NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 26, 2018 President Donald Trump gestures to emphasize an issue at a press conference held at the Lotte Palace Hotel in the Villard Room. (REUTERS)
Zeteo writer Asawin Suebsaeng says an infuriated President Donald Trump is storming through the White House, trying to flush out ‘rats’ who are leaking damning information to New York Times writers.
“Donald Trump is a Mad King president, perpetually p—— off about seemingly everything. ... But there’s something new that is uniquely enraging him, those who’ve spoken to him recently tell me,” said Suebsaeng. “… In conversations with close aides and advisers, President Trump has loudly demanded to know who in his Cabinet or his team blabbed to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan for their forthcoming book, Regime Change – including over his reckless decision to launch an illegal war against Iran.”
Suebsaeng added that “some of the presidential allies and government officials I spoke to are genuinely worried about what could happen to some of the book’s sources – in or out of the administration – should Trump figure out who they are.
“The leak hunt is a big deal right now,” one administration official told Suebsaeng. “Another one of our sources says that they and others in the Trump-Vance administration were recently warned by a superior that (in the source’s paraphrase) “if you talked to Jonathan or Maggie [you] better be good at covering your tracks.”
A damning excerpt from the book painted a sharp portrait with what Suebsaeng described as “fly-on-the-wall levels of dialogue and detail,” depicting “pivotal, highly classified moments during Trump’s march to war with Iran.”
Critics pan Trump’s war, and the resulting “ceasefire” as a disaster for the U.S., the nation’s bank account and Trump’s image.
“The excerpt provided a graphic account, clearly derived from the knowledge of high-ranking officials working in the entrails of the Trump-Vance government, of what has been apparent since the start of the conflict,” said Suebsaeng. “Basically, nobody in Trump’s so-called war cabinet – save for ‘Donald the Dove’ – thought the war was a slam-dunk great idea. But despite specific reservations voiced by self-professed war skeptics like JD Vance or hawks like Marco Rubio, they all adopted a go-along-to-get-along posture towards Trump’s warmongering.”
“The White House did not respond to Zeteo’s request for comment by the deadline,” added Suebsaeng. “They were probably too busy, finger-pointing over which snitches need stitches.”