Trump Can Never Accuse Obama of Anything

Tim Graham on Jul 25, 2025

The liberal Poynter Institute is very upset at President Donald Trump for suggesting former President Barack Obama was guilty of "treason" for organizing the campaign to paint Trump as a tool of the Russians. How must the media deal with this?

Tom Jones and Rick Edmonds lamented "Trump's wild rants cannot be dismissed or ignored as merely someone trying to alter the news cycle." They huffed that despite the support of a conservative media "ecosystem," Trump's comments were not "based in fact."

Poynter's "fact checkers" at PolitiFact threw another "Pants On Fire" rating for Trump saying Obama "was trying to lead a coup." This was their third Trump "Pants On Fire" rating in 12 days, so they cannot be accused of lacking anti-Trump aggression. Trump can't say "coup," because "A coup would have involved efforts to keep Donald Trump from taking office in 2016. Former President Barack Obama did not do that."

Trump now has an incredible 210 "Pants On Fire" rankings from PolitiFact, and 854 checks of "Mostly False" or worse. By contrast, one of his chief Russiagate opponents, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), has no "Pants On Fire" ratings. He has only three ratings, despite being in Congress since 2001: a "True," a "Mostly True" and a single "False."

Earlier, PolitiFact insisted that moving to impeach Trump can also not be described as a "coup," since former Vice President Mike Pence, from the same party, would take over. You wouldn't feel that way if you were the one that was removed.

It's quite a contrast. It's considered miles beyond the pale to claim Obama is treasonous, but journalists saying the same thing about Trump is completely unobjectionable. It's so routine it's a little jejune.

The T-word really broke out after Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that "there is overwhelming evidence that our president ... engaged in treasonous behavior." MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said "today felt like a fall even from the treasonous actions yesterday."

CNN analyst Max Boot tried to sound more reasonable. "I admit, that's a very strong word, but if you're truly in the bag for our adversary, then how do you describe that?" CNN host Fareed Zakaria proclaimed that "treasonous is too weak a word, because the whole thing has taken on such an air of unreality."

They've said it in other ways. Walter Isaacson, who poses as an objective interviewer on "Amanpour & Co." on PBS, proclaimed on "Morning Joe" that "it is astonishing how he has become such an effective and destructive virus created by Vladimir Putin."

Back then, PolitiFact wrote an article saying the T-word was a little hot, but the experts they chose "generally agreed that using the term 'treasonous' is more plausible. Think of it as the difference between something being 'poisonous' as opposed to literally being 'poison.'" Tom Jones surely agreed with his Poynter pals.

This is like claiming it's too much to accuse someone of "incest," but you can say they're "incestuous." It doesn't compute.

When liberal journalists weren't calling Trump treasonous, they were suggesting he was a racist and a fascist with an itch to murder his opponents. He was comparable to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot or Kim Jong Un. His supporters were cultists like the mass-suicide troops of Jim Jones. None of this would raise an eyebrow in the coffee klatches at the Poynter Institute.

Marshaling facts is not their favorite activity. "Murrow moments" of pure invective are what they think Trump needs and deserves. He must be utterly ruined and removed from office and preferably jailed. But don't call that a "coup."

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Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.