Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

Published in 2026, Regime Change is a work of political journalism by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Haberman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times and author of the nonfiction bestseller Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America (2022). Swan, also of The New York Times, won an Emmy Award for his celebrated 2020 interview with Donald Trump. Regime Change chronicles the first year of the second Trump administration, beginning in 2025. The book argues that after his 2020 election loss, Trump returned to the White House as an unrestrained “imperial” president using a loyalist team to dismantle institutional norms and fuse state power with his personal and political objectives.

The book explores how the administration’s actions are driven by a desire for retribution and an unyielding assertion of authority. The book’s themes include The Consolidation of Executive Power, which the authors illustrate through Trump’s use of unilateral military force and emergency declarations to bypass Congress and the courts. It also examines Loyalty at the Expense of Governance, depicting an administration where personal fealty is prioritized over competence, leading to chaotic policy implementation and the appointment of unqualified but devoted loyalists. Finally, the book details The Weaponization of the Justice System, arguing that the Department of Justice has been transformed into an instrument for the president’s personal vendettas against his political and institutional enemies.

This guide refers to the 2026 Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, illness, death, physical abuse, emotional abuse, racism, transgender discrimination, and cursing.

Summary

In Regime Change, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan argue that Donald Trump’s second term, beginning in 2025, represents the culmination of his transformation of the American presidency into an imperial presidency. The authors’ central thesis is that Trump’s four years out of power—an interregnum marked by criminal indictments, a felony conviction, and two assassination attempts—fortified his resolve and furnished him with a loyalist team, a legal framework of broad immunity, and a perceived public mandate to govern without the institutional constraints that had frustrated his first term. This second administration is characterized by a fusion of state power with Trump’s personal, political, and financial objectives, all executed through a highly centralized and impulsive decision-making process. The book chronicles the first year of this presidency, documenting a systematic campaign to dismantle norms, punish enemies, and project an unassailable image of strength at home and abroad.

The administration’s first hundred days were a “whirlwind” of unilateral action designed to shock the system. Trump installed a cabinet vetted for personal loyalty, with figures like Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth empowered to enact his agenda without question. One of the first major initiatives was the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, a temporary agency led by billionaire businessman Elon Musk to radically slash the federal bureaucracy. The effort quickly descended into chaos, the authors argue, disrupting essential services and creating intense conflict with established cabinet secretaries. The move signaled the administration’s preference for disruptive outsiders over governmental expertise. Simultaneously, Trump planned an upheaval of global trade, culminating in “Liberation Day,” when he imposed a sweeping tariff regime based on his own impromptu formula. The move threw global markets into turmoil, pushing the economy to the brink of a crisis and demonstrating his willingness to risk stability to assert American dominance and fulfill his long-held protectionist ideology.

With the initial power plays established, the administration turned its focus inward, embarking on a wide-ranging retribution campaign. Trump used the Justice Department and executive orders to target the individuals and institutions he blamed for his legal and political troubles. This included investigations into former officials like James Comey of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and prosecutors like New York Attorney General Letitia James. The campaign expanded to target private entities, including major law firms and universities like Harvard, which faced a coordinated assault of funding freezes and regulatory threats designed to force their compliance with the administration’s ideological agenda. This period was also defined by a self-inflicted political crisis over the Epstein files. The administration’s clumsy attempts to manage the release of documents concerning the deceased sex offender—driven by Trump’s desire to bury the issue—backfired, fueling conspiracy theories and revealing deep fractures within the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base.

As the year progressed, the administration’s tactics grew more extreme. The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk provided the pretext for a severe domestic crackdown. Guided by Stephen Miller, the White House deployed federal agents and military troops to cities like Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Chicago, Illinois, targeting what it labeled as left-wing “domestic terrorist” networks and testing the legal limits of presidential power, including discussions around invoking the Insurrection Act. 

This aggressive domestic posture was matched by an increasingly belligerent foreign policy. Trump’s transactional and bullying approach led to a dramatic confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a high-stakes effort to coerce Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into a ceasefire deal with Hamas. This aggressiveness culminated in Trump’s decision to take the US to war with Iran. Portrayed as a snap decision made with little process and against the private misgivings of key advisors like Vice President JD Vance, the war represents the ultimate expression of Trump’s unilateral, unbound presidency.

Running parallel to these political and military developments was what the authors call “plunder.” The Trump family and their associates openly leveraged the presidency for unprecedented financial gain, most notably through cryptocurrency ventures like World Liberty Financial, which secured massive investments from foreign sovereign wealth funds, putting business before the US government. 

The book concludes with the authors’ interview with Trump, who remained triumphant and unconcerned by the chaos of his first year. He confirmed the book’s thesis by arguing that his 2020 election loss and subsequent struggles were precisely what enabled his current, unparalleled power. He has effectively remade the presidency, the authors suggest, into a vehicle for his personal will, leaving behind a shattered institutional landscape and an uncertain future for American democracy.