The Trump administration's new narrative that former President Barack Obama and others may be guilty of treason have ‘landed with a thud,” MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire said Thursday — even among some hardcore conservatives.
“It is so rare when there are cracks in the MAGA wall, and yet we're seeing it now no matter what President Trump tries,” Lemire said.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made a surprise appearance Wednesday during a White House press briefing to relitigate the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Gabbard suggested Obama “conspired to subvert the will of the American people” by pursuing a probe into Trump for colluding with Russia based on “fabricated evidence,” and that she would forward her findings to the Justice Department for potential prosecution.
This all comes amid increased scrutiny on Trump – particularly from his most loyal supporters – over his relationship with Epstein, who died in 2019 awaiting trial on human trafficking charges, and is alleged to have operated a blackmail operation targeting powerful figures.
And while Trump has often been successful in the past at shifting the conversation away during moments of increased scrutiny, Lemire noted that in this case, even threatening prosecution against his political adversaries wasn’t resonating with his base.
“That landed with a thud for many, including conservative columnist with The Free Press Eli Lake; he's casting doubt on the director of national intelligence's wild claim that President Obama committed treason over his handling of the Russian election interference probe,” Lemire said.
A self-professed critic of the Russiagate narrative, Lake wrote an in op-ed Wednesday in The Free Press that Gabbard “did not get the goods,” and that her presentation Tuesday provided no compelling evidence that would reach the threshold that Trump’s opponents committed treason.
“President Trump is undeniably skilled at dictating the terms of a conversation, he's very good at drawing attention, changing narratives, getting people to talk about what he wants to talk about,” Lemire said.
“This is a moment, though, where he has failed to do that; he desperately wants the Epstein story to go away – it won't.”
