SAD! Trump’s “Treason” Talk Is Pure Deflection

Summary

Bulwark Takes: Episode Summary

Title: SAD! Trump’s “Treason” Talk Is Pure Deflection
Host/Author: The Bulwark
Release Date: July 22, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Bulwark Takes, hosts Tim Moore and Sam Stein delve into recent controversial statements made by former President Donald Trump. The discussion centers around Trump's allegations of treason against former President Barack Obama, examining the motivations behind these claims and their implications for political discourse in the United States.

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2. Recent Developments in the White House

The episode opens with Tim Moore referencing unexpected developments in the White House involving Donald Trump.

[00:00] Tim Moore:
"Donald Trump did some crazy shit in the White House recently. Who. That's new, but I haven't seen it yet."

[00:17] Sam Stein:
"You can't set it up like, oh, it's just another day of crazy shit from Donald Trump. Otherwise, what would this YouTube feed be for?"

Sam Stein underscores that Trump’s actions are part of an ongoing pattern, making them a staple topic for their content.

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3. Trump's Alchemy in the Oval Office

The hosts discuss Trump's recent meeting with the President of the Philippines, highlighting the initial tone of respect and cultural exchange before events took a contentious turn.

[00:25] Tim Moore:
"Today is a meaningful day of crazy shit in the White House. Donald Trump."

[00:29] Sam Stein:
"Donald Trump had the president of the Philippines in the Oval Office today, and he's just a lot of respect."

They speculate that the discussions likely included strategic topics like the pivot to Asia and relations with China.

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4. Accusations of Treason Against Obama

The conversation shifts to Trump's allegations regarding Barack Obama, where Trump accuses Obama of treason and orchestrating a coup.

[01:16] Sam Stein:
Quoting Trump, "The Epstein thing, it's a. It's. It's a witch hunt."

Trump diverts attention from his own controversies by labeling investigations into Jeffrey Epstein as a "witch hunt," simultaneously casting aspersions on Obama.

[02:54] Sam Stein:
"What specific figures in the Obama administration?"

[02:58] Donald Trump (Quoted):
"It would be President Obama. He started it, and Biden was there with him, and Comey was there, and Clapper. The whole group was there."

Trump names several high-profile figures, accusing them collectively of criminal behavior and treason.

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5. Analyzing Trump's Rhetoric and Diversion Tactics

Tim Moore and Sam Stein analyze the effectiveness and intent behind Trump's rhetoric, suggesting it's a strategic diversion from other pressing issues like the Epstein cover-up.

[05:07] Sam Stein:
"It sounded like he was like, he discovered that word yesterday and he was very proud of it. So it is a classic diversion attempt by Trump."

[06:58] Tim Moore:
"We're talking about how this is such a pathetic, transparent attempt to avoid talking about the Jeffrey Epstein cover up. His administration is complicit in."

They argue that Trump's allegations are an overt attempt to redirect public attention away from his own controversies.

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6. Potential Impact on Public Perception and Media

The hosts discuss whether the public, especially Trump's base, might eventually see through these deflections despite the manipulation of media narratives.

[07:52] Sam Stein:
"I know Will Summer wrote about it, them seeing through it."

[08:04] Tim Moore:
"I did 20 hours of Newsmax. Something like that. Can I let this deal."

They contemplate the long-term effects of continuous exposure to certain media channels and whether saturation will lead to increased skepticism among viewers.

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7. Side Discussions: Trump's Personal Image and Administration's Aesthetics

The conversation takes a lighter turn as they comment on the visual presentation of Trump's administration compared to Biden's, suggesting it has become more opulent.

[10:53] Tim Moore:
"Bongbong Marcos. That is an amazing name."

[11:00] Sam Stein:
"It looks like Caesar's palace threw up in the Oval Office. It really does. Like, there's just gold everywhere."

They humorously critique the extravagant decor, juxtaposing it with Biden's more subdued office setup.

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8. Conclusion: The Future of Political Accountability

Wrapping up, Tim Moore expresses skepticism about the feasibility of Trump's accusations leading to tangible legal consequences for Obama, while Sam Stein highlights the administration's precarious position.

[12:26] Tim Moore:
"I don't think Barack Obama's gonna get to go to jail. And it's pretty. They're in a bad place on the Epstein thing."

[13:03] Sam Stein:
"They know they're in a bad place. He's thrown so much chum in the water. I mean, it's just unbelievable."

They conclude that despite the barrage of allegations, substantial legal action against Obama seems unlikely, and the administration remains vulnerable.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Sam Stein [00:17]:
  "You can't set it up like, oh, it's just another day of crazy shit from Donald Trump. Otherwise, what would this YouTube feed be for?"

• Tim Moore [06:58]:
  "We're talking about how this is such a pathetic, transparent attempt to avoid talking about the Jeffrey Epstein cover up. His administration is complicit in."

• Sam Stein [05:07]:
  "It sounded like he was like, he discovered that word yesterday and he was very proud of it. So it is a classic diversion attempt by Trump."

• Tim Moore [12:26]:
  "I don't think Barack Obama's gonna get to go to jail. And it's pretty. They're in a bad place on the Epstein thing."

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Final Thoughts

In this episode, Bulwark Takes critically examines Donald Trump's strategic use of unfounded treason allegations against Barack Obama as a diversionary tactic. Tim Moore and Sam Stein provide insightful analysis into the implications of such rhetoric on political accountability and public perception. They underscore the challenges in combating misinformation and the complexities of media influence in shaping narratives.

For those interested in the interplay between political maneuvering and media strategies, this episode offers a compelling exploration of how high-stakes accusations are employed to shift focus and sway public opinion.

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Subscribe to Bulwark Takes for more in-depth discussions on the latest political developments.

Transcript

[Tim Moore]

Hey, guys. Tim Moore from the Bulwark here with managing editor Sam Stein. My understanding is that Donald Trump did some crazy shit in the White House recently. Who. That's new, but I haven't seen it yet. And so Sam wanted to pop on and talk to me about it, and so we're gonna react live. What's going on? What did I miss, Sam?

[Sam Stein]

Well, you can't set it up like, oh, it's just another day of crazy shit from Donald Trump. Otherwise, what would this YouTube feed be for?

[Tim Moore]

That's a great point. Today is a meaningful day of crazy shit in the White House. Donald Trump.

[Sam Stein]

So Donald Trump had the president of the Philipp in the Oval Office today, and he's just a lot of respect.

[Tim Moore]

A lot of big, nice cultural exchange. Maybe they talked about the pivot to Asia and, you know, areas of agreement, encountering China, things like that.

[Sam Stein]

They're just eating some chicken adobo, having a good laugh, and then suddenly it just went sideways as one, as. As these things often do. Donald Trump. And this. I felt, first of all, I felt really bad. This poor president, he's in there, he's just trying to, like, hash out a trade deal, which apparently they did eventually. But, like, these things take away. Take a life of their own. And Trump is asked about a variety of different subjects, and then lo and behold, of course, he gets asked about Jeffrey Epstein. And what does he do? Like, he. He makes a very quick weave pivot. He says, well, the Epstein thing, it's a. It's. It's a witch hunt.

[Tim Moore]

He didn't even go, why don't we just watch it?

[Sam Stein]

Actually, your deputy attorney general is reached.

[Donald Trump]

Out to Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney, asking for a new interview. Yeah, I don't know about. I think it's something that would be. Sounds appropriate to.

[Tim Moore]

Do you have any concern that your.

[Sam Stein]

Deputy attorney general, who's your former attorney.

[Tim Moore]

Would be conducting the interview, given your relationship?

[Donald Trump]

He's a very talented person. He's very smart. I didn't know that they were going to do it. I don't really follow that too much. It's. It's sort of a witch hunt, just a continuation of the witch hunt. The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold. Tulsi Gabbard. What they did to this country in 2016, starting in 2016, but going up all the way, going up to 2020 in the election. They tried to rig the election and they got caught. And there should be very severe consequences for that. After what they did to me, and whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people. Obama's been caught directly. So people say, oh, you know, a group. It's not a group. It's Obama. His orders are on the paper. The papers are signed. The papers came right out of their office. They said everything to be highly classified while the highly classified has been released. And what they did in 2016 and in 2020 is very criminal. It's criminal at the highest level. So that's really the things you should be talking about. I know nothing about the other, but I think it's appropriate that they do. Go from your perspective, who should the DOJ target as part of their investigation?

[Sam Stein]

What specific figures in the Obama administration?

[Donald Trump]

Well, based on what I read, and I read pretty much what you read, it would be President Obama. He started it, and Biden was there with him, and Comey was there, and Clapper. The whole group was there. Brennan. They were all there in a room right here. This was the room. This is much more beautiful than it was then. But that's okay. Have nice pictures up. They came out of the vaults. They were there for 100 years. This is much more beautiful. We have the Declaration of Independence now in the room, which wasn't here. I guess people didn't feel too good about putting it here, but I do. But you know what? If you look at that. Those papers, they have them stone cold. And it was President Obama. It wasn't lots of people all over the place. It was them, too. But the leader of the gang was President Obama. Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him? And except for the fact that he gets shielded by the press for his entire life, that's the one. They look, he's guilty. It's not a question. You know, I like to say, let's give it time. It's there. He's guilty. They this was treason. This was every word you can think of. And it's the most unbelievable thing I think I've ever read. So you ought to take a look at that and stop talking about nonsense, because this is big stuff. This isn't, like, evidence. This is, like, proof, irrefutable proof that Obama was sadatious, that Obama was trying to lead a coup.

[Sam Stein]

All right, so they got like. And we didn't play the whole thing because it's, like, seven minutes long. But, like, he's going on about Barack Obama, and he's gonna arrest Barack Obama and he's gonna go after his political foes, and he just was you know, too nice the first time around. And he really should have gone after Hillary and she got off easy. And Barack Obama is, I forget the word he used, but it was Obama seditious. He acted seditiously. And you know, there's a coup.

[Tim Moore]

And it's like you just learned that word seditious.

[Sam Stein]

It did say, it actually did say. Honestly, it sounded like he was like, he discovered that word yesterday and he was very proud of it. So it is a classic diversion attempt by Trump. But then you kind of think, well, that's, it's pretty crazy to just openly talk about that stuff.

[Tim Moore]

Yeah, I've got a response to that.

[Sam Stein]

What is it?

[Tim Moore]

Which is. I want to see it. Let's see. Yeah, let's see it. Barack Obama and handcuffs. We were talking earlier to Sarah about the Benny Johnson YouTube page. Like four of his last nine videos are about, about Obama bars. I said, look, I mean, okay, you say that the Biden administration had a weaponized DOJ and blah, blah, blah. They targeted Donald Trump. Well, they went to grand juries, they provided them evidence. They found four grand juries in multiple different jurisdictions agreed that Donald Trump should be indicted and go to trial. And like, I don't know, if Barack Obama committed treason, then maybe instead of talking to Newsmax about it and bleeding about it and having your attorney general be a full time Fox News panelist, like, maybe she should put together an indictment. Let's see it. I don't know. Let's perp walk him.

[Sam Stein]

What is like Jon Favreau treat that just like arrest him, you pussy or something. I forget what the actual words were.

[Tim Moore]

Then arrest him, pussy. That's Jon Favreau, Obama's longtime speechwriter going back to the Senate days. So it doesn't seem like he's too concerned. I mean, I don't know.

[Sam Stein]

You know, there's always this thing. It's like, I guess I will admit, like, part of me wonders if we should even be talking about it because that's clearly the objective here, is for us to talk about this and not talk about Jeffrey Epstein. And there's always this question like, do you cover the stuff that Trump says or do you cover the stuff that Trump does and he's not doing it, he's just talking about it. Yeah, put up. Put up or shut up.

[Tim Moore]

I think in this case there's a reason to talk about it because what he's doing is so transparently an effort to get away from the COVID up of Epstein that we're not actually serving his purpose by Talking about it right now, because we're talking about how this is such a pathetic, transparent attempt to avoid talking about the Jeffrey Epstein cover up. His administration is complicit in. Yeah. And everybody can see through it. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I wonder, you saw the Matt Walsh video. Did you see this Daily Wire guy? He did this video kind of like that was basically like, I want to see arrests. And I don't know, maybe this is wrong, but does it feel like we're at an inflection point? Eventually even the most brain dead, you know, smooth brained. I watch 13 hours of OAN a day maga person eventually has to be like, guys, are you going to actually ever do this? Like, you know, I mean, eventually they have to start feeling like they're being. They're being fooled here. Right? I mean. Right.

[Sam Stein]

No, first of all, yes, but you gave me a brilliant idea. I mean, I know Will Summer follows this stuff a lot, but I don't know if he's ever sat through as an assignment just 13 straight hours of oann. Maybe that's. And maybe we should just do that.

[Tim Moore]

I did that before you came to the Bulwark. I did. I think it was. I forget if it was 20 or 30 hours. Yes, I did. Well, no, it was over. I went to bed. It was over the course of, like, it was over the course of 36 hours. I think I did 20 hours of Newsmax. Something like that. 20 out of 36. Yeah, I did that. Can I let this deal.

[Sam Stein]

Let me divert to a quick story, because it's so funny along these lines. This is such a diversion. But when Sean Spicer wrote his book, or whatever it was, and he listed. Or maybe it was Corey's book, I forget, but one of them listed Trump's diet and what he actually ate on a regular basis. And it was an atrocious diet, right? It's like you wake up, it's eggs and bacon, you have some chips for snacks, and then lunch is like some grotesque amount of McDonald's and Diet Coke. And then you have more chips for snack. And then dinner's always a really overdone steak with potatoes and ketchup, whatever. And so I had a reporter at the Daily Beast, a guy named Gideon Resnick. When this book came out and I turned to Gideon, I was like, look, we now have his diet. Can you just go and live on that for like seven days? And Gideon was like, sure. And so he's like, he thought about it. We put together a whole regimen of what he was going to eat and what looked like he couldn't have any coffee because Trump didn't have coffee. And Gideon was, like, starting to get really panicky about it. And so he. So he emailed a nutritionist, a professor at Columbia University. He's like, I'm going to do this. Like, can you tell me, like, is this, you know, can you give your thoughts? This was for the story he's going to write. And the nutritionist wrote back. She goes, first of all, do you have any heart disease in your family? And then she was like, I would not advise doing this. And then Gideon comes back to me. He's like, can I do this for, like, three days? And I was like, yeah, you could do it for three days. It's fine. I just want. And then he comes back and he's like, I don't think I can do this. So he just didn't do it.

[Tim Moore]

Did you do it? No. Because that is a real player coach. That is what an editor, real editor would do.

[Sam Stein]

First of all, I just had a kid. I'm not going to do that. Secondly, not that that matters. I probably survived, but I think another outlet did it. But by the time I was going back and forth with Gideon, another outlet actually did it. All right, back to the point of this bulwark tape. Barack Obama, do they see through it? Yes. I have to think they see through it. I know Will Summer wrote about it, them seeing through it. I reach out to Obama's people just to see if they want to play ball. Nothing yet. I'll let you know if they do. But it's so ridiculous.

[Tim Moore]

I'm available for any interviews if the former president wants to come on, particularly if he wants to do a jailhouse interview if he gets indicted. I would be honored to be there.

[Sam Stein]

How's he preparing for his imminent arrest? I want to know.

[Tim Moore]

Yeah, he working out. I've got a quick aside here as well to close out. The exchange was with the president of the Philippines.

[Sam Stein]

Yes.

[Tim Moore]

Whose name is awesome. I mean, this guy's name is awesome. Like, we just. You have to mention.

[Sam Stein]

What is it? Sorry.

[Tim Moore]

Bongbong Marcos.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Moore]

Bong Bong Marcos. That is an amazing name.

[Donald Trump]

Okay.

[Sam Stein]

Yes. Can I also throw in another awesome feature of this whole thing? Because you got Trump sitting there and this incredibly ornate golden Oval Office, and at one point, he was, like, asked about something, and he, like, it was a total, total weave where he just suddenly got into the interior decoration of the Oval Office, even though that was not the question. And I just thought Sarah. Our publisher, Sarah Longwell summarized the best when she tweeted, it looks like Caesar's palace threw up in the Oval Office. It really does. Like, there's just gold everywhere.

[Tim Moore]

It's all right. Are you ready for my worst take? You like, we can put this for the worst take of the year.

[Sam Stein]

He likes.

[Tim Moore]

They. Somebody did a side by side of Biden with his kind of old skin in that old office without any color behind them. And he was green.

[Sam Stein]

There's a little shrubbery.

[Tim Moore]

He was all washed out compared to now Trump with his orange skin and all of the gold. And I kind of think it looks better. I don't know. I do. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Guilty.

[Sam Stein]

I promise to our view cred.

[Tim Moore]

I give radical candor on this channel. I promise you that. I do. And I just. You brought it up. I wasn't gonna mention it, but I think it looks better.

[Sam Stein]

I think we gotta get you and Sarah together on this one.

[Tim Moore]

You're gonna trust the lesbian on the decoration? I don't think so. Anyway, long story short, I don't think Barack Obama's gonna get to go to jail. And it's pretty. They're in a bad place on the Epstein thing. They're in a bad place.

[Sam Stein]

That's the thing. That is the actual thing. They're in a bad place. They know they're in a bad place. He's thrown so much chum in the water. I mean, it's just unbelievable. And. But that's so funny. They're fucking it up in so many ways. You could be like, yeah, arrest Barack Obama, but then don't tell the House to go on recess without voting. Like that just invites attention to this shit. So I don't know what they're thinking in the White House right now, shutting.

[Tim Moore]

Down the House of Representatives until September. I guess that's a win. I guess these days when you're looking for any wins, it's a pretty big win that the Democrats have got the House to just stop doing things.

[Sam Stein]

Stop it. Yeah.

[Tim Moore]

For like six weeks. That's six less weeks of terrible shit. So we'll take. Yeah. Sam Stein. Wonderful. Thank you for watching that press conference for me and everybody else. Subscribe to the feed. We'll be seeing you soon.