‘Fox & Friends’ Hosts Argue Over Whether Trump Team Leaked Audio Ex-President Calls ‘Exonerating’

 

The set of Fox & Friends turned tense after co-host Steve Doocy posited that leaked audio of Donald Trump discussing “highly classified” documents was leaked by the former president’s team.

Following a news report from Fox’s Gillian Turner, Doocy brought up the latest news in the criminal indictment of the former president: Trump telling Semafor reporter Shelby Talcott that his recorded comments were just “bravado.”

“I would say it was bravado. If you want to know the truth, it was bravado. I was talking, and I was just holding up the papers and talking about them,” Trump told Talcott. “But I had no documents. I didn’t have any documents. Did I use the word plans? What I’m referring to is magazines, newspapers, plans of buildings. I have plans of buildings, you know, plans. I had plans of a golf course.”

If that sounds absurd to you, you aren’t alone. Doocy took a slightly kinder tact than his competitors on other cable news outlets, however, and poured one out for Trump’s legal team instead.

“You got to figure if you’re his defense attorney — because he said so many things about this — they’re about to have a heart attack,” Doocy said. “They probably had said to him a million times, do you really have to talk about that? Because the more you talk, the harder our job as well.”

Ainsley Earhardt offered a curious defense of Trump’s apparent admission of lying about classified documents.

“He’s very transparent,” she said. “He always has been. And he answers questions. And so his lawyers might not like it, but a lot of Americans do like it.”

Brian Kilmeade criticized the Department of Justice, particularly Special Counsel Robert Hur. He said he finds it “amazing is we never hear from Robert Hur’s investigation. We always hear about Donald Trump’s investigation. And just… it’s amazing always [that information] goes to The New York Times and CNN.”

Doocy reiterated a point he made earlier in the week that the audio leaks could be coming from Trump’s team, who have had the tape since March. Kilmeade did not take kindly to that suggestion:

Doocy: Well, maybe Trump’s side is leaking.

Kilmeade: Trump sides leaking audio?! Why would his side be leaking audio?

Doocy: Maybe they’ve been leaking a lot of stuff during the entire process.

Kilmneade: I’ve never heard that.

The provenance of the leaked audio remains unclear, but it’s not out of the question that it was leaked by the Trump camp — particularly given the president declared the audio to be “exonerating.”

Watch above via Fox News.

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Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.