Viral

People Are Going Wild About That Bonkers Trump Op-Ed From An Anonymous White House Official

Getty Image

Donald Trump has been having quite the week. There were numerous bombshell revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book, Fear: Trump In The White House, and then a bonkers op-ed from an anonymous “senior administration official” within the White House was published by The New York Times on Wednesday. The writer claimed to be one of many employees of Trump who “have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” The writer spoke of Trump’s “amorality” and his “erratic” behavior, claimed his “impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic,” and described his leadership style as “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.”

The source added, “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.” Even more damning, the source claimed, “Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.”

The author concluded by praising the late Senator McCain as “a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue.”

Trump was none too pleased, tweeting only a single word at 5:15 pm Wednesday:

That tweet was the subject to several jokes similar to this one:

Then 85 minutes (!) later, Trump collected himself enough to elaborate:

Maybe he took that 85 minutes to ask the boy mowing the lawn if he’s a “senior administration official.” Speaking of delays, Trump was also half an hour late to a White House meeting (video here), where he waved sheets of paper and ranted about the “failing New York Times,” adding, “And, someday, when I’m not president, which hopefully will be in about 6.5 years from now, the New York Times and CNN and all these phony media outlets will be out of business.”

Not only has the op-ed clearly rustled Trump’s jimmies, but it has also garnered plenty of scathing critiques, with some referring to it as Decency Resistance designed to shield the elite and others pointing out it’s “an assumption of presidential powers by unelected individuals.” Some have theorized that it’s the anonymous source’s ploy to get a book deal.

Others joked about how easily the writer’s identity could be discovered:

https://twitter.com/danieljpowell/status/1037439899350315008

And people noticed the word lodestar is a favorite of Mike Pence:

Plenty of folks on Twitter also had their guesses about who the anonymous leaker could be. (The call is coming from inside the house!)

https://twitter.com/KT_So_It_Goes/status/1037549880372326400

Others made jokes about and hurled insults at the anonymous writer:

https://twitter.com/poniewozik/status/1037429524881973250

https://twitter.com/poniewozik/status/1037427973182418944
https://twitter.com/benkling/status/1037443562802225154
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1037433008532451328

https://twitter.com/kept_simple/status/1037429977527013379
https://twitter.com/elongreen/status/1037431919141695489
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1037459560636796928

https://twitter.com/ZackBornstein/status/1037504210500124673

https://twitter.com/bobbyfinger/status/1037444809055723520

And Veep creator Armando Iannucci continued showing his penchant for satire with an amazing pitch:

Others turned their attention away from the film industry and towards another part of the media, making fun of freelance writers being low paid and having to wait months to get a check:

Or otherwise making inside baseball commentary about working in media:

People are gearing up to blow this whole thing wide open:

https://twitter.com/KrangTNelson/status/1037535129890168838

https://twitter.com/markhoppus/status/1037500002963095552

(Hat tip to Quartz, Buzzfeed, ONTD, and Deadline)