Donald Trump has spent five decades telling the world he lives better than anyone, that his hotels are the finest, his homes immaculate and his taste beyond comparison.
A forthcoming book by two of the most respected White House correspondents in the country suggests the private quarters have never quite matched the branding.
Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, written by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan and due out June 23, has been circulating in excerpt form since the Daily Mail published passages this week, and the section covering Trump’s nightly habits has traveled furthest of all.
“A nighttime snacker, the president would frequently leave an array of empty potato chip bags, Starbucks wrappers, and ice cream cartons in the trash, or on the floor,” Haberman and Swan write. “The staff had to begin monitoring the trash after it was discovered he was sometimes throwing out White House sterling silver utensils.”
The bathroom produced its own separate set of complications.
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Trump apparently insisted on carpeting his private bathroom, which created a recurring problem that staff quietly managed on a rotating basis.
“The portion nearest the shower would often be soaked through; the staff was never quite sure why, but they worried about mold growing underneath,” Haberman and Swan write. “The solution was to lay a small piece of the same carpet — never an actual bath mat — over the larger one,” with several pieces kept in rotation, swapped out and dried as needed.
The living arrangement between Trump and Melania adds another dimension to everything the book describes.
The two maintain separate bedrooms on the second floor, making them, according to the book, “the only presidential couple to regularly use and maintain separate bedrooms since Richard and Pat Nixon.” Trump occupies a room traditionally used as a second-floor living room, the same setup John F. Kennedy once used, while Melania has the larger adjacent space with a dressing room and an suite bathroom.
The separation has not kept Trump from helping himself to her side of things.
“In the early weeks of the new administration, items were spirited from the second-floor corridor into the President’s bedroom,” Haberman and Swan write, adding that “sometimes Trump carried the objects in himself, rearranging things across the private quarters on a whim.” The book notes that “Trump’s obsessive focus on interior decorating made the staff yearn for the First Lady to return and hopefully rein him in.”
The Windsor Castle incident from September 2025 resurfaced almost immediately in the replies. A palace source had told RadarOnline at the time that Trump’s suite was left in “total filth,” with takeout containers, tanning sprays and stained bed sheets throughout. “This was Windsor Castle, not a roadside motel,” the source said. Those claims were never independently verified, though the Haberman and Swan book has since given them considerably more weight.
Reddit weighed in on the excerpts with its usual restraint. “White House is gonna need a gut restoration after this fumigation and a decontamination,” one commenter wrote, while another added: “Wet bathroom carpet, food and trash left around the bed. Gross. Just gross.” A third cut to the point: “He is such a slob. Melania has so many reasons not to want to sleep in the same bedroom.”
X had its own takes.
BREAKING: Trump’s sick bedroom habits and life with Melania EXPOSED in bombshell new book!
Seems that behind closed doors, Donald Trump is pretty friggin’ gross. According to the new book from NYT reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the commander-in-chief’s private… pic.twitter.com/iw9jop1yBd
— Occupy Democrats (@OccupyDemocrats) June 19, 2026
“The staff had to begin monitoring the trash after it was discovered he was sometimes throwing out White House sterling silver utensils.”
Trump, who rose to fame in New York City as a builder, also has an odd—and apparently unhygienic—design preference: carpets in the bathroom.
— 𝗅𝖾𝖾𝗂𝖺 🦋 (@hey_leia) June 19, 2026
You know what’s ironic, when Trump moved back into the White House last year after Biden left, Trump said the place was dirty and he had to have it cleaned. He was calling Biden dirty. Now look what has come out about Trump and his lack of cleanliness.
— Aisha (@aishamusic) June 19, 2026
He’s pretty frigging gross out in the open, too.
— Rose Sears (@RoseSears51611) June 19, 2026
The book releases June 23. The White House has not responded to the specific claims.
Featured image via X screengrab
