Who Wrote the New York Times Op-Ed on Trump? Here's the Odds

Trey Killian

September 7th, 2018

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A recent opinion piece published in the New York Times has swiftly and effectively captivated the United States. The column claims to be an anonymous account by a senior official in the Donald Trump White House.

The column essentially undermines Trump’s abilities to carry out the position of president but not to the extent many such pieces reach for. It even gives credit to the administration for several accomplishments.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

It definitely depicts Trump as a bit of a wild, off-the-cuff presence, however, that needs to be reigned in and told “no” at times and in other times steered away from dangerous lines of thinking and acting as a president.

From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims. Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.

Irish bookie Paddy Power has even listed odds on who the likely author of the Op-Ed is.

New York Times Anonymous Op-Ed Author Odds

• 5/1 Don McGahn
• 6/1 John Kelly
• 6/1 James Mattis
• 6/1 Dan Coats
• 8/1 Kellyanne Conway
• 10/1 Fiona Hill
• 10/1 Gina Haspel
• 12/1 Jess Sessions
• 14/1 Nikki Haley
• 16/1 Mile Pompeo
• 16/1 Mike Pence
• 33/1 Jared Kushner
• 40/1 Steven Munchin
• 50/1 Betsy DeVos
• 50/1 James Patterson
• 100/1 J.K. Rowling
• 200/1 Ivanka Trump
• 200/1 Hillary Clinton
• 200/1 Melania Trump
• 400/1 Barack Obama
• 500/1 Donald Trump
• 500/1 Eric Trump

Pence a Prime Suspect

Despite not garnering the tops odds from bookmakers, Vice President Mike Pence emerged as a clear-cut favorite among political pundits because of the use of one particular word: “lodestar”.

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary clams a lodestar is a “a star that leads or guides” and Pence has shown a penchant for using it in the past.

Obviously finding out a scathing anonymous review was written by his own vice president would be a tough pill to swallow for Trump, but the word could just be meant to throw everyone off. Some even believe the op-ed was written by the late Senator John McCain as a last act of defiance.

Trump Impeachment Odds Shift After Op-Ed

Following the Op-Ed release, 888sport has President Trump at -240 to finish his first term and +160 to leave office before that time in some capacity. It also lists +1400 odds that 2018 will be the year Trump makes his exit, but much shorter odds of +200 that it occurs in 2019 or 2020.

The most likely outcome remains Trump not being impeached before 2021 at -200.

Paddy Power has a number of truly bizarre bets and markets involving the leader of the free world. These include a “Trump to open Area 51 to the public during his first term in office” market listed at 33/1 odds.

Paddy has Trump at 6/4 odds of being impeached before term one is up, 3/1 odds he’ll simply call it quits and resign, and even 11/1 odds that should Trump be impeached the New York Stock Exchange would fully suspend trading.

There’s a lot of action on the president out there for all bettors interested and this recent criticism coming allegedly directly from his cabinet is just the latest in a long line of negative press materials directed at Trump.