Inside Trump’s American regime change

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Simon & Schuster, £28

Ghengis Khan. Adolf Hitler. Alexander the Great. President Donald Trump relished an assessment that compared him to such historical figures and framed him as the most powerful man ever to live. He made no moral distinctions between the persons mentioned, whether Julius Caesar or Joseph Stalin, and savoured seeing his name atop a pantheon of epoch-defining leaders. He told reporters that this assessment had been made by a ‘historian’, when in actual fact it had been written by a former caddy of the great South African golfer, Gary Player.

As humorous as it is unsettling, Trump’s delight in being likened to tyrants and dictators highlights two key aims at the core of his presidency: power and legacy. In Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan provide the first major examination into the second Trump administration. The veteran New York Times journalists have covered Trump for years, with Haberman known in Washington as the ‘Trump whisperer’. They argue that Trump 2.0 represents a new form of presidency, and that, in fact, he is better off for having lost the 2024 election, as this allowed him both to avoid the troubles Biden faced and regain control of the Republican Party after the insurrection of 6 January 2021.

It also gave this master of strategic communications time to rehabilitate those failures through narrative inventions like ‘Stop the Steal’, to smash the prosecutions that threatened him, and to surround himself with die-hard supporters of his future ambitions.

As well as providing an insight into Trump’s personality – which can be driven by conspiracy and grievance, and rejects information that does not confirm to his views – and examining his determination to reshape the United States and the world in his own image, Regime Change paints a picture of a president who is unrestrained by norms or laws. Trump is willing to take great risks to become a world-historical figure.

Regime Change makes clear that it is not Trump that has changed but the presidency, since traditional norms, guardrails and mechanisms of accountability have been degraded. Many of the events and dynamics depicted here are not so much new phenomena in American history – rather, it is their scope. For example, several presidents have had a domineering streak or chafed over working with Congress, and many have had poor or even adversarial relations with the intelligence services. But no president has concentrated power and decision-making so fully in himself and a few selected loyalists; none has so bent the levers of state power to his personal will; and none has so ignored or actively disdained expertise, the processes of state action and the intelligence provided to challenge assumptions and reduce uncertainty.

In underscoring the nature and preoccupations of the White House, Regime Change reveals a presidency wholly unrestrained in its pursuit of the objectives of one very idiosyncratic decision-maker. From a national security perspective, President Trump’s politicisation of the intelligence services as he seeks to forge his world-historical legacy may do lasting damage to the capacity of the US intelligence community. Above all, he risks blundering into strategic miscalculations that could weaken American security and spark unpredictable global change.

It is true that in some respects the Trump presidency is nothing new. With enormous power placed in their hands, all presidents seek to shape their approach to intelligence and security and organise their methods of decision-making in ways that bear the mark of their unique personalities. Whether it be John F. Kennedy’s collegial discussions, George H.W. Bush’s pragmatic processes, or Obama’s lawyerly debates, each administration is formed around the personal preferences of its leader. In this regard, Trump is no different. In his White House, Trump is the sun in his advisory solar system, and he has constructed a team devoted to his MAGA-oriented, deal-making vision of foreign policy, which is willing to bypass formal bureaucracy to deliver what he demands.

What is new is the extent of the president’s personality quirks, including a remarkable absence of ideology or belief systems, and a commitment to legacy on an earth-changing scale, demanding even the annexation of Greenland and Canada. While Trump can be impulsive, in Regime Change it seems that he can also be ‘programmable’, for he appears to make momentous decisions through a closed loop of grievance, flattery, conspiracy and personal loyalty. He is unusually easy to manipulate because he responds less to facts than to cues – who praises him, who feeds his resentments, who validates his suspicions, who frames policy as revenge against his enemies.

In that environment, intelligence is not valued because it is accurate. Rather, it is prized when it confirms what Trump believes. Expertise and process can be seen as obstacles and the national interest becomes crossed with the president’s demand for loyalty and vindication. Of course, intelligence can sometimes cut against political preferences, but a critical role of intelligence services is to speak truth to power – to present the best information, no matter how politically inconvenient.

Although Trump’s demand that intelligence should support his decisions cannot be seen as entirely novel, when one combines it with his priority that it fit his preferred narratives, the politicisation can become especially acute. Take his infamous decision in Helsinki in July 2018 to side with Vladimir Putin over the claims of US intelligence on whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, presumably over concern for his own legitimacy. During Trump 2.0, after the US and Israel conducted strikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities known as the Twelve Day War, the president acted quickly to politicise intelligence in terms of both justification and results. First, he rejected the assessment of his then Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who questioned the claim that Iran was close to a bomb, and seemed to publicly pressure her to revise her view. Then a report from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was leaked, which contradicted the president’s claim that the strikes had ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The White House reacted furiously, calling the early ‘low confidence’ assessment ‘fake news’, threatening to subpoena reporters for their sources, while Trump threatened to sue the New York Times and CNN.

In Regime Change, Haberman and Swan make clear that the president can dismiss intelligence assessments about globe-changing matters of life and death – even from the highest levels, even when reinforced by members of his loyal coterie. A critical moment came in mid-February 2026, when Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu made a hard pitch for Trump to join him in attacking Iran. The next day, Trump’s senior advisers dismantled the Israeli argument: CIA Director John Ratcliffe addressed Netanyahu’s optimistic proposal for regime change in Iran and called it ‘farcical’. To make the point, Secretary of State Marco Rubio interjected to say: ‘In other words, it’s bullshit.’

Others voiced similar scepticism, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, who said that this had been, ‘in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us and that’s why they’re hard selling’.

Nevertheless, Trump dismissed these warnings and launched the war anyway, unconcerned whether regime change in Tehran took place or not; there was no plan for war in the case that it did not. To be fair to the president, no one offered to resign. When television personality Tucker Carlson phoned Trump, worried that if he launched the war it could ruin his presidency, Trump reassured him that ‘it’s going to be okay’. Carlson asked how he knew. ‘Because it always is’, Trump replied.

The president’s disregard of the nation’s intelligence services, his demand that they either pursue his personal projects or produce what he wants to hear is a dangerous and self-defeating cycle with an exponential impact. If one politicises the intelligence services by demanding they tell you what you want to hear, over time they become worse at speaking truth to power. Consequently, the president receives worse information, and is therefore likely to make worse decisions, and so on. The fact that senior officials such as Ratcliffe, Rubio and Caine, despite their warnings about the campaign or Israeli plans, could not do more with US intelligence, including on how Iran might block the Strait of Hormuz, helps to demonstrate the president’s disregard for opposing views and control over US powers of war and peace. Faced with this troubling reality, the US intelligence services risk falling under the same shadow as other key aspects of the American government: serving one man above the interests of the nation.

Regime Change depicts a president who has not grown more disciplined or strategically minded with experience. Instead, he has become less restrained. The guardrails and laws that once slowed him down have been weakened, bypassed or removed. In their place is a national security system increasingly shaped by loyalty tests, personal vendettas, conspiracy entrepreneurs and improvisation.

Again, animosity between the White House and the intelligence community is nothing new. Presidents have frequently clashed with their espionage officials when they have not told them what they want to hear. One must only look to Lyndon Johnson neglecting CIA reports on Vietnam, Richard Nixon blasting the Agency as ‘clowns’, or George W. Bush’s politicisation of intelligence prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq to see examples that herald Trump’s practices. Yet, while the past includes many such precedents, Swan and Haberman show that Trump 2.0 is reaching new extremes.

Good decision-making on matters of national security depends on a disciplined process. Intelligence assessments, legal review, inter-agency debate, diplomatic expertise, military judgment, and congressional consultation all exist for a reason. They test assumptions, expose wishful thinking and force presidents to confront facts they may not want to hear before lives are put at risk.

These processes were in short enough supply in Trump 1.0, when the president was unsure of himself in the role and had surrounded himself with establishment figures who viewed him as a danger and actively pushed back on his impulses. General Mark Milley, for example, ‘argued vehemently with Trump and… saw his role as stopping the President from taking dangerous or reckless actions’. Bob Woodward described another such incident in his book, Fear, when the president ordered his Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, to develop plans to assassinate then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Mattis promised to develop such plans, but essentially ignored the directive.

Haberman and Swan highlight how this friction has been removed. During the decision-making considerations prior to the 2026 Iran War, General Caine was prepared to offer only options rather than substantive advice. They make clear that in contrast to Milley’s more interventionist approach, Caine did not voice the extent of his concerns. When the warnings he had voiced were published in the press five days before the war, Caine was ‘distressed’. The president simply rejected the reports and said that Caine believed the war would be ‘something easily won’ – something Caine had never actually said.

The instinct of Trump and his small decision-making group is to reject the discipline that is instilled by rigorous processes. This is why he falls prey to misguided assumptions and wishful thinking. Many in the administration treat expertise as a sign of disloyalty and dissent as sabotage, making the White House vulnerable to manipulation by people who have no business being near serious national security decisions. The National Security Council (NSC) – which under previous administrations had hundreds of personnel with expertise from across the US government – has become almost irrelevant under Trump 2.0. Take the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, for example, who could reportedly trigger firings at the NSC and about whom the Vice President apparently quipped: ‘Why do we have the CIA when we have Laura Loomer?’

The same danger appears in Trump’s use of national security institutions for personal purposes. Haberman and Swan report that Trump nominated John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA on the condition that he would ‘shred’ the organisation. They also describe Tulsi Gabbard being used for ‘personal-revenge missions’. If intelligence leaders are tasked with helping the president to pursue his enemies, rather than with helping him to understand threats facing the country, then the intelligence community becomes a tool for settling personal grievance rather than a shield for protecting the United States.

The president has appointed relatively inexperienced loyalists as Director of National Intelligence, starting with Gabbard, who cut the 1,800-strong staff of the Office Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) by about 30 per cent. After firing Gabbard, Trump appointed former head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, whose main national security qualifications seem to stem from supporting the president’s campaigns against various enemies, including making criminal referrals of alleged mortgage fraud against New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook – neither vendetta has so far fared well in the courts. Despite the fact that normally pliant Republican lawmakers have balked at Pulte’s appointment, under instructions from Trump the acting-DNI has initiated the firing of dozens of officials from the ODNI. One target has been the National Intelligence Council (NIC), a key analysis unit, with 20 NIC officials removed or chosen to leave, including senior officials focused on Russia and China.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Julia Curlee, who served as director for intelligence programmes in the Trump White House until last year, said: ‘Reasonable people can debate ODNI’s size and mission, but sacking dozens of seasoned officers in your first week isn’t reform – it’s performative firing to please a president who treats his own intelligence community as the enemy within.’

The consequences are not purely academic. The book details how decisions over war and peace are often made depending on who last spoke to the president, who has no recognisable belief system nor ideology. Life and death choices are made without serious institutional input, without stable policy and without the officials responsible for managing the fallout. On Iran, key decisions were reportedly not driven by a disciplined intelligence process or strategic consensus. Senior officials were excluded, and neither Congress nor America’s closest allies consulted.

From an intelligence and national security perspective, Haberman and Swan’s book reveals an administration driven by a few people and in the service of one man that intentionally disregards the intelligence, the experts and the processes that have come to define American statecraft.

While historians are quick to locate precedents in the past, this does not mean Trump’s deviations should be dismissed as typical presidential behaviour. Abuses of power in the pursuit of legacy are not uncommon in the history of the presidency. Yet the second Trump administration has become even more personalised and gone to extraordinary lengths to satisfy the desires of the president. When he indulges in sustained grievances against political opponents, makes foreign policy decisions on gut instinct or corrupted information, demands territorial concessions from allies and openly justifies using the presidency for personal enrichment, there is cause for concern.

The remaining years of the Trump administration will present new, possibly even more dangerous, challenges. One must hope that Congressional oversight – which has essentially collapsed under the current Republican majority in both chambers of Congress – can return after the 2026 mid-terms and an expected Democratic victory in the House of Representatives. But the harm inflicted on the intelligence and national security community, from rampant firings and a decline of international trust, may be the gravest impact and enduring legacy of Trump 2.0. It will take many years to rebuild the partnerships with agents and colleagues across the world, and the institutional knowledge lost via redundancies will be immense. The effort to rebuild the reputation of the CIA after the challenges of Vietnam, Nixon and the Church Committee may offer some insights into how the work of recovery might begin.

Haberman and Swan make clear that, for all the irony, Trump was in fact fortunate to lose the 2020 election to Joe Biden, as this enabled him to position himself for his next run and construct a team of diehard supporters. It is a marvel of historical contingency that, while the president continues to deny this electoral defeat, he has privately acknowledged how it served his purposes. Those concerned by the conduct of this second administration can find comfort in the fact that the same historical contingency that supported Trump continues to work in the background. Those in power today may think that history is always working out for them, that they keep ‘winning’ despite all the odds and the forces against them – but the past tells us that this tends to be an illusion. To imagine that a power as potent, complex and unpredictable as historical contingency is and will always remain on your side leads to a hubris that will, in the end, be self-defeating – at least according to our best intelligence.

Written with the input of Ronan Mainprize and Marc Polymeropoulos.