In many ways, President Trump’s second administration is dramatically different than the first. When it began in 2016, there were a number of leaks from the inside determined to stop Trump’s agenda. This time, the staff includes a tight-knit group of loyal supporters who have the president’s back.
While it has made inside reporting harder, in their book Regime Change, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan break through, achieving extraordinary access. They are, in essence, human flies on the wall. “It’s very hard reporting to do because our reporting in the book, it’s not wispy stuff,” Swan tells CBN News.
Based on more than 1,000 interviews conducted over three years, Regime Change takes readers inside one of the tightest White House operations in modern history. It reaches inside Situation Room meetings over the Jeffrey Epstein files and the Iran war, plus dozens of other private discussions ranging from Elon Musk to White House décor.
The book’s subtitle, Inside the Imperial Presidency, however, may be its biggest headline. Haberman and Swan argue that Trump returned to office determined to use executive authority more aggressively than any other modern president.
“What we saw in the last year, objectively, in terms of the way Trump has used power, foreign policy, trade policy, the way he’s used the Justice Department, is on a different level and of a different order than what we’ve seen previously,” Swan said.
Whether it’s tariffs, dismantling agencies like USAID, or expanding the executive branch’s reach, Swan points out how the second Trump administration has operated in ways previous presidents didn’t. One example involves how Trump viewed suspected drug traffickers operating in the Caribbean.
“He just decided himself that the fishing boats with cocaine traffickers carrying cocaine across the Caribbean, that they were enemy combatants, and therefore, instead of intercepting them, a Coast Guard ship intercepting them, maybe detaining them, arresting them, putting them on trial—we’ll just kill them,” Swan explained.
Given what’s currently happening in the Middle East, a section of the book involves Israel. While some on the political right prefer a more non-interventionist foreign policy, Swan says that has never really described Donald Trump.
“A lot of the anti-interventionists on the right, I think, either they refuse to see or they’re sort of maybe a little bit delusional in this regard, is Trump has always been more hawkish about Iran and more pro-Israel than many of the people who consider him an isolationist,” Swan said.
The Regime Change co-author says that may surprise both the president’s critics and supporters. He argues that Trump’s commitment to Israel runs deeper than many inside his own administration and that of many younger Republicans.
***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***
“He has a deeper attachment to Israel than many of the people around him. He just does, and actually than many of the sort of younger next generation of Republicans appear to have,” Swan said.
“If you’re Netanyahu, if you’re the Israeli cabinet, you must be looking at Trump—for all the things that might frustrate you about him—you’re very unlikely to get a more pro-Israel president to follow him,” he added. There are also occasional fireworks between Trump and the Israeli prime minister, as laid out in the book.
So how should evangelicals see Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu and Israel as it relates to leverage, power, “The Art of the Deal” and his love for Israel? “I think it’s a very nuanced picture,” Swan replied.
That picture became particularly important and clear during the debate over striking Iran. Some, including Tucker Carlson, have argued it was Israel driving American policy. Trump says the exact opposite is true.
So which is it? “I think it’s closer to the Trump version,” Swan responded. “I think it’s not black and white, like most things. I think Netanyahu is very persuasive. He made a very aggressive case for America to enter the war. We have a scene in the book of him in the Situation Room pitching. But after that meeting, Trump heard very skeptical takes on some of Netanyahu’s presentation from John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, and Marco Rubio, and Trump listened to that. And he still had this gut instinct that we should go ahead with this operation in Iran.”
“So Trump was absolutely not persuaded by Netanyahu, based on our reporting. His core instincts were much more hawkish than the rest of his team. And I think that people trying to sort of say this was all Bibi are just ignoring some really basic facts about the way Trump has operated.”
The authors also make clear a strong alliance doesn’t mean a perfect relationship. Trump’s frustration with Netanyahu has boiled over at times.
“We also have a phone call with Trump and Netanyahu in, I think it was late September last year. So this is in the final stages of doing the hostage deal. And Trump had been told and believed that Netanyahu was trying to sort of scuttle this deal. So they had this phone call and Trump just unleashes on Netanyahu.
“He says, ‘You know, everyone’s sick of you.’ He goes, ‘All the Jews are sick of you. Even the two Jews on this call.’ And it was Kushner and Witkoff, right? And then at the end he’s like, ‘I think everything’s fine.’…maybe the next day was like, ‘You know, I love you.’…so he has these eruptions. He comes back and they get on well. It’s the way Trump relates to him. I think Trump sometimes feels that Netanyahu is making his life more complicated or difficult than it should be.”
Whatever the case, Donald Trump has rarely, if ever, governed like a traditional president, including his interactions with Israel. As for whether history will remember him as one of America’s greatest presidents or one of its most controversial, the authors believe one thing is certain: he has changed the presidency.
“We both do consider Donald Trump the most consequential president of our lifetimes,” Swan said.
