Tonight, exclusive new audio into outfront of former President Donald Trump saying that he would have been, quote, very well received by the people rioting at the Capitol on January sixth. Take a listen to this.

But if you look at the real size of that crowd, it was never reported correctly. There were. It's the biggest crowd I've ever spoken in front of by far. Really? By far. That went down to the Washington... That went back to the Washington Monument. You told them you were.

Going to...

You were going to go up to the Capitol, were you just - No, I was going to, and the Secret Service said you can't. And then by the time I would have, and then when I get back, I said I wanted to go back. I was thinking about going back during the problem to stop the problem, doing it myself. Secret Service didn't like that idea too much. And I could have done that. And you know what? I would have been very well received. Don't forget, the people that went to Washington that day, in my opinion, they went because they thought the election was rigged. That's why they went.

That audio comes from an interview that Trump gave to ABC News' chief Washington correspondent, Jonathan Carl, who you heard they're asking the questions. He gave that interview to Jonathan Carl just over two months after the insurrection. Outfront legal analysts say that what you just heard in that exchange is highly valuable evidence for the prosecution. Our Ryan Goodman predicts that this audio will likely be part of the trial. So we have much more of the legal impact of this exclusive audio. But first, Jonathan Carl is out front. He is the author of the new book, Tired of Winning Donald Trump and the end of The Grand Old Party. So, Jonathan, you're sharing this exchange with us, and you write in this book that this was an astounding admission, those are your words, by Trump. I mean, he's saying he wanted to go, which is this is the whole back and forth, right? Over the grabbing the steering wheel incident with Cassidy Hutchinson, but that he wanted to go and that he believed he had control over the crowd.

That he was going to be well received by the people that were attacking the Capitol building, the people that were assaulting police officers, trying to get in to stop that certification of the election, that they would receive him well. This was an interview I did as part of a long interview for my book, Betrayal. At the time, that exchange, because there were so much in that interview, didn't quite hit me. Because first of all, I didn't believe him when he said, Oh, I wanted to go. I mean, I never really thought he wanted to go. But then I heard Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the January sixth Committee. The whole thing about how Trump was the training. Did he.

Lunge for the wheel?

Yeah, whatever he was doing, pressuring his Secret Service agents and then adamantly refusing, clearly well documented. So I went back and this is an admission that those were absolutely his people, first of all, but also that he had control over those people. Remember, he didn't go up there, and he also didn't do anything to try to get.

Them to stop. Right, and we all know there were other times when he would try to say that they weren't his people, right? Remember in the infamous call with then-speaker with Kevin McCarthy saying, These are your people. Okay, so that audio obviously could now be evidence. It could be evidence in the federal investigation of Trump's efforts to overturn the election. You heard people think that it will be. You write that Trump was, quote, despondent, scared, and seething with rage about another case, the Hush Money case, into him here in New York. Since then, two indictments, Justice Department in Georgia found liable for fraud in a civil trial. You have the entire situation going on in New York, right? With that civil trial as well playing out. Does he realize, John, that he's at real risk of going to jail?

I think that he has come to see that there is absolutely no difference between his presidential campaign and his legal defense. They have merged into one. There are two potential paths for Donald Trump, I think, in his mind. He can win back the presidency and do whatever he can to call it all off. Obviously, there's so much he can... I mean, it's debatable how much he can do on that front, or he faces the very real possibility of going to prison. He uses apocalyptic terms to describe this campaign, and it's not so much the impact on the country, it's the impact on him. He calls 2024 the final battle. And I think that's, for him, he really feels it's the final battle. He wins, he's triumphant, or it's devastating.

And of course, I'm sure he's well aware of that that also for some would harken to fields of Armageddon. That's exactly what he's doing. You write about him that there is now nobody even trying. There were times, remember that infamous op-ed in the New York Times, times when people would say they tried to rein him in. You're saying no one's doing that now. And you write, Trump is more detached from reality than ever and more willing to trust the norms and customs that our system of government needs to survive as a working democracy. You covered him for many years.

I wrote... I wrote this for two primary reasons. One is that I think memories have started to fade about what it was like, especially at the end of the Trump presidency. And there's been this effort to try to whitewash it or rewrite that history. But the second is that people don't realize what has happened to Trump since he left the White House. And I do believe that in some sense, he has gotten more detached from reality, more willing to trash the customs of American democracy to win, to prevail at all costs. But he did have people around him in that White House who tried to protect him from his own self-destructive influences and tendencies, and to protect the country from those tendencies. Those people are all entirely gone. He will have a team devoted to him. The most important qualification right now to be in a potential Trump administration will be loyalty. Right now, they're... This is the smallest presidential campaign we've seen of a frontrunner ever, including significantly smaller than what he had in 2016.

I mean, it's pretty stunning when you say this. And when you say front runner, he's a front runner. He's absolutely the front runner. I mean, it's front runner. And then there's in the distance, the distance, DeSantis, maybe. The latest poll we have of New Hampshire. Yeah. I mean, the poll shows Nikki Haley surging. I mean, up to 20 %. Now that's half of where he is, but it's a surge for her. Huge surge. Does he see her as a real threat? Now, does he see anyone as a true threat?

I think that he thinks that he's got it essentially made. But I think he will look at that poll very closely. A real strong anti-Trump candidate like Kristi could have a chance. I do not think that this primary is over. He is absolutely the front runner. People treat him like the presumptive nominee, but I don't think it's actually over.

All right. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate you being here with us.

Thank you for having me here.

All right, and out front now, Karen Friedman-Dagnifilo, the former Chief Assistant DA at the Manhattan DA's office. She worked with Special Counsel Jack Smith. Karen, you just heard the exclusive audio, the conversation that Jonathan Carl had with Trump. And in it, Trump talks about wanting to go to the Capitol on January sixth, saying that the people there would have listened to him, referring to what was happening there as a problem. Why do you think this is very significant?

It's extremely significant because first of all, it completely corroborates what Cassidy Hutchinson was saying when she testified before the January sixth Committee. If you recall, after her testimony, there were many people, including they were saying people from the Secret Service denying that Trump wanted to go to the Capitol and tried to go to the Capitol and that they stopped him. This corroborates Cassidy Hutchinson and really helps bolster and make her a credible witness to testify at the trial. The other thing I think it shows is he really talks about going twice. He said, First, I wanted to go with the crowd, and he knew the crowd was there to stop Mike Pence from certifying the election. So it goes to the intent that he had that same intent that he wanted to make it so Pence wouldn't certify the election. But he also said afterwards, I thought about I wanted to go to stop the problem, as he called it, which is interesting because he could have stopped the problem. He knows he could have, and he didn't for what? Three hours, right? He sat there. That part of it, I think, lacks credibility. He absolutely had no intention of trying to stop that problem.

Right. I mean, it's whether he was trying to act like he was trying to stop it or also admitting that he knew early on that it was a serious problem, as opposed to, Oh, nothing's really happening here. It is fascinating just to see it. And in a conversation with someone like Jonathan Carl, who he's known for a long time, and he was in this extended conversation, so there is a sense of he really opened up to him. When you look at the new information as you see it here, Karen, how does this add to Jack Smith's case against Trump to get something like this now?

Well, he's going to be analyzing all of the statements that Trump has made publicly about the events of January sixth, right? And really analyze them against each other and see which ones... Because he will have said, on the one hand, I know I didn't think anything was going to happen. No, I wasn't part of this crowd. Then later he's saying, I was part of it. So Jack Smith is, first of all, going to be very interested in obtaining copies of these statements, but not just the short snippets that you have, the longer interview. He's going to want to see all of it. He's going to want to listen to all of it and try to analyze it against all of Trump's other statements. He may decide to want to put those in as inconsistencies, or he might want to wait and not put them in and make sure that you don't take the stand and then use them to cross-examine him because we'll see if Trump does testify.

Right. That would be absolutely fascinating. And of course, as I said, for sure, if he wants those tapes, it is a very long conversation and one of many that Jonathan Crawl had with him. All right. Thanks very much, Karen.