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thought Donald Trump he crashed his Fox News interview. The rest of the world thinks he botched it miserably.
In the hours after his interview with Brett Baier aired Monday, Trump privately bragged about how well he thought he was performing. While he asked others if they had seen the interview and what they thought of it, the former president and 2024 GOP front runner said the tension and parrying with Baier made him look tough, making for lively, attention-grabbing television, two sources with knowledge of the situation tell Rolling Stone.
During the televised sit-down, Trump presumably known the deliberate withholding of classified government documents during his post-presidency; this Fox appearance comes the week after his arrest and arraignment in the federal investigation into his hoarding of top secret materials and possible obstruction.
Where Trump saw buzz, people who wanted to keep him out of legal jeopardy saw trouble. Several current and former legal advisers to the ex-president watched with exasperated sighs and in some cases terrified, according to three people familiar with the case.
A lawyer working in Trump’s job sent a message to Rolling Stone shortly after the interview first aired, predicting that the Fox clip would be brought forward by prosecutors during the trial.
“It was a disaster, if you’re his attorney,” said Ty Cobb, a former top Trump White House attorney during another special counsel investigation. “And they’re going to have more, because they can’t keep him quiet…Trump gave the government a huge gift (in that Fox interview), and they’re going to be able to use what he said to help them prove the intent of the former president with respect to virtually all of the charges in the Mar-a-Lago indictment.”
During the Baier interview, the Fox host asked now charged twice former president: “Then why don’t you just give them?” Trump responded“Because I had boxes – I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal stuff out. I don’t want to hand that over to NARA just yet. And I was very busy, as you saw… I am very, very been busy… (So) before I send boxes I have to get all my stuff out. These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things – golf shirts, clothes, pants, shoes. There was a lot of stuff.”
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As many experienced, on-the-spot lawyers — including some who have directly advised Trump — have pointed out, this is not an adequate legal defense in a criminal trial.
However, many of the former president’s personal lawyers and senior aides have long since resigned themselves to the fact that Trump will generally not heed their warnings to keep quiet in public. This is true even in the course of a high-stakes special counsel and spy law investigation, and even when legal experts argue that Trump is voluntarily further incriminating himself.
“Would (his lawyers) prefer he didn’t? Certainly. But good luck with that,” says a person close to Trump.
Even after his latest indictment, the former president is not making amends for his media appearances with his lawyers, according to a source familiar with the case and another person briefed on it, forcing Trump to wage his communications war in public court. opinion — even if it means giving federal prosecutors “an enormous gift.”
A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
It’s unclear whether, on the day since Trump’s interview aired, the public backlash has shaken his confidence, as the criticism has been loud and bipartisan. Democratic politicians and commentators declared that Trump had committed a crime on cable television. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign trashed Trump during the interview. Tuesday morning, conservative Fox News hosts were anything but warning Trump to zip it. And legal experts from across the political spectrum, of course, calculated the damage Trump had done to his own defense with one interview.
“It’s very bad in the abstract,” said Ken White, criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. “But, as applied to Trump, it sort of bounces off the rubble. In other words, this level of admission may already be priced in. It may not be new. Sooner or later his embarrassing confessions pile up. But this is probably the worst of the confessions so far because it’s in the specific context of these specific charges against him.”
White adds: “For everyone, end game. For Trump, Monday. Strengthen the prosecution’s case? Yes. Amplify it to the same degree as for a normal person? Not really.”
When the second part of the interview aired Tuesday night, Trump posted on Truth Social about the night before. “Being interviewed, part 2, by Bret Baier tonight at 6 p.m. on FoxNews. Great reviews of part 1, last night. To enjoy!”
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