I have no problem saying it

Some Dare Call It Treason

Trump’s bizarre summit with Putin has his critics reaching for new epithets.

By JACK SHAFER

Since Donald Trump cannonballed into national politics three years ago, the chattering classes have resorted to dozens of shorthand descriptors to define him and his place in American culture. The early slams included bully, sexist, misogynist, sociopath, racist, sham populist, a pathological liar and narcissist, fascist, sexual harasser, demagogue, and even madman. Seeking deeper historical context for his outlier ways, writers consulted history’s back pages in efforts to find his antecedents, comparing him to the “bad-tempered, distractible doofus” Kaiser Wilhelm II, red-baiter Joseph McCarthy, race-baiter George Wallace, Chicago Mayor Big Bill Thompson, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, legal thug Roy Cohn, radio rabble-rouser Father Coughlin, Biff Tannen from Back to the Future, and P.T. Barnum, the barking 19th century showman who also happened to invent the beauty pageant.

The many epithets and comparisons have stuck to Trump like hair spray, occasionally slowing his headway. But all this talk has done him little lasting political damage. Acting on the wisdom of the proverb, “The dogs bark but the caravan moves on,” he has repeatedly outrun criticism and critiques by changing the conversation about him with new outrages. Ask any hunter: It’s hard to hit a moving target.

But Trump’s genuflection to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the joint press conference Monday at the Helsinki summit may change all that. Trump attacked the Mueller investigation of Russian election meddling, calling it a “disaster for our country” and said he held “both countries responsible” for the Russian cyber-attacks. Trump said he believed Putin’s denial on the topic of Russian interference in the U.S. election over his own intelligence agencies. “He just said it is not Russia,” said Trump. “Do not see any reason why it would be.”

Trump’s coddling of Putin prompted Trump criticism to reach a fresh threshold, as the press and politicians started flinging a new, shocking descriptor that burns like acid when it lands: In their new stinging formulation, Trump isn’t just a lout or a loon, a firebrand or an opportunist, he’s a traitor.

New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow was among the first to apply the “T” word to the president in a prescient Monday piece titled “Trump, Treasonous Traitor,” which appeared just hours before the presser. “It was nothing short of treasonous,” former CIA Director John Brennan tweeted of Trump’s press conference performance. “I’m so sorry the Commander-in-chief is a traitor,” tweeted Michael Moore, agreeing with Brennan for the first time ever. Tea Party stalwart Joe Walsh said the same. “Trump the Traitor,” read the headline on Boston Globe columnist Michael A. Cohen’s Monday afternoon piece. He concluded, “Trump is a clear and present danger to US national security.”

Other voices from both parties concurred without actually using the T-word. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) called Trump’s kowtowing to Putin “shameful.” In a statement, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Trump had “abased himself ... abjectly before a tyrant.” “Disgraceful,” wrote Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “Shameful,” wrote Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “Indefensible,” wrote former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power. “Useful idiot,” wrote journalist David Corn. “Disgraceful,” reiterated CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. “Dangerous and reckless,” wrote Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). “Donald Trump is either an asset of Russian intelligence or really enjoys playing one on TV,” wrote New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman. American academic and diplomat Eliot A. Cohen added this on Twitter, “The word treason is so strong that we must use it carefully. But that press conference has brought the President of the United States right up to that dark, dark shore.”

Trump's obeisance to Putin at Helsinki was easy to predict given his earlier refusals to call the Russians out and punish them. But were we ready to see him come this close to violating his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution? Watching him grovel and defer to Putin revealed Trump as a coward and weakling, an excuse-maker and an apologizer, and as someone unfit to hold the office of president. “If this is what President Trump says publicly, what did he tell Putin privately?” asked Sen. Mark Warner.

For months now, Trump has denounced the press as an “enemy of the people.” He said it again in a tweet on the day before his Putin meeting, expanding his enemy list to include “all the Dems.” Having deceitfully placed the phrase “enemy of the people” into currency, it’s only right that it has boomeranged on him.