Inside the Trump White House

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Maybe you've already been hearing about the new book by New York Times, White House reporters, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, called Regime Change Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. Maybe you know about it because it's not just an analysis of Trump's second term. The book and a few Times articles on the way to the book have made real news about what's been going on inside the Situation Room, like about how the Epstein files paralyzed the White House, they use the word paralyzed, and on their decision to attack Iran against the advice of almost everyone except Benjamin Netanyahu. But the book also has Trump telling Netanyahu regarding Gaza that, all the Jews are sick of you. You don't need any more prelude than that. Again, the title of the book is Regime Change Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.
By New York Times, White House reporters, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Maggie and Jonathan, thanks for sharing your reporting with us. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Maggie Haberman** (1:13)
Brian, thanks for having us.

**Jonathan Swan** (1:15)
Thanks so much.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:16)
So before we get into Epstein and Iran and Netanyahu and more, why in your subtitle, The Imperial Presidency? Maggie, why that word?

**Maggie Haberman** (1:25)
Well, a couple of things, Brian. We, as we were reporting out this book, it became very clear to us, and this book was the product of several years of reporting, although we focus on the first 14 months of President Trump's second term. One of the key facets of this presidency so far is a massive expansion of executive power, either powers that have been gray areas or powers that Trump is simply claiming, that had either been held by Congress or had been checked by either inspectors general or judges have weighed in on.
It's simply a reflection of how Donald Trump wants to govern and frankly, how many of his advisors believe that the only branch of government with any real standing is the executive branch. I don't think that was especially surprising in terms of the Regime Change piece. It also became clear to us that this was not a normal transfer, not just a transfer of power, but from one political party to another. Donald Trump is fundamentally changing the way this country and frankly, the world looks at the American presidency possibly forever, but certainly right now.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:54)
And Jonathan, still on the word Imperial, would you say Trump had a vision of a new American imperialism that he came into the second term with? Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Iran?

**Jonathan Swan** (3:09)
There's no question.
When we sat down with President Trump at the end of the process of reporting this book, March the 16th, we're in the Oval Office, it's the 17th day of the war with Iran, Donald Trump handed us a two-page document that he said was written by a historian, and he wanted us to read it and sat there watching us while we read it and he started to read it. And the document said the first sentence was something to the effect of Donald Trump is the most powerful man who's ever existed, who's ever lived on the planet. And then it went on to compare him not to former American presidents, not to small D democratic leaders, but rather to figures like Napoleon, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the Caesars, William the Conqueror, shape the world and put his stamp on America, both in a literal way by building monuments to himself, but also by taking huge risks and big bold moves like pushing for regime change in Venezuela, authorizing that operation to snatch Maduro, taking America into war again in the Middle East in Iran without even talking to Congress. I mean, remember when this country went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as flawed as the decision-making was, there was a process and they went to Congress, which of course under the Constitution is the branch of government that has the authority to declare war. There was approval from Congress. Trump didn't even talk to Congress. When we talk about Imperial Presidency, it's not just exercise of unilateral power, but it's also reshaping the world, putting his imprint on the world in a way that in Trump's mind, I think he wasn't comparing himself in a moral sense to those other leaders, but more that they were the great figures, capital G, great figures of their time, and we're still talking about them. I think that's where he wants to put himself for history.

**Brian Lehrer** (5:14)
Power, power, power. Just one other thing on Venezuela, Jonathan, you have Trump telling some of his people that Venezuela could be the 51st state and he would have appointed governor to run it. He wasn't serious about that. Was he about a territory that far away and with a Latino, Spanish-speaking population very much like people he's trying very hard to deport as many of us as he can?