The Daily - The Anonymous Senior Administration Official

Episode Date: September 6, 2018

The New York Times published an account by an unnamed member of the Trump administration about resistance figures operating inside the government. “I would know,” the official wrote. “I am one of them.” Guest: James Dao, Op-Ed editor for The Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the story behind a senior Trump administration official's anonymous account in The Times of the internal resistance figures operating inside the administration. I would know, the official writes. I would know the official rights. I am one of them. It's Thursday, September 6th.

Before we even get started, just for the benefit of everyone in the studio, who wrote the op-ed? No, but seriously, what can you tell us about how this all started? So what I can tell you is it began with an intermediary who I trust and know well. And they told me that there was this individual in the Trump administration who was very interested in writing an op-ed and would I want to see it. Jim Dow is the op-ed editor at The Times.

I almost always say, yes, I'm interested in looking at things, and we'll take it from there. And what was your reaction to seeing this piece by this person? As you can imagine, I see an amazing number of op-ed submissions a day. The vast, vast majority will be poorly written or terribly argued. I'm sorry to say. I don't typically expect someone in government to write clearly. It's not what we anticipate most of the time. In this case, I was really quite impressed by the clarity of the writing and the emotional impact of the writing.

When you read this piece, did you immediately think to yourself, this is going to break the internet? I thought it would be well-read. I had no idea. I wish I could say I was a better judge of these things than that, but I'm not, apparently. So after you've read the submission, what are you weighing as you decide what to do with it? Well, I can tell you a little bit about that process.

Thank you. You know, we had to work to try to confirm that this person was real and get us to a point where we were 100% confident they were who they are. And made more complicated, I assume, by the fact that you're working with an intermediary. Yes. I assume by the fact that you're working with an intermediary. Yes, but I did then have direct communication with the writer and did a certain amount of background checking. And based on those conversations, came away feeling totally confident

that this was truly the official in the Trump administration that they claimed they were. Then we started having the conversation about anonymity. And talk to us about what it means to be anonymous, and especially to be anonymous at The New York Times. Well, you know, the newsroom grants anonymity to sources on stories when they feel that those people are in danger of physical danger, of losing their livelihood.

And our rules aren't all that different in opinion. We don't do these very often. I think this is maybe the fourth time we've done it in the last three years. And it was essentially a case of if this person would not be willing to use their real name because they perhaps wanted to remain in the administration to do what they're doing as they did not want to lose their job or reputation or face whatever other kinds of consequences one might face in this situation, whether it might be physical threats or emotional stress. You know, out of that conversation, we decided that the peace was important enough and strong enough to justify

granting anonymity. Right. And I guess there's no way that you can persuade someone to write a piece like this, to detail what it's like to be in this administration and to object to what he or she is seeing around him or her without granting anonymity, because they would so clearly lose their job. So if you want that perspective, you almost have to grant anonymity to a sitting member of the administration. That was our feeling. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You described the writer only as a senior administration official.

Can you help people understand a little bit more, or even just a little bit, what that phrase means? That's one of those questions I feel like I really can't answer. All I can say is I feel that we followed a definition that has been used by our newsroom in the past. So Jim, I know this is a little bit of a touchy-feely question, but as the publication of this piece loomed, were you nervous about it? I was absolutely nervous about it for any number of reasons. One being the safety and security of the writer. We were trying to be as

careful as we could about not revealing more than we needed to about the person's identity. needed to about the person's identity. One being the inevitable criticisms the Times op-ed page and the Times as an institution would face. And I mean, given that we didn't realize it would be this big of an impact, maybe I should have been more nervous before it. So let's talk about what this person who wrote this piece ultimately says in the essay. Can I ask you, Jim, to just read a few of these opening lines of the piece? You bet. So they write, President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It's not just the special counsel looms large or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump's leadership or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hell-bent on his downfall. The dilemma, which he does not fully grasp, is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and

his worst inclinations. What do you understand that to mean? that senior officials inside the administration are working to do what? Well, I think the writer does not spell out in detail what they're doing to frustrate the president's agenda or his worst inclinations as they write. But what they clearly convey is that there were policies that the president seemed to be pushing for in meetings, and that out of those meetings, various officials who were expected to implement them were not implementing them. And in fact, one of the examples the writer does provide is about Russia, that the president has often said very sort of positive things about Vladimir Putin and about Russia generally. And yet his own administration has consistently

pushed policies that were quite tough on Russia. Essentially, circumventing him or a less charitable description would be actively undermining him and his intentions by doing or not doing. I mean, I think that's a fair way to read the piece. They write, 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 result is a two-track presidency. That's sort of an incredible statement. I think they're getting at the idea that not everybody inside the administration is fine with the president's behavior and fine with the things he says on Twitter or in public settings. And that they are trying to give him adult advice, and that there are

conversations going on within the administration that are critiquing it, that are trying to guide the administration in what they would consider a healthier direction. That's the sense I get from this writer. The suggestion of two tracks sounds to me literally like it's kind of almost two governments, the government of the president and the bully pulpit and the instincts and the temper and the temperament, and then the administration beneath him frequently working at cross purposes with that. I think that is what the writer is saying. And I think we've shown that in reporting that the Times and others have done. We've seen the president say one thing one day, and then nothing happens for a long time.

Now, something may happen eventually, but there may often be cases where there's immense battles going on within the administration to change that policy, to reverse it, to keep the president from moving forward with something he said. And in some cases, those parties may be succeeding and some they may not. It's hard to tell all the time. And another message seems to be that you, the reader, the public, the American citizen, you don't know how much worse it could have been, what might have happened if people like the writer hadn't been inside the administration trying to thwart and moderate and temper. Right. The writer is to some degree expressing a frustration that people in the administration,

particularly those who are perhaps in more senior positions, are portrayed as somehow enablers of an administration that is in chaos. And what this writer is trying to convey is the idea that they're working their darndest to do these things. And it's hard to live with all the critical media coverage that portrays everybody in the administration as being a villain in effect. So what do we understand the writer to be doing? Why stay in an administration

where you have to try to work around the president? Well, I think what they're saying is twofold. First off, as they say, there are aspects of the president's agenda that they support. They like the tax cuts. They like the policies. I think there are policies that they absolutely support.

But I also think there are some policies that this person and others in the administration have come to feel that the president has pushed too hard and that they do not like and they think are certainly not Republican policies on trade, for instance. So I think on the one hand, the writer and the people the writer is representing is talking for are hoping to push the administration towards the policies that they think are important and that they like. They have come to see the president, as the writer puts it, as being fundamentally amoral and being a leader who has got some perhaps undemocratic inclinations. And they feel that it is part of their role as government officials to actively thwart that when it happens, to fight those inclinations for as they see it, the good of the country. But Jim, I can't be alone in this. The biggest question I have here is why this person did this, why they wrote this piece. What are they hoping to accomplish here?

Are they trying to comfort Americans who are worried about this presidency? Are they trying to call people to action, including other people in the administration? Are they trying to atone in some way for being part of this? Or what, exactly? Look, that's a great question, and I cannot answer definitively. My guess, it's a little bit of all those things. But isn't this act of writing this piece sort of directly undermining the writer's claim that they want the administration to succeed and are working to curve the president's worst inclinations privately in service of that goal? But to publicly say all this, doesn't that begin to undermine the administration and hurt its chances of success? Why not just stay quiet, don't write Jim Dow, don't articulate this stuff?

I would guess that this person has reached a breaking point and they felt that they just needed to say what was on their mind and what was on the mind of other people in the administration in their view. Right. There's kind of a moral urgency to the piece. I felt that way about it. Absolutely. I don't get the impression that this writer feels that the Congress is going to impeach the president anytime soon. I don't think they're expecting an immediate change, but there's a sense that things have gone off track long enough that there was a need to speak out now.

And quite honestly, I'm not sure that this person thinks that this is a game-changing event, that they're one voice that perhaps others will speak out next. Perhaps they won't. I don't know what they think will happen. Right.

I came away from this piece feeling that this was someone who earnestly felt these things and earnestly felt that they had a need to come out. And there may have been other factors like a desire, at least to convey the message that we're not all bad players here. I want to talk a little bit about the timing of this because others in the administration sort of are speaking out around the same time now. This piece was published a day after the Washington Post obtained a copy of Bob Woodward's new book, which is all about the Trump administration and which contains, through Bob Woodward's unique form of reporting, this kind of omniscient version of administration officials' accounts

of very complicated, messy moments inside this administration, many of them essentially anonymous, but often placing people inside the room. Do you understand this in any way to be a coordinated effort? I don't, and I don't believe it is. Obviously, I have no idea who Bob Woodward spoke to. We were certainly not aware that the Post was going to have Woodward's book when it did. To my sense, it's pure coincidence. What about the more cynical interpretation of this, which I suspect may arise, which is that all these people are coming forward just weeks before the midterms, in a sense to send the message to fellow Republicans

that, you know what, you might think that this is the time to let Congress be a check on this president by electing more Democrats. Stay with me. But in fact, we're here to tell you, you're in safe hands. The ship is steadier than you imagine, and it's safe to keep government Republican. steadier than you imagine, and it's safe to keep government Republican. Well, I have to say, it's a great theory, but I think anybody who's going to read this is not going to come away feeling like this ship is on a steady path. I wonder, why do you think that the writer chose to publish this piece in the New York Times? This is one of the institutions that the president has branded as fake news or worse. And it seems like almost like a setup for the president and his supporters to dismiss this anonymous essay as more of that because it's in the Times. So with all due respect,

why not publish it in, say, the Wall Street Journal, which has a well-known, more conservative-leaning opinion section, or one of the conservative, glossy publications, the National Review? I'd like to think that the writer felt that we were an institution of great honesty and integrity and that we would do our best to protect their anonymity. But it's also quite possible that the writer felt

that we were a big voice and that this would be the best platform for them to get their message out. I didn't actually ask the writer why they chose to publish with us. Right. Why, Cenk said. So let's talk about what's happened in the hours since this piece was published, because the reaction has been extraordinary by almost every measure. We're speaking to you at around 8 p.m. on Wednesday evening. Thank you for staying so late. And this story has basically consumed the universe. The internet is, of course, going nuts trying to figure out who wrote this. And so they're looking for clues. For example, someone grabbed on to the use of the word lodestar,

which is a bit of an unusual word. And when they cross-referenced it against some of the names of officials inside the administration, it turned out it's a word used somewhat frequently by our vice president, Mike Pence. Obviously, I'm not going to ask you whether or not Mike Pence wrote this piece. But were you trying to strip out anything potentially identifiable as you edited this and thought about this piece to avoid this kind of sleuthing, which is now taking over? Or is that just now the responsibility and the problem of the person who wrote it? Yeah, the lodestar question is just fascinating to me. I've now heard that from a number of reporters. And the answer to that is really simple. It's like,

it never occurred to me to change a word to help hide this person's identity. Because that's actually the antithesis of what we do. The whole point of an op-ed is to let writers express themselves in their own voices. That's your lodestar? Yes. So, that's up to them. If they use a word, if they use that word once, if they use that word a lot and it gives everything away, that's what it is. That's what it is.

So, at this point, Jim, how many people at The Times know who the writer is? I can't tell you. I'm not going to tell you an exact number. Okay. Let me just say that it is a very small number. And have you heard from the writer since the piece was published? I have.

And I can't really convey that. Sure. I just wonder if that person was surprised by the reaction. You know, it's a good question, and I'm not quite sure how surprised they were. So Jim, President Trump has responded to this piece. So when you tell me about some anonymous source within the administration, probably who's failing and probably here for all the wrong reasons.

No. And the New York Times is failing. He's gone out in front of reporters and complained about it. So if the failing New York Times has an anonymous editorial, can you believe it? Anonymous, meaning gutless, a gutless editorial. And then he has just, at around 7.45, gone on Twitter. Let me read you what he wrote. Does the so-called, quotation, senior administration official really exist? Or is it just the failing New York Times with another phony source? If the gutless anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for national security purposes, turn him slash her over to the government at once. Exclamation point. Give you a second to process that.

I mean, I'm not... I'd like to hear why the president feels it's a national security issue. I don't quite see that in anything that they've written here. It's a personal testimony about their feeling of dismay with the president and the way he runs the government. But he's now invoking national security. And I have no idea

what he's referring to there because there's nothing in this piece that strikes me as being relevant or in any way undermining the national security. Now that the president's calling for the Times to disclose the identity, are there any circumstances that you could ever conceive under which the Times would share the identity of this person? I cannot.

I cannot. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. President Trump claims he has an absolute right to pardon himself, does he? The question of self-pardons is something I've never analyzed. It's a question that I've not written about. It's a question, therefore, that's a hypothetical question that I can't begin to answer in this context as a sitting judge and as a nominee to the Supreme Court. During his second day of Supreme Court confirmation

hearings, Brett Kavanaugh repeatedly dodged questions about whether the Constitution would allow President Trump to use the powers of the presidency to thwart the Russia investigation. Does the president have the ability to pardon somebody in exchange for a promise from that person, they wouldn't testify against him. Sarah, I'm not going to answer hypothetical questions of that sort. Pressed by Democratic senators, Kavanaugh refused to say whether he believes Trump, as a sitting president,

could be subpoenaed by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, or whether Trump could pardon himself as Trump has suggested he might. Both issues could come before Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. Let me just ask you this. Can a sitting president be required to respond to a subpoena? As a matter of the canons of judicial independence, I can't give you an answer on that hypothetical question. So you can't give me an answer

on whether a president has to respond to a subpoena from a court of law? Each of the eight justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court when they're sitting in my seat declined to decide potential hypothetical cases. Kavanaugh will resume testifying later this morning. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.