American as well as international media have been speculating about the The New York Times op-ed, but conservative pundits believe it is fake news published to try and embarrass President Donald Trump.
“Just read the anonymous @nytimes article and it’s blindingly obvious it’s an in-house product written not by any Trump official but by a professional writer at the newspaper itself. This is the very definition of #FakeNews,” D’Souza tweeted on Wednesday.
President Trump on Twitter called the op-ed a “gutless editorial” from a newspaper which was forced to apologise to its readers because they had been delivering so much anti-Trump fake news during the presidential race.
“We have somebody in what I call the failing New York Times talking about he’s part of the resistance within the Trump administration,” Trump told a group of county sheriffs during a meeting.
“This is what we have to deal with. And you know, the dishonest media … it’s really a disgrace. I will say this: Nobody has done what this administration has done in terms of getting things passed, in terms of getting things through.”
Trump tweeted that the newspaper should hand over the anonymous official for national security reasons.
The official described a cabal of administration officials actively circumventing the president’s orders.
The op-ed strangely coincides with excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book on the administration that have been leaked to the press.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders released a statement saying Trump won with 306 Electoral College votes — versus 232 for his opponent. “None of them voted for a gutless, anonymous source to the failing New York Times.”
The press secretary ended her statement calling for the official to resign. “The individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather than support, the duly elected President of the United States. He is not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of the will of the American people. This coward should do the right thing and resign.”
Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Wednesday dismissed the anonymous White House official who authored the piece critical of Trump, calling him a “delusional, egomaniacal, self-aggrandizing jackass”. Dobbs said such a betrayal was unheard of.
“Let’s start with the president and this anonymous quote, by some worm who is allegedly a part of the administration,” Dobbs told guest Paul Bracken, a Yale University political science professor.
Bracken said he was shocked that the individual in question would not resign and put it under his own name. He called the op-ed by an anonymous critic still allegedly working at a high level within the Trump administration “not good for the democracy”. But Dobbs went much further.
“Anyone who would betray the man they work for, the President of the United States is a delusional, egomaniacal, self-aggrandizing jackass,” Dobbs responded. “I don’t see any other way to call it. I would think that that person would, I hope, stand out clearly among the top officials in the administration.”
