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FOX "News" Offers "Baier" Minimum; Donald Trump Calls Out – Himself?

FOX "News'" interview with Donald Trump had a little something for everyone to enjoy - unless you're a Trump supporter. Or his lawyer.

Published Tue, 20 Jun 2023 08:47:12 -0500

by Ray Flook

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Okay, right off the bat? Two things jumped out at us about Donald Trump's sit-down with FOX "News" anchor Bret Baier on Monday night. First, FOX "News" has set the bar so low when it comes to basic journalistic standards that Baier's getting high praise for simply repeating the facts. What some of you saw as Baier "pressing" or "challenging" Trump came across more as a dude attempting a one-man intervention getting increasingly more uncomfortable as he realizes he's caught up in a situation that's spiraling south – and fast. Second, Trump now seems to have set his sights on the one person he believes is trying to railroad him in this whole indictment thing – Donald Trump.

A week after he was arrested, fingerprinted & pled not guilty to 37 felony counts (31 counts of violating the Espionage Act and another six counts that include obstruction of justice & false statements – check out the indictment in full here) stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe into Donald Trump's handling of classified material, Trump sat down with FOX "News" for an interview to discuss – yup, you guessed it. It was a move that I'm sure brought laughter to millions of lawyers watching who were glad it wasn't them defending that. And that's when the matter of Trump reportedly being recorded saying that he was showing folks classified documents came into play.

Some background? According to the indictment, a July 2021 meeting at Trump's golf club in New Jersey was recorded by two individuals and testified about by others. At one point, Trump is described as pointing to some papers before bringing Gen. Mark A. Milley into the conversation. "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," is reported to have said while continuing to go through the papers and documents around him. And this is where the recording comes into play in a big way. Based on the transcript included in the indictment, Trump claims General Milley's document was his pitch to attack Iran – and that it was "secret" and "like, highly confidential." But the part that's been raising the most eyebrows on both sides of this mess was when Trump reportedly states that "as president, I could have declassified it" and then added, "Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret." Ouch.

But on Monday night, Trump wanted to make it clear that Donald Trump dude is nothing but a liar. Wow! Shots fired! "There was no document," Trump claimed, apparently attempting the Shaggy/"It Wasn't Me" defense. "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." So basically, Trump feels he's being persecuted for his hidden passion for scrapbooking – by his doppelganger?

Of course, Trump wasn't willing to stop digging "The Greatest and Most Stupendous Hole Ever Created" (please read in a mocking Trump voice) for himself. Baier brought up the matter of why Trump & his team reportedly continued delaying & avoiding turning over records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), as required by law. Trump's response? He's a very busy man ("I was very busy, as you've sort of seen"), implying that NARA should do a better job checking with schedule next time. But it was also personal – with Trump clearly wanting to make sure that his Captain Caveman woobie (we're assuming?) didn't get mixed up in all of those boxes. "I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out," Trump shared at one point. "I don't want to hand that over to NARA yet."

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