caitlin, thank you.

and don't go too far. we will see you in just a >> breaking news, exclusive and what is likely a key piece of evidence in the federal case against donald trump. cnn has now obtained an audio recording of the former president, in which she is heard discussing classified documents in the presence of, others had apparently holding and referencing a secret pentagon document that obtains plans to attack iran. it is the tape that could be at the center of special counsel jack smith's case against donald trump allegedly mishandling classified information. the recording was made almost exactly two years ago in july 2021, during a meeting at trump's golf resort in bedminster new jersey where he was taking part in an interview

for people working on that memoir of his. former chief of staff mark meadows. now listen into what he said exactly on that tape. >> he's a bad sick people. >> that was your coup, you know? against you. >> it started right -- >> when really is talking about, oh, we are gonna try to do a coup. no, they were trying to do that before you even were sworn in. >> that's right, trying to overthrow your -- >> with milley she -- i've got to show you an example. he said that i wanted to attack iran. it's needed to mazie to have a big thing up here that says, wow, look. this was him. they present this, this is off the record, but they presented me this. this was him. this was the defense department

and to him. we looked at some, this was him, this wasn't done by me, this was him. all sorts of stuff, pages long. let's see here. >> yeah, i just found, that is not amazing? just totally wins my case, you know? except it is highly confidential. this is secret information. look at this. -- >> hillary would print that out all the time. she said that to anthony weiner. the pervert. by the way, isn't that incredible? >> yeah. >> i was just saying because we were talking about him. and you know, he said, he wanted to attack iran and, -- >> it was --

>> this was somebody military and given to me. i think we can probably use it. >> we will have to see. yeah, we will try to figure out a way. >> see, as president declassified, it no i can't. you know, but this is -- >> now we have a problem. >> isn't that interesting? it's so cool. i mean, here and -- you probably almost didn't believe me, but now you believe me. >> no i believe you. >> it's incredible, right? it brings some -- please? -- but first, i do want to dig into this now with cnn's kaitlan collins, and paula, read to reporters who have been at the forefront of all of this from the beginning. kaitlan, folks at home can probably go put some headphones, on and listen really closely to our what you are hearing, because the shuffling of the papers is almost like a silent character in this audiotape. what does it mean for the former president to actually hear what transpired in that room? >> it is just remarkable. paula and, i and our other colleague caitlin polantz, we have been reporting on this for so long, and we've known about the transcript obviously when it came, out when --

but to actually hear the former president's words, and to hear the tone of this conversation, i think is what could be potentially really damaging to trump here. he especially if this is something that is played in a trial for jurors to hear. they are talking about it so casually and the defense that trump has used even in recent days -- whether or not he showed it to anyone. when he tried to say -- that sounds very clearly -- showing it to people. now, of course we know people in this room have been brought in before the grand jury. so we have spoken to them. they have asked them, of course, what has happened here. to clear what exactly they said. okay you can tell, that and -- weaving this paper around and showing it to them. and so the idea that he is showing it to people, -- i think that is one of the most striking parts of it is just when it comes to whether or not it is damning information is that he is so clearly talking about this document here and not casually referencing

something but very clearly talking about this. >> he says look at this as he is moving papers around. paula can you remind us that i think some people have questions about the state. why did the state even exist and you have a sense of how long the trump legal team has been aware of this for context that is out there? >> he has a great question, abby. so let's go to the summer of 2021. now during this time period, the former president was in the habit of having his aides report any conversations that he had with journalists, any members of the media. even if they were friendly or people working on a book. so this is a meeting at his bedminster new jersey golf club in july, 2021. and he was speaking with some folks working on an autobiography for former chief of staff mark meadows. two of his aides were recording this, it is our understanding the audio bug refers were also recording this. so he knew he was being taped. and one of the things that

really surprised me here is that he knows he is being taped into such a casual conversation. there is laughing, -- some incredibly sensitive national security information. that's really what struck me, this is in him being like hey, i've got something to show you on a secret recording. i mean, this is very conversational, very collegial. i will be interested to see other two hits a jury in any eventual trial. >> yeah, and exactly. you hear them exclaiming, wow, here, look at this. caitlin, can you tell us what is the reaction from the trump campaign to this being revealed tonight? >> i just put it up on my phone because this was next to us earlier. and this is their view of. now, this is coming, i should note, not from a trump attorney. this is not a defense they are using in the courtroom for todd blanche and we will see of course have beside to handle it.

but politically beside the handmaid's handling it. and they say, quote, the audiotape provides context proving once again that president trump did nothing wrong at all. they say that he is speaking rhetorically and quite humourously when he references anthony weiner there. and they have criticize the doj, the justice department. and then they added, and this was texted, additional from trump, being the former president himself, as we have been saying from the moment president trump rolled and the golden escalator, the president did nothing wrong. and so they are saying, essentially, it proves the defense. but i think if you are looking at it from the legal perspective and what the defense attorneys here are going to have to argue when they are in court, in miami, it is going to make it difficult for them. and our sources have acknowledged privately that's when they found out about this audiotape, which they didn't know about it on march, whenever marco martin in a trump went into the grand jury that is when they found out about. made their case a lot more difficult. >> yeah i mean that is clearly a legal lens of all of this. i mean, he does say, not rhetorically, that these documents are secret.

but he didn't declassify. that is all actually in pretty black and white text. caitlin and paula, thank you both very much for joining us. i want to turn now to some legal analysis, to address some of the things that caitlan just raised. bringing in former trump white house lawyer jim schultz. and former federal prosecutor and national security lawyer paul rosen wing. thank you both so much for joining us. james, he is saying out loud as i was just saying that he can't declassify those documents that he had when he was no longer in office. does that full context of the tape as you hear all of it change anything for you in terms of the strength of this evidence for the special counsel? >> not really if anything it bolsters it. if this evidence is admissible than i am imagine that they are going to try to challenge a number of different fronts, i am not sure where they make their argument here to exclude this evidence? but if it is admissible in court, it certainly is troubling for their defense. at least for trump's defense in this. it bolsters the governments

claim under the espionage act. it also will switch their claim, you know, under the obstruction case. because, you know, one of the things he has been saying all along is that he can just wave a magic wand and these documents are declassified. and in this instance, in his own words, he saying that it is not declassified. so that is very troubling for him, no doubt about it. and, you know, i think the only matter, the big question is going to be what comes in at trial. under the classified information procedures act is this all gonna be admissible? probably so. and it is going to be a big hurdle for them. to get over it. >> and fall, jim says that this bolsters the defenses case. do you agree with that? >> i think jim actually said the opposite of that, but officers the government's case and i agree. >> i'm sorry -- >> i agree with him. after that. the elements of the espionage charge are willful retention of national defense information

and if the tape is deemed, you know, accurate and admitted then president trump admits that he knows that it is national defense information, i. e. a plan to invade iran. and to, it demonstrates that he knows that he has retained this. it's not like it was accidentally kept in a box where she was unaware. it was on his desk as he was being interviewed by the people who were doing the meadows autobiography. so his giving them essentially, you know, nine tenths of the proof of his from malady on the espionage act. and as jim also said, there is no i don't want to give it back exception to the obstruction charge. he has it and he knows he has it, he is ordered by the grand jury to produce it. that is pretty damning evidence of that as well. >> yeah and jim, look, the hill is probably going to be tough for the trump defense to climb here. but trump has put forward this idea that perhaps he was waving around something that maybe wasn't actually the document. does the government need to prove that he actually had in

his possession what he claimed to have. and if so how would they go about doing that? >> look, this is all information that was probably shared during the grand jury. you would've had witnesses that go into the grand jury to testify about the particular encounter. and they probably talked about all the facts surrounding that. what documents were in that room. and i think, you know, you are gonna have that's gonna be a problem for the defense in this case. he cause the government, look, they were very clear. they put that in the indictment for a reason. and the quote in that speaking indictment for a reason. because they wanted to emphasize the strength of their case on that point. that doesn't make its way into that indictment if they're not solid in the grand jury on their facts. >> paul, this document ended up not at mar-a-lago but in bedminster.

all the way on the other side of the country. how significant is that to you? that the document and would've been a different place. specifically to prove in trump 's mind a point that he was trying to make about the joint chief of staff mark milley. >> i think it has a couple of pieces of significance. first and foremost it certainly suggests that president trump was aware of the contents and the nature of the document that he was transporting. it seems as though he purposely brought it to bedminster because it was an important document to him. the demand something to him. but it was relevant to his ongoing dispute with general meadows. the second thing it means to me which is quite interesting is that it suggests that there are at least some additional charges that might have venue in new jersey.

yeah, we have talked about the challenge of bringing this case in court. where most of the charges had to be brought. but this one document says at least one possible charge that could be brought in new jersey as the supplement to the system charges -- >> jim, you can hear in the tape, trump's -- and the guest in that room are making jokes about hillary clinton's emails. as he is in possession of rooms full of boxes that he seems to know he shouldn't have. what is your reaction to that? >> i think that really hurts him, right? here is why. look, there is this whole whataboutism folks are making all over the news at this point. anybody he was interviewed talks about, well, what about hillary clinton? well the issue is you are not

talking about whataboutisms when you get before a jury. when you get before a jury they are going to have specific instructions as to the elements of the case and whether those elements are met by the facts. and the fact that they are kind of being very casual or laissez-faire if you will about this whole issue when you have national defense information or alleged national defense information right before the former president and other folks in the room who don't have a right to look at this information. that becomes very troublesome to some, and the prosecution is going to seize on that for sure when they are talking about the gravity of the issue before that jury. yeah, that is really interesting. i thought it is notable that if you read the indictment, that little part about -- the keep the indictment as clean as possible. but if this gets into a court

of law, perhaps that full context will be there for the jury to consider. paul and jim, thank you both for joining us on all of that. up next for us, maggie haberman joined me to react to this major piece of evidence. what she is hearing from trump allies. and, more breaking news tonight in that crisis in russia, as putin's power is threatened by an armed rebellion. the leader of that revolt is breaking his silence and putin himself has a message for russians.

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news. cnn has obtained what is likely a key piece of evidence in the federal case against donald trump it is the audiotape of a 2021 conversation about the classified documents that he was keeping. >> i was just saying, because we were talking about it, he said he wanted to attack iran -- this was done by the military and given to me. >> i want to bring in cnn political analyst and senior political correspondent for the new york times, maggie haberman. maggie, you've also been reporting extensively about this tape and conversation that went into the indictment. what was your reaction to actually hearing trump's voice on this tape? >> well, it is interesting abby. one of the things that we have been hearing from people supportive of donald trump is that the tape is not going to be as explosive as people thought after looking at the indictment, that the tape was not necessarily as bad as it seemed. trump himself told fox news

that he was not really holding a document, he was not showing something. it certainly sounds like it on the tape that he is showing people in the room some kind of document. you can hear papers rustling and you could argue that papers could be anything, but they all seem to be, based on the reaction, looking at something. it is interesting what they chose to put in the indictment versus not, because from that full audio you can see that there are certain pieces that are not. but he is clearly, it least appears to be pointing to some kind of material and he appears to be trying to pressure the people who are writing mark meadows book and working on it to include some of this. that was my big takeaway. >> i noticed that he said, this winds my case, which seems to tell you a lot about what he thought he was doing there. what did you take away from what trump was trying to prove in that moment and also what the special counsel might have been trying to demonstrate by including that specific portion of the conversation in the indictment? >> well, i think what the

special counsel was trying to show is that trump knew, eat talks on that tape how he has, essentially that we know longer has the power to declassify documents he described it as highly confidential and secret. he said that when he was president he could declassify, now he cannot. i think they're trying to show that he had awareness that, a, he did not have the powers that he once did despite having claimed that he had declassified everything and that would suggest that he knew this document was not declassified. i think they are trying to show that he knew exactly what he was doing. what was striking about this tape, and i think there is some of this in the indictment, he suggests, look, i just found this, i just came upon this. i think they are trying to show that he was very intentional about having this material in various places. he was a famous in the white house for holding meetings, either his daughter or some of his staff would happen to drop in and interrupted the meeting. there is a staging nurse about this, i cannot speak to what the prosecutors thought they

were doing, but it appears they were trying to show intentionality on a variety of aspects. here >> he says i have a stack of papers here and i found this inside the stack of papers. i also wonder, maggie, you know, in the last couple of weeks trump has been trying to shift his story on this, telling sean hannity that maybe he did not actually have that document. this is not a new tactic for trump, but he also knows that, obviously, this tape exists in its fullness. what do you make of him trying to spin this when his legal team knows what is out there? >> look, i think that exists in increments of time and he just tries to survive from those ten minutes into the next. i think that he said what he wanted to say to sean hannity, regardless of the fact that there is this tape, but there are a bunch of people who are in that meeting will presumably be called as witnesses by the government and asked about this meeting and asked if they saw something. i do not think the government was doing this entirely on a lark. we do not know everything that

they have or what their plans are, but that certainly is within the realm of the possible. >> do you get the sense of talking to people in trump's legal orbit that they have a sense of how they encounter this from a defensive perspective in the courts? >> i think they are going to suggest that he was simply acknowledging what reality was, but that he was not suggesting -- i think they are going to come up with all kinds of things that they're going to say about this tape. i'm not sure how much of it is going to be something that they believe, or what relates to previous things that trump has said. they knew this tape existed back in march, or some of them did back in march after it was raised, when -- martin in aid trump was interviewed at the grand jury and then her tapes and so far were subpoenaed. but this has not been a cause of extensive alarms for some of trump's advisers, even though others are speaking more candidly acknowledged this as a problem. >> you mentioned that it has

not been a cause for alarm for some of his advisers. what about his lawyers? several of whom have left his legal orbit perhaps for other reasons, but how do the lawyers, who are not in the orbit anymore, feel about this? >> well, without getting into specifics of just narrowing down who is saying what, there are some people around trump were pretty candid, who have been candid that this is just not a good fact set for him. it's not that it will not find defense for it, or they will argue all kinds of other things at trial or even before trial, such as selected prosecution. they will try to get notes taken from one of trump's lawyers during the indictment out, but the tape is a pretty specific piece of evidence and they know it. >> of course, we learned in the last week when discovery was released to the trump attorneys that there were tapes, plural, and as you reported and cnn has reported, several of these conversations between trump and other people who came through his world were recorded by his staff intentionally so that he

can keep tabs on what was said. how big of a concern is there that this was not the only audiotape to be concerned about for trump? >> well, look, they have the discovery so they now have the ability to go through it. what has been said to me by several people is that this tape is the most damning piece of evidence that they know of existing in this case. it does not mean that there are other things that are problematic for him, i am guessing that some of these tapes or interviews that he has set for, this is very specific and this was, again, to your point about the fact that he knew his aides taped these meetings, it is not like this was a secret recording. >> separately, maggie, there are reports today that the secret service agents testified in the january 6th case. that is also being led by the special counsel jack smith, but what do we know about that? >> we know that secret service agents have been subpoenaed in both cases, in the january 6th case and in the documents case.

secret service agents are going to play a key role, potentially, as witnesses in january six, even if jack smith never filed charges and only ends up writing a report. they were around during key moments on january 6th, protecting trump as trump, according to testimony from cassidy hutchinson, was in a rage wanting to see people who were said to be armed, armed with sticks and not necessarily guns, but to be allowed to come into his rally at the ellipse. he wanted it to be bigger. they were right there and had a -- view so they were important understand the details of that day and potentially trump's mindset. >> of course, part of that story is also trump wanting to go to the capitol and to what extent he planned to do that and wanted secret service agents to protect him in that journey. maggie haberman, it's always great to have you. thank you very much for joining us. and now to our other major

story tonight, vladimir putin and the leader of the rebellion, both breaking their silence and giving dueling spins on what is next inside of russia. but their whereabouts are both a mystery tonight. plus, new cnn reporting that the u.s. had intel on this insurrection, but kept it secret. cnn's erin burnett joins me from ukraine and cnn's matthew chance is inside of russia right now. uh... - oh. left. left. i don't have it. i don't have it. - keep going. - we should've used behr. yeah. today let's paint. right now, get america's most trusted paint brand

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tonight as the history of russia's crisis intensifies, there are five big questions. one, can vladimir putin's grip on power survive after the armed rebellion. to, what is the fee of the wagner group, the russian mercenaries helping to fight the war in ukraine. and three, we'll in angry putin taken even harsher action in ukraine? for, is he is ghani prigozhin's life now in danger after attempting an insurrection? and five, where specifically are these key players? take a look at the split screen today, we do not know right now exactly where putin is. we also do not know where

prigozhin is, while russian president zelenskyy is on the front lines. we have some of the strongest voices on the development tonight, matthew chance is in moscow, erin burnett is in ukraine, carly atwood over at the state department and freed zakaria is here as well. but first, the news. both putin and prigozhin speaking out publicly today, breaking their silence after this weekend insurrection that challenge the russian leader's grip on power. putin briefly addressing the russian people, angrily denouncing this challenge to his government without using prigozhin's name specifically, he accused the organizers of the insurrection of being traitors and then he claimed that they would never have succeeded at the end of the day. but the first part, yevgeny prigozhin released an audio message claiming, -- and for his part, yevgeny prigozhin released an audio message claiming that the brief

insurrection was protest against the russian defense ministry's handling of the invasion and his dealings with the wagner group. and not an attempt to overthrow putin's government. tonight -- >> two factors played into my decision to turn around. the first factor, we wanted to avoid russian bloodshed. the second is that we marched to the demonstration of the protest, not overturn the power in the country. >> tonight, prigozhin's whereabouts are still unknown. i want to check in with cnn senior international correspondent matthew chance who is over in moscow, and national security correspondent kylie atwood. both of them tonight have new reporting. >> i am matthew chance in moscow and russian president putin has broken his silence after a dramatic armed rebellion was ended here at the weekend. in a short speech, putin condemned its leaders as traitors, saying they played

into the hands of russian enemies, or wagner mercenary chief who ordered his fighters to march towards moscow. he said he never aimed to topple putin, but merely wanted to protest against generals, who he said, had made mistakes in the ukraine war. >> i'm kylie atwood at the state department. u.s. intelligence and painted an incredibly accurate picture of what prigozhin was intending to do, including how and where he was planning to advance. now, according to u.s. officials familiar with that intelligence who spoke with my colleagues, he said that it was not shared widely, even among u.s. officials very widely. also not among u.s. allies, incredibly widely, and it also was not shared with ukrainians. the concern there was that it could be intercepted, those conversations between the u.s. and ukrainians and the u.s. did not want to take that risk. abby? >> incredibly fascinating, now i want to go straight to kyiv where erin burnett is covering the latest there. erin, what does this all mean for the war in ukraine? >> well, abby, you mentioned a crucial question. we'll in angry putin, a frightening to putin perhaps in

some senses the take even more serious, harsh action here in ukraine? that is a crucial question tonight. on the ground, ukraine claims to gain more ground in its counteroffensive. also british intelligence says that over the past three weeks, ukraine has taken more territory than russia did this entire winter. so those are some of the positive indications, but still it is a seminal moment, it is still a dire situation here on the ground. i spoke to a soldier today, a ukrainian soldier, who is in a drone unit operating near bakhmut. he said on saturday, with news of the situation in russia with prigozhin, that there is panic along the front lines. but that did fade away, and it did return to normalcy as he called it on the front lines just today. keep in mind it is unclear exactly what many russian shoulders actually know is even occurring in moscow and between putin and prigozhin, but nonetheless that is an indicator. of course officials are taking

here what is happening is russia very seriously. there are strange underneath the surface, but they are concerned about what putin might do next. in fact, the head of intelligence here, he said that putin has drafted and approved a possible strike against the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is the largest in europe. that is something that president zelenskyy has warned about in recent days. and today, the mayor of kyiv also said that not only is he worried about it, but if he is honest, here in kyiv in ukraine, they do not have a plan on what to do if that happens. here is part of what they're -- told me. >> president zelenskyy has said that putin is prepared for a terrorist attack on zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. of course, the largest power plant in all of europe. that would be a calamity, it would be a disaster for europe, it would be a disaster for kyiv. are you prepared for the possibility of such an attack?

>> we hope that it does not happen, we hope. but we actually are making meetings of what we have to do, giving instruction to the people, but to be honest, to prepare for nuclear war we are not. we are not. >> abby, you heard him there. we are not ready. that is the harsh reality of course. he talks about a radiation fallout that would affect, at the very least, all of europe. but that is the reality of the fear on the ground. of course, across ukraine, the fear of constant missile strikes on any given night. here in ukraine right now they have been on average every 2 to 3 nights. this weekend of missile strike on apartment building, and it showed once the randomness and precision of these russian missile strikes. five people killed in just one floor of an apartment building. everyone lives change in that building, some dead and some alive. that is the current state of fear here on the ground that continues tonight. abby.

>> erin burnett, thank you very much. let's bring in out fareed zakaria, host of cnn's fareed zakaria gps. fareed, thank you for joining us tonight, this was a really unsettling but -- window into a russian civil war. what would it mean for the region and also for the world, really, if at the west had to confront a truly destabilized russia? >> oh, it would be catastrophic for the world. russia is one of the most important countries in the world, it spans and time zones, it is five and a half thousand miles, it would take eight or nine hours to fly from one end of russia to the other, it has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, it has a seat at the security council, it borders all kinds of sensitive areas, from the middle east to china, to europe. so it would be a huge deal, the price of oil would skyrocket, the price of every commodity was skyrocket, the price of food would skyrocket. but let's be clear, that is not what happened. we got a brief glimpse at what

could happen and it is worth remembering that the downside scenario, but the truth is that putin was fairly quickly and blood leslie thwart this, whatever it was, i'm not even sure we can call it an attempted coup, but an attempted to challenge of the authority of the russian state. >> it certainly seemed very real in the first few hours, and then things suddenly changed. the state department says that prigozhin is direct questioning of this rationale for putin's war in ukraine is a new development in all of this that could undermine putin's standing in russia in a way that we have not seen prior to this moment. do you think that is true? >> i do, i think that has been the most significant thing to come out of all of this, because as i say, prigozhin seems to have a kind of acted in a slightly bizarre and unplanned, and calculated way. he had after all 25,000 troops, the russian army's, hundreds and hundreds of thousands there. an air force that could have destroyed him just using air power.

but, what he did was not just challenge but assault the rationale for the war and it is clearly an unpopular war in the sense that 200,000 russians are dead or wounded in this war, it does not seem to excite the kind of nationalist fervor that putin was hoping for, and what prigozhin is doing, he is almost giving license to people decide that the whole thing was started on false pretexts. that is a big deal and it punctures the aura that putin hasn't tried to create around him. does that lead to the toppling of the regime? i do not think so, i think putin is firmly in control. >> we are just playing the video of people waving at and taking pictures of prigozhin as the flood. putin is not usually the type to take two challenges to his power very easily. should we be concerned at this moment that he could lash out in some way to just to show the world, and to show russians that he is still in control? >> i think that he will certainly do some kind of purge. that is very typical in russian history. there is a doctor's plot

against stolen's life and he cracked down brutally. i suspect that something like that will happen, it might be quiet, it might be more public. i do not think that he will act out in a kind of reckless and seemingly irrational way, because what i think putin will try to show is that he is in control, that he is in complete command, that he, the operation is going well. you know, i do not think you will do something that would suggest a kind of a panic or anything like that. so i myself doubt, you never know, but i doubt that there will be a attack on the nuclear power plant. i think what is more likely is really tough internal repression, a consolidation of power, and maybe some strikes on ukraine to demonstrate that the ukrainians are not winning as a result of all this russian weakness. they have the air superiority and they will use that. >> you raise an important point about internal repression. there are questions tonight about where putin's top

generals are, who have not seen over the last several days. but also questions about where prigozhin is right now. he is said to be going to belarus, but we have not seen any physical evidence of that. there is that, and then there is also, if he is missing in action, what does the wagner group do and do they continue to be a huge force in ukraine? lots of unanswered questions tonight, fareed. >> very good ones. the wagner group, it seems to be pretty clear in its message. it is effectively disbanded. he gave them three options he said you could sign up with the military, you can go home, or i think he gave the third option that you can go to belarus, as i recall. there is no scenario in which they were allowed to continue to operate. so wagner, for all effective purposes is dead. prigozhin, you are right, he is missing. if i were him i would be doing exactly that. it seems to me that he is a

dead man walking. why would you trust any assurance given to you by lukashenko or putin for that matter. putin is a man who has routinely assassinated dissidents who have done much less to challenge the authority of his regime then prigozhin. so prigozhin, i think, is a dead man walking. if i were him i would be finding some places like mali where he can get himself some kind of protection. and what it means in general, we just do not know. the fact that those two generals have not been seen is significant. when you see dictatorships crack, when you see them collapse, generally speaking what happens is that you see a -- defection. you see generals, intelligence chief, ministers, quietly disappearing. i do not know that that is happening but it is something that we should be looking for. if some of that happens, if people at the top close to

putin think that what prigozhin showed was that there can be challenges to putin's authority, or even just a way for them to get away, that would be a sign that something is going on. >> what this also revealed is that there is clearly not a significant defenses within russia that prigozhin could have gone as far as he did without facing any real resistance at all. fareed zakaria, it's always a treat to have you on a late night here. thank you very much for joining us. and more on our breaking news, cnn has obtained that audio of donald trump talking about classified documents. it is a key piece of evidence in the federal case, and we will discuss the political implications of this next.

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tomorrow, campaign rivals donald trump and ron desantis will collide on the campaign trail in new hampshire. and in the wake of this key piece of evidence tonight nadia tape of trump talking about classified documents. politically speaking the question now is how many of his opponents will begin to put a spotlight on his legal jeopardy. joining me now is former

adviser to george w. bush and john mccain and the executive producer of the circus mark mckinnon, as well as cnn political commentator van jones. so, mark, we hear the audio. itself. i wonder, i mean, the last time we had a kind of significant audio situation with a former president horry president was with watergate. do you think anything and watergate was as crystal clear in terms of the actual words coming out of trump's mouth as these tapes are? >> well listen, tapes or incriminating. and i think there is two people but are terrified tonight. that is trump's lawyers and trump. for the long term. but i think in the short term it creates a dynamic or trump just draws a line and says a purity test. you are either for me or you are for the doj. and it puts around desantis in an interesting position. because desantis without having seen the evidence, and that having seen the trial has

already pledged to pardon trump, which is interesting because he said that if these insane charges have been brought against him while he was in the military, he would have been court-martial. interesting double standard? >> yeah, van, when you actually heard the tape you probably read the transcript just like all of us. what did you think? >> well i thought that if you are any proof that there is a two tiered system of justice, the fact that donald trump is not and want to know right now under lock and key is evidence of it. look, when you work in the white house and i think people don't understand, your first day in the white house, you don't even see the white house. they take you to a secure offside location and they spend about six hours telling you all the ways you are gonna go to jail if you do certain things. i, mean it is a scared straight program for adults. and then you get your temporary badge and then you go to the white house. and so for people who understand the oath you take when you are in the white house,

not to do what trump did and to see how flagrant he is violating the law, it is just shocking. where are the patriots? yes, this is a two tiered system of justice because if i had done that i would be, i wouldn't be in federal prison, i would be in guantánamo. these are national security secrets about how we are gonna deal with iran. there is nothing more sensitive than that. maybe the nuclear codes, that is it. and that is what we are dealing with today? >> mark, as you pointed out, trump's rivals are not really touching this many significant ways. cnn polling did find that trump's favorite ability slipped slightly from ten points to made to june. he is still leading really far and away in this primary pack. at some point are the opponents to trump who are closer to him in the polls like a ron desantis going to have to do something different to try to really gain some traction here? he specially really getting at the heart of what this doj case is all about? >> well i think the interesting evidence, abby, is that in the month of june there were not fewer candidates in the

republican primary, there were more. five more people that got into the race as they see the mounting legal troubles for trump. they are going to, most of them, with the exception of christiana couple of others are just going to stand by him and wait to see if the weight of the legal troubles ultimately break him. how he may not go to trial before the election. but i think what they will wait to see is whether or not there is just enough weight of those legal cases that what happens is the perception begins to come through in polling or otherwise. that he is just going to lose. that he is gonna lose to joe biden in a general election. and once that happens enough people, you know, that reality sets in, that i think those numbers start to fall rather precipitously. >> ben, it raises an interesting question what mark is saying. i mean, at some point, you know, trump is going to pretend like this primary doesn't exist. and that he is running against joe biden. but just joe biden need to remain pretty quiet about this considering that it pertains to his own doj?

how do democrats, how does the current president joe biden deal with these allegations? >> i think joe biden should be absolutely silent about this. because anything he says will just give republicans more reason to say, look, it is political. joe biden set this up, it's federal, is that era. the reality is the prosecution going after trump's trump when appointee. and so, there is nothing that biden can say that will be advantageous to the cause of justice. we don't want the president involving himself in this case. i think it is been good that he has been quiet. by the way, unlike trump who has politicized the doj the whole time, fired, you know people was begging for his department of justice to investigate people. the person who politicized. the doj and tried to weaponize the doj's donald trump. he did it, you know, time after time. biden is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing as president of the united states. the quiet and let the doj do its job and that is what he's doing. >> and we will also, i guess we

should note, find out about the special counsel that has been appointed to look at president biden's handling of classified information as well. which will come into play here as well. and, mark and q3 much for joining us. and thank you for joining me on this special edition of cnn tonight. our coverage of this cnn exclusive reporting continues next with alison kemerovo. and reconnect. to help you get ready your aspen dental team is celebrating 25 years of affordable care with an epic summer of smiles event. don't miss enjoying a moment, with our onsite labs to help you, fast, and 20% off your denture care. so, whether you need a new look or a quick fix, you can celebrate with a smile all season— always at aspen dental. book today.

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