Anderson Cooper Mocks Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley Defending Trump’s Alleged Mishandling of Classified Information

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper mocked Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Eric Trump, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) defending former President Donald Trump allegedly mishandling classified information that was discovered last month at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Rubio said that the alleged mishandling of classified documents was a “storage argument.”

“This is really, at its core, a storage argument that they’re making, right,” Rubio told NBC’s Miami affiliate WTVJ last weekend. “They’re arguing there are documents there, they don’t deny that he should have access to those documents. I don’t think a fight over storage of documents is worthy of what they’ve done.”

After playing the soundbite on Thursday’s Anderson Cooper 360, Cooper noted that, following The Washington Post report that a report on a foreign country’s nuclear secrets was discovered during the Aug. 8 FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago. The nation was not identified. Cooper lamented that Rubio’s response was about “apparent leaks” to the media.

“It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that you should have in your post-presidential desk drawer,” Fox News co-host Peter Doocy told Rubio during Wednesday’s Fox & Friends.

“Let’s break this down. First of all, again, we really don’t know. Because let’s go back and understand that all this information is coming from one side and one place. And that is sources with knowledge of the investigation,” said Rubio. “Well, who are the sources with knowledge of the investigation? The FBI and the Justice Department. And they are leaking to the media.”

After playing that soundbite, Cooper turned to the former president’s son, Eric Trump, who lamented the leaks to the media and the DOJ photo showing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Those documents were concealed with a piece of paper over each one.

“You literally have the FBI who’s spending more time leaking stuff to the press,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday. “I mean, these pictures, you think my father just happened to leave documents all over his office floor? I can tell you my father is a very, very neat guy, he doesn’t leave documents staged all over an office floor.”

Following the soundbite, Cooper rebutted Trump.

“So, to be clear, no one has suggested that this is the way the FBI found these documents, least of all the Justice Department, which says in court filings they were mostly in boxes and some were in desks in the former president’s office,” he said. “So it’s unclear what exactly Eric Trump is trying to say there. What’s clear is he did not take the opportunity to explain what one classified document, let alone many, were doing at his dad’s resort. He did, however, call the approved search ‘a fishing expedition.’”

Regarding Hawley, Cooper called the senator’s response, where he decried the leaks, “a dose of whataboutism.”

“Hillary Clinton had 110 classified emails that she deleted on her servers — what was done to Hillary Clinton?” he said. “Nothing.”

When asked by CNN Capitol Hill correspondent Manu Raju whether he should be concerned with both Clinton and Trump mishandling classified information, Hawley said, regarding Trump, “First of all, I don’t know what the facts are with regard to the former president but I can tell you it is laughable.”

Hawley noted that Sandy Berger, who was former President Bill Clinton’s National Security Advisor, “stuffed classified information into his socks and other pieces of clothing, if memory serves, and nothing was done. Nothing.”

“Keeping them honest, you might want to tell that to Sandy Berger, the former national security adviser was indicted, pleaded guilty, fine 50,000 dollar, disbarred, and stripped of his security clearance,” said Cooper following the soundbite of Hawley.

Watch above via CNN.