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White House aides fear Haberman obtained recordings of ‘sensitive’ Situation Room meetings for new Trump book

June 15, 2026 | | Print Article

Top White House officials sounded the alarm that they fear secretly recorded Situation Room meetings fell into the hands of New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan for their new book.

Two Trump aides told Axios that the reporters may have obtained audio recordings of conversations that took place in what is supposed to be one of the most secure areas on the planet, which would be an inexplicable breach of security if true.

“We’re afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded,” an unnamed source told the outlet’s Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen. “And we have no idea which ones.”

An advance preview of the upcoming “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump” is already causing a stir after the New York Times published excerpts last week detailing Situation Room discussions of efforts to mitigate the damage of the botched release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Among the explosive claims is that a “panicked” Vice President JD Vance allegedly floated the idea that Tucker Carlson should have been enlisted to conduct an interview with Epstein’s lady pimp accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell who is currently being held at a cushy federal prison in Texas, an effort to get ahead of the public relations nightmare that blindsided the White House in the early days of President Donald J. Trump’s second term.

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Other details published by the Times include heated conversations about former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s role in the Epstein files fiasco, with former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino melting down during one meeting.

“You f**ked this thing up from the start,” the podcaster allegedly shouted at Bondi. “The way you’ve been talking about this — that dumb f**king charade with the Epstein files, the ‘They’re on my desk’ nonsense, all the promises to the folks out there.”

Bongino reportedly also likened the Epstein files to an infamous Reagan-era scandal.

“This is going to be President Trump’s Iran-Contra,” he allegedly said.

The NYT excerpt was a “bombshell” that Democrats pounced on.

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It is unclear who might have leaked the recordings to Haberman and Swan, but according to Axios, “We hear President Trump is furious about the blow-by-blow accounts.”

The two reporters “refused to comment” to the outlet.

Haberman and Swan conducted interviews with hundreds of people for their book, which is set to be released next Tuesday.

“Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan bring us behind the scenes of a presidency that has transformed the culture, turned the Justice Department into an agent of retribution against the President’s enemies and the office itself into a brazen vehicle for profit,” the Amazon description of “Regime Change” reads.

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“Audio recordings or not, the speculation about them, and the extensive coverage of the book’s juicy excerpts, mean more buzz, more book sales … and the making of a classic,” Axios reported.

Chris Donaldson
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