Iran Press / America: A bombshell newspaper essay which detailed efforts to sideline Donald Trump from government was “just an obvious attempt to distract attention from this booming economy and [the president’s] record of success”, US vice-president Mike Pence has said.
Speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation in an interview to be broadcast in full on Sunday, Pence also denied that White House officials had discussed invoking the 25th amendment and removing Trump from power, Guardian reported.
Related News: Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, and Daniel Coats deny writing the op-ed attacking Trump
Meanwhile, CNN has released this news by selecting the controversial headline: "With Trump in crisis, Pence waits in his shadow", and reported that Vice President Mike Pence was among the first to make the "I didn't write it" pledge in the wake of a shocking anonymous essay -- "I Am Part of the Resistance" -- that revealed a conspiracy to save America from an unhinged President. Pence would likely pass the lie detector test that Sen. Rand Paul suggested to find the author.
The op-ed, published in The New York Times, notes that members of the Cabinet considered using the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to declare Donald Trump unfit and replace him with the vice president. (This is what is meant by those who suggest a "soft coup" is underway.) Although this scenario seems unlikely, Trump's response to Anonymous -- for example, asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate who wrote the op-ed -- could prompt him to act in ways that would finally alienate supporters in Congress and elements of his base. Thus weakened, Trump's departure by impeachment or other means would also open the door of the Oval Office to the vice president, CNN added.
CNN also reported that the grave possibility of a crisis that ends the scandal-scarred Trump presidency could explain the vice president's remarkable record of praising the chaotic commander-in-chief while making himself scarce at moments of crisis. Between his sycophancy, which moved George Will to say that Pence could be "America's most repulsive figure," and his widely noted absences, Pence has established a record that would make him blameless but also acceptable as a successor.
In CNN reporting for a Pence biography called "The Shadow President," the TV channel found that the vice president is enormously influential in the current administration and the national Republican Party. In Trump's Cabinet alone, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar were both Pence people before they joined the Trump team. And with the aid of a political action committee -- the "Great America Committee" -- which he started months after he took office, Pence is building a coast-to-coast network of operatives who could deploy immediately to support his presidency.
Donald Trump has called New York Times to reveal the identity of a senior administration official who the paper says is the author of a column revealing “resistance to Trump” inside the White House.
The president vented his fury at the essay, which the newspaper said it had taken the rare step of running anonymously, saying the writer’s “identity is known to us” and their “job would be jeopardized by its disclosure”.
Trump called for the writer of the column to be revealed in tweets on Wednesday evening, with one asking starkly: “TREASON?”
Then in a follow up tweet, he insisted: “If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once.”
The essay immediately triggered a guessing game as to the author's identity on social media, in newsrooms and inside the White House. The article’s language was being scrutinized for clues.
The writer of the New York Times op-ed says Trump aides are aware of the president's faults and "many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. I would know. I am one of them."
The writer, also claims to be part of the “resistance” to Trump and says: “Many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
The column went on: “It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room … We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what's right even when Donald Trump won't.”
The White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, accused the author of choosing to “deceive” the president by remaining in the administration.
“He is not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of the will of the American people,” she said. “The coward should do the right thing and resign.”
Sanders also called on the New York Times to "issue an apology" for publishing the piece, calling it a "pathetic, reckless, and selfish op-ed".
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