Former President Donald Trump sat down for a wide-ranging interview on Monday in which he discussed his latest indictment, his hiring decisions for his administration, and claims about the 2020 election.
The interview with Fox News's Bret Baier was Trump's first since he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
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Trump defends himself on holding classified documents
In the interview, the former president claimed the reason he was holding on to classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence was because he needed time to review the boxes, which also contained personal items.
"Like every other president, I take things out. In my case, I took it out pretty much in a hurry, but people packed it up, and we left. And I had clothing in there. I had all sorts of personal items, much, much stuff," Trump said.
When pressed by Baier about why he did not hand over the classified materials when the National Archives and Record Administration requested them, Trump said he wanted to go through the boxes himself.
"I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don't want to hand that over to NARA yet, and I was very busy, as you have sort of seen," Trump continued.
Trump was arraigned on the charges and made his first appearance in federal court in Miami last week, where he pleaded not guilty.
The former president was charged with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, one count of withholding a document or record, one count of corruptly concealing a document or record, one count of concealing a document in a federal investigation, one count for a scheme to conceal, and one count related to alleged false statements.
Trump discusses claims in classified document indictment
Trump responded to a claim in the indictment that the former president allegedly revealed a “plan of attack” he said was prepared by the Department of Defense while he was in office in July 2021. Trump allegedly told the group the information was “highly classified” and that “as president, I could have declassified it,” but “now, I can’t.”
Trump denied that what he was talking about in the incident was a document, saying he has copies of newspapers and magazines, but did confirm that he was unable to declassify sensitive materials after leaving the White House.
"There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else, talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not. That was not a document. I didn’t have any document per se," Trump said. "There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles."
When Baier said he was just referring to what was alleged in the indictment, Trump called the prosecutors "thugs."
"These people are very dishonest people. They are thugs. If you look at what they have done to other people, what they have done and overturned in the U.S. Supreme Court. These are thugs," Trump said.
Trump repeats 2020 election claims
When asked about how he would appeal to swing voters, including female independent suburban voters, Trump asserted that he won the 2020 election, despite losing to President Joe Biden.
"First of all, I won in 2020, by a lot," Trump said. "Let’s get that straight. I won in 2020."
Trump then went on to allege ballot-stuffing and widespread voter fraud, which Baier countered.
"They were counting ballots, not the authenticity of the ballot. The ballots were fake ballots," Trump said. "You had — this is a very rigged election."
Trump lost to Biden in the Electoral College by a 232-306 margin, with losses in key states such as Georgia and Arizona being widely attributed to his underperformance with suburban women. Despite Trump's claims of voter fraud, there has been no evidence presented in legal challenges to prove levels of voter fraud that would have changed the result of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump confronted on his administration's hiring decisions
When Trump was confronted on his hiring decisions for his administration, specifically on how he bashes former employees he once praised, the former president said that of the staff he hired, there were "10 to 1 that were fantastic."
"For every one you say, I had 10 that love us," Trump said.
Fellow 2024 presidential candidate Chris Christie had knocked Trump for complimenting people when he hired them but then railing about how they were incompetent when they left his administration.
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Trump currently leads the GOP primary field by a significant margin, with only Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) sustaining double digits, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. The two Florida men are far ahead of the other candidates.
The former president is fighting several legal battles along with the federal indictment on alleged mishandling of classified documents. The trial for the classified documents case is set to begin on Aug. 14, a little more than a week before the first GOP primary debate.