--- title: Donald Trump Caught on Tape Discussing Classified Documents description: The recording, broadcast on CNN, includes a moment when Trump appears to indicate he was holding a document regarding possible military action against Iran. canonical: https://time.com/6290489/donald-trump-tape-classified-documents/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-06-27T03:40:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-01T14:51:08.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Caught on Tape Discussing Classified Documents og:description: The recording, broadcast on CNN, includes a moment when Trump appears to indicate he was holding a document regarding possible military action against Iran. og:url: https://time.com/6290489/donald-trump-tape-classified-documents/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd55574cf5c5e90d3/698a3e2e09208fc4f641a79f/donald-trump-washington-dc.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Key Speakers At The Faith And Freedom Coalition Conference og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Caught on Tape Discussing Classified Documents twitter:description: The recording, broadcast on CNN, includes a moment when Trump appears to indicate he was holding a document regarding possible military action against Iran. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd55574cf5c5e90d3/698a3e2e09208fc4f641a79f/donald-trump-washington-dc.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # ‘I Could Have Declassified It, But Now I Can’t’: Trump Discusses Iran-Related Docs on Tape > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Tim Smith / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Tim Smith / Bloomberg Contributor Updated: Dec 1, 2023 2:51 PM UTCPublished: Jun 27, 2023 3:40 AM UTC  Former President Donald Trump speaks at a policy conference in Washington on June 24, 2023. Former President Donald Trump speaks at a policy conference in Washington on June 24, 2023.Nathan Howard—Bloomberg/Getty Images by [Tim Smith / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Tim Smith / Bloomberg Contributor Updated: Dec 1, 2023 2:51 PM UTCPublished: Jun 27, 2023 3:40 AM UTC Former President Donald Trump is heard discussing what he calls “secret information” that he says he doesn’t have the power to declassify in an audio recording of a 2021 meeting in New Jersey, after he had left the White House. The recording, [broadcast](https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/26/politics/trump-classified-documents-audio/index.html) on CNN’s _Anderson Cooper 360_ and posted by outlets including the New York Times, includes a moment when Trump appears to indicate he was holding a document regarding possible military action against Iran, according to the reports. “This was done by the military and given to me,” Trump is heard saying on the tape, which Bloomberg has not been able to independently verify. “It’s so cool,” he later says. In the [federal indictment against Trump](https://time.com/6286271/trump-indictment-details-unsealed-classified-documents/) handed up earlier this month, prosecutors said the former president had been recorded during a July 2021 meeting at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, talking about a military “plan of attack” document that was “highly confidential” and “secret.” The government accused him of showing it to other attendees who lacked the required security clearance to see it. “See, as president I could have declassified it, but now I can’t,” Trump said in the recorded remarks that could undercut his defense that documents he kept after leaving the White House had been declassified. The former president, in a post on his Truth Social platform late Monday night, said the tape had been “illegally leaked” and was “actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe.” It wasn’t clear what Trump meant by his comments about the tape being an exoneration. _—With assistance from Mario Parker and Jon Herskovitz._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6290489/donald-trump-tape-classified-documents/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6290489/donald-trump-tape-classified-documents/"},"headline":"‘I Could Have Declassified It, But Now I Can’t’: Trump Discusses Iran-Related Docs on Tape","datePublished":"2023-06-27T03:40:09.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-01T14:51:08.000Z","description":"The recording, broadcast on CNN, includes a moment when Trump appears to indicate he was holding a document regarding possible military action against Iran.","url":"https://time.com/6290489/donald-trump-tape-classified-documents/","keywords":["Donald Trump","wire","uspoliticspolicy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd55574cf5c5e90d3/698a3e2e09208fc4f641a79f/donald-trump-washington-dc.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tim Smith / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd55574cf5c5e90d3/698a3e2e09208fc4f641a79f/donald-trump-washington-dc.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Key Speakers At The Faith And Freedom Coalition Conference","caption":"Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the Road to Majority's Faith and Freedom policy conference in Washington, DC, U.S., on Saturday, June 24, 2023.","creditText":"Nathan Howard—Bloomberg/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6290489/donald-trump-tape-classified-documents/","name":"‘I Could Have Declassified It, But Now I Can’t’: Trump Discusses Iran-Related Docs on Tape"}}]}] ```