- An anonymous US government official has claimed in a new book that administration officials considered resigning en masse to raise alarm about President Donald Trump’s behavior.
- The official described it as a “midnight self-massacre” in their upcoming new book, “A Warning,” according to extracts published by The Washington Post.
- The official added that having “quiet resistance” within the White House hasn’t worked: Officials “were never going to steer Donald Trump the right direction in the long run, or refine his malignant management style,” an extract said.
- White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham described the book as a “work of fiction” written by a “coward.”
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Senior officials working for President Donald Trump’s administration considered resigning en masse in a “midnight self-massacre” in protest against his behavior, an anonymous government official has said in a new book, according to The Washington Post.
The claim is outlined in the official’s new book, named “A Warning,” which describes the roiling chaos of Trump’s presidency. The Post published extracts of the book on Friday.
The author, who is described as a “senior official in the Trump administration,” last year penned an explosive op-ed in The New York Times, claiming that a “quiet resistance” of government officials “have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
But in the new book, entitled “A Warning,” the official notes that their belief in the capacity of the “silent resistance” to restrain Trump was misguided.
"I was wrong about the 'quiet resistance' inside the Trump administration," they said, according to The Post. "Unelected bureaucrats and cabinet appointees were never going to steer Donald Trump the right direction in the long run, or refine his malignant management style. He is who he is."
The official added, according to The Post, that things reached a crisis point last year when a group of senior administration officials considered announcing their resignation at the same time in a "midnight self-massacre" to signal their alarm at Trump's behavior.
But they ultimately decided against the idea saying that it would further destabilize an already-teetering government, The Post reported the author as saying.
The phrase "midnight self-massacre" alludes to the so-called "Saturday Night Massacre," when during the Watergate investigation in 1974 a series of senior government officials resigned rather than follow President Richard Nixon's orders to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox.
In other extracts, the anonymous official compared the reaction among White House officials to the president's tweets as like finding an "elderly uncle running pantsless across the courtyard," and described sexist comments made by the president about female officials, and a racist impersonation by the president of Hispanic refugees.
The book releases later this month. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham has already described the author as a "coward" and the book "a work of fiction."
It's not clear whether she or any other White House officials have read it yet.
"The coward who wrote this book didn't put their name on it because it is nothing but lies," Grisham said in a statement to The Post. "Real authors reach out to their subjects to get things fact checked - but this person is in hiding, making that very basic part of being a real writer impossible."
"Reporters who choose to write about this farce should have the journalistic integrity to cover the book as what it is - a work of fiction."
- Read more about "A Warning":
- Trump put on a Hispanic accent to imitate and mock Mexican migrants pleading to cross US border, a book by an anonymous White House official claims
- A book written by an anonymous White House official claims that staff react to Trump's tweets like finding your 'elderly uncle running pantsless across the courtyard'
- Newly released excerpts from 'A Warning' written by an anonymous White House official paint a wild picture of the Trump presidency