Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

Driven by a fixation on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor he felt he deserved over Barack Obama, Trump sought a major foreign-policy victory. His special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, had made little progress. This created an opening for Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, to re-emerge as a key negotiator. After leaving the White House in 2021, Kushner had launched an investment firm, Affinity Partners, which received at least $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and additional sums from Qatar and United Arab Emirates wealth entities. These were relationships he had cultivated as a senior advisor during his father-in-law’s first term.

Working behind the scenes with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Kushner developed a postwar rebuilding plan for Gaza. The effort was nearly derailed in September 2025 when Israel, without warning, launched a missile strike in Doha, Qatar, targeting Hamas negotiators roughly 12 hours after Kushner and Witkoff had met with top Israeli advisor Ron Dermer at Witkoff’s Florida home to discuss a ceasefire. Enraged by the betrayal, Kushner and Witkoff nevertheless used the diplomatic crisis as leverage. They met with the furious Qatari prime minister in New York and convinced him to return to the negotiating table.

The situation came to a head in a tense phone call where Trump furiously berated Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, warning him that if he backed out of the deal, “[they would] get a divorce” (336). Netanyahu relented and later delivered a formal apology to Qatar from the Oval Office. Kushner and Witkoff then flew to Egypt for surreal, high-stakes negotiations with Hamas officials, eventually securing a fragile ceasefire and the release of hostages. The achievement led to the creation of the Board of Peace, an international body chaired by Trump, to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza.

In mid-2025, Trump was engaged in a $10 billion libel lawsuit against media mogul Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal over a story about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Despite the legal battle, the long and complex relationship between the two men took a surprising turn. In October, Murdoch attended a private dinner at the White House, signaling a potential truce. Trump, known for his confrontational style, was instead deferential, soliciting Murdoch’s opinions on world affairs.

During the dinner, Trump initiated one of his favorite “parlor games,” putting Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio on the spot by asking Murdoch who he preferred as a potential 2028 successor. While Murdoch offered a tepid endorsement of Vance, saying, “I think JD has the potential to be great,” he was unequivocal in his praise for Rubio, calling him “brilliant” (346). The moment highlighted the simmering speculation within the White House about Trump’s succession plans.

Though Vance was a key part of Trump’s inner circle and a leading contender for 2028, he had grown increasingly worried about the administration’s hawkish foreign policy and its detachment from the domestic issue of affordability, which had been central to Trump’s 2024 victory. Rubio, meanwhile, appeared to be flourishing in his roles and had gained Trump’s admiration. The authors illustrate Trump’s tendency to create conflict among his advisors and his mercurial approach to his own political legacy, leaving Vance’s future dependent on the whims of a president who seemed to take satisfaction in the Republican Party’s struggles when he wasn’t on the ballot.

In his second term, Trump and his family engaged in unprecedented business dealings that intertwined their private financial interests with his public duties. Having once called cryptocurrency a “scam,” Trump was now immensely wealthy from it. His sons Donald Jr. and Eric partnered with the sons of Steve Witkoff to form World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture. Four days before the inauguration, a firm run by associates of Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a powerful Emirati royal, secretly acquired a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million.

The administration dismantled regulatory guardrails, and Trump appointed a “crypto czar” who declared that the “reign of terror against crypto [wa]s over” (354). This environment facilitated numerous conflicts of interest. In October 2025, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the crypto exchange Binance, who had been convicted of financial crimes. It was later revealed that Binance had provided technological support to World Liberty Financial and hired lobbyist Ches McDowell, a hunting buddy of Donald Jr., to advocate for the pardon, with Donald Jr. leaving the room during the pardon talks.

This pattern of enrichment extended throughout the administration, the authors suggest. Trump’s sons pursued deals in the Middle East and with government-regulated companies. Fundraising for the Trump presidential library included a $25 million donation from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Meanwhile, other top officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel, were accused of using government aircraft for personal travel and living lavishly at taxpayer expense. Citing security threats, many senior officials moved onto military bases, creating a bubble of paranoia. Trump himself sought to profit from his office, pursuing multi-million-dollar settlements in lawsuits he filed against the DOJ and IRS while he was president.

Obsessed with cementing his legacy, Trump embarked on a spree of renaming federal properties and building monuments to himself. His administration orchestrated the renaming of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to include his name, replaced the nonpartisan US Institute of Peace with “the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace,” and rolled out initiatives like “Trump-class” warships, a “Trump Gold Card” for wealthy immigrants, and “TrumpRx” for prescription drugs (368). His most ambitious project was a proposed 250-foot “Independence Arch”—dubbed the “Arc de Trump” (369)—on the Potomac River, which he wanted to be the largest in the world. When asked by a reporter who the arch was for, Trump answered, “Me.” In one instance, he called French President Emmanuel Macron from the Oval Office to ask if the Arc de Triomphe in Paris had a viewing deck.

This focus on self-aggrandizement occurred as a government shutdown, triggered by a dispute over healthcare subsidies, became the longest in US history. In a meeting with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, Trump appeared disinterested in negotiating, instead trolling them by placing “Trump 2028” caps on the Resolute Desk.

This disconnect from domestic concerns was reflected in dismal internal polling. A memo from pollster Tony Fabrizio warned that voters felt the administration was failing on affordability—the very issue that had brought Trump back to power—and disapproved of his job performance. Unmoved, Trump’s attention shifted to Venezuela, where his administration escalated its campaign by seizing an oil tanker and ordering a “total and complete blockade” (376), demanding the return of oil assets nationalized in 2007.

In early 2026, the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minnesota resulted in a public-relations disaster. Federal agents killed two white US citizens—intensive care nurse Alex Pretti and mother of three Renee Good—during protests against raids targeting the local Somali community. In the aftermath, Vice President Vance argued for invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy troops against protesters, a radical step that was rejected by other senior staff on legal and political grounds. The fallout ultimately led Trump to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whom Stephen Miller privately blamed for the mission’s chaotic execution.

As domestic crises mounted, Trump’s focus turned to Iran. Spurred by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who saw an opportunity for regime change, Trump began preparing for a second, larger military strike. In a secret February 2026 meeting in the White House Situation Room, Netanyahu presented a plan for a joint US-Israeli assault that he claimed would lead to a popular uprising. CIA Director John Ratcliffe described the regime-change scenario with one word: “farcical.” Secretary of State Rubio added, “In other words, it’s bullshit” (396).

Despite the bleak intelligence assessment and private concerns from top advisors—including Vance, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Caine—Trump was convinced that an attack would succeed. At a go/no-go meeting on February 26, each advisor deferred to Trump’s instincts. At 3:38 pm on February 27, en route to Texas, Trump gave the final order, and Operation Epic Fury began in the early hours of February 28. It was a joint US-Israeli campaign that Trump launched without a congressional vote, without NATO support, and over the private objections of his vice president, chief of staff, and chairman of the joint chiefs.

In March 2026, 17 days into the war with Iran, the authors interviewed President Trump in the Oval Office. The war was already costly, they note, with American casualties and soaring oil prices, but Trump seemed unconcerned. Instead of discussing the conflict, he was preoccupied with ordering maple trees for the White House grounds, boasting about his TikTok engagement, and showing off renderings of a massive new ballroom. Internal polling revealed that the war was deeply unpopular and seen as a broken campaign promise, compounding voters’ anxieties about the economy.

Unreceptive to such feedback, the authors suggest, Trump was operating on pure instinct, emboldened by a belief in his own unrestrained power. When asked if he was the most powerful president in American history, he shared a document written by the caddy of golfer Gary Player. The text argued that Trump’s global reach made him more powerful than historical conquerors and dictators like Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, and Stalin. Trump endorsed the comparison, stating, “He’s right.”

The authors conclude that four years out of office, combined with his legal battles and assassination attempts, paradoxically strengthened Trump. He had shed the restraining influences of his first term and assembled a team of loyalists, allowing him to govern as if the international system didn’t exist. He had become, they believe, the most powerful and unconstrained president of modern times. The interview ended with Trump berating the authors and declaring, “Essentially I won every fucking time” (414).