Haberman and Swan’s 1,000-Interview Trump Book Portrays 2nd-Term Rule by Instinct
Updated
Updated · FRESH HELL Tina Brown's Diary · Jun 22
Haberman and Swan’s 1,000-Interview Trump Book Portrays 2nd-Term Rule by Instinct
3 articles · Updated · FRESH HELL Tina Brown's Diary · Jun 22
Summary
More than 1,000 interviews underpin “Regime Change,” which depicts Donald Trump’s second term as a presidency driven by impulse, loyalty tests and revenge rather than institutional restraint.
Haberman and Swan report that cabinet officials and aides largely deferred to Trump’s gut instincts, including on major decisions such as the Iran war, while Stephen Miller helped shape a day-one agenda built for payback.
The book also sketches a court politics inside Trumpworld, with figures such as JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Steven Cheung and Natalie Harp competing for influence in an atmosphere of fear, flattery and public degradation.
Its broader argument is that Trump’s second term discarded the treaty-and-norm framework that constrained earlier presidents, leaving a model of executive power the authors suggest may outlast him.