Takeaways From ‘Regime Change,’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s Book on Trump’s White House
A starvation for vengeance. A scarcity of restraints. A fixation on inside adorning and a drive to go away lasting marks on his workplace.
That is the portrait of President Trump in his second time period that emerges from “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” a brand new e book by two New York Times reporters, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
The 464-page e book, set to be launched on Tuesday, describes Mr. Trump’s relentless, norm-shattering efforts to bend the federal authorities, cultural establishments and information cycles to his will. It attracts on in depth interviews performed on the situation of anonymity to recount inside discussions and delicate points. Throughout the reporting course of, the authors write, they made in depth efforts to contact the folks named within the e book and to offer them ample alternative to supply their perspective.
“Regime Change” describes the “most powerful president of our lifetimes” — a pacesetter working on “grievances and instincts” who may very well be discovered, on at the very least one event, adorning the White House with a tube of tremendous glue.
Here are 11 takeaways from the e book.
Trump relished watching Zuckerberg and Bezos attempt to ingratiate themselves with him.
After Mr. Trump gained the 2024 election, the e book says, he reveled within the ways in which tech leaders who had as soon as scorned him have been now “kissing my ass.”
He particularly loved the outreach from Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief govt, who had barred Mr. Trump from Facebook and Instagram after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
At Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump would inform guests about texts he had acquired from the titans of tech corporations, the e book says. In one occasion, he confirmed friends a photograph of a letter from certainly one of Mr. Zuckerberg’s kids, who had written that they eagerly awaited “the golden age of America” arriving with Mr. Trump’s return, in line with the e book. In one other, he confirmed a textual content from Jeff Bezos with a smiling selfie of the Amazon founder and Lauren Sánchez, now his spouse.
At a dinner after the 2024 election, Mr. Trump and Mr. Bezos commiserated, in line with the e book, over a supply of shared frustration: The Washington Post, Mr. Bezos’s newspaper, whose protection had lengthy irritated Mr. Trump.
Mr. Bezos, who purchased The Post in 2013, complained that the newspaper had been his worst funding, the e book says.
“The people there are terrible,” Mr. Bezos mentioned of the information group’s enterprise facet, in line with the e book. “They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen.”
At one other level, Mr. Trump appeared to marvel at his new reception within the tech world.
“They hated me,” he informed Elon Musk, referring to Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Bezos, the e book recounts. He added, “And look at them now.”
“First-class groveling,” Mr. Musk mentioned, in line with the e book.
The prime echelon of White House officers was fixated on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Last summer time, prime administration officers gathered in the White House Situation Room for a sequence of conferences as they labored to reply to disclosures concerning the president’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein — and to reply to a push in Congress to drive the administration to launch supplies associated to the convicted intercourse offender.
In these conferences, in line with the e book, officers argued about how a lot the difficulty was resonating with Mr. Trump’s supporters. At one level, there was speak of dispatching Vice President JD Vance or Todd Blanche, a prime Justice Department official, to Joe Rogan’s podcast to debate the difficulty, in line with the e book.
At one other, they fretted about an uncorroborated accusation towards Mr. Trump that had surfaced in unsealed courtroom filings from a decade-old defamation case that Virginia Giuffre, a sufferer of Mr. Epstein, introduced towards Mr. Epstein’s longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.
In the filings, one other Epstein accuser, Sarah Ransome, claimed she knew a woman who mentioned that she had intercourse with Mr. Trump and that he had a nipple fetish, in line with the e book. Ms. Ransome had later retracted a few of her claims, and her accusation about Mr. Trump had been made public earlier than he returned to workplace.
But officers frightened that together with it in a authorities database would make it appear extra credible, the e book says.
The Situation Room is a posh sometimes reserved for conferences on high-stakes nationwide safety issues. One official, the e book says, would later say it was a “surreal” expertise to be sitting within the advanced “discussing Donald Trump and abused nipples.”
Trump requested Rupert Murdoch to measurement up Vance vs. Rubio.
Mr. Trump likes to ballot allies on whether or not they desire his vp, Mr. Vance, or his secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Both males are seen as potential 2028 presidential candidates and heirs to his political motion.
The president’s questioning, the e 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 on the White House in October, Mr. Trump — who had filed a defamation lawsuit against The Journal after it reported that he had despatched a lewd birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein a long time in the past — requested Mr. Murdoch whether or not he preferred Mr. Vance or Mr. Rubio higher, in line with the e book.
The query was notably loaded due to the presence of two males on the desk: Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio themselves.
Mr. Murdoch took a diplomatic strategy, the e book recounts, however his desire was clear.
“I think JD has the potential to be great,” replied Mr. Murdoch, who had reportedly tried to speak Mr. Trump out of selecting Mr. Vance as his working mate in 2024.
“And what do you think of Marco?” the president pressed.
Mr. Murdoch was extra forceful this time, in line with the e book. “Marco is brilliant,” he mentioned.
Trump wished revenge towards these he felt had wronged him — even when he couldn’t bear in mind their names.
When Mr. Trump returned to the White House, he was consumed by a typically distracting need for retribution.
One afternoon within the spring of 2025, Mr. Trump was straining to recall “this lawyer” within the first Trump administration who he thought had mentioned the 2020 election “was fair and there’s no fraud,” in line with the e book.
A prime adviser, Stephen Miller, who gained a status as Mr. Trump’s keeper of grievances, instructed that Mr. Trump could be referring to a homeland safety official.
Boris Epshteyn, one of many president’s personal attorneys, did a fast search on his telephone, the e book says, and provided a solution: “Chris Krebs,” who had led a division of the Homeland Security Department throughout Mr. Trump’s first time period.
“Yeah, Chris Krebs,” Mr. Trump replied, in line with the e 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 analyze Mr. Krebs.
The Trumps have eagerly profited from the presidency.
Concerns about corruption have trailed Mr. Trump’s second time period, together with over his cryptocurrency, his family’s real estate deals and his acceptance of a luxury jet from Qatar.
Foreign buyers, the e 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 household didn’t money in solely by way of cryptocurrency, although.
His sons Eric and Don Jr. rapidly secured profitable offers, together with 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 e book says.
Howard Lutnick, the president’s commerce secretary, mentioned he would donate $25 million to the library fund, in line with the e book, a extremely uncommon transfer for a sitting member of a cupboard.
Trump loved comparisons of his energy to that of Mao and Genghis Khan.
In an interview that Ms. Haberman and Mr. Swan performed with Mr. Trump for the e book, the president, who had began the battle with Iran two weeks earlier, mirrored on his energy.
The president listed a sequence of highly effective figures from historical past, drawn from a two-page doc that an acquaintance had given him, and then defined why he thought their energy paled compared to his, since they lacked world attain.
Rattling off names together with Alexander the Great and William the Conqueror, the president famous, “They didn’t have airplanes,” in line with the e book.
He continued, reciting extra names: Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, Stalin. Those leaders, Mr. Trump informed the authors, “maintained power through fear.”
“Who would ever do a thing like that?” Mr. Trump requested, in line with the e book. “Right?”
Stephen Miller gained monumental energy — and made certain others knew it.
Mr. Miller was a distinguished face of Mr. Trump’s first administration and its crackdown on immigration. But nonetheless in his early 30s then, Mr. Miller may very well be “easily dismissed” by Mr. Trump’s army leaders, the e book says.
By the second time period, that had modified.
Holding titles that undersold his true energy (deputy chief of workers for coverage and homeland safety adviser), the meticulous and domineering Mr. Miller amassed monumental affect, the e book says.
His portfolio lined many of the federal authorities, in line with the e book, as he oversaw govt orders, recruited the attorneys 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 best way, he recurrently berated workers members. Demanding in a single assembly that the pace of deportation speed up, Mr. Miller angrily threatened to fireside the whole thing of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one senior administration official remembers within the e book.
The e book says Mr. Miller typically offered his views as representing requests from the president, at the same time as he remained cautious about expressing his opinions in Mr. Trump’s presence.
Charlie Kirk’s killing appeared to unnerve the president, who discovered of it from his son Barron.
After the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, Mr. Trump heard about it from a younger fan of Mr. Kirk’s: the president’s 19-year-old son.
Barron Trump known as Mr. Trump in a state of panic, in line with the e book.
The president’s son frightened that his father, who was grazed within the ear by a would-be murderer’s bullet in 2024, could be focused once more. He informed the president he was taking a danger by talking in entrance of crowds, in line with the e book.
Mr. Trump tried to appease his son.
“Calm down, honey, calm down,” the president mentioned, in line with the e book. But, it says, he was plainly unnerved himself.
Trump likes to ship ‘plot twists’ when unhealthy information hits.
Mr. Trump has lengthy been seen by critics and supporters alike as a grasp of media manipulation — somebody who modifications what’s within the information when he feels it doesn’t swimsuit him.
In one account from the e book, Mr. Trump appeared to nod on the methodology.
When Pete Hegseth’s nomination as protection secretary appeared prone to being derailed by a sexual assault allegation that Mr. Hegseth denied, Mr. Trump thought-about giving up and changing him with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a former rival.
“We need plot twists,” Mr. Trump informed a shocked ally, the e book says.
Instead, Mr. Trump “unleashed” Mr. Vance, Mr. Kirk and certainly one of his sons, Don Jr., to strain any Republicans who have been contemplating rejecting Mr. Hegseth, the e book says.
Trump grew irritated at Vance after a 2025 strike on Iran.
After the United States bombed a deeply buried nuclear enrichment web 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 ready the speech, Mr. Vance proposed that the president tone down a few of the language. “I know what I’m doing,” Mr. Trump replied sharply, in line with the e book.
The subsequent morning, the e book says, Mr. Vance appeared in an interview on ABC News. He didn’t repeat the phrases “totally obliterated.”
Mr. Trump was not completely happy, in line with the e book.
“Everyone needs to say” the phrase obliterated, Mr. Trump mentioned, including an expletive, in line with the e book. “That’s the word. Everyone just needs to copy what I say. Obliterated. Obliterated.”
Trump is usually a hands-on inside decorator.
Some of Mr. Trump’s development initiatives in Washington — a ballroom changing the East Wing of the White House, a 250-foot triumphal arch by the Potomac River — are multimillion-dollar affairs, requiring employees in arduous hats and towering cranes.
But one morning, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, entered the Oval Office to seek out Mr. Trump personally making modifications in décor.
The president had a tube of tremendous glue in his hand, the e book says, and was attempting to adorn the marble fire 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.”
