Shocking Political Bombshells in Regime Change Book Shake Trump’s Second Term Narrative

A 496-page monument of revelatory reporting built on more than a thousand interviews over three years, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan is not merely a political biography. It is an autopsy of American democratic guardrails conducted while the patient is still technically breathing.

The thesis is simple. Trump himself believes that losing 2020 made him stronger. His first term was an education: he spent four years identifying exactly who stood between him and unconstrained power. Those people are gone. What remains is a White House without a check in sight, and a man operating entirely on gut instinct with no one who dares challenge him.

The man at its centre believes he is the most powerful human being who has ever lived. He showed Haberman and Swan a document arguing he surpassed Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler because none of them had airplanes. The document's supposed author was a historian. The actual author was a golf caddy and personal confidant of golfer Gary Player. Trump posted it on Truth Social with "Sounds good to me!" The intellectual architecture of this extraordinary claim rests on a fairway.

The book reveals a president in visible physical decline. Trump turned 80 in his second term and aides have begun saying privately that for the first time he is beginning to seem old. His hearing has deteriorated so badly that joint press conferences are now held in the Oval Office rather than the East Room because the acoustics are better and he does not have to stand for an hour. Whatever thin verbal filter he had before is now entirely gone.

His nocturnal habits are equally revealing. White House staff scramble each morning to clean up empty potato chip bags, Starbucks wrappers, and ice cream cartons left on the bedroom floor. Staff were forced to monitor the trash after discovering the president was throwing out White House sterling silver utensils at midnight. He also reportedly fixed golden Oval Office embellishments himself with superglue.

The Iran war chapter is the most consequential section of the book. At the final Situation Room meeting on 26 February 2026, two days before the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright were not in the loop. Nor was Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. A group of five or six people and Donald Trump were running the country. The war that followed cost an estimated $113 billion, killed 16 Americans, injured hundreds more, and caused thousands of deaths in Lebanon and Iran. The Strait of Hormuz has not returned to pre-war shipping levels. While all of this unfolded, Trump was reportedly preoccupied with buying maple trees.

The loyalty test for this White House is January 6. Anyone near the centre of power must affirm the Capitol assault was a patriotic act. Trump repeatedly told aides he planned to preemptively pardon "anyone who came within 250 feet of the Oval Office" before his term ended, a standing licence for impunity.

India features in a pointed Oval Office exchange. When Vance suggested Indian troops oversee a Ukraine ceasefire in January 2025, Trump chuckled and dismissed it. " The Indians do not ever pay for anything, " he said. India was never informed of the proposal.

The Netanyahu relationship is the book's most contradictory thread. Netanyahu privately nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize at a White House dinner. Trump privately called Netanyahu a "con man." When Netanyahu delivered a forceful Situation Room presentation on Iran, the CIA director called it "farcical" and Rubio dismissed it. Trump was swayed regardless.

Silicon Valley's chapter is mortifying. Zuckerberg gave Trump a handwritten letter from his own daughter expressing excitement about "the golden age of America." Trump showed it to Elon Musk, who called his rivals' efforts "first-class groveling." Bezos criticised his own newspaper to Trump and lobbied for space contracts that would benefit Blue Origin. Trump said he would consider it. He never did.

The Epstein chapter triggered a full internal war. After the DOJ declared there was no client list, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino erupted at Attorney General Pam Bondi in a Justice Department meeting. "You f---ed this thing up from the start," he shouted. Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel subsequently told a White House official Bondi needed to resign.

Regime Change is a meticulous account of what happens when a man identifies every obstacle between himself and absolute power and then, given a second chance, removes each one. A tiny circle. A war planned in secret. A president fixing his own gold decor with superglue while his treasury secretary waits outside the room. The golf caddy, presumably, is unavailable for comment.