on the bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending so the nation averts a default next week. president biden and speaker mccarthy are defending the agreement as some of their parties are also railing against it. we ll bring you the results of that vote as soon as it happens. but first, to a cnn exclusive tonight. reporting the federal prosecutors have donald trump on tape in his own words acknowledging that he took a sensitive national security document with him when he left the white house. that is what multiple sources tell cnn. and i ll speak with one of the former president s attorneys in just a moment. but we are told that trump s comments in the 2021 recording suggest that he knew that he kept classified material and wanted to share it, but understood his limitations post presidency. in other words, he knew that this was likely false when he said it. by the way, they become automatically declassified when i took them. and the same goes for this. i
this was that he was referencing, trying to say essentially that it was something that general milley had prepared for him. obviously milley is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. we re told this is actually not a document that was produced by milley, but it s something that was clearly at the heart of a national security issue. and the fact that milley has now spoken to investigators in this situation, which i am told happened recently, also speaks to the significance of the way that jack smith and his team are treating this. because milley would be one of the highest ranking, if not maybe the highest ranking national security official that we know has gone and spoken to investigators here. this episode has generated a lot of interest. the other thing we re told is the people who were in the room did not have national security clearances and an ability to be able to see what this information was. i want to note one other caveat, abby, that is really important, we don t know for
that it shows that he understood that he had retained classified information long after he left office, but also had an acknowledgment that he could not declassify things in this post presidency period, as you have noted that he has claimed many times, as this investigation has gone on and as he has been asked questions about this. that has been the main defenses we heard from the former president and his legal team about this, which is why they ve said that they don t believe he is facing any legal trouble in this investigation. now it seems that that has changed potentially here, because we do have sources telling us that they believe this is an important piece of evidence that jack smith s team now has thisser in hands. and the way this all got started is at a meeting in the summer of 2021. trump is at bedminster. not mar-a-lago, where the raid happened, where the search warrant was executed for those documents. but he is angry about the story that had been published in the new yor
trump may take military action in the waning days of his presidency as he was disputing the results of the election. trump is angry about that. and what he is indicating to the people he is speaking to in this recorded audio that he has information that could undermine what milley is saying, indicating that it is classified information, and says something on the tape to the effect of if i could show you this, it would undermine these arguments. but making clear he doesn t believe he can show it to them. and i think that s a key part of story. yeah, it very much is. the other part is this really gives us one of the first indications of what else might be here. it s not just letters from kim jong-un. what do we know based on your reporting about the military significance of the document that we re talking about? right. and that s kind of been the dispute, was it classified, not classified. this ask a plan about potentially striking iran. the u.s. says a lot of plans from the pentagon
man sitting in the oval office. i know what donald trump is capable of. we have come close to war several times in the past. i have witnessed some of these conversations and have had these conversations with some of these leaders who have had to stand strong. when i see this with general milley, i think the calls by some of the republican lawmakers are absurd. all right. we re having a bit of an audio issue with olivia there. hopefully we can fix that. if we still have jamie, i want to come back to you. you know what interesting element i find is the difference between this time and the last