Newsmax host offers bizarre defence of Trump over leaked audio about classified documents

‘We don’t know one hundred per cent for sure that what Trump was holding up was actually a classified document. Was he just kind of being hyperbolic?’

A Newsmax host put up a bizarre defence of former President Donald Trump over the leaked audio in which he speaks about classified documents with guests at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club two years ago.

On the tape, obtained by CNN on Monday, Mr Trump says that the document, reportedly outlining plans of attack against Iran, was “highly confidential” and “secret information”.

“See, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t,” Mr Trump said. The recording lines up with a previously reported transcript of the conversation with biographers working on a book about Mr Trump’s last White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Newsmax host Lidia Curanaj argued on Tuesday that Mr Trump could have been lying at the time.

Mr Trump was indicted in Miami, Florida earlier in June on 37 counts for willful retention of national defence information, in addition to six other federal violations.

“So you know you have some people that say, ‘You know what? We don’t know one hundred per cent for sure that what Trump was holding up was actually a classified document. Was he just kind of being hyperbolic?’” Ms Curanaj said.

She later held up a document on the programme American Agenda, adding, “I could say, ‘This is a classified document’—doesn’t make it true”.

“You know how Trump is. We don’t know,” she said.

Last week, Mr Trump appeared on Fox News for an interview with host Brett Baier, claiming that he had simply been discussing “newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles”.

“There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things,” Mr Trump told Mr Baier. “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.”

On Tuesday while campaigning in New Hampshire, Mr Trump was asked about the tape on Fox News.

“I said it very clearly, I had a whole desk full of lots of papers, mostly newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans, copies of stories, having to do with many, many subjects, and what was said was absolutely fine,” Mr Trump said. “We did nothing wrong. This is a whole hoax.”

“My voice was fine. What did I say wrong on those recordings? I didn’t even see the recording. All I know is I did nothing wrong,” he added.

“We had a lot of papers, a lot of papers stacked up,” he said. “In fact, you hear the rustle of the paper. And nobody said that I did anything wrong other than the fake news, which is Fox, too.”

On Monday, Mr Trump appeared on Newsmax, complaining about the Baier interview.

“When I did the interview with Bret, I thought it was fine. I thought it was okay,” he said. “But there was nothing friendly about it. You know, it was nasty, and I thought I did a good job. I’ve been getting credit for doing a good job.”

“Everything was unfriendly,” he said, adding that there was “no smiling”.