It seems like everyone wants to know which “senior administration official” (whatever that is) wrote the anonymous op-ed in the New York Times that basically made the case that the president is so incompetent, stupid, erratic and dangerous that his presidency needs to end “one way or another.” And that’s all fine as far is it goes, but the author didn’t claim to be acting solo. Right from the start, the official made it clear that he’s part of a broader resistance: “many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
This claim that many senior officials are using their influence to rein in President Trump and limit the damage he can do is not uncorroborated. Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book details many examples, each more shocking than the last. There’s the example of senior economic advisor Gary Cohn stealing documents off the Oval Office desk to prevent Trump from destroying a trade deal with South Korea. There’s also the example of Defense Secretary James Mattis agreeing to “get right on” an order to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad only to completely blow the president off:
President Donald Trump reportedly told Defense Secretary James Mattis he wanted to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after a chemical weapons attack against Syrian civilians last year, according to an excerpt from author Bob Woodward’s new book.
“Let’s f—ing kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the f—ing lot of them,” Trump said to Mattis on the phone after the chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria, according to details of the book, “Fear,” published by The Washington Post.
Mattis reportedly told Trump he’d get “right on it” in an apparent attempt to pacify the president. He simultaneously told a senior aide they would not be going down that road.
“We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured,” Mattis told the aide at the time, Woodward wrote.
We’ve also heard of other examples where Trump has ordered that people be fired and then backed down when faced with threats of resignation. In other cases, Trump seemed to simply not notice that his orders were not carried out.
On Capitol Hill, the substance of the op-ed was not surprising. Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said, “This is what all of us have understood to be the situation from day one… I understand this is the case and that’s why I think all of us encourage the good people around the President to stay. I thank General Mattis whenever I see him.” He later added “I am not a fan of anonymous op-eds, but I don’t think those of us who have worked closely with people in the White House are surprised by the content,” and “I think the biggest issue [the White House is] going to have is figuring out who wouldn’t have written a letter like that.”
That was basically the same take Senator Ben Sasse expressed on the Hugh Hewitt radio program:
Senator Ben Sasse said on Thursday that the account of a White House “resistance” effort published in an anonymous New York Times op-ed was “troubling but not unsurprising.”
“It’s just so similar to what so many of us hear from senior people around the White House, you know, three times a week,” the Nebraska Republican said during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewit.
Mr. Sasse explained that about two-thirds of the senior officials express the same views as the one expressed in the controversial op-ed, but said it was “unhelpful” to publish them anonymously.
Senator Jeff Flake defended the anonymous official against charges that they had committed treason and said that the New York Times should not identify them. He characterized the explosive charges in the piece as “par for the course” with this administration and said more people should speak out.
Most Republican officeholders aren’t so candid, but they hear the same things from within the administration constantly, and their official outrage at the anonymous author is purely for show. The reason they can’t be of more help to Trump in identifying the culprit is because it could have been almost anyone, since almost everyone they deal with has the same message: “the president is completely out of his mind.”
And this isn’t new. It’s been going on for a while:
White House officials reached out to a noted Yale University psychiatrist last fall out of concern over President Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior.
Dr. Bandy Lee, who edited the best-selling book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” told the Daily News Thursday the staffers contacted her because the President was “scaring” them.
No one is forming a posse to hunt down the officials who reached out last fall to Dr. Bandy Lee. But aren’t they at least as disloyal to the president as the author of the New York Times piece?
It doesn’t matter who wrote it because it expressed an honest opinion shared by a very large group of people who have interactions with the president. The president needs to go “one way or another.” So, let’s get right on that.
I was shocked to read the letter, published so soon on the heels of Woodward’s book.
It doesn’t matter who wrote it as far as I’m concerned. What matters is that there is a loud cry about Trump specifically, his inability to manage his role as president, and how it’s affecting not just the staffers, but the entire state of the country.
It’s worse than a tyrannical boss who micromanages his employees. It’s the fate, literally, of our country being mismanaged into an economic disaster, of harming permanently entire groups of people, from immigrants to the poor, to minorities and beyond. It’s worsening the education system, environmental protection, and commerce worldwide.
Not too mention Trump’s volatile temper while he holds the key to weapons of mass destruction.
While the writer or writers of the letter may be signalling that “they’ve got this”, I think we have to pay close attention to the underlying message that we are on shakier ground than we feared already. And we need to prepare for an ongoing battle to save the country from a party gone mad. Republicans will never admit that they have driven us to the edge of a precipice. We have got to regain control of the steering wheel and back ourselves up.
With respect, the rampant damage to the American society and economy would have happened under any GOP president because most of the actual damage was either due to GOP legislation or their approval of his executive orders with the possible exception of the Muslim travel bans. Also, Trump’s “tariff wars” are definitely not part of their agenda but everything else is.
I think there’s an argument to be made that his staff and Cabinet officials should simply continue to bypass him or ignore his direct orders. Trump’s not going to fire them because he’s too much of a coward.
I expect we’ll continue to see a lot more rounds of golf, rallies and TV watching. Maybe he’ll eventually take the hint and just resign on his own.
But if he can whittle down his duties to golf, rallies, and TV watching/rage-tweeting, whyever would he want to resign? What, and give up show biz?
Damn, you were up early this morning.
To me the disturbing thing about the op-ed wasn’t that it was written or published, but that the person outright admitted that a soft coup has taken place. I guess we all kind of knew it anyway, but it really seems like the wheels have come off our democracy given that the legitimacy of the administration is questionable in the first place.
Sasse, Corker and Flake need to step up to the plate and vote against Kavanaugh. Otherwise they are part of the problem not the solution.
Heh. See my comment below about what No More Mister Nice Blog is saying.
“So, let’s get right on that.”
Tell it to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. Nobody else matters.
His WH reaction is true to form, distract by attacking the messenger and whip up the base into some kind of vigilante mob chasing down the guy who stole the emperor’s clothes.
The fact that as of last night the WH could only narrow the list down to 12 of those that could be culpable only proves the point of the author.
Trump is dangerously nuts, that’s all that matters, let the WH crew eat their own I don’t want to watch.
I find our current political climate surreal. The president has no clothes. Everyone knows he has no clothes. An op ed in the New York Times, the paper of record, written by a White House insider, acknowledges he has no clothes. And yet everything marches on as if nothing were amiss. And allegedly it’s alright that the president has no clothes, at least according to those around him, because it’s allowing the entire country to be stripped of its clothing too. Which is supposed to be a good thing — or something.
63 Million Americans also have no clothes…
This is common in closed abusive systems. Someone cries out for help, then gets hunted down. Taking on an abusive system like this or sex abuse in churches is dangerous and has big consequences. They don’t leave because things will get worse for those they leave behind. Like the older brother taking the abuse to protect his siblings. This cry for help is asking others to DO something because as staffers, they have no power. They all serve at the pleasure of the president.
Thanks for your take on this, BooMan. Really helped me understand what’s going on.
. . . for help and more like “ntw, we got this”.
Of course this admission of a “soft coup” — rendering the current situation completely untenable for a constitutional democracy’s survival — is just the latest addition to the mountain of reasons the constitutionally-provided remedy of either impeachment or the 25th Amendment solution should have been invoked long ago. Which the author tacitly admits to being too big a coward and traitor to do, for the craven reasons they were achieving policy goals s/he approved.
Disgusting. Treasonous violation of oath of office.
Agree…Treasonous
The author of the letter is full of it. How can he/she publicly admit that they are actively undermining an “elected” president in his official duties, and in so doing with respect to the issue at hand are really just kicking the can down the road, but to use a process the constitution provides to really remedy the situation, the 25th amendment, would cause a “constitutional crises”? Its an excuse to continue unabated the destructive policies of Trump, the so-called “good things” the writer crows about. And if the good things are the tax cuts, taking away health care, economy destroying tariffs, a bloated military, environmentally disastrous deregulation, politically partisan federal judges, then what are the “bad things” that Trump wanted to do that they stopped?
If anything, they are the ongoing constitutional crises, by virtue of what they are doing to sidestep, undermine and contain Trump and thereby keep an unfit president in office, because there is no constitutional process or precedent that allows for it. If they really are the patriots they imply, and if they really love the country as they say, then why not work with the public and congress, and use the levers the constitution does provide to remedy the situation rather than run an essential shadow administration and continue the risk of Trump doing something really dangerous?
BTW, where is the president’s base, always raving about what the “deep state” is doing to him? They should be apoplectic over this.
The writer is certainly no hero, and neither are the others in their so-called “resistance.” If its as bad as all that, and I don’t doubt that it is, probably even worse, then why don’t the “resistance” come together and tell the president unless he changes they are going to all resign, in unison?
The reason they won’t do that is because they actually AGREE with what Trump is doing, but just don’t like the crazy, and what this does, by association, to their reputations; not that they themselves care enough to do the right thing.
There is no daylight between Trump’s policies and the GOP. And the people he has working around him are Fox-certified wingnuts, all of them. They would be happy either way to continue the destruction of the country under a president who is not a raving lunatic, and one who is.
In fact, their oaths of office require the opposite.
However, wrt
I presume that in fact they are. Seen hints of that and no evidence to the contrary, at any rate.
I’m not impressed by this “resistance” it seems like a way to separate the GOP from Trump where we all know they are one and the same
The GOP Senators voicing their support are worse than those inside because they could actually do something
Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog posits that the op ed may well be part of a concerted effort to remove Trump, now that the tax cuts are in place, deregulation is humming along, and Kavanaugh is on the brink of confirmation:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2018/09/this-is-good-time-for-saboteurs-to-try.html
Precis: The GOP establishment have got what they wanted from him; he’s increasingly a dangerous liability; with Woodward’s book it’s a good time to oust him based on mental incapacity. Dunno if I agree but it’s an intriguing hypothesis.
Ha ha, Janicket, I posted over there this morning!
The Conservative Republicans held their noses and held their breath when Trump was running and got what they wanted: someone so brassy and bold that Democrats wouldn’t be able to stop him. Trump got them everything they wanted and now they can dump him.
Trump was never one of them, and he never will be. They used him to bully their way to leadership so they could finally use their majorities to get tax cuts, immigration law, new Supremes, and other destructive moves in environmental protection, education, and health insurance.
Now they can cut him lose, after getting Kavanaugh confirmed, and let Pence and the Religious Right finally assume full control.
It sounds like a cheap conspiracy theory, but it makes sense.
We have to make sure the Trump shitstain stays on the GOP’s face until it dies an ignominious death.. They risked the country’s safety to bring about fascism. They are traitors, now and forever.
Yes, you’re donnakh there, right? I replied to you.
Yay, and I liked your thimble comment as well!
“…so they could finally use their majorities to get tax cuts, immigration law, new Supremes, and other destructive moves in environmental protection, education, and health insurance.”
I read the other day that the republican majority in the Senate represents only 18% of the population. Trump got “elected” with 3 million fewer votes than Clinton. And the House seats are so thoroughly gerrymandered that democrats could win millions more votes, and they have, and still not control the House. This is as undemocratic as it gets, and yet the system we have allows for it.
This is why it drives me mad when I hear people blithely say “half the country” in describing the divide. No, its a small minority of radical morons and destructive greed heads that have been able to maximize leverage of the undemocratic part of democracy and bully their way to control. Think McConnell negating the last year of Obama’s presidency in order to steal a SC justice nomination.
What this says, is that dems have to be willing and prepared to fight hard, and use every available lever, whether its “traditional” or not, to right this situation. Going high when they go low is not working. Instead of going high, don’t have to go low, but why not go hard after them? That’s the ONLY way any of this changes.
Dems “fight hard”????
ROTFLOL. When have Dems EVER “fought hard”?? At least when have they in the last 2 to 3 decades??
They don’t.
Why?
Because they’re colluding on the graft and all that sweet sweet corporate payola.
Everything you say is true, but how have we gotten to this state of being? In large part because Dems capitulated without a fight. How much of a fight did Obama and the Dems put up in terms of Merrick Garland?? Hardly anything.
Pretty soon, it’s gonna get down to: Oh, it’s a Dem POTUS and Dem Majority in either or both Houses? Oh well, nothing they do is valid or lawful. Wait for it. I can see it coming.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for Dems to put up a fight for MY interests. They have spine a-plenty when it comes to serving theri corporate paymasters.
Yes, I’m that cynical and realistic.
. . . mutually exclusive! As you in fact sorta/kinda acknowledge in a sorta/kinda self-contradictory way:
There’s no requirement to “go hard . . . instead of going high”. The problem isn’t that “going high when they go low is not working”, it’s that they haven’t been “going hard” enough in a national moment when all-out, everything-you-got, balls-to-the-wall opposition and obstruction, by every lawful means available is what’s required.
No argument that Dems too often don’t go hard enough, though. Just that (as you acknowledge), they can do so and still go high.
Case in point (that has me currently seething): wrt Kavanaugh, going high and hard would have been simply and unanimously refusing to participate in any way at all in proceedings related to Kavanaugh’s nomination. No individual meetings. No attendance at or participation in hearings. No presence or voting when a vote is called. Boycott the entire fucking illegitimate charade on the inarguable, non-political, non-partisan principle that a person cannot legitimately appoint the person who will very likely be called upon to render judgment on the appointer’s own case (the unassailable argument of Josh Marshall’s reader’s email a while back). Which is precisely what Trump has done.
In other words, use McConnell’s basic total-obstruction tactic, but in service to an unassailably valid principle rather than in violation of his oath of office and constitutional duty, as McConnell did.
By doing what they’re doing, Dems grant legitimacy to a process that has none. Thereby granting eventual legitimacy to Kavanaugh’s Occupancy of a SCOTUS chair (assuming that’s the outcome), which will also have none. And they disarm themselves of the one best chance (imo) for blocking that Occupancy.
I think Matt Yglesias gets it right- This is just another iteration of the conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed hobbyhorse that gets trotted out whenever one of their previously beloved politicians sinks in the polls.
And of course, they won’t lift a finger if it will cost them federalist society approved judges being stuffed into every court court in the country, including unfortunately the current disastrous nominee to the Supreme Court.
Sure enough, if it gets bad enough, they will trot out Mike Pence and all they will talk about will be about how virtuous and honest he was and that all-encompassing pardon of Trump and his co-conspirators was necessary to keep the nation from being divided and moving forward…
Good analysis of the NYT OpEd, but I find the whole situation very troubling on many levels.
Firstly, no one, including the MAGAs, elected these “officials,” who apparently have taken over making decisions for the POTUS. Yeah, yeah, Trump’s a mess; can’t focus; doesn’t read; only watches Fox; get bedtime stories from Hannity. Got it.
However, that all smells like a Palace coup to me. Yes, it sounds quite realistic and accords with a lot of other “tell alls” we’ve been hearing since this hot mess got “elected.”
But I’m not sanguine about a one or more unelected “officials” basically saying: “Oh don’t worry your pretty little head about Trump. We GOT this.” Oh really? Who are YOU? YOU weren’t elected to anything. How the heck do we know or trust what they’re doing? And why is it any “better” than what Trump’s doing (or not doing)?? We don’t even know who “you” are, much less who you really work for, what your goals are, etc. At least with Trump, we do know exactly who and what he is. These shadow people? Not so much.
The OpEd purports that “they” have kept things going and gotten many “positive” things done. The list includes the massive tax scam, as well as de-regulating everything. Nothing of what “they” said gives me any good feelings about their alleged “great job” and how “great” the country is doing right now. No it’s not, frankly.
The GOP is Trump, and Trump IS the GOP, much as some of “them” wish to dis-associate themselves from him. Trump has provided the GOP endless cover for enacting some of the worst legislation we’ve seen in 8 years, plus dismantling programs that benefit the 99%, all while continuing to transfer wealth to the .01%.
Whyever should I trust these people who, IMO, should be fired immediately. What they’re doing is so wrong, it makes my head spin.
IF they truly believe that Trump is a threat to our nation, then they should come out of the shadows, make their bold statements, and quit. And then take the consequences.
IMO, the OpEd is bogus and is not to be trusted. Screw those guys. For me, they’re nothing more than a bunch of GOP grifters riding the gravy train, while employing a massive CYA gambit for when the shit hits fan.
Again: screw those guys.
. . . I’ve been surprised not to see prominently mentioned as the likely Anonymous. The more so since I saw an article in today’s paper listing individuals who’ve explicitly denied being Anonymous, and he was not among them.