President Donald Trump is faulting The New York Times for publishing an anonymous op-ed from a senior administration official. In an interview with Fox News before a campaign rally in Montana on Thursday, he claimed erroneously that "what they've done is virtually, you know, it's treason, you could call it a lot of things." Trump says it was unfair for the person to pen the editorial because there's no way to discredit it. He's suggesting it "may not be a Republican, it may not be a conservative, it may be a deep state person who has been there for a long time."
In the same interview, Trump said he'd "shut down the government over border security in a second" if it were up to him and that he doesn't think Nike's endorsement deal with Colin Kaepernick is appropriate. Later, President Trump praised Judge Brett Kavanaugh's progress in winning confirmation to the Supreme Court on Thursday, decrying the "anger and the meanness on the other side — it's sick." Trump sought to elevate Kavanaugh's confirmation as a political litmus test for voters as he embraced a Republican challenger to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, a top Republican target in the fall elections.