First rule of interacting with Trump: record everything.

TL;DR they think somebody taped their ridiculous incompetence huddles but no one has said anything and there’s no evidence.

Coincidentally, there’s a new book coming out.

From the Axios article this one is based off;

**Reality check: Haberman and Swan didn't need audio recordings. Bob Woodward pioneered contemporary historical political journalism by including dialogue in his books that was reconstructed from the memories of people in the rooms where things happened.

**The big picture: Audio recordings or not, the speculation about them, and the extensive coverage of the book's juicy excerpts, mean more buzz, more book sales ... and the making of a classic.

It’s marketing

The administration's inner circle is focusing solely on the possibility of recordings because the alternative -- that a person or people in those meetings personally spilled their guts to a couple NYT reporters -- is unimaginable to them.

Or to put it another way, a group of people who uniformly sold their souls for material gain and access to power is resolutely refusing to entertain the possibility that in their midst and under their noses, one of them is a person who also sold the rest of them out for material gain and access to power.

Having read the recent excerpt (gift link) and noting that JD Vance is now saying he will discuss his own 2028 plans after the midterms, I'm sure it's only coincidental that Vance comes out of that reporting smelling somewhat better than the rest.

I'm not saying it wasn't recorded. But if you're in that room and have plans of your own, why would you need to? You can just tell the story yourself.

HMMMMM doesn't feel so nice having your privacy invaded, does it?! Having a device record conversions you expected to be private? Interesting...

This has been a bananas decade, dudes

"Ever since I demolished half the supporting walls in my house with a sledgehammer, I keep noticing cracks appearing."

The report, published on Sunday, paints a picture of a freakout going on behind the scenes at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., where top administration officials are bracing for the release later this month of Regime Change, the latest book from two of the most well-sourced reporters in Washington, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

"We're afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded," an administration source told Axios. "And we have no idea which ones."

Can't be that hard... which ones involved Pete Hegseth? There you go!

Oh Lordy, there are tapes