WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange talks about Trump's 'damaging information'

In an August 2016 interview on Fox News' The Kelly File, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange addressed whether his organization was taking sides in the U.S. presidential election. When Megyn Kelly explicitly asked if he was "rooting for Trump," Assange replied, "No," clarifying that WikiLeaks would publish damaging information on any candidate, including Donald Trump, provided they received material that met their editorial standards.

Assange noted the difficulty of finding whistleblown material on Trump that would be more controversial than the candidate's own public statements. He remarked that it was "really hard for us to release anything worse than what comes out of Donald Trump's mouth every second day," suggesting that Trump’s tendency to speak "off the cuff" was part of his "charismatic appeal" but also made it harder for him to be undermined by external leaks.

During the same discussion, Assange pushed back against claims that he was intentionally helping the Trump campaign by only targeting Democrats. He maintained that the lack of Trump-related releases was due to a lack of whistleblower material rather than a partisan bias. He also took the opportunity to criticize the Clinton campaign's focus on Russian interference, describing it as "neo-McCarthyist hysteria" intended to demonize her opponent.