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Two New York Times reporters have declined to comment on speculation that some of the most explosive revelations in their new book about Trump’s second term were drawn from recorded Situation Room conversations.

Getting into it: The book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, came out Tuesday and covers conversations that played out everywhere from the Oval Office to the Situation Room and beyond. One of the most striking scenes describes top aides gathering without Trump to tamp down mounting MAGA anger over how the administration handled the Epstein files, because the president would snap at anyone who raised the subject.

According to the authors, the meetings drew a long list of senior officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and others, all trying to figure out how to protect Trump without stoking further conspiracies. The book reports that Vance pushed to release everything related to Trump in the Epstein files, including an unsubstantiated, already-public secondhand allegation, until Wiles forcefully told him there was no way all of it would come out.

The reporting sparked alarm inside the administration over how such sensitive material leaked from one of the government’s most secure rooms, with one official telling Axios they feared their private conversations had been recorded but had “no idea which ones.” Vance himself said last week that certain details “legitimately made me worried that people were taping.”

Pressed repeatedly, including by Jon Stewart asking “who’s the rat?” and Lawrence O’Donnell asking directly whether they had tapes, Haberman and Swan declined to discuss sourcing. Haberman noted no White House official has denied the reporting, saying the only response so far was Vance calling it “accurate,” to which she replied, “we agree.”