United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at The New York Times for publishing an opinion article by an unnamed senior official in the Trump administration who said he and like-minded colleagues have vowed to “thwart parts of the president’s agenda and his worst inclinations”. The anonymous author was gutless, the president said.

“President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader,” said the author of op-ed titled “I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration”.

“Does the so-called ‘senior administration official’ really exist, or is it just the failing New York Times with another phony source?” the president twitter. “If the gutless anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for national security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”

Trump also said The New York Times, news channel CNN and “all of these phony media outlets” will be out of business soon. “Because they will have nothing to write and there will be nothing of interest.”

The daily, which rarely publishes anonymous articles, said it did not publish the official’s name on the request of the author, whose “identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardised by its disclosure”.

The op-ed came a day after reports said journalist Bob Woodward’s book Fear: Trump in the White House, which is highly critical of the Trump administration, is scheduled to be released on September 11.

On Wednesday, Trump described the book as a “work of fiction”, reported PTI. “If you look back at Woodward’s past, he had the same problem with other presidents,” the US president said in a join media conference with the Emir of Kuwait. “He likes to get publicity. He sells some books.”

Woodward quotes unidentified White House aides who claimed to have saved the country by ignoring Trump’s orders on several occasions and even stealing his documents.