risk upsetting Putin by doing that? They've been caught in a bind. This is an opportunity for the Biden administration to step in here.

And there have been efforts for some time now, Biden administration, through the Egyptians, through the UAE, have been trying to put pressure on some of these African states to basically cut Wagner loose. This is a chance. And I think if the Biden administration push hard enough at this moment, it will get some traction.

MATTINGLY: All right. Guys, stay with us. We have a lot more to get to. Also, check out Clarissa Ward and Nima Elbagir's reporting on Wagner and their influence. It's extraordinary, and they've been doing it for years.

Also, new reports that multiple Secret Service agents have testified before the January 6th grand jury, the latest on that investigation, next.

[06:30:03]