Anonymous Fallout: As Admin Rallies Around Trump, Obama Breaks Precedent in Ballot Battle

With less than 60 days until the midterm elections, both sides are pulling out all of the stops and rolling out their biggest voices to sway voters.

Both President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama are on the campaign trail, even though neither is on the ballot.  

"We have a chance to restore some sanity in our politics," Obama urged voters. 

President Obama broke nearly 18 months of silence and longstanding tradition to criticize a sitting president. 

"It did not start with Donald Trump, he is a symptom, not the cause," Obama said of the state of American politics.  

Vice President Mike Pence expressed his disdain over the former president's decision. 

"It was very disappointing to see President Obama break with the tradition of former presidents and become so political," Pence told "Fox News Sunday"'s Chris Wallace. 

"The American people in 2016 rejected the policy and direction of Barack Obama," he continued. 

But members of the Democratic Party say desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Because of the ways in which President Trump, over the last 18 months has challenged, has broken some of our long-standing traditions about respect for the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, the independent media, that he (Obama) felt compelled to speak out at this point," said Senator Chris Coons (D-DE). 

Some of those issues are brought front and center in a New York Times op-ed, where an alleged senior member of the administration claims to be working against the president's agenda and his "misguided impulses."

Fallout over the identity of the anonymous author gave way to several administration officials lining up to say, 'it wasn't me.' 

Vice President Pence denied having authored the piece saying he would go as far as taking a lie-detector test to prove it. 

"I would agree to take it in a heartbeat," Pence said. 

United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley condemned the writer in her own op-ed. 

"By throwing gas on a fire of endless distraction, the author and the frenzied media reaction to the op-ed have hurt all of us trying to do our jobs for the country," Haley wrote.