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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Martin Pengelly in Washington

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

Donald Trump speaking
Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House on 22 June 2026. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

They 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.

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