Haberman and Swan discuss “Regime Change,” their account of President Trump’s second-term use of executive power

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, veteran White House reporters, discussed their new book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” in an interview aired by PBS NewsHour on July 2, outlining what they describe as the structure and culture of power in President Donald Trump’s second term. The reporters said they drew on hundreds of conversations with people around the president and federal officials to portray an administration they contend was less constrained by earlier norms. They said the access allowed them to describe decision-making inside the White House at a granular level, including how officials close to Trump approached major policy choices during the first year of the second presidency.

In the PBS interview, Haberman and Swan framed the book around the idea of an “unconstrained” presidency, saying sources who spoke to them were willing to do so because they believed readers should understand how the president’s authority was being used and how internal actors perceived their own roles. The book, published by Simon & Schuster, is described by related reporting as covering the first 14 months of Trump’s second presidency. One external event listing also characterizes the work as being based on hundreds of interviews and describes the partnership between Haberman and Swan as they take readers inside the “oval office” to discuss how executive authority was applied across issues including immigration and the economy.

Haberman and Swan’s discussion also included their broader account of how executive power can shape outcomes across the federal government, including through approaches they say relied heavily on the president’s preferences. They described the reporting effort as a multi-year project, and said the exchanges they conducted with people familiar with White House operations helped them interpret how policy decisions were carried out. While the PBS conversation centered on themes of power and governance rather than on a single new government action, it comes as the administration continues to issue formal policy documents and presidential messages through official channels. Separate material published on the White House website in recent months includes fact sheets and presidential briefings on topics ranging from agriculture to cybersecurity, reflecting the ongoing flow of executive-branch initiatives during the same general period the book addresses.

For readers, the practical impact of the book’s reporting is less about an immediate change in policy and more about the public record of how executive authority was exercised internally, including how officials described the incentives and pressures operating within the White House. The next step for verifying specific claims about particular decisions will be to compare the book’s descriptions with official statements, agency actions, and court records as they become available.

The interview adds to an ongoing public debate about executive power and institutional limits in the second term, but Haberman and Swan’s account is presented as journalistic synthesis rather than as an official finding by any court or oversight body. As with prior reporting of this kind, specific allegations about individuals’ conduct and decision-making would require corroboration through contemporaneous documentation.

Haberman and Swan’s PBS appearance serves as a launch platform for the book’s themes, which they say are grounded in extensive interviews. The reporters said their goal was to explain how the presidency functioned from the inside during the early phase of the second term, including what they believe sources wanted the public to understand about how power was applied.