James Carville has a survival strategy for anyone still working inside Donald Trump's White House, and it boils down to two words: start leaking.
On the latest episode of his Politics War Room podcast, the veteran Democratic strategist delivered a blunt appeal to administration staffers, urging them to protect their own reputations before the history of Trump's second term gets written. "Save Yourself! Save Yourself, now!" Carville declared, before adding his prescription: "Leak, leak, and more leaks."
Carville framed the advice as a matter of self-preservation rather than loyalty, arguing that the insiders who cooperate with reporters tend to come out looking better in the long run. "When the history is written, the leakers always do better," he said. He was characteristically crude about the position those aides already find themselves in, telling them they are "already covered in" filth and that the only way to improve their standing is to "leak more."
His comments came as he discussed "Regime Change," the forthcoming book from reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, set for release June 23. Early excerpts describe a White House riddled with leaks, infighting, and recurring crises. Carville summarized the portrait it paints in his own unsparing terms, calling the administration a collection of "stumbling, bumbling" fools and pointing to the volume of damaging disclosures already flowing out of Trump's orbit. "Look at the number of people that are leaking!" he said, claiming aides are so eager to protect themselves that they "leak everything about him."
Carville reserved particular attention for the administration's younger officials, whom he prodded to join the exodus of information. "You got to get on the train," he said, describing his unexpected interest in advising what he dismissively called Trump's "little ambitious" staffers. His closing instruction left little to interpretation: "Everything that you know, every stupid thing that he says, every grotesque, horrible, nasty habit he's got, leak it."
The strategist paired the leak campaign with a striking prediction about the president's future, asserting that Trump would be "gone by April of next year" and describing him in deeply unflattering physical terms, claiming the president "doesn't even know where he is" and "can't get out of a chair."
Whether any West Wing aides take the advice is another matter, but Carville's larger point was that the leaking has already begun and is unlikely to stop. In his telling, the smartest people left in the building are the ones quietly deciding which secrets to hand over first.