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To better understand this remarkable political moment, we identified seven major terms and phrases from the op-ed and its aftermath. Here’s what they mean and why they’re so relevant.
The anonymous author is identified only as a “senior official in the Trump administration.” But what exactly does that mean?
On the NYT podcast The Daily, op-ed page editor Jim Dao declined to define the “senior” phrase further.
“All I can say is I feel that we followed a definition that has been used by our newsroom in the past,” he said.
Op-ed
Op-ed is technically an abbreviation of “opposite” and “editorial” because such columns traditionally appear opposite the editorial page in a newspaper. But in general, op-ed is shorthand for opinion columns, commentaries or other authored features.
Lodestar
The term refers to a star in the night sky that provides guidance, such as the North Star. The distinctive word appears near the end of the Times’ op-ed in discussing the moral leadership of the late Sen. John McCain.
“We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue,” the anonymous author writes.
Pence’s deputy chief of staff and communications director Jarrod Agen denied Thursday that Pence or anyone from his office authored the op-ed.
Deep state
The “deep state” is a political phrase that President Trump and his allies have used to describe what they see as an entrenched government bureaucracy that is quietly but actively working to undermine the president.
In the New York Times op-ed, the author wrote that “unsung heroes” in and around the White House have held Trump’s worst inclinations in check. For example, although Trump had expressed frustration that the US imposed sanctions on Russia, the national security team knew such actions had to be done, the author wrote.
“This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state,” the author wrote.
“So, if there is a movement, which this individual claims there is and I haven’t seen it, that is what the deep state is,” Lewandowski said. “That is the government employees — some of them, who have their own agenda and not the agenda of the 60 million people that voted for Donald Trump to be the President of the United States.”
25th Amendment
Section 4 of the amendment lays out what happens if the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members believe the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Essentially, following a deliberative process, the president is forced from office and the vice president becomes president.
The author of the NYT op-ed said that members of the Cabinet whispered about using the amendment against Trump, though nothing came to pass.
“Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the Cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president,” the author wrote.
Constitutional crisis
The anonymous author wrote the 25th Amendment was ultimately not invoked because “no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.”
“This is a genuine constitutional crisis,” Kerry said.
Treason
The term refers to an act of betrayal against one’s country.
President Trump invoked the word in an all-caps tweet after the publication of the anonymous op-ed.
His one-word “TREASON?” tweet was “like a wounded king’s furious wail,” CNN’s Stephen Collinson wrote.
Nobody has been convicted of treason in the US in more than 60 years.
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