He believes he owns this country as long as he's President. For that reason, the concept of "treason" is meaningless to him. He cannot commit treason because whatever he wants to do with - or to - America is what's best for America, and the world, by definition.
He believes that if it is necessary for certain people to lose their lives so that his re-election campaign is not injured, then those people must lose their lives. Those lives are lost for just as noble a purpose as those who perished at pointe du hoc, or in submarines in the Pacific during World War II, or in Thresher or Scorpion. He must win his re-election bid, there is no higher goal, period.
BINGO!!!!!