Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Friday released a slew of documents that she said implicate members of the Obama administration for “treasonous” behavior during the 2016 election.

The claims confuse the allegation that Russia interfered in the 2016 election with the idea that Russia actively tried to change results by hacking into voting systems. CNN’s Jeremy Herb and Katie Bo Lillis went through them and talked to people who worked on a bipartisan Senate review of the 2016 election.

“Wildly misleading” is how the information was described by one source in their report.

But that didn’t stop President Donald Trump from accusing former President Barack Obama of treason, a crime punishable by death in the US, when he was asked about it in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Trump made the accusation while appearing at an event to discuss trade with Philippines leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Trump’s very long, meandering answer is a window into how his mind works. All roads lead back to immigration and his 2020 election loss.

Obama’s office issued a rare statement in response:

“Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one,” said spokesman Patrick Rodenbush. “These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.”

Here’s a look at what Trump said, along with some context from CNN reporting.

(Trump said all of this in the Oval Office, which he has bedecked with gold filigree, portraits from the White House vault and a copy, behind a curtain, of the Declaration of Independence.)

(From CNN’s report: The new allegations from Gabbard lean on assessments before the election and statements from Obama-era intelligence officials finding that Russia did not alter the election results through cyber-attacks aimed at infiltrating voting systems. But the January 2017 intelligence community assessment never concluded that Russian cyberattacks altered the outcome of the 2016 election or compromised any election infrastructure in the first place, though state voting systems were probed.

Instead, the assessment focused on Russia’s influence campaign ordered by President Vladimir Putin and cyber operations against US and Democratic Party officials, including the hacked emails released by WikiLeaks.)

(Treason, the crime of trying to overthrow the government, could be punishable by death in the US. Even when the Department of Justice during the Biden administration accused Trump of election interference for trying to upend the 2020 election, it did not accuse him of treason.)

(We anticipate seeing them, although previously promised document dumps have failed to live up to expectations.)

(The Steele dossier has been discredited, but the larger conclusion of the US intelligence community that Russia tried to meddle in the US election has stood. So has the Mueller report’s conclusion that there were interactions between Trump’s campaign and Russians during the 2016 campaign. Mueller’s report did not conclude that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians or that Trump committed a crime. It also did not exonerate him.)

(At the time, few organizations published the full Steele dossier in large part because it could not be corroborated, unlike Russia’s election meddling, which was documented by US intelligence agencies.)

(There’s no evidence for this type of conspiracy.)

(There’s still no evidence the 2020 election was rigged. There’s plenty of evidence that Trump tried to subvert the results. The inflation problem is not necessarily solved, especially if Trump’s tariffs go into effect.)

(Trump frequently tries to claim a large portion of undocumented immigrants are murderers. There’s no evidence for that. Read one of CNN’s Fact Checks of Trump’s claims about undocumented immigrants).

Obama addresses racist video shared by Trump depicting him as an ape

 

Former US President Barack Obama has indirectly addressed a racist video posted on President Donald Trump’s social media, telling a podcast host that the “shame” and “decorum” that once guided public officials is now lost.

The offensive video included a clip depicting Obama and his wife Michelle as apes, which drew widespread criticism from Democrats and Republicans.

The White House initially defended the video, calling backlash “fake outrage”. The post was later blamed on a staff member and deleted.

Obama spoke to liberal podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, who asked the first black US president about the tone of political discourse. Cohen cited Trump’s post among several recent controversies.

The clip – set to the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight – was included at the end of a video Trump’s Truth Social account shared containing unfounded claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election.

The post led to outrage from politicians, including from senior members of Trump’s Republican party.

Senator Tim Scott – the only black Republican senator – described it as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House”.

The clip recalls racist caricatures comparing black people to monkeys, and appears to have been taken from an X post shared by conservative meme creator Xerias in October.

Trump has told reporters that he “didn’t see” the part of the video that showed the Obamas.

“I didn’t make a mistake,” he told reporters when asked whether he planned to apologise.

The 47-minute podcast featuring Obama was released on Saturday. The episode begins with the host asking him to comment on US “discourse”, which he says “has devolved to a level of cruelty that we haven’t seen before”.

Cohen notes claims by the White House that the “victims” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are “domestic terrorists”, and adds “just days ago, Donald Trump put a picture of you, your face, on an ape’s body”..

Obama responds by saying: “It’s important to recognise that the majority of the American people find this behaviour deeply troubling.

“It is true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction.”

But Obama said that while travelling around the US, he found himself meeting people who “still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness”.

“There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television,” he continued.

“And what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office, right?

“That’s been lost.”

He did not mention Trump by name in his response.

During the interview, Obama spoke about a range of issues. He praised protesters who have peacefully organised against immigration operations, discussed electoral redistricting and talked about his presidential library, which is due to open in Chicago next year.

 

 

Trump shares right-wing conspiracy theorist’s post that calls Michelle Obama ‘anti-white racist’ after he posted racist ape video

President Donald Trump reposted a message calling Michelle Obama a “racist” and ranted against a former high-ranking official in Barack Obama’s administration as he prepares to face Democrats in Congress at the State of the Union address.

In a Truth Social post on Saturday, the president reposted a message from far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer describing the former first lady as an “anti-white racist.” In his own caption, the president took aim at another Black woman in the same administration: former White House adviser Susan Rice.

Threatening Netflix to fire Rice, who serves on the company’s executive board, Trump wrote: “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences.”

Loomer’s post was must more extensive and urged the president to kill an upcoming merger between Warner Bros. and Netflix, which the far-right activist feared would expand the Obamas’ influence within both companies. The former president and his wife own a production company, Higher Ground Productions, which produces a variety of content on Neftlix’s platform.

Of the Obamas, Loomer wrote: “[P]ositive messaging of the Democrats’ upcoming witch hunts against Trump from Barack Hussein Obama … and his anti-White racist wife Michelle … would likely be blasted across all streaming services as the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions continues to grow within Netflix.”

The two posts came in response to Rice warning that companies seen as guilty of cozying up to the Trump administration would face consequences of their own if Democratic lawmakers retake the House and Senate in midterm elections this fall — along with the White House in 2028.

She made the comments on a podcast hosted by Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney fired by Trump during his first term.

“If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back in power, are going to, you know, play by the old rules, and, you know, say, ‘Oh, never mind. We’ll forgive you for all the people you fired, all the policies and principles you’ve violated, all, you know, the laws you’ve skirted.’ I think they’ve got another thing coming,” Rice said.

Trump’s apparent support for Loomer’s description of Michelle Obama as “racist” comes as he has continues to refuse to apologize for a scandal that enveloped him this month around the posting of a bizarre AI video from his Truth Social account depicting her and her husband as apes.

The racist depiction of the nation’s first Black president was immediately condemned by politicians on both sides of the aisle, forcing the White House to offer a defense, then walk it back entirely and delete the post.

Republicans on the Hill were clearly uncomfortable with the video and called its posting a mistake. Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican, called it racist.

The former president responded on a podcast, stating that “it’s important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling.

Trump has blamed the post on a staffer who has access his Truth Social account, Natalie Harp, whom he said did not watch the video fully before posting it to his account.

In a statement to reporters on Air Force One, Trump claimed to have watched part of the video and sent it to his team for review and a possible post on his account. He denied seeing the part of the video where the former president and former first lady appeared.

“I gave it to the people, generally they’d look at the whole thing but I guess somebody didn’t and they posted it. And then we deleted it,” said Trump.

This isn’t the first time he’s taken content or advice directly from Loomer, either.

The far-right activist found herself with new access to the Oval Office in 2025 as Trump returned to the White House and used it to direct a purge of figures tied to Michael Waltz, then-Trump’s national security adviser, for supposed disloyalty.

Loomer has also supported a loyalty-driven purge of officials across other parts of the government, with one notable victim being the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey. His daughter, Maurene, was fired from the Department of Justice in July.

Through her constant, vitriolic attacks on Democrats, Loomer has faced her own accusations of racism, including in the fall of 2025, when she was widely condemned for hurling a racist slur at Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett, whom she called a “ghetto Black B****.”

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