*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).
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The bitter midterm election season is coming down ー as it always does ー to who turns out to vote. With control of both chambers of Congress and dozens of statehouses up for grabs on Tuesday, and a polarizing president at the center of it all, the 2018 midterm election will be seen as one of the most consequential in modern U.S. history.
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Robin Koval, CEO and president of the Truth Initiative, believes that until government effectively regulates the sale of e-cigarettes, teenagers will continue to get addicted to nicotine. And that makes popular vape brands like JUUL no different from Big Tobacco, in her mind.
