'Pathetic' Trump wanted classified docs to prove he wasn't a 'laughingstock': columnist

Newly revealed audio recordings show Donald Trump discussing classified military plans with associates at his Bedminister golf course, and they show his reasons for hoarding government secrets are "pathetic."

The former president has been indicted on 37 counts related to his handling of government secrets, and New Republic columnist Alex Shepard considered what that newly released evidence means for special counsel Jack Smith's investigation.

"Why he did this has always been a bit of a mystery, though why Trump does anything usually is. It’s never been a particularly interesting mystery, either — there’s no profound truth lurking somewhere deep inside his hulking frame and anyone who tells you otherwise, usually in book form, is trying to sell you something (usually their book, which explains the profusion of Trump-focused volumes)," Shepard wrote.

There's been speculation that Trump intended to profit from classified information, but Shepard assumed the reason was more banal – that Trump just wanted to show them off to feel important.

"One of the key elements of Trump’s whole deal is that nothing he does is really that surprising, even when it is objectively shocking," Shepard wrote. "Acting erratically and defying behavioral and political norms is a feature, not a bug, of his political appeal: Being chaotic is proof to millions of voters who despise normal politicians that he’s not a normal politician. Not, of course, that Trump could change his behavior if he wanted to."

Trump admits on the tapes that the information is classified and concedes he no longer has the authority to declassify them, and Shepard notes that he's showing them off to bolster his insistence that he hadn't planned to attack Iran.

"The thing that stood out to me, however, wasn’t the fact that he admitted to the crimes of which he is accused, in part because he had basically already done that numerous times," Shepard wrote. "Instead, the tape CNN acquired provided the clearest rationale yet into why Trump held onto the boxes for so long. The reason is that he is truly, and perhaps world historically, pathetic and abject."

The ex-president seems to be trying to convince his own aides that he hadn't wanted to attack Iran, and the audio appears to show him waving around top-secret military plans as proof.

"Trump has always been incredibly sensitive to the appearance of power and prestige, usually in gaudy and self-defeating ways," Shepard wrote. "He likes to look and seem important and influential, even if most of his adult life was spent as a laughingstock. The documents for him are 'cool' because they prove that he really was important. Now he’s bragging about it to anyone who will listen — even an aide who’s paid to follow him around."