*By Carlo Versano*
It's the guessing game upending Washington: who is the "senior official" who authored the [unsigned op-ed] (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html) published Wednesday in The New York Times and claims to be "part of the resistance inside the Trump administration"?
Whoever it was should come out of the shadows and resign, Marc Lotter, former press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence, said Thursday in an interview on Cheddar.
Lotter, who also served as a special assistant to Trump during the president's first months in office, said that he questioned what "senior official" even means.
"There's so many issues of credibility with this," he said. "I don't take too much from it."
The essay caused shock waves in political and journalistic circles when it hit the Times' website. By Wednesday evening, social media was ablaze with theories about who was behind such a jarring public critique of a sitting president ー who also happens to be the writer's boss.
In the piece, the author said there is a cohort of senior advisers in the West Wing and the Cabinet who have actively worked to circumvent the president's "misguided impulses." Trump, as a leader, is "impetuous, adversarial, petty, and ineffective."
"If you're going to have these kinds of disagreements then you should not be in that position," Lotter said.
According to the former adviser, Trump's unorthodox management style makes many uncomfortable.
But as Lotter explained, "He wants to hear both sides of each story," which sometimes causes friction among the ranks.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement in response to the op-ed, saying: "This coward should do the right thing and resign.”
The essay was published days after excerpts from renowned journalist Bob Woodward's new tell-all book about Trump began to circulate. That book also chronicles a chaotic West Wing, full of advisers who have tried to thwart the president without his knowledge.
Trump reacted angrily verbally and on Twitter late Wednesday. He called the essay ["gutless"(]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1037485664433070080), wondered aloud whether the Times should unveil the source for ["National Security purposes"](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1037485664433070080), and tweeted, simply, ["TREASON?"] (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1037464177269514240)
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/marc-lotter-shares-his-remarks-on-ny-times-op-ed).
A bill to legalize recreational marijuana use in New Jersey passed a panel vote, and now heads to a full vote and governor's desk. State Sen. Gerald Cardinale of New Jersey, explains why he's against it when it comes to traffic accidents and youth usage in this week's episode of Cannabiz.
Since a Supreme Court ruling in May, seven states have legalized sports betting ー and Adam Small, the CEO of gambling magazine USBets thinks Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana may be next.
Richard Allan, Facebook's vice president of public policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, answered inquiries from representatives of nine countries, sitting next to an empty chair left open for Zuckerberg. Early on, Allan, who is a former member of the British Parliament, admitted that the chief executive's absence was "not great."
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018.
British Prime Minister Theresa May finally garnered European Union support for her Brexit plan, but unrest at home threatens to dismantle negotiations ー and lawmakers have warned there is no plan B. "The worst case scenario for many, particularly for anyone who is a 'Remainer,' is that we leave the EU without a deal in place at all," Ayesha Javed, Deputy Editor of The Wall Street Journal's WSJ City, told Cheddar on Monday.
Former wide receiver Walter Powell Jr. played for three NFL teams over a span of four years. But now, a year into his retirement, he's decided to tackle a new challenge ー creating a more informed electorate. The athlete created a new an app, Politiscope, to educate political newcomers like Powell with a tool that "broke down politics so people like me could understand it," he told Cheddar Monday.
Just days after releasing a chilling report on climate change, the Trump administration is trying to bury its own findings. The White House released a statement trying to diminish the severity of the report's findings, saying the report is based on the most extreme possible scenario. Andrew Light, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute and one of the report's co-authors, and Matt Daily, Reporter at Politico, join Cheddar to discuss the details surrounding the report.
Ohio officials will allow businesses to pay taxes in Bitcoin as of this week. While limited in scope, the move represents an important tacit admission by a government body that Bitcoin is an acceptable currency, according to Jimmy Song, a Bitcoin developer.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Nov. 26, 2018.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
