President Donald Trump and his team have been on the hunt for a leak, but it isn't going very well. Asawin Suebsaeng at Zeteo wrote on Tuesday that the leak hunt has been stalled "for a hilarious reason."

Describing the Trump administration as a "fascist-‘Office Space’" environment, Suebsaeng described the constant backbiting from a “den of snitches, ‘freaks,’ and paranoid tyrants.”

The constant paranoia and "snitching" has only grown worse in the last year, Suebsaeng wrote.

According tot he report, Trump is particularly upset about leaks from April reports that he's grown frustrated by a new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Among the reports in the book is the characterization that Trump’s increasing volatility is causing him to make "reckless" decisions, particularly when it comes to the war with Iran.

“The leak hunt is a big deal right now,” one administration official said in April. Another source told Zeteo that staff in the administration were warned by a superior that “if you talked to Jonathan or Maggie [you] better be good at covering your tracks.”

The hunt for the leaks has continued over the past several weeks.

"By May, the president was so livid and paranoid about the leaks that he pushed his Justice Department to seriously consider raiding the homes of reporters, or just jailing them until they sold out their anonymous sources," the Zeteo writer said.

As of the beginning of June, the probe appears to have stalled, according to the site's sources. The reason, which Suebsaeng found to be hilarious, is that the list of possible people is too long.

“We started making a list of likely suspects, and it got too long,” a Trump administration official told Zeteo.

"I cannot possibly pretend that it isn’t hysterically funny how Trump has put himself in a position where it’s very hard for him to find the leakers because the senior personnel he tapped to be the leak-hunters-in-chief are also the ones who’ve been doing the leaking," wrote Suebsaeng. "Good help is hard to find!"

Two senior officials, one currently in the administration and one previously from the Trump White House, answered "of course" when asked if they've leaked. They felt they had cover because the information they had would be known to anyone at their level.

“It’s one of the worst-kept secrets at the White House,” the current official said. “I’m not ratting myself out; that would be ridiculous.”

A different advisor described the leak hunt as akin to the scene in the movie "Reservoir Dogs" in which characters point loaded guns at each other, ensuring their mutual destruction.

Asked about the matter, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle attacked the website, its founder and the reporter.

The new expose, "Regime Change," will be out later this month.

President Donald Trump's rage failed to squash the momentum of a new book that acts as an often embarrassing exposé of his second term, with Axios revealing in a new report that it is on track to smash sales records.

Last month saw the publication of Regime Change, a hotly anticipated new book from New York Times reporters and Trump experts, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Based on years of extensive reporting and interviews with close sources, the book exposes Trump's unprecedented abuses of power since his return to the White House, as well as various unflattering new details, including his staff's attempt to go behind his back over the Epstein files and his disgusting bedroom snacking habits.

These explosive revelations and more have made the book a notable sales success, especially for a non-fiction title in an age when concerns are rampant about the decline of reading. According to an Axios report from Wednesday, Regime Change has surpassed 500,000 units sold across its first month of publication, based on combined hardcover, audiobook and e-book sales figures. This is a significant milestone for any book, and also seems poised to make Haberman and Swan's Trump exposé the bestselling non-fiction title of 2026.

"Reports of the death of the nonfiction book have been greatly exaggerated," Matt Latimer, co-founder of Haberman's literary agency, Javelin, told Axios.

"This doesn't necessarily mean that Trump books are back," Keith Urbahn, the other co-founder at Javelin, added. "It's still uphill sledding for political books... This book is different. Maggie and Swan pierced the veil of a White House that has been pretty locked down on scoops and scenes. 'Regime Change' is a unicorn of publishing. It goes well beyond political circles to people who are hungry for a narrative and frame to make sense of Trump 2.0. Even Trump and his team aren't disputing the facts."

In its own report about the sales milestone, The Daily Beast noted that the success comes as a major blow to Trump after he attempted to smear and bury the book as a "Fake News" hatchet job on Truth Social.

"Based on a very quick and boring briefing concerning the Magot Hagerman book about me, it is mostly made up, Fake News, largely fiction, as have been most of the things she has written about me for so many years," Trump's post read, later tarring Haberman as "a third rate writer and intellect."

In response, Swan, whom Trump did not mention, invited the president to respond in an on-camera interview "any time he wants."

When U.S. President Donald Trump went to war against Iran in late February, his administration promised a quick and efficient military operation — not the type of "forever war" Trump criticized both Democrats and traditional GOP conservatives for. But almost five months later, the war is still raging on. And New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, during an appearance on David Axelrod's podcast, described the psychology that got Trump into a conflict that, she said, isn't going well for the United States.

Haberman, author of the new book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," told Axelrod that a big part of Trump's mentality is a hostility to expertise. The Times reporter described Trump's viewpoint as essentially "In my first term, the experts kept telling me what I couldn't do, and they screwed me up."

Haberman covered Trump's first president extensively for the Times. But "Regime Chang" is focused primarily on Trump's second presidency, and Haberman, in interviews, has been laying out the ways in which the second differs greatly from the first.

On Axelrod's podcast, she described the second Trump administration's lead-up to the Iran war — telling the Democratic insider and former Barack Obama senior adviser, "So, one of the things that I think gets overlooked in our reporting around the lead-up to this war was — and this really is something that is a theme throughout the book — and it's: these (White House) Situation Room meetings were really illustrative of a basic tenet. Which (is) A: the expertise tends to be dismissed in this administration — and B, they are incredibly, incredibly paranoid about leaks."

During his first presidency, Trump famously clashed with a long list of traditional conservatives he appointed — from then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to two U.S. attorneys general (first Jeff Sessions, then William Barr). But since returning to the White House, Trump has made a point of surround himself with ultra-MAGA loyalists. And the Iran war, according to Haberman, demonstrates that "the decisions" in the second Trump administration "are being made in this government by a small handful of people."

Haberman told Axelrod, "And if they are not in the room, if one is not in the room, they often, no matter how senior their role is at an agency, they often have no idea what's happening. And ... Trump could change his mind several times before (someone) ... makes it there. So, to that point, it's sort of remarkable, these first meetings, up until the very last one, on the preparations for this war, the treasury secretary, (Scott Bessent), and the energy secretary, (Chris Wright,) were not in the room."

President Donald Trump is traveling considerably less in his second term than he did in his previous one between 2017 and 2021. It was assumed the 80-year-old was slowing down or couldn't hack it with the rigorous schedule he once kept. But it appears there might be another reason, Maggie Haberman teased on Friday.

Speaking to CNN's Audie Cornish, Haberman, co-author of the new book Regime Change, explained that the administration is scared.

Reports are unfolding about the shocking revelations that the reason Trump swapped planes in Turkey to fly part of the way back to the U.S. is there were credible threats of a possible attack on Trump's plane.

"This is a president who has survived assassination attempts," Cornish noted. "Does this kind of concern loom large for him?"

Haberman said that those attempts "really radicalized" him and his team.

"The assassination attempts that he faced, in particular Butler, happened around the time that someone had been charged with being part of a murder for hire plot involving or set up by Iranian officials. Allegedly," she said. "And in his mind and in the campaign's mind at the time, it all became one thing."

It's for that reason, Haberman said, Trump and his team saw the new threats from Iran as serious and concerning. These kinds of threats are part of why Trump isn't seen out and about as much.

"You are already seeing a president who does not travel outside the White House that much. Part of it is that, you know, he would tell aides at the beginning of the of the term, 'I'm done campaigning,' but part of it is legitimate security concerns," said Haberman.

Haberman noted that another challenge she sees for Trump is that he is not surrounded by top experts and experienced professionals. For example, she added, those negotiating with Iran aren't well-schooled in nuclear weapons, much less in diplomatic negotiation. It's Trump's son-in-law and his catch-all "envoy for everything," Steve Witkoff.

The group of influencers is also kept extremely small, meaning if someone like Witkoff isn't in the room, they have no clue what is going on. One of the more significant things that happened as a result of that is that Witkoff felt he was close to a deal with Iran, but Trump decided to bomb them out of the blue. The lack of expertise meant that Trump wasn't properly prepared for what he'd face and never crafted an exit strategy.

"It became very clear that foreign policy — as someone said, and we quote them anonymously in the book, is 'whatever Trump says at any given moment,'" said Haberman.

During his first administration, Trump was rushed to the presidential bunker out of fear as a crowd grew near the White House protesting the police death of George Floyd. In his second term, a major project for Trump has been rebuilding the same bunker beneath a giant ballroom.

President Donald Trump has so many revenge campaigns and such a huge list of grievances that the White House staff is struggling to keep them straight.

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, a new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, details a number of exchanges with aides. Haberman explained on CNN Wednesday morning that there is no longer a line between the Justice Department and Trump.

"But we make clear in the reporting how true that is he wanted the top DOJ officials to understand — as they were trying to obtain an indictment against Letitia James — and there was this question of whether a mortgage fraud charge could actually be brought. Todd Blanche, who was then the deputy attorney general, was not convinced this was going to work," Haberman explained.

"[Blanche] was operating, in our reporting, from the perspective of if you're going to bring a case, you need to be able to actually prove the case," she said.

"Like a lawyer" host John Berman cut in.

Haberman read an excerpt illustrating Trump's frustrations with James and the lack of progress in going after her.

"He told one adviser that Blanche needed to grasp: He didn't really care whether she was ultimately convicted," the book explains. "The president's true goal was to drag into court the New York Attorney General who had won a nearly half billion dollar civil fraud judgment against him."

Trump told the advisor, "I want to make her life miserable."

When they asked Trump whether he said it, Trump said he didn't think so, but agreed, "I would have said it."

He attacked her as a "dirty cop" and "very corrupt person."

"So, we got a real look at how this is working," said Haberman. The reporter also detailed a case in which top aides Stephen Miller and Boris Epstein were talking about one of Trump's targets from 2020 that they couldn't remember.

"They're talking about 'who was that guy involved in the in the elections,' in the machines and the security of the elections in 2020?" Haberman said, noting they couldn't even remember and had to look up who the person was. It was Chris Krebs.

"And then soon there is this presidential memorandum about investigating Krebs," Haberman explained.

The revelatory book “Regime Change,” by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, is the gift that keeps on giving, said MS NOW journalist Paul Waldman. But he said it’s also revealed a “sinister” relationship between Trump and his aids that have created a “cocoon of sycophancy Trump has built around himself, with dire consequences for the country.”

“The president has finally created an administration that works exactly how he wants it to, and the result is a vicious cycle of incompetence and moral corruption,” said Waldman, citing the new book’s insights. “In short, everything about how the White House operates exacerbates Trump’s most pernicious instincts and character flaws. His aides enable him to be the worst version of himself, and in turn he makes them the worst version of themselves.”

His cocoon was being constructed from the moment Trump began staffing up his second administration, according to Waldman. We know how much Trump has always valued loyalty, but as Haberman and Swan report, “there was a new acid test: January 6.”

“Anyone seeking a place near the center of power had to say it was the act of patriots who were subsequently abused by the Biden administration,” said Walkman. “That weeded out anyone with a real commitment to American democracy. And it forced everyone to publicly proclaim a lie. When you abandon your integrity in that way, you become much more willing to do terrible things in the future.”

Occasionally someone raises a doubt or gently suggests a different course for Trump to take, such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urging the president to say publicly he had no intention of firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in order to calm markets. Former deputy AG Todd Blanche told Trump there were no grounds to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James. But the authors note those moments of moments of dissent are few and far between, and Trump can only be constrained for a moment.

“He did get his bogus indictment of James, for instance, a case that quickly fell apart,y fell apart,” said Waldman. “… The result is an administration full of people who either agree with Trump’s most self-destructive impulses or know that objections are all but pointless.”

Few Trump aides called out the danger of sending in the National] Guard to American cities to enforce immigration law, wrote Haberman and Swan report, and the results were deadly disaster. And when Trump suggests the U.S. take possession of Gaza — a self-evidently ludicrous notion — no one disagrees.

“It’s a strong move,” Communications Director Steven Cheung told Trump, when asked about the prospect, even though Trump aides privately conceded the suggestion was “legitimately nutso.”

What comes of this are disasters like the Iran war. Vice President JD Vance expressed misgivings about the war, said the authors. “But with the exception of the vice president, nobody on the senior team — not his secretary of state, not his chairman of the Joint Chiefs, not his chief of staff — had made a real effort” to talk Trump out of it.

“This is a portrait of an unserious president surrounded by unserious people, all bringing out the worst in each other,” said Waldman. “Most frightening of all, there are still 2 1/2 years left.

An extensive passage from an upcoming book exposing the inner workings of the second Trump administration has leaked to Axios, and it once again shows his proclivity for pitting his would-be MAGA successors against each other.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, veteran New York Times reporters who have extensively covered Trump's time in politics, are set to release a new book next week, Regime Change, chronicling the chaotic goings-on behind the scenes of his return to the White House. So far, early previews for the book have already caused major headaches for the administration, exposing the panicked reaction of top officials to the Epstein crisis while Trump tried to bury it.

The latest glimpse of the book has leaked to Axios, and features a description of a private dinner at which Trump asked NewsCorp tycoon Rupert Murdoch what he thought about Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as potential 2028 nominees for president. Trump has reportedly been known to ask attendees at private gatherings similar questions, and is also said to relish pitting his allies against each other.

According to Axios, Murdoch's reaction was far from encouraging for the vice president, as he now weighs whether or not to even bother running in 2028.

"In a scene from the forthcoming 'Regime Change,' President Trump asks a guest at a private dinner last year to compare Vice President Vance to Secretary of State Marco Rubio," Axios detailed. "Trump often does that to stir the pot on 2028 speculation. But this time, the judge was Rupert Murdoch. And with Vance and Rubio sitting awkwardly at the table, Murdoch was notably more effusive about Rubio. The media mogul had privately tried to talk Trump out of choosing Vance as his running mate in 2024."

The report continued later: "Trump's parlor game — recounted in a 3,000-word passage in 'Regime Change,' by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, out next Tuesday — shows that Vance, as the authors write, can be sure Trump won't 'make it easy for him' to get the 2028 GOP nomination."

According to the leaked passage, when Trump pressed Murdoch about Vance at the dinner, held in October of 2025, he said, "Well... I think JD has the potential to be great." When pressed about Rubio, he was much more effusive: "Marco is brilliant." Guests present at the dinner supposedly "would talk privately about the moment for weeks after the dinner."