An unnamed senior Trump official has said members of the administration are working to frustrate parts of the president's agenda to protect the country from his "worst inclinations".

In a New York Times editorial, the author said President Trump's "amorality" and "impulsiveness" had led to ill-informed and reckless decisions.

Mr Trump labelled the anonymous writer "gutless" and the newspaper as "phony".

His press secretary said the mystery writer was a "coward" who should quit.

The Times defended the editorial in a statement, saying: "We are incredibly proud to have published this piece, which adds significant value to the public's understanding of what is going on in the Trump administration."

The opinion piece comes a day after excerpts of Bob Woodward's book on the Trump White House suggested that his top officials have been engaged in an "administrative coup d'etat" to protect the nation from the president, including removing key documents from his desk before he has a chance to sign them.

What does the senior official say about Trump?

The laundry list of criticisms should be familiar to the president's opponents on the left and the right, however. Disorganised meetings, an impetuous and petty demeanour, an inability to stick to decisions, antipathy to a free press and "anti-democratic" instincts.

"Many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations," the author writes.

"I would know. I am one of them."

"To be clear, ours is not the popular 'resistance' of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous."

He/she describes a "two-track presidency", where the president's actions - such as his conciliatory attitude toward "autocrats and dictators", including Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin - are constrained and redirected by "adults in the room".

"This isn't the work of the so-called deep state," the author writes. "It's the work of the steady state."
What's more, the author says that some in the administration have whispered about invoking the 25th Amendment, a constitutional provision that allows the vice-president and a majority of the Cabinet secretaries to vote to remove a president who is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office".
Such a manoeuvre has been, up until now, largely consigned to the fringes of American political discourse and the fever dreams of Mr Trump's angriest opponents.

"No-one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis," he/she writes. "So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until - one way or another - it's over." (BBC)