Trump aides fear New York Times reporters obtained Situation Room recordings for new book
WASHINGTON, DC: In what is both scary and questionable, President Donald Trump’s aides expressed suspicion that two New York Times reporters accessed the confidential Situation Room recording of secret meetings for their upcoming book.
New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have been working on the book named ‘Regime Change’ for over two years.
The hotly expected book about Trump’s second term is to be released this June.
Regime Change exposes closed-door Trump meeting
Top White House officials believe that Haberman and Swan obtained recordings of the Situation Room for their book ‘Regime Change,’ which is to be released on June 23.
The fear is likely to have risen from the blow-by-blow Verbatim accounts of several Situation Room meetings that were included in excerpts about the Iran war and the Epstein files that The Times posted ahead of the book's publication.
The news is particularly shocking because the situation room is the government's most secure decision-making environment, where independent recording devices are forbidden.
"We're afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded," an administration source told Axios. "And we have no idea which ones."
Book excerpt reveals secret Epstein meetings
In an excerpt from the New York Times Magazine, released before the book's publication on June 23, two Times reporters vividly recount how top Trump officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, convened in the Situation Room last summer to discuss how to handle the Epstein scandal.
“This is a huge problem,” Vice President JD Vance told the Trump officials present at the meeting.
As per the reporters, the vice president appeared panicked to others in the room about the way the subject of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition, as they discussed how to curb the dissent.
Offering the nuanced detailing of the conversation in the secret room, the report alleged that JD Vance suggested that Tucker Carlson should take Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview.
The idea was that Maxwell would tell viewers that Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein.
Trump irked by secret meeting revelations
Notably, the White House hasn’t challenged the verbatim account in the book.
However, Trump has reportedly been pissed off over the nuanced detailing of the secret meeting held in the Situation Room, which is considered one of the most secure settings on Earth.
The verbatim account also includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying about Bibi's regime-change scenarios for Iran: "In other words, it's bullshit."
The book Regime Change has reportedly caused anxiety in Trump world because Trump's top aides fear leaks about their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and they held multiple damage-control meetings in the classified confines of the Situation Room.
