By this point, many of you have seen the anonymous New York Times op-ed written by a senior official in the Trump White House.
Read it here.
I don’t know what to make of this piece. On the surface, it seems to square with everything we have heard about the chaos of the Trump White House. But what is the motive? Does the author want to paint Trump as a sympathetic character whose administration is being undermined by spies, leakers and other potential “deep staters”? Does the author want to assure Americans that there are rational people trying to hold the republic together? Is this an attempt to get Trump to do something irrational so that he can be removed from office?
I don’t know what qualifies as a “senior official” in the Trump administration, but apparently the editors of The New York Times thought this person was important enough to protect her or his anonymity.
Over at CNN, political reporter Chris Cilizza tries to guess who is behind the op-ed. Some of these suggestions are outrageous (Kellyanne Conway? Mike Pence? Javanka?), but anything is possible in this administration.
Now Trump is demanding that The New York Times reveal the identity of this person.
Does the so-called “Senior Administration Official” really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2018
Sorry Donald, it doesn’t work that way. We have something in the United States called the First Amendment.
Does it really matter who wrote it? For whatever the reason, the op-ed has started a much needed conversation about Trump’s mental state. And the fact that in comes from an insider validates what many people were already thinking. We are in new territory here, but the important thing is that the subject of his mental state is no longer verboten and people are beginning to talk about it.