By Senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration are reportedly on edge over concerns that New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan may have obtained unauthorized audio from highly sensitive Situation Room meetings for their forthcoming book.
The concern centers on early excerpts from Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, scheduled for release by Simon & Schuster on June 23. The book includes unusually detailed, verbatim-style accounts of private deliberations inside one of the most secure rooms in the federal government.
Independent recording devices are barred from the Situation Room, where presidents and senior national security officials discuss classified military, intelligence, and diplomatic matters, noted Axios. If recordings were made or removed from the facility, officials say it would amount to a serious security breach.
“We’re afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded,” one administration source told Axios. “And we have no idea which ones.”
It also reveals that, like the first term, some of nonpartisan bureaucrats or military members may not be giving Trump the same respect that all other presidents receive and deserve. “The Resistance” only recognizes democratically-elected leaders when it’s the ones they want win.
Haberman and Swan’s book is based on more than 1,000 interviews and examines Trump’s second term, including internal debates over military action in the Middle East, Justice Department decisions, immigration enforcement, and the administration’s handling of records related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Among the passages drawing attention is an account of a February 2025 Situation Room meeting involving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who reportedly presented possible strike scenarios against Iran, including options tied to regime change. According to the reporting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed parts of the proposal, saying, “In other words, it’s bullshit.”
Vice President JD Vance is described as pushing back strongly against deeper U.S. involvement, reflecting divisions inside the administration over how far Washington should go in supporting Israeli military action.
Other excerpts reportedly detail a series of internal damage-control meetings over the Epstein files, including sessions involving Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Trump was not always present for those discussions, according to the accounts, but reportedly wanted the matter “buried” and became irritated when aides raised it.
One reported proposal floated by Vance involved asking Tucker Carlson to interview Ghislaine Maxwell in prison in hopes that she would publicly clear Trump of wrongdoing.
White House officials have not publicly disputed the accuracy of the quoted dialogue, though the possibility of recordings has intensified anger inside the administration. Trump is said to be furious over the disclosures, and some officials are reportedly searching for the sources behind the leaks.
Haberman and Swan have declined to say how they obtained the information.
It remains possible that the scenes were reconstructed through extensive interviews rather than recordings. Veteran Washington reporters have long used that method, relying on multiple participants and officials familiar with meetings to recreate dialogue and decision-making. Haberman and Swan’s large interview base could make that approach plausible.
Still, the level of detail has fueled speculation inside the White House and added to anticipation surrounding the book. Whether or not audio exists, the excerpts have already revived tensions between Trump’s team and the reporters who have chronicled his political rise, presidency, defeat, and return to power.
The controversy also underscores the sensitivity of leaks involving national security deliberations. For an administration that has often cast itself as battling entrenched bureaucratic and media opposition, the possibility that private Situation Room discussions made their way into a book has triggered a new round of suspicion at the highest levels of government.
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