Trump Insists He Did Not Show Classified Material in Leaked Audio: ‘It Was Bravado’

Former President Donald Trump has claimed he did not show classified material in leaked audio recently obtained by CNN.

As Breitbart News reported, CNN aired audio of Trump in which he allegedly revealed classified material to several people at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey. The people allegedly were a writer working on Mark Meadows’ memoir, the publisher, and two of Trump’s staff members.

“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. We looked at some. This wasn’t done by me. All sorts of stuff, pages long, look. Let’s see here. It’s that amazing. This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is, like, highly confidential, secret. This is secret information. But look, look at this. You attack.”

Later in the audio, Trump said, “When I was president, I could have declassified it, now I can’t.”

Watch: CNN Airs Audio of Trump Allegedly Showing People “Highly Confidential, Secret” Documents

Speaking with Semafor and ABC News, the former president said that he did not share classified information, chalking it down to “bravado.”

“I would say it was bravado, if you want to know the truth, it was bravado,” Trump said. “I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about them, but I had no documents. I didn’t have any documents.”

The president said he regularly kept relevant news articles about topics like Iran on hand at his desk.

“I just held up a whole pile of — my desk is loaded up with papers. I have papers from 25 different things,” he said.

In a Fox News interview earlier Tuesday, the former president addressed his use of the word “plans,” insisting that he meant “building plans” and plans for golf courses.

“Did I use the word plans?” he said. “What I’m referring to is magazines, newspapers, plans of buildings. I had plans of buildings. You know, building plans? I had plans of a golf course.”

Trump said he had no regrets about his handling of alleged classified documents.

“No, I have no regrets,” he said. “I didn’t have a classified document. There was no classified document on my desk.”

Paul Roland Bois joined Breitbart News in 2021. He also directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed on Tubi, Google Play, YouTube Movies, or Vimeo on Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.