Trump supporters rally as president accuses Obama of tapping his phone

World Today

A number of Donald Trump’s supporters have rallied across the U.S. in support of their president. The show of support happened just hours after Trump launched the latest controversy of his new administration, claiming former President Barack Obama spied on him during the election campaign. CGTN’s Owen Fairclough has been following the developments.

People came from all over the U.S. to rally behind the president.

Hours earlier, Trump alleged former President Barack Obama had bugged phones at his Trump Tower headquarters. But Trump offered no proof.

An Obama spokesman dismissed the allegations as false, adding neither he nor the White House ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen, though some analysts say this doesn’t exclude the possibility that another part of the U.S. government had ordered an inquiry into Trump.

It was enough to galvanize Trump supporters.

“If he did that and he kept listening to Trump when he wasn’t supposed to, then they need to go after him for that because that’s illegal,” said one Trump supporter at a rally in Washington, D.C.

“Obama is a traitor. I believe he should be charged as such and if convicted he should suffer the severest penalty,” said another.

“We’re talking about our former president coming after our people – coming after our people and our vote. If he can do that to him, he’d have done that to any one of us,” another Trump supporter said.

There weren’t huge numbers of people at the demonstration in the nation’s capital, but the level of support for Trump was palpable, and the timing of it couldn’t be more welcome for President Trump after another tough week.

His Attorney General was forced to step aside from an inquiry into Russia’s attempts to with last November’s presidential election for Trump’s benefit.

Jeff Sessions said under oath he’d had no contact with Russian authorities during the election campaign, then admitted he’d met the Russian ambassador to the U.S.

Trump’s National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced out of his job over similar revelations.

Sessions has now pledged to write to lawmakers next week to offer more details about his Russian connections.