PoliticoWith Obamagate, Trump returns to a favourite distraction tactic
- For years, Trump has promoted theories about his predecessor to distract from unwelcome news, elevate himself and excite his base
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Tina Nguyen on politico.com on May 12, 2020.
Donald Trump launched his political career turbocharging the conspiratorial birther movement. Now Trump is trying to keep his presidency afloat with another theory about his predecessor: Obamagate.
Over the last three days, Trump has tweeted and railed about unproven claims that President Barack Obama, in his final days in office, orchestrated a plot to damage the incoming president. “He got caught, OBAMAGATE!” Trump tweeted on Sunday, one of 126 tweets and retweets – the second-highest single-day total of his presidency – that kept returning to Obama.
The term has become an all-caps rallying cry for Trump. “OBAMAGATE makes Watergate look small time!” he tweeted on Monday. Trump then pinned an “OBAMAGATE!” tweet to the top of his profile to promote a segment from Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
“You know what the crime is,” Trump said on Monday, when pressed at a White House briefing about what exact offence had been committed. “The crime is very obvious to everybody, all you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.”