Trump responds to scathing New York Times op-ed, calls anonymous author 'gutless'
- President Donald Trump lambasted The New York Times after it published an anonymous op-ed written by a senior official within the Trump administration.
- The op-ed, titled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration," criticized Trump's moral compass and claimed that he and others were working to "frustrate parts of the president's agenda and his worst inclinations."
- Trump described the op-ed's author as someone "who's failing and probably who's here for the wrong reasons."
- Trump also revived an old claim that the Times apologized for its coverage of the 2016 US presidential election.
- The Times previously denied the claim.
President Donald Trump lambasted The New York Times after it published an anonymous op-ed written by a senior official within the Trump administration on Wednesday.
Speaking at the White House to a group of law-enforcement officials, Trump decried The Times and the op-ed's anonymous author, whom he described as someone "who's failing and probably who's here for the wrong reasons."
"Now, and The New York Times is failing," Trump said. "If I weren't here, I'd believe The New York Times wouldn't probably even exist. And someday, when I'm not president ... The New York Times and CNN and all of these phony media outlets will be out of business, folks.
"They'll be out of business because there will be nothing to write and there will be nothing of interest," Trump said.
The op-ed, titled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration," criticized Trump's moral compass and claimed that he and others were working to "frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations."
"The root of the problem is the president's amorality," the author wrote. "Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making."
Trump also dug into The Times for publishing the op-ed and revived an old claim that has since been rebutted.
"When I won, they were forced to apologize to their subscribers," Trump said, referring to his presidential victory and The Times' subscribers. "They wrote a letter of apology. It was the first time anybody has ever done it because they covered the election incorrectly.
There is no publicly available evidence that the newspaper apologized for its 2016 election coverage.
"So if the failing New York Times has an anonymous editorial, can you believe it," Trump added. "Anonymous, meaning gutless. A gutless editorial."
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders echoed Trump's remarks in an official statement, saying voters in 2016 did not choose a "gutless, anonymous source to the failing New York Times."
"We are disappointed, but not surprised, that the paper chose to publish this pathetic, reckless, and selfish op-ed," Sanders said.
"This is a new low for the so-called 'paper of record,' and it should issue an apology, just as it did after the election for its disastrous coverage of the Trump campaign," she added. "This is just another example of the liberal media's concerted effort to discredit the President."
In March 2017, Trump claimed that The Times apologized to its subscribers "right after the election" because of its news. The Times's communications department fired back, calling assertion "false."
"We did not apologize," The Times tweeted at the time. "We stand by our coverage & thank our millions of subscribers for supporting our journalism."
Trump was believed to have been referring to a letter written to The Times's subscribers after the election, in which publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Dean Baquet wrote that their company, along with other media outlets, may have failed to account for Trump's "support among American voters."
"As we reflect on the momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism," the letter said. "That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you."