New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman unveiled the name and title of her book on former President Donald Trump on Thursday, and Axios, which says Haberman's Confidence Man will be "the book Trump fears most," got a sneak peak at some of her discoveries. Trump, for instance, reportedly has told people he has kept in contact with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un since leaving office. But the most eye-catching scoop involves clogged toilets.
Whiile Trump was in office, White House residence staff would occasionally discover wads of printed paper clogging a toilet and believed Trump had tried to flush it down, Axios reports, citing Haberman's book. Trump was, at times, fixated on toilets that wouldn't flush, as The Washington Post's Philip Bump noted.
Axios calls Trump's reputed toilet-clogging "a vivid new dimension to his lapses in preserving government documents," a polite nod to the 15 boxes of papers the National Archives had to retrieve from Mar-a-Lago last month to put Trump in compliance with the Presidential Records Act, his possible mishandling of classified documents, and his habit of ripping up papers after reading them, among other long-reported compliance issues.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Top White House officials were so "deeply concerned" about Trump's handling of sensitive national security material that one of this chiefs of staff, John Kelly, "tried to stop classified documents from being taken out of the Oval Office and brought up to the residence because he was concerned about what Mr. Trump may do with them and how that may jeopardize national security," the Times reported Wednesday.
Former Trump aide Omarosa Manigault Newman wrote in her 2018 Trump White House book, Unhinged, that she saw Trump "put a note in his mouth" in the Oval Office "appeared to be chewing and swallowing the paper," a shocking action for a famous "germaphobe."
You can read more about Haberman's reporting at Axios. Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America comes out Oct. 4.
-
The ‘menopause gold rush’Under the Radar Women vulnerable to misinformation and marketing of ‘unregulated’ products
-
Voting Rights Act: SCOTUS’s pivotal decisionFeature A Supreme Court ruling against the Voting Rights Act could allow Republicans to redraw districts and solidify control of the House
-
No Kings rally: What did it achieve?Feature The latest ‘No Kings’ march has become the largest protest in U.S. history
-
No Kings rally: What did it achieve?
Feature The latest ‘No Kings’ march has become the largest protest in U.S. history
-
Push for Ukraine ceasefire collapsesFeature Talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were called off after the Russian president refused to compromise on his demands
-
Trump eyes regime change in VenezuelaFeature Officials believe Trump’s ‘war on narco-terrorism’ is actually a push to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
-
‘Social media is the new tabloid’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
How are ICE’s recruitment woes complicating Trump’s immigration agenda?TODAY’S BIG QUESTION Lowered training standards and ‘athletically allergic’ hopefuls are hindering the White House plan to turn the Department of Homeland Security into a federal police force
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
Donald Trump’s week in Asia: can he shift power away from China?Today's Big Question US president’s whirlwind week of diplomacy aims to bolster economic ties and de-escalate trade war with China
-
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s rebellion: Maga hardliner turns on TrumpIn the Spotlight The Georgia congresswoman’s independent streak has ‘not gone unnoticed’ by the president
