Regime change: inside Donald Trump’s imperial presidencyBy Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
In January 2026, The New York Times asked Donald Trump why, after telling his family not to make new business deals in foreign countries during his first term as president, he was now allowing them to do so. He replied: “Because I found out no one cared. I’m allowed to.”
In “Regime Change,” New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write the riveting and rich story of the first 14 months of Trump’s second term. The authors include this answer as part of a chillingly devastating account of how Trump has added more than $1 billion to the family fortune.
As Haberman and Swann explain, by “nobody” Trump means those who allow him impunity: the sycophantic courtiers with whom he has surrounded himself; a Republican majority in Congress that abandoned its duty to check executive power; Tech moguls who rushed to pay tribute to him; The MAGA base that worships him. As long as none of them publicly object to his actions, he is allowed to do whatever he wants.
All this presents a deep challenge to journalism. The profession is shaped by a belief that has been around at least since Greek tragedies: revelation is followed by vicissitudes. When Oedipus’s (or Richard Nixon’s) crimes are exposed, he must fall from power. But Trump is not like that. With a few notable exceptions, he relies on the collective indifference of the people in his support system, and avoids risk. What can journalists do in a world where there is no shame and, apparently, no consequences?
Haberman and Swann have spent more than a decade covering Trump’s political career and the events they depict are famous in their own right: the excesses of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the chaos of Trump’s tariffs, Jeffrey Epstein’s vampiric return, the militarization of American cities, ICE’s unleashing on migrant communities, Trump’s abuse of the justice system to go after his perceived enemies, the assault on the independence of the Federal Reserve, headlong. Stumble into war on Iran.
What the authors add are vivid details that make these events seem real. They snatch reality back from the distorted world of entertainment, illusion, fantasy and denial that Trump has created around him. It is this flood of provocation, torture, self-dealing, and fabrication that makes Haberman and Swann’s counternarrative so important.
In an hour-long interview with the president in March 2026, Trump reflected on his legal battles and presidential campaigns and told writers, “Essentially I won every time,” but then complained, “And I’m tired of winning and winning and winning and just getting bad press. Now it’s time you tell the truth. Okay?”
TS Eliot wrote that “the human race cannot bear too much reality,” and in this at least Trump is all too human. Here’s a man who, as Haberman and Swann report, employs an associate, Natalie Harp, who “immerses her in a fresh stream of positive news stories and social media comments that she often reads aloud.” The authors note, Harp “wrote loving letters to Trump that she left in his private locations, one of which read, ‘You are all that matters to me.'”
It is said that a slave attendant whispered in the ears of victorious Roman emperors that they were, after all, mere mortals. Even as Trump plans to mark his immortality with a giant triumphal arch in Washington, his ears are filled with constant cries of praise.
In this bath of self-glorification, even imperial conquests seem easy: Haberman and Swann write that, along with his public desire to annex Canada and Greenland, Trump privately “told several aides that Venezuela could be America’s 51st state and that he would appoint a governor to run it.” The success of the audacious attack on that country in January 2026 and the capture of its President Nicolas Maduro reinforced Trump’s certainty that he can reshape the world quickly and painlessly.
Haberman and Swan burst all these bubbles. “Regime Change” is that good old-fashioned work: a history. And chronicles have never been more necessary – or more countercultural. The “constant stream” of positive stories that Trump’s allies give him is recycled into posts he posts on his social media platforms, sometimes almost overnight. (Haberman and Swann report that when the United States appeared to join the Israel bombing campaign against Iran in June 2025, journalists seeking comment from the White House “were directed to Trump’s Truth social feed.”)
Furthermore, the authors depict a strange fusion of reality and show business in the White House. “We need a change of plot,” Trump told a “shocking aide” while considering the possible appointment of his defeated opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, as defense secretary. “I’m not a big fan of Ukraine,” he declared at a high-level Oval Office meeting. “Except their women. They keep winning Miss Universe.” He nominated John Ratcliffe as CIA Director because, “If you were going to cast someone for the role of CIA Director, you would choose him.”
He declared his public condemnation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February 2025 to be “great television” and better than “The Apprentice.” And his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, continues to provide Trump with gruesome video footage of the bloody effects of drone strikes on human targets, which one official described as “Hegseth’s snuff films.”
There are themes in “Regime Change” which are like satire. Trump, concerned about his own envisioned arch, calls French President Emmanuel Macron to ask him if there is a viewing deck on the Arc de Triomphe and, if so, whether it is dangerous: “What do you think, Emmanuel, do people jump off it?”
In normal times, the authors’ exercise in almost immediate history might seem premature and hasty. But if these crazy times are not to be normalized – if we are not to get used to the recklessness of autocratic misgovernance – we cannot wait for the archives to be opened.
The plot twist that Trump won’t like is that by the end of this saga of unbridled ego, there are nemesis reports to follow: the war on Iran has led to chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, the rising cost of living is making a mockery of his promise to control inflation, his popularity is falling to new lows. Trump will not want to read this book because it shows him not winning and winning but slowly losing because reality has the audacity not to bow to his whims. Will someone whisper in his ear that Haberman and Swann did what he asked and told the truth?
regime change: : Inside Donald Trump’s imperial presidency | By Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan | simon and schuster | 464 pp. | $34
