An unnamed senior Trump official has said members of the administration are working to frustrate parts of the president’s agenda to protect the country from his “worst inclinations.”
In a New York Times editorial, the author said President Trump’s “amorality” and “impulsiveness” had led to ill-informed and reckless decisions.
Mr. Trump labelled the anonymous writer “gutless” and the newspaper as “phony.”
His press secretary said the mystery writer was a “coward” who should quit.
The newspaper defended the editorial in a statement, saying: “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.”
The opinion piece comes a day after excerpts of Bob Woodward’s book on the Trump White House suggested that his top officials have been engaged in an “administrative coup d’etat” to protect the nation from the president, including removing key documents from his desk before he has a chance to sign them.
This, then, presents itself as first-hand acknowledgement that the coup is real.
The author says that he/she isn’t a liberal operative and agrees with many of the policy goals the administration is pursuing, but that those goals are being achieved in spite of – and not because of – the president.
The laundry list of criticisms should be familiar to the president’s opponents on the left and the right, however, disorganised meetings, an impetuous and petty demeanour, an inability to stick to decisions, antipathy to a free press and “anti-democratic” instincts.
He/she describes a “two-track presidency,” where the president’s actions – such as his conciliatory attitude toward “autocrats and dictators,” including Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin – are constrained and redirected by “adults in the room.”
“This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state,” the author writes. “It’s the work of the steady state.”
What’s more, the author says that some in the administration have whispered about invoking the 25th Amendment, a constitutional provision that allows the vice-president and a majority of the Cabinet secretaries to vote to remove a president who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Such a manoeuvre has been, up until now, largely consigned to the fringes of American political discourse and the fever dreams of Mr. Trump’s angriest opponents.
“No-one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis,” he/she writes.
“So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until – one way or another – it’s over.”
There has already been talk of an aggressive push within the White House to find out the identity of the sources Woodward relied on for his book, Fear: Trump in the White House. The Times essay is sure to throw fuel on an already raging fire.
The president said the anonymous article was “really a disgrace,” and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sent out a sharply worded official response.
“The individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather than support, the duly elected president of the United States,” she writes.
“He is not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of the will of the American people.”
Both Ms. Sanders and Mr. Trump lashed out against the New York Times for publishing the essay, with the president adding that “all these phony media outlets will be out of business” once he leaves the presidency, as they will have nothing left to write about.
Outside of the administration, the essay will set off one of Washington’s favourite games – guessing the identity of an unknown author.
Not since “Anonymous” wrote the novel Primary Colours, a thinly disguised fictional account of the 1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign, has there been a mystery like this.
Given that much of the focus of the piece is on conduct in international affairs, the spotlight will probably shine the brightest on the president’s foreign policy team – in the Department of State, National Security Council and Department of Defense.
There will also surely be calls for this administration official to reveal him/herself.
India’s top court to deliver landmark gay sex ruling
India’s Supreme Court is due to deliver a landmark verdict on Thursday, when it will decide if gay sex should remain a criminal offence in the country.
Thursday’s ruling re-examines a 2013 judgement that upheld a colonial-era law, known as section 377, under which gay sex is categorised as an “unnatural offence.”
There has been a very vocal campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in India.
Many activists are expecting the court to overrule its previous judgement.
They believe the court strongly indicated its stance on the matter, in a landmark judgement it made on the right to privacy in August last year.
It said then that “discrimination against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation is deeply offensive to the dignity and self-worth of the individual.”
In 2016, when the court agreed to hear the section 377 petition once more, three senior judges said they felt the issue was a “matter of constitutional importance.”
Thursday’s verdict will be delivered by a five-judge bench headed by India’s outgoing chief justice, Dipak Misra.
Section 377 is a 157-year-old colonial-era law which criminalises certain sexual acts as “unnatural offences” which are punishable by a 10-year jail term.
The law punishes, in its own words, “carnal inter¬course against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.”
While the statute criminalises all anal and oral sex, it has had a much bigger implication for same-sex relationships.
Activists have frequently said that the law has been used to harass members of the country’s gay and transgender communities.
Equal rights campaigners have also argued that the very existence of such a law is proof of discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Roy Moore sues Sacha Baron Cohen for defamation over TV stunt
Former US Senate candidate Roy Moore is suing the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen for defamation after falling victim to a TV show prank.
In a sketch for his series Who Is America?, Baron Cohen pretends to be an Israeli anti-terrorism expert demonstrating a “paedophile detector.”
When the “device” is waved near Mr. Moore, it beeps.
READ ALSO: Homosexuality legal says Supreme Court
In last year’s Senate campaign, Mr. Moore was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies.
His lawyers say the satirist falsely accused their client of being a sex offender.
They are seeking $95m (£73m) in damages from Baron Cohen and from the Showtime and CBS networks.
Representatives for Baron Cohen have not responded to the lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington.
A spokeswoman for Showtime said it did not comment on pending litigation.
Mr. Moore, 71, stood as a Republican candidate in last year’s Senate race in his home state of Alabama, but lost to Democratic opponent Doug Jones.
He had been expected to win in the conservative state, but his campaign was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct with teenagers.
He strongly denies any wrongdoing.
In May, Mr. Moore filed a defamation lawsuit against women who made allegations against him, saying they were part of a “political conspiracy” to undermine his campaign.
Mr. Moore said he had travelled to Washington to appear on what he thought was an Israeli TV show in the belief that he was to receive an award for his pro-Israel stance.
The complaint says: “Defendant Cohen’s character falsely and fraudulently introduced a false and fraudulent ‘device’ supposedly invented by the Israeli Army to detect paedophiles.
“During the segment, Defendant Cohen’s ‘device’ – as part of the false and fraudulent routine – purports to detect Judge Moore as a sex offender, thus defaming him.”
The complaint says Mr. Moore, his wife and their whole family suffered “severe emotional distress and pain… especially given his status as a prominent conservative and God-fearing person of faith”.
In the show broadcast in the US in July, when the beep sounds, Mr. Moore tells Baron Cohen: “I support Israel. I don’t support this kind of stuff.”
He then walks out.
Mr. Moore was not the first public figure duped into a fake interview in a Baron Cohen show.
In July, Georgia lawmaker Jason Spencer, ridiculed for dropping his trousers and using racial slurs on Who Is America?, said he would resign.
The Republican state representative initially refused to quit after the show aired.
Emirates airline: Passengers sick on Dubai-New York flight
Nineteen people have taken ill after an Emirates airline plane landed in New York, officials say.
The plane was quarantined at JFK airport as those on board were checked by health officials.
Eleven went to hospital but others declined treatment.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that initially about 100 people including some crew had complained of illness.
Flight 203 from Dubai landed at 09:10 (13.10 GMT) with 521 passengers.
Emergency vehicles were seen on the runway as it landed.
Singer Vanilla Ice, who also said he was on the plane, posted video of the emergency response on the tarmac.
Soon afterwards, Emirates airline tweeted that the sick passengers were being attended to and those who were unaffected would be allowed to leave the plane.
In a statement, the CDC said: “Approximately 100 passengers, including some crew on the flight, complained of illness including cough, fever, and symptoms of gastrointestinal illness.
It said that after completing health evaluations on everyone on board, 538 passengers had been released and 11 people were taken to a local hospital for care.
“Passengers who have been evaluated and released [should] call their provider and health department if they develop any symptoms,” the health body advised.
A spokesman for New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, said that some of the passengers had originally come from the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, which was currently experiencing a flu outbreak, and that the passengers’ symptoms were “pointing to the flu.”
Larry Coben, a passenger on the plane, posted pictures on Twitter of unaffected passengers being checked as they disembarked.
ABC News reports that the pilot raised concerns prior to landing that some of the passengers were coughing and experiencing high temperatures.
Another passenger, Erin Sykes, posted a video of officials wearing protective clothing checking passengers over as they disembarked.
A government official told US news outlet CBS News that “there was no evidence of a security or terror issue.”
A business class traveller, Raghida Dergham, told CBS News that the sick passengers had been sitting in the economy section of the plane.