WH official pens anonymous NY Times op-ed calling Trump 'anti-democratic,' 'petty and ineffective'

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The New York Times on Wednesday published an opinion piece written by an anonymous senior White House official who described a "two-track presidency" in which top officials are "working diligently from within to frustrate parts of [President Trump's] agenda and his worst inclinations."

In the piece, entitled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration," the author wrote that the alleged actions by White House officials were not the popular 'resistance' of the left.

Despite the rare anonymous nature of the piece, the Times' Twitter account indicated that the author was a man. The White House had no immediate comment on the article.

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The New York Times

 

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In Opinion

In an anonymous Op-Ed, a senior Trump administration official says he and others are working to frustrate the president’s “misguided impulses.” https://nyti.ms/2Q6wEiP 

2:51 PM - Sep 5, 2018

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"We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous," he wrote, only to add that "these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective."

 

The op-ed was published one day after The Washington Post published excerpts from a forthcoming book by longtime reporter Bob Woodward in which the Trump administration was depicted as filled with second-guessing staffers and Cabinet members filching papers from the president's desk before he could sign them.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump decried Woodward's book as "total fiction" and "untrue."

"From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions," the official wrote.

"Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back."

The author specifically noted Trump's reluctance to take action against the Russian government after a former Russian spy-turned-double agent and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent earlier this year in the U.K.

"He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior," the official writes. "But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable."

The official said he and his like-minded colleagues were not carrying out the work of favorite Trump bogey "the so-called deep state," but rather were working for "the steady state." He also alleges that "there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment" to remove Trump from office because of the president's "instability ... But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. "

"So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction," he wrote, "until — one way or another — it's over."