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As this week got underway, Donald Trump was predictably excited about National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard’s discredited claims about his decade-old Russia scandal. In fact, on Tuesday, as the Republican president went after Barack Obama in deeply unsettling ways, he insisted that the DNI’s revelations reflected “the biggest scandal in the history of our country.”
As a substantive matter, the claim was ridiculous, but as a rhetorical matter there was a related problem: He has used that phrase far too many times, about far too many trivialities.
Philip Bump, who covered this and related issues for The Washington Post for several years, explained that Trump made similar comments about Hillary Clinton’s email server protocols. And the investigation into his Russia scandal. And Hunter Biden’s work history. And the made-up story about his campaign being “spied” on. And Americans’ use of mail-in voting. And the way in which “60 Minutes” edited its interview with Kamala Harris. And Joe Biden using an autopen.
This is just a sampling. Trump has used similar phrasing about a variety of other largely meaningless controversies that he responded to in hysterical ways — right up until some other shiny object captured his attention, at which point the process started anew.
The repetition doesn’t do him any favors: The more Trump goes to the American public every few months with a new “biggest scandal in the history of our country,” the more people learn to roll their eyes and tune out.
But on a related note, there was a related point the president emphasized this week that stood out for the same reason.
At a Tuesday event in the Oval Office, the Republican president explicitly endorsed the Justice Department targeting Obama, suggesting that the former Democratic president is “guilty” as part of a scheme that Trump considers “treason.”
In the not-too-distant past, an American president accusing anyone of “treason” would’ve been a very big deal, but an American president accusing one of his recent White House predecessors of such a felony would’ve shocked the world.
There was no such reaction this week, however, in part because of the length of Trump’s “treason” list.
The Republican has, after all, previously accused House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi of treason. And former FBI Director James Comey. He has also eyed treason investigations into Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, along with The New York Times, Google and federal law enforcement officials.
At one point, after one of his first-term State of the Union addresses, Trump even suggested that congressional Democrats might have committed “treason” because they failed to applaud to his satisfaction.
In 2023, he declared his belief that members of the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee “should be tried for Fraud and Treason.” A year later, the Republican amplified a social media message that accused former House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney specifically of being “guilty” of “treason.”
You’ve heard of the boy who cried “wolf”? I’d like to introduce you to the president who cried “treason.”
It’s not at all healthy when a president with an authoritarian streak falsely — and casually — accuses assorted people and institutions of “treason,” effectively making this the background noise of our civic lives. And yet, here we are.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.