A Trump aide’s unprecedented New York Times op-ed came just hours after Bob Woodward’s book laid bare the antipathies and resentments of those who work for him

An unprecedented op-ed in the New York Times and a devastating book by the veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward have exposed Donald Trump as a modern-day emperor with no clothes.

Taken together, the essay, written by an anonymous Trump administration official, and the book, Fear: Trump in the White House, describe an administration in quiet revolt against its most powerful figure. A “resistance” of officials within Trump’s inner sanctum stealthily plot to foil the worst impulses of an “impetuous” and “amoral” president in an effort, they say, to protect the country he was elected to lead.

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“To be clear, ours is not the popular ‘resistance’ of the left,” the “senior administration official” wrote in the op-ed, titled I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration and published by the newspaper on Wednesday. “We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

Trump aide's anonymous op-ed reveals 'resistance' inside administration Read more

“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.”

In his book Fear, Woodward, who based the account on hundreds of hours of interviews with officials and principals in the Trump administration, paints a damning portrait of a White House in utter disarray under a president who has “gone off the rails”. The White House chief of staff, John Kelly, reportedly summarized the current state of affairs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as “Crazytown”.

Meanwhile, administration officials and staff are engaged in “an administrative coup d’etat”, according to Woodward, with senior aides conspiring to keep official documents out of Trump’s reach as a way to avert economic or diplomatic crises. In one scene in the book, Gary Cohnremoves a letter from Trump that would have formally withdrawn the US from an important trade agreement with South Korea.

In the op-ed, the official characterizes Trump as “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective” and so prone to making impulsive and irrational decisions that members of his cabinet explored the possibility of invoking the 25th amendment to remove him from office, though they ultimately decided against it. The amendment is a complex constitutional mechanism to allow for the replacement of a president who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”.

Play Video 5:26 What is the 25th amendment and could it remove Trump? – video explainer

The official also claimed the administration’s achievements had included some “bright spots” such as “effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more”. But, the official said, those successes came “despite – not because of – the president’s leadership style”.

The depiction of Trump’s leadership described in the op-ed and the book match what has been reported by news organizations and other writers since he took office in January 2017.

“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 official added: “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 one-two punch has sent the White House into “total meltdown”, according to Politico, as officials launch a full-scale hunt for the culprit behind the New York Times op-ed.

Trump raged on Twitter, calling the essay “treason”. Trump questioned whether the official was a “phony source” but demanded that if the “GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”

'I'm a popularist': Trump struggles with Bannon's coaching in Woodward book Read more

In an official statement, the White House also attacked the opinion column and criticized its author.

“The individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather than support, the duly elected president of the United States,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said in a statement. “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.”

Trump has always preferred to construct his own reality. “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what's happening,” he told supporters earlier this year.

On Wednesday, as reality appeared to be closing in, Trump instead bragged about his approval ratings during an event with sheriffs in the East Room of the White House.

“The poll numbers are through the roof,” he told the reporters in the room. “Our poll numbers are great – and guess what? Nobody’s going to come even close to beating me in 2020.”

That most polls show more Americans disapprove than approve of his performance was beside the point. The sheriffs were enjoying the show and when the president finished, they burst into applause.

