Takeaways From ‘Regime Change,’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s Book on Trump’s White House
A hunger for vengeance. A lack of restraints. A fixation on interior decorating and a drive to leave lasting marks on his office.That is the portrait of President Trump in his second term that emerges from “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” a new book by two New York Times reporters, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.The 464-page book, set to be released on Tuesday, describes Mr. Trump’s relentless, norm-shattering efforts to bend the federal government, cultural institutions and news cycles to his will. It draws on extensive interviews conducted on the condition of anonymity to recount internal discussions and sensitive issues. Throughout the reporting process, the authors write, they made extensive efforts to contact the people named in the book and to give them ample opportunity to offer their perspective.“Regime Change” describes the “most powerful president of our lifetimes” — a leader operating on “grievances and instincts” who could be found, on at least one occasion, decorating the White House with a tube of super glue.Here are 11 takeaways from the book.Trump relished watching Zuckerberg and Bezos try to ingratiate themselves with him.After Mr. Trump won the 2024 election, the book says, he reveled in the ways that tech leaders who had once scorned him were now “kissing my ass.”He especially enjoyed the outreach from Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, who had barred Mr. Trump from Facebook and Instagram after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.At Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump would tell visitors about texts he had received from the titans of tech companies, the book says. In one instance, he showed guests a photo of a letter from one of Mr. Zuckerberg’s children, who had written that they eagerly awaited “the golden age of America” arriving with Mr. Trump’s return, according to the book. In another, he showed a text from Jeff Bezos with a smiling selfie of the Amazon founder and Lauren Sánchez, now his wife.At a dinner after the 2024 election, Mr. Trump and Mr. Bezos commiserated, according to the book, over a source of shared frustration: The Washington Post, Mr. Bezos’s newspaper, whose coverage had long irritated Mr. Trump.Mr. Bezos, who bought The Post in 2013, complained that the newspaper had been his worst investment, the book says.“The people there are terrible,” Mr. Bezos said of the news organization’s business side, according to the book. “They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen.”At another point, Mr. Trump seemed to marvel at his new reception in the tech world.“They hated me,” he told Elon Musk, referring to Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Bezos, the book recounts. He added, “And look at them now.”“First-class groveling,” Mr. Musk said, according to the book.The top echelon of White House officials was fixated on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.Last summer, top administration officials gathered in the White House Situation Room for a series of meetings as they worked to respond to disclosures about the president’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein — and to respond to a push in Congress to force the administration to release materials related to the convicted sex offender.In those meetings, according to the book, officials argued about how much the issue was resonating with Mr. Trump’s supporters. At one point, there was talk of dispatching Vice President JD Vance or Todd Blanche, a top Justice Department official, to Joe Rogan’s podcast to discuss the issue, according to the book.At another, they fretted about an uncorroborated accusation against Mr. Trump that had surfaced in unsealed court filings from a decade-old defamation case that Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Mr. Epstein, brought against Mr. Epstein’s longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.In the filings, another Epstein accuser, Sarah Ransome, claimed she knew a girl who said that she had sex with Mr. Trump and that he had a nipple fetish, according to the book. Ms. Ransome had later retracted some of her claims, and her accusation about Mr. Trump had been made public before he returned to office.But officials worried that including it in a government database would make it seem more credible, the book says.The Situation Room is a complex typically reserved for meetings on high-stakes national security matters. One official, the book says, would later say it was a “surreal” experience to be sitting in the complex “discussing Donald Trump and abused nipples.”Trump asked Rupert Murdoch to size up Vance vs. Rubio.Mr. Trump likes to poll allies on whether they prefer his vice president, Mr. Vance, or his secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Both men are seen as potential 2028 presidential candidates and heirs to his political movement.The president’s questioning, the book says, has reached Rupert Murdoch, the nonagenarian media tycoon who owns Fox News, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.At an amicable dinner at the White House in October, Mr. Trump — who had filed a defamation lawsuit against The Journal after it reported that he had sent a lewd birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein decades ago — asked Mr. Murdoch whether he liked Mr. Vance or Mr. Rubio better, according to the book.The question was particularly loaded because of the presence of two men at the table: Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio themselves.Mr. Murdoch took a diplomatic approach, the book recounts, but his preference was clear.“I think JD has the potential to be great,” replied Mr. Murdoch, who had reportedly tried to talk Mr. Trump out of picking Mr. Vance as his running mate in 2024.“And what do you think of Marco?” the president pressed.Mr. Murdoch was more forceful this time, according to the book. “Marco is brilliant,” he said.Trump wanted revenge against those he felt had wronged him — even when he couldn’t remember their names.When Mr. Trump returned to the White House, he was consumed by a sometimes distracting desire for retribution.One afternoon in the spring of 2025, Mr. Trump was straining to recall “this lawyer” in the first Trump administration who he thought had said the 2020 election “was fair and there’s no fraud,” according to the book.A top adviser, Stephen Miller, who gained a reputation as Mr. Trump’s keeper of grievances, suggested that Mr. Trump might be referring to a homeland security official.Boris Epshteyn, one of the president’s private lawyers, did a quick search on his phone, the book says, and offered an answer: “Chris Krebs,” who had led a division of the Homeland Security Department during Mr. Trump’s first term.“Yeah, Chris Krebs,” Mr. Trump replied, according to the book. “Whatever happened to him? He was a bad one. Take a look at him.”Days later, the White House issued an executive order directing the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Krebs.The Trumps have eagerly profited from the presidency.Concerns about corruption have trailed Mr. Trump’s second term, including over his cryptocurrency, his family’s real estate deals and his acceptance of a luxury jet from Qatar.Foreign investors, the book says, have seen a “more straightforward path to influence, putting money directly into the pockets of the Trump family through their crypto ventures.”The Trump family didn’t cash in only through cryptocurrency, though.His sons Eric and Don Jr. quickly secured lucrative deals, including Eric’s free-of-charge acquisition of a plot, valued at $67 million and attached to a college in Miami, for the creation of Mr. Trump’s presidential library, the book says.Howard Lutnick, the president’s commerce secretary, said he would donate $25 million to the library fund, according to the book, a highly unusual move for a sitting member of a cabinet.Trump enjoyed comparisons of his power to that of Mao and Genghis Khan.In an interview that Ms. Haberman and Mr. Swan conducted with Mr. Trump for the book, the president, who had started the war with Iran two weeks earlier, reflected on his power.The president listed a series of powerful figures from history, drawn from a two-page document that an acquaintance had given him, and then explained why he thought their power paled in comparison to his, since they lacked global reach.Rattling off names including Alexander the Great and William the Conqueror, the president noted, “They didn’t have airplanes,” according to the book.He continued, reciting more names: Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, Stalin. Those leaders, Mr. Trump told the authors, “maintained power through fear.”“Who would ever do a thing like that?” Mr. Trump asked, according to the book. “Right?”Stephen Miller gained enormous power — and made sure others knew it.Mr. Miller was a prominent face of Mr. Trump’s first administration and its crackdown on immigration. But still in his early 30s then, Mr. Miller could be “easily dismissed” by Mr. Trump’s military leaders, the book says.By the second term, that had changed.Holding titles that undersold his true power (deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser), the meticulous and domineering Mr. Miller amassed enormous influence, the book says.His portfolio covered most of the federal government, according to the book, as he oversaw executive orders, recruited the lawyers who wrote them and drove the Homeland Security Department’s mass deportation effort, pushing for the deployment of U.S. troops in American cities.Along the way, he regularly berated staff members. Demanding in one meeting that the speed of deportation accelerate, Mr. Miller angrily threatened to fire the entirety of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one senior administration official recalls in the book.The book says Mr. Miller often presented his views as representing requests from the president, even as he remained cautious about expressing his opinions in Mr. Trump’s presence.Charlie Kirk’s killing seemed to unnerve the president, who learned of it from his son Barron.After the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, Mr. Trump heard about it from a young fan of Mr. Kirk’s: the president’s 19-year-old son.Barron Trump called Mr. Trump in a state of panic, according to the book.The president’s son worried that his father, who was grazed in the ear by a would-be assassin’s bullet in 2024, would be targeted again. He told the president he was taking a risk by speaking in front of crowds, according to the book.Mr. Trump tried to soothe his son.“Calm down, honey, calm down,” the president said, according to the book. But, it says, he was plainly unnerved himself.Trump likes to deliver ‘plot twists’ when bad news hits.Mr. Trump has long been seen by critics and supporters alike as a master of media manipulation — someone who changes what’s in the news when he feels it does not suit him.In one account from the book, Mr. Trump seemed to nod at the method.When Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary appeared at risk of being derailed by a sexual assault allegation that Mr. Hegseth denied, Mr. Trump considered giving up and replacing him with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a former rival.“We need plot twists,” Mr. Trump told a surprised ally, the book says.Instead, Mr. Trump “unleashed” Mr. Vance, Mr. Kirk and one of his sons, Don Jr., to pressure any Republicans who were considering rejecting Mr. Hegseth, the book says.Trump grew annoyed at Vance after a 2025 strike on Iran.After the United States bombed a deeply buried nuclear enrichment site in Iran in June 2025, Mr. Trump delivered a celebratory speech, declaring falsely that the operation had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.But as Mr. Trump had prepared the speech, Mr. Vance proposed that the president tone down some of the language. “I know what I’m doing,” Mr. Trump replied sharply, according to the book.The next morning, the book says, Mr. Vance appeared in an interview on ABC News. He did not repeat the words “totally obliterated.”Mr. Trump was not happy, according to the book.“Everyone needs to say” the word obliterated, Mr. Trump said, adding an expletive, according to the book. “That’s the word. Everyone just needs to copy what I say. Obliterated. Obliterated.”Trump can be a hands-on interior decorator.Some of Mr. Trump’s construction projects in Washington — a ballroom replacing the East Wing of the White House, a 250-foot triumphal arch by the Potomac River — are multimillion-dollar affairs, requiring workers in hard hats and towering cranes.But one morning, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, entered the Oval Office to find Mr. Trump personally making changes in décor.The president had a tube of super glue in his hand, the book says, and was trying to adorn the marble fireplace mantel with new golden decorations.“As he was known to prefer his own aesthetic handiwork to anyone else’s,” the authors write, “the sight of the president squeezing glue onto gilded appliqués and mounting them on the wall himself surprised no one in his inner circle.”
تم النشر: 2026-06-18 19:28:00
مصدر: www.nytimes.com
