*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).
Both Republicans and Democrats, including two first ladies, are calling on the president to put an end to Attorney General Jeff Sessions' 'zero tolerance' border policy of separating parents and children for unlawfully crossing the border.
A federal judge sent the former Trump campaign chairman to jail on Friday for tampering with witnesses in his upcoming trials. This decision further strains the relationship between the White House and the Justice Department, as the administration considers suspending special counsel Robert Mueller and using presidential pardons. Cheddar's J.D. Durkin gets into the details.
President Trump announced on Friday a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion of Chinese exports, punishing the country for "theft of intellectual property and technology." China vowed to retaliate in equal measure, escalating tensions between the world's two largest economies, despite months of negotiations to resolve trade disputes.
The former FBI director "chose to deviate" from established procedures and tainted the impartial reputation of the agency and the Justice Department, the department's Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in a scathing report of how Comey handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. Cheddar's J.D. Durkin looks into the details.
Big-time media mergers have renewed a policy debate in Washington over concentrating too much corporate control in a few powerful hands, said Axios tech reporter David McCabe.
The Republican reiterated his cautious approach to legalization, despite momentum for more liberalization in a state with some of the most tolerant cannabis laws in the country.
President Trump's statement that the U.S. is suspending joint military exercises with South Korea as Kim Jong-un considers how to dismantle his nuclear arsenal may cause some anxiety among America's allies, says Martyn Williams, editor of NorthKoreaTech.org.
President Trump and Kim Jong Un have signed a deal to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and improve relations between the United States and North Korea. The two leaders met in Singapore for a historic summit, the first ever between the U.S. and North Korea.
Kristen Scholer and Tim Stenovec sit down with journalist and author Gretchen Carlson for a wide-ranging interview. Carlson talks about her new programming called 'Justice for Women,' her life post-Fox News, and her role in eliminating the swimsuit competition from the Miss America pageant.
Plus, Facebook will start regulating e-commerce on its platform more closely. The social media company is rolling out a new feature that will let users give feedback about companies that sell items on Facebook. If a business gets too much negative feedback, Facebook will ban that business from its platform.
President Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed a joint statement Tuesday that calls for the "complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula." But even with this agreement, there's a long way to go.
Art Hogan, Chief Market Strategist for B. Riley FBR and Wunderlich Securities, discusses how he thinks the global markets are going to react to the meeting between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un following the G7 meeting this past weekend.
