'It shocks me': Trump's former defense secretary reacts to classified docs audio

Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for joining me here in The Situa I just want to get your quick re first of all, to this latest deadly Russian strike on this civilian area right in the city center of Kram killing people, injuring a lot o No military targets nearby at al just trying to create terror and Sure. Wolf, it's horrible. It's been going on for 16 months

now. Right. We forget that in the early days of this conflict, Putin was bombing maternity hospitals and daycare centers and they were executing people on the streets. Look, there are war crimes that committed, continue to be commit And at some point in time, Russians will be held accountabl Putin personally, Putin will be held accountable. He should be held for absolutely crimes. Absolutely. All right. Let's talk

if you will, that was able to accomplish anything by seizin Now, they it was a Pyrrhic victo They did it at Great Cost, but they were still effective. Now they're off the battlefield at the same time. Russian troops, most of whom I t this point must be conscripts, have to be asking themselves, what am I fighting for? They look back. They see all the mayhem happening

in Moscow. I'm sure the words that promotio about the war being unnecessary, about it being Putin being foole about the generals and oligarchs using it to plunder Ukraine has to resonate with the In addition to the Russian peopl So I think it undermines Russian and and readiness on the battlef But we'll see. Right. The counter-offensive needs to play itself out. The U.S. Defense Department announced tod

another huge U.S. military package for Ukraine, in among other things, mine clearing equipment. What do you make of that? Yeah, I read that Bangalore torp very important to use when you're up against fixed def The Russians have had six or sev to build defenses all along that 600 mile or so front line. This is a tough operation breach And the enemy obstacle is very d to

do. It's difficult for the United St And so you have forces right now the Ukrainians who have Western they have Western training. But the Russians have had a lot to prepare The former president, Donald Trump, and you were his defense secretary, he said o today he could settle this war in 24 h What's your reaction That's absu But the only person that could s this war

in 24 hours would be Vl Putin if he were to come out tod and say it was a huge mistake. I'm withdrawing all of Russia's And we'll talk about next steps. He's the only person who could e this war if Putin made that deci He doesn't look like he's making that decision, but that would en If he just said, let's let's get out of Ukraine and

let that country do what it wants to do. This CNN audio that this audio o talking about highly confidentia or top secret information with his group over at Mar a Lago or a country club in New These were all very, very highly confidential. Topsy crit documents, talking specifically about the possibili of a war option against Iran for whatever reason Does that audio you've heard the audio

now. What's your reaction to that? Because it's really disturbing t a former president would be shar kind of top secret information w who don't have security clearanc It does not surprise me. It shoc If true, if all the allegations it's very irresponsible and dang and the description of it first of all, didn't add up to m some time ago, was discussed. It was a four page

document. That's not what we ever presente up to President Trump when he asked for options. We would come and present option usually on a single big sheet of we called Placemat, where we wou we would outline different optio based on varying degrees of diff and the effects it would have. And it was classified. Of course, that's what we would typically p So I'm curious as to

what this document is. And to me, that's the key questi because so much circulates about this do what it means how classified it I think we need to see what that I'm sure at some point we probab But it's very disturbing that a former president could be sharing this kind of in about potential war plans against Iran with people who don't have national security Well, absolutely.

I mean, right now there's a youn from the Massachusetts National National Guard who's been charged with Espionag because he took unauthorized doc classified documents, he retaine and then he shared the informati And he's being held in a I think, a court up in Boston ri You know, very, very disturbing Secretary, thanks very much for joining us. Thank you, Wolf. Mark Esper, tha