President Trump fired off a late-night broadside against New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman just days after the release of her new book about the inner workings of his second administration, dismissing the work as fabricated and floating the possibility of dragging her into his ongoing $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the Times.
The Truth Social post, published just after midnight on a recent Sunday, took aim at both Haberman and "Regime Change," the book she co-authored with fellow Times reporter Jonathan Swan. Trump said he had received "a very quick and boring briefing" on the book's contents, and found them wanting.
The post marks the latest salvo in a long-running feud between the president and a reporter who has covered him for years, one that now carries real legal stakes given Trump's active defamation litigation against her employer. It also fits a broader pattern of the president publicly confronting journalists, including those at Fox News, whom he views as unfair or insufficiently supportive.
Trump's overnight post did not mince words. As the Daily Mail reported, the president wrote:
"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."
He continued by referencing what he called her record of inaccuracy, invoking the Russia investigation as Exhibit A:
"She was wrong about me on the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and she was wrong about me on just about everything else. But she continues to spew out garbage, and people continue to buy it."
The post was not Trump's first attack on Haberman this year. Back in March, he used a deliberately mangled version of her name on Truth Social, calling her "Maggot Hagerman" and labeling her "just another SLEAZEBAG writer for The Failing New York Times." In that post, he accused her of writing stories she knows to be false.
Then, in a separate spring post, Trump raised the legal ante. He wrote that he was "thinking of adding Maggot, and some of her 'associates,' into my Florida-based lawsuit against The Times, which, very happily, seems to be proceeding nicely."
Whether Trump has actually filed any motion to add Haberman as a party to the suit remains unclear. But the threat itself signals the degree to which the president views the Times' coverage, and Haberman's reporting in particular, as actionable.
Trump is currently pursuing a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times in Florida. The case has had a turbulent procedural history. The original suit was dismissed last September and has since been refiled twice. Trump characterized its progress favorably in his spring post, but no independent assessment of the case's current standing appeared in the available reporting.
The lawsuit forms the legal backdrop for Trump's threat to rope Haberman into the litigation. If he follows through, it would represent a significant escalation, moving from suing a media institution to targeting an individual reporter by name.
Haberman and Swan's book, "Regime Change," was released on June 23. It purports to chronicle the inner workings of the second Trump administration. Among the book's most notable claims: the authors say they obtained access to audio recordings from inside the White House Situation Room.
Trump denied that claim. The specifics of what the recordings allegedly contain, and what exactly Trump disputes about them, were not detailed in the available reporting.
The book's release clearly prompted the president's midnight response. But his grievances with Haberman predate this volume by years, and the nickname he has applied to her has appeared in multiple posts across 2026.
Trump's clashes with reporters are nothing new. But the president's recent run of public confrontations has extended well beyond the Times and well beyond reporters who might be described as ideological opponents.
Earlier this year, in a room full of Republican lawmakers and reporters, Trump turned to CNN's Kaitlan Collins and remarked, "You know she's a young woman." He then addressed Collins directly: "I don't think I've ever seen you smile. I've known you for 10 years, I don't think I've ever seen you smile." Collins responded that staying serious while asking about Jeffrey Epstein's sexual assault victims was hardly controversial.
The president has also taken aim at Fox News personalities, the network most closely associated with conservative media.
On a recent Friday, Trump posted about Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream, writing that "it would be nice if people like 'Milk Toast' Shannon Bream, and others, would put up a little fight, Just a little." The post suggested Trump expected more combative support from friendly-network hosts.
Back in May, Trump publicly commented on Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich's personal life. Heinrich had recently married Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who has voted against Trump on several key issues. Trump said of Fitzpatrick: "Her husband votes against me all the time. Can you imagine? I don't know what's with him. You better ask him what's with him."
The specific issues on which Fitzpatrick broke with the president were not detailed.
Some coverage has framed these confrontations as part of a gendered pattern, Trump specifically clashing with prominent female reporters. The factual record shows the president has sparred with Collins, Haberman, Bream, and Heinrich in recent months. Whether this reflects a pattern distinct from his broader, well-documented combativeness with the press at large is a matter of interpretation rather than established fact.
What is not a matter of interpretation: Trump is willing to go after journalists at outlets across the ideological spectrum. Haberman works for the Times. Collins works for CNN. Bream and Heinrich work for Fox News. The common thread is not ideology, it is whether the president perceives the coverage as fair to him.
Several questions hang over this story. Has Trump's legal team taken any formal steps to add Haberman to the Florida defamation case, or does the threat remain rhetorical? What is the actual procedural status of the twice-refiled lawsuit? What do the alleged Situation Room recordings contain, and on what basis does Trump deny their existence?
Haberman herself has not been quoted responding to the latest round of attacks. Neither has Swan. The New York Times has not issued a public statement referenced in the reporting.
For now, the dynamic is familiar: the president uses his social media platform to challenge a reporter's credibility, the reporter's book climbs in public awareness, and the legal machinery grinds forward in Florida at whatever pace courts allow.
Trump's frustration with media coverage is shared by millions of Americans who have watched major outlets get major stories wrong, the Russia investigation chief among them. The president is not wrong that significant portions of the press have treated unverified claims about his administration as established fact, sometimes for years.
At the same time, the credibility of any challenge to the press depends on specifics. Blanket dismissals of a book as "largely fiction" carry more weight when paired with point-by-point rebuttals. A $15 billion lawsuit that has been dismissed once and refiled twice needs courtroom results, not just Truth Social declarations, to move from grievance to vindication.
If Haberman and Swan fabricated material or misrepresented sources, the legal system is the right venue to prove it. If the book's claims hold up, no amount of late-night posting will make them go away.
The press has earned plenty of distrust. But distrust is not the same as disproof, and in the long run, the facts in the courtroom will matter more than the nicknames on the timeline.
