Trump Lashes Out After Reports of ‘Quiet Resistance’ by Staff

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump sought to assert command of his administration Wednesday amid reports of a “quiet resistance” among some of his own advisers who have secretly and deliberately tried to thwart from the inside what one official called his “reckless decisions.”

The surreal struggle between Trump and at least some members of his own team has characterized his tenure from the beginning, but it spilled into public view this week in a way that raised questions about the president’s capacity to govern and the responsibilities and duties of the people who work for him.

An op-ed article by an unnamed Trump administration official published by The New York Times on Wednesday claimed that “unsung heroes” on his team were “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” It came a day after reports about a new book, “Fear,” by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, revealed efforts by aides to surreptitiously block the president when they believe he may be acting dangerously.

The collective portrayal suggested that Trump may not be fully in charge of his own White House, surrounded by advisers who consider him so volatile and temperamental that they swipe documents from his desk in hopes of stopping him from issuing rash orders. While his rivals called such efforts heroic and patriotic, his supporters complained of a virtual coup at odds with the Constitution and the will of the people.

Trump erupted in anger after reading the op-ed article, and John Kelly, the chief of staff, and other aides scurried in and out of the press office trying to figure out how to respond. Advisers told Trump that this was the same as leakers who talk with the news media every day, but a hunt for the author of the offending article was quickly initiated and scrutiny focused on a half-dozen names. Aides said they assumed it was written by someone who worked in the administration but not the White House itself, although they could not be sure.

Trump angrily lashed out during public events and on Twitter. He assailed what he called the “gutless editorial” by the unnamed official and he dismissed Woodward’s book as “a total piece of fiction” and “totally discredited.” He attributed the accounts to a news media that has sought to destroy his presidency.

“They don’t like Donald Trump and I don’t like them because they’re very dishonest people,” the president said during a meeting with sheriffs. Trump later posted a message on Twitter that said simply, “TREASON?” and then another saying that “If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”

The unnamed official, whose identity is known to the Times editorial page department but not to the reporters who cover the White House, described the president’s leadership as “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective” and cited “adults in the room” who strive to prevent disaster. At one point, the official wrote, there was talk of the Cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment to declare Trump unable to discharge his duties, but no one wanted a constitutional crisis.

“We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous,” the official wrote. “But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.”

“That is why 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 official added. There is a long history of people in the White House taking it upon themselves to curb what they saw as a president’s dangerous instincts or compensate for his incapacity. When Woodrow Wilson fell ill late in his presidency, his wife, Edith, effectively made many decisions in his name. When Ronald Reagan seemed increasingly foggy toward the end of his tenure, some aides discussed invoking the 25th Amendment.

During the final days of Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, when he was depressed, drinking and railing against his fate as the Watergate scandal closed in on him, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger instructed the military not to carry out any nuclear launch order from the president without checking with him or Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

This has been a recurring theme in Trump’s presidency as well. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ignored Trump’s public entreaties to investigate the president’s political enemies and shut down the Russia inquiry. Donald McGahn, the White House counsel, has rebuffed the president’s efforts to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel.

When Trump declared on Twitter that he would bar transgender soldiers from the military, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis slow-walked the issue, insisting he would study it first. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a critic of Trump, said last year that the president’s advisers regularly sought to prevent him from making ill-considered decisions.

“I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him,” Corker said in an interview with The Times. When Trump attacked Corker on Twitter, the senator responded with a cutting tweet of his own: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”

Just last month, in a new book, Omarosa Manigault Newman, an aide fired by Kelly, wrote that “an army of people” was “working silently” to keep the president from harming the nation. “Many in this silent army are in his party, his administration, and even in his own family,” she wrote.

Some loyalists to Trump said this amounted to an unconstitutional seizure of power by unelected staff members.

“The issue is there are people who took jobs in this administration not to serve the country but to serve themselves and, in their mind, protect the country from the president and that’s not their role,” said Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager who remains close to the president. “The American people vote for Donald Trump to be the president and to implement his policies.” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, issued a statement criticizing the anonymous official.

“The individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather than support, the duly elected president of the United States,” she said. “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.”

Sanders said the newspaper acted irresponsibly. “We are disappointed, but not surprised, that the paper chose to publish this pathetic, reckless and selfish op-ed,” she said. “This is a new low for the so-called paper of record, and it should issue an apology.”

Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, responded, “We are incredibly proud to have published this piece, which adds significant value to the public’s understanding of what is going on in the Trump administration from someone who is in a position to know.”

The description of Trump’s management by the anonymous official who wrote the op-ed article mirrored Woodward’s account as well as reporting by many news organizations and other authors over the past 20 months. “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 official wrote.

The op-ed pages of The Times are managed separately from the news department. The op-ed editors wrote that they took the rare step of publishing a piece without naming the author because of the significance of the subject. “We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers,” they wrote. Trump’s mood vacillated from fury to calm throughout Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday. Some of his top aides worked the phones to figure out who was leaking, or who might have spoken, and his daughter Ivanka Trump and other advisers tried to quell his distress.

He seemed satisfied that Kelly and Mattis had denied remarks attributed to them in Woodward’s book — Kelly was quoted calling the president an “idiot” and Mattis said he had the understanding of a “fifth- or sixth-grader.” But his ire was trained particularly on two former aides, the former director of the National Economic Council, Gary Cohn, and the former staff secretary, Rob Porter, according to people close to the White House.