Trump and His Imperial Presidency

“Regime change” might seem like a “ degree scroll ” chosen with Donald Trump’s foreign policy in mind—the operation against Maduro in Venezuela, the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, the pressure on Cuba to bring an end to the Castro regime—but in reality, its primary meaning as the “ degree scroll ” of this book lies in the national “ core topic .” With Trump’s second term, the United States has shifted from a presidential system to an imperial system—from a republic to an empire, in Roman terms—according to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, “New York Times” journalists accredited to the White House.

For the authors of *Regime Change*, the new political reality is marked by the greater powers exercised by Trump, who abuses the issuance of executive orders—sometimes stretching the interpretation of laws, other times confronting the courts— and by his control over certain branches of government, having placed staunch loyalists at their helm who are willing to go as far as the 1,600 Capitol rioters from January 2021, whom Trump granted a pardon (which he may in the future extend to anyone who, in his name, again defies the law).

Haberman and Swan’s book, however, is not a political argument, but rather a journalistic account of the first fifteen months of Trump’s second presidency (from his return to the White House on January 20, 2025, to the first weeks of the war against Iran that began on February 28, 2026). Drawing on their firsthand observations as correspondents in Washington and through hundreds of interviews with many of the key players in American politics, the authors reconstruct numerous scenes that took place in the Oval conference room , the Situation conference room , and Air Force One, describing in detail where each participant sat during private meetings (a sign of having firsthand information) and what was said during them.

The narrative does not follow a strict chronological order, although the opening section contains references to Trump’s preparations for his return to the White House: the inner circle he assembled at his Mar-a-Lago estate after having to hand over power to Joe Biden, the long election campaign during which he finalized his plans, and the desire for revenge he nurtured—complete with names and figures—to exact retribution. Indeed, one of the book’s four chapters revolves precisely around this thirst for revenge (“retribution”); the others are “Whirlwind,” “The Enemy Within,” and “Plunder.”

Among the insights the book offers, there is one that financial aid helps us understand why Trump has gotten himself embroiled in a war with Iran, even though he had promised not to go to war and is well aware of how much this harms him among his MAGA (Make America Great Again) base. Certainly, his staff relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushes him in that direction, but Haberman and Swan suggest that it is the death threats issued by Tehran—along with concrete plans to assassinate him—that fuel his intense animosity toward the ayatollahs. His feelings toward the ayatollahs’ regime are “more intense and less transactional than his views on virtually any other topic,” the authors say. The fact that, the day before a bullet grazed his head in Butler in July 2024, someone sent to the U.S. by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to carry out attacks against American figures was arrested reinforced the credibility of the threat, even though the shot that wounded his ear did not bear the Iranian “ signature .”

In particular, the internal White House meetings leading up to the start of the Twelve-Day War against Iran in June 2025 and the new attack launched in late February 2026—which is still ongoing—are thoroughly documented in the book, which offers an interesting perspective on the internal positions within the Trump administration (which, in truth, had no internal “ discussion ”).

In his unique relationship with the media, Trump agreed to meet with the two authors when their book was already nearly finished, even though he had initially declined their request—given that they were journalists from his heavily criticized *New York Times*. As the authors explain in an afterword, Trump did not contradict their account of the key events; he simply questioned some of their underlying assessments and claimed to be the greatest president in U.S. history.

In that conversation, Trump confirmed an ironic observation: if he had remained in the White House after the 2020 election, his second term would not have been as disruptive as it is now. If he hadn’t been ousted from power for four years, he would never have amassed the power he now wields.