New Trump book’s authors detail how they pried loose White House secrets: ‘We nearly killed ourselves’

Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House on 22 June 2026. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters View image in fullscreen Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House on 22 June 2026. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters New Trump book’s authors detail how they pried loose White House secrets: ‘We nearly killed ourselves’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the reporters behind Regime Change, were up against an administration that is ‘very good at keeping secrets’ T hey cracked the White House situation room, unearthing secrets from the heart of a secretive administration. But the reporters behind Regime Change, a blockbuster new book on Donald Trump’s second term, ran up against a wall when reporting on one issue surrounding the 80-year-old US president: his fitness for office. “His health has always been a very specific lockbox for him, going back decades,” Maggie Haberman, co-author with Jonathan Swan, said in an interview. “Illness freaks him out; he perceives illness as weakness, usually, and he certainly perceives any sense that he is having an issue as a projection of weakness, and his advisers are very, very attuned to that. “So the number of people who actually know what is happening with his health … they’ve provided less and less information, except for saying things like, ‘He saw 22 specialists,’ but they won’t say who the specialists are at Walter Reed [National Military Medical Center], and it has been on just a sliding scale since term one. Frankly, 2018, I think, was the last time we got real information. Remember, they were not honest at all about how sick he was during Covid in 2020, and so we’ve never really known the extent of that, or any after-effects. “Will we know before the end of his term if there is something more significant? Doesn’t seem likely on that trajectory. I don’t want to make predictions.” View image in fullscreen Donald Trump has sought to cover up a bruise on his right hand with make-up. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters Trump’s health is an example of how this administration is “very good at keeping secrets”, added Haberman. “That is one, and always has been.” As Trump slurs his words, shuffles down steps and sleeps in meetings while his hands are bruised and ankles are swollen, his every slowing move is scrutinized around the world. On the page, Haberman and Swan – who both report for The New York Times – describe sleep-ins after social media all-nighters; documents hoarded in chaotic, garbage-strewn quarters; and a mania for remodeling his surroundings that extends to the president being found in the Oval Office, trying to glue gold appliques over the fire. But if aides don’t dish on their boss, the boss can’t help but dish on himself. In the set-piece interview that concludes Regime Change, Trump told the authors, “a historian” – it turned out to be golfer Gary Player’s caddie – compared him to Alexander the Great, the Caesars, William the Conque