Donald Trump did not deny having classified material, he just insisted he did nothing wrong – and then changed the subject, with Sean Hannity’s complete acquiescence, of course.
In a good breakdown of the exchange, Lawrence O’Donnell said Trump is panicked and possibly running for president as a “hedge” to stay out of prison. And how could he not be panicked, given recent reporting that Special Counsel Jack Smith has an audio recording of Trump acknowledging that he held on to a classified Pentagon document, about a potential attack on Iran, after he left office?
Sean Hannity probably asked Trump about the news in an effort to allow his Bedtime BFF to spin it and/or go on offense. Instead, Trump sounded defensive and scared, if not panicked. Ditto for the look on his face.
HANNITY: News broke yesterday that there might be a tape recording, quote, where you acknowledged that you understood that these were classified documents. First of all, do you know who this call may be with? Do you know anything –
TRUMP: I don’t know anything about it. All I know is this: Everything I did was right. We have the Presidential Records Act which I abided by 100%.
Then, as O’Donnell noted, Trump spent the next five minutes deflecting and rambling, “lying about Joe Biden, changing the subject to Vladimir Putin, changing the subject to tariffs, and lying about tariffs, and never, ever came close to breathing a word in response to Sean Hannity’s question about the audiotape.”
When Trump was through “running away” from the question, as O'Donnell put it, Hannity changed the subject, “as if on orders from Trump,” and never asked anything more about any of the multiple criminal investigations or the current criminal prosecution of him.
Trump could have merely responded to the question that he feels confident he’ll be exonerated but that he has been advised by counsel not to discuss the matter. Or he could have even used the Trumpian “witch hunt” accusation and then said he’d have plenty of time to discuss the matter after his expected exoneration. But to respond, “All I know is everything I did was right” suggests he did indeed take classified material and he’s not sorry.
That goes along with Trump’s statements last month on CNN, when he insisted he had “every right” to take classified documents with him when he left the White House: “I took the documents. I’m allowed to,” he said.
Even worse, when asked by CNN’s Kaitlin Collins if he ever showed those classified documents to anyone, Trump said, “Not really,” and “Not that I can think of.” Then he immediately added, “I have the absolute right to do whatever I want with them. I have the right.”
Sean Hannity surely knows Trump looks guilty and, just like he knew claims about Dominion Voting Systems stealing the 2020 election were not true and kept it from viewers, you can be sure he’ll do the same for his BFF about this and any other crimes he may have committed.
Not surprisingly, I could not find the Hannity/Trump exchange about the classified documents on FoxNews.com and I don’t have the time to render the video myself. But I think O’Donnell’s commentary tells you everything you need to know.
You can watch it below, from MSNBC’s June 1, 2023 The Last Word.