Former Trump communications chief says ex-president ‘terrified’ of Maggie Haberman’s book

Veteran NYT reporter had nearly unmatched access to former president for years

Ex-White House communications director Alyssa Farah said on Thursday that her former boss is “terrified” of the potential revelations that could come from an upcoming book on his presidency and campaigns.

The book, Confidence Man, is set to publish in October, authored by The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman. Haberman is widely known for having the president himself as a frequent source over the years, and her access to the White House and Donald Trump’s inner circle is nearly unmatched among the DC and New York reporting circles.

Ms Farah said on ABC that the revelations published in Axios on Thursday were only the tip of the iceberg. They included the reporting that Mr Trump’s aides regularly found wadded-up printed paper in toilets they believed to be the result of Mr Trump trying to flush documents, as well as the revelation that the former president claims to remain in contact with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.

“I still talk to some folks in Trumpworld, the ones who have not engaged in criminality," Ms Farah told co-hosts of The View on Thursday "The former president is terrified of Maggie Haberman's book. This is the first big anecdote, but there is quite a bit more to come."

The New York Times reporter has been criticised by some on the left for her reporting of Hillary Clinton’s email scandals in 2016, but nevertheless is one of the most well-sourced reporters with regard to the former president and last year revealed that he was privately telling allies at Mar-a-Lago that he still believed in the possibility of the 2020 election to be overturned.

Reporting from Axios on Thursday, which published excerpts of Haberman’s reporting, appeared to confirm Ms Farah’s characterisation.

“This is the book Trump fears most. Among Trump aides, Haberman's book has been the most discussed of the bookshelf of books from reporters who covered Trump's campaigns and White House,” declared the news outlet.

Haberman won a Pulitizer Prize in 2018 for her coverage of the Trump White House; she is also one of if not the most-cited journalistic source in the investigation headed up by Robert Mueller into Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election.