Donald Trump's Nasty Nighttime Habits Leave Staff Scrambling in the Morning, New Book Claims

President Donald Trump's filthy, messy nighttime habits are detailed in the explosive new book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Sneak peeks of the book highlight several specific behaviors and resulting cleanup challenges faced by White House staff.

The book describes Trump as a prolific late-night snacker who frequently leaves trash scattered across his private quarters.

“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,” the authors wrote. “The staff had to begin monitoring the trash after it was discovered he was sometimes throwing out White House sterling silver utensils.”

The book sheds light on other gross private habits and preferences during his second term.

The octogenarian maintains a retro preference for a carpeted bathroom, which requires staff to constantly rotate small pieces of carpet to manage the dampness near the shower.

“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 wrote. “The solution was to lay a small piece of the same carpet — never an actual bath mat — over the larger one.”

“Several of these pieces were kept in rotation, swapped out, and dried,” they added.

To no one’s surprise, as has been revealed before this book, Donald and Melania Trump maintain entirely separate bedrooms.

When he’s not busy with late-night Truth Social tirades, Donald frequently moves furnishings — some chosen by Melania — into his own quarters on a whim, leaving staff caught in the middle and photographing potential replacements for Melania's approval.

“In the early weeks of the new administration, items were spirited from the second-floor corridor into the president’s bedroom,” the authors wrote. “Sometimes Trump carried the objects in himself, rearranging things across the private quarters on a whim.”

The POTUS channeled a Real Housewives group trip, in which the women fight over who gets the cushier room, causing tension among staff for both Trumps.

“Once, when staff gently reminded the president that he was taking things from the Center Hall his wife had personally selected, he made clear he didn’t care,” the authors wrote. “He seemed almost to be competing with her — determined to have the better room.”

Not busy with world issues or the economy, the president was fixated on playing decorator, the authors noted.

“The president’s redecorating generated such a flurry of activity that staff often felt caught between the two Trumps, who were the only presidential couple to regularly use and maintain separate bedrooms since Richard and Pat Nixon,” Maggie and Jonathan wrote. “Trump’s obsessive focus on interior decorating made the staff yearn for the First Lady to return and hopefully rein him in.”

Donald’s decorating spree spread to the Rose Garden, which he razed much to his wife’s dismay.

“When early talk made the rounds that Trump now intended to turn the garden into a version of the Mar-a-Lago patio, word came back from the First Lady’s team that she was very unhappy,” the authors wrote.

They also noted that the steely first lady wasn’t too keen on his delusions of ballroom grandeur, either.

“Mrs. Trump, who preferred a quiet environment with minimal disturbances and objected to living in a construction zone, had repeatedly expressed concern about the size and location of the ballroom,” they wrote. “For several weeks in early 2025, White House aides had tried accommodating the couple’s competing desires about the future of the complex.”

The president is no decorator, however. The authors explained how he used superglue to turn the White House into a gauche, gaudy gold-plated paean to Liberace-esque lavishness.

“As he was known to prefer his own aesthetic handiwork to anyone else’s, the sight of the president squeezing glue onto gilded appliqués and mounting them on the wall himself surprised no one in his inner circle,” the authors wrote, in an excerpt released by The New York Times.