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President Trump unleashed a series of tweets Monday in which he appeared to place the blame for Russian meddling in U.S. politics onto former President Obama.

Trump, who has a long history of deflecting criticism from himself to others, seemed to be trying to redefine what it means to collude or obstruct as he pushed back against an investigation into whether Trump's own team colluded with Russian officials during the campaign and transition.

Everything President Trump has tweeted about the Clintons>>

Wayne Fields, a Washington University professor who has studied political rhetoric, said Trump appeared to be co-opting terms like "collusion" and "obstruction" as part of a larger strategy to "invalidate" some of the arguments made against him.

"You take words and you do everything you can to make them meaningless," Fields said. "You take any kind of precision out of public discourse so it can't be used against you."

Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who has written about public corruption, said Trump appeared to be taking the term "obstruction," which means impeding an investigation, and applying it to a decision by his predecessor not to pursue an investigation as vigorously as possible.

"Inaction is not an obstruction, but of course it has some potency as a political attack," Henning said.

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Asked about the comments, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters there were "some serious questions" about what the Obama administration "did or did not do in terms of acting" after evidence of Russian meddling surfaced during the campaign.

"Obviously, I don't have all the understanding of what they knew or when they knew it, but there does seem to be a bit of hypocrisy in terms of what they didn't clearly do if they truly believe all of this was happening," Spicer said. "If they did know all this, then they clearly do know that there wasn't a collusion."

Trump resumed the attack Monday night in a tweet that cited Fox News.

Trump appeared to refer to a report that airedMonday night on Fox News' "The Five" under the banner, "Bombshell: In 2016, Obama dismissed idea that anyone could rig an American election."

The segmentrecapped the Washington Post article and aired comments from Democrats critical ofthe Obama administration's reported response to Russia's meddling.

The episode then showed a clip of Obama speaking in October at a Rose Garden news conference, where he rebuked then-candidate Trump for sowing suspicion about the integrity of America's presidential vote.

"There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they're so decentralized and the number of votes involved," Obama said then. "There's no evidence that that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time, and so I would invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes."

Trump's last tweet came less than an hour after the White House issued a stern warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad, as it claimed to have identified "potential" evidence that Syria was preparing for another chemical weapons attack.

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In tweets on Russian meddling, Trump defends himself, attacks Obama and seeks to redefine 'obstruction' - Los Angeles Times

President Donald Trump on Monday celebrated a victory for his oft-criticized travel ban, blasted President Barack Obamas handling of Russian election interference and met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

CLEAR VICTORY AT SUPREME COURT FOR TRAVEL BAN

The president rejoiced at a Supreme Court decision that will temporarily reinstate his travel ban targeting people from six Muslim-majority countries. Todays unanimous Supreme Court decision is a clear victory for our national security. It allows the travel suspension for the six terror-prone countries and the refugee suspension to become largely effective, he said in a statement.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the ban in October. In the meantime, those subject to the ban who have some bona fide connection to the U.S. such as a relative in the country or an offer of admission to a U.S. university can still enter.

Read: Supreme Court reinstates most of Trump travel ban before hearing case

OBAMA DID NOTHING ON RUSSIA, TRUMP SAYS

In a series of tweets, Trump criticized Obama for not responding to Russian interference in the U.S. election.

Trump did not identify any measure that he has taken since becoming president to thwart Russian interference.

He also criticized Democrats for not helping with his health-care revamp. At a press briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer was unable to answer whether the president has reached out to any Democrats. The Senate bill could come up for a vote as early as this week.

Read: Anthem says new GOP bill will help stabilize the individual market

TRUMP MEETS INDIAS PRIME MINISTER

Trump met for the first time with Indias Modi. Though defense ties are strong, the White House has yet to nominate an ambassador to the worlds largest democracy, and the countries have divergent views on issues ranging from Iran to climate change.

Opinion: Who will fill Americas shoes?

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Trump Today: President celebrates travel-ban win, blasts Obama over Russia hack - MarketWatch

A former aide to President Barack ObamaBarack ObamaMichelle Obama surprises Chance the Rapper with BET Awards video Former Obama aide: We followed the book in response to Russian meddling Scarborough: Obama controlling Trump with 'Jedi mind tricks' MORE said the former administration "followed the book" in its handling of the Russian election meddling.

During an interview on CNN's "New Day," Jen Psaki, former White House communications director, pushed back against the characterization that the Obama administration didn't do anything to respond to the Russian meddling.

"It's simply not born out by the facts. ... Last summer when the president was made aware of these attacks by Russia, he asked the intelligence community to double down and put every resource toward figuring out what happened," she said.

Psaki said the Obama administration didn't factor in as much as it likely should have the "impact of propaganda."

"The fact is, there was a lot done at the time," she said. "There's more that should be done at this point though."

Psaki reiterated that at the time, the Russian meddling was treated as a cyberattack and the former administration's focus was on what the Russians "were intending to do to our electoral systems."

"We followed the book," she said. "The book perhaps should be thrown out because this was an unprecedented attack and it really changes how we should approach things moving forward."

The comments come after Trump in an interview last week accused Obama of doing "nothing" before the election regarding Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential race.

Well I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing about it. But nobody wants to talk about that, Trump said during a Fox interview that aired last week.

The CIA gave him information on Russia a long time before they even before the election. And I hardly see it. It's an amazing thing," Trump continued.

"In other words, the question is, if he had the information, why didn't he do something about it? He should have done something about it. But you don't read that. It's quite sad," Trump said.

The Obama administration is facing fresh criticism afterThe Washington Postreported that Obama was slow and cautious in responding to Russian election interference.

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Former Obama aide: 'We followed the book' in response to Russian meddling - The Hill

Former U.S. President Barack Obama and his family were seen on a river rafting trip Monday as they vacationed in Indonesia, where he lived for several years as a child.

Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, rafted on the Ayung River on the resort island of Bali, where the family arrived Friday.

Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo had invited Obama to take a holiday in the country after leaving office, and has invited the family to visit the presidential Bogor Palace in West Java during their nine-day trip. The former president is also scheduled to speak at an Indonesian Diaspora Congress in Jakarta on July 1.

Obama moved to Indonesia in 1967 at age 6 after his divorced mother remarried an Indonesian man. She stayed on after the marriage broke up, working as an anthropologist and development aid worker, but Obama returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his grandparents.

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Obama and family go river rafting during Indonesia vacation - ABC News

President Donald Trump confirmed Sunday he had called the House-approved health-care bill too mean, and he claimed former President Barack Obama stole that descriptor from him.

Trump used the term mean during a meeting with senators earlier this month, according to reports, telling them that the Senate version should be more generous. White House press secretary Sean Spicer had dismissed the mean comment just a rumor as recently as last week.

Trump did not explain why he privately called the bill mean just weeks after publicly praising it as a great bill as he celebrated its passage on the White House lawn with House Republicans.

On Thursday, Obama ripped the Senates version for its fundamental meanness.

Simply put, if theres a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family this bill will do you harm, Obama wrote in a Facebook post. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.

While a number of Republican senators have expressed their wariness of the bill, Trump said Sunday he was confident it would win approval. Health care is a very, very tough thing to get, but I think were going to get it, he said.

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Trump calls Obama a copycat for labeling Republican health bill 'mean' - MarketWatch