Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan Say Reporting Trump Book ‘Almost Killed Us’ |
After writing a sweeping and very newsy biography of Donald Trump four years ago, Maggie Haberman didn’t plan to take on another book project — never mind one on the man who has dominated political life (and her own) for the past decade. But after talking with Jonathan Swan, a fellow New York Times reporter deeply sourced in Trumpworld, Haberman and her colleague signed a book deal in 2023. The intention, says Swan, was to capture the “last act of Trump,” and the pair produced (and have since tossed out) reams of reporting on the 2024 election. “It still pains me,” says Swan, but reporting for the book had to “illuminate what we’re living through right now.” And that’s a consequential story: how Trump, with nearly unchecked power and hell-bent on retribution, is trying to remake the presidency and cement his legacy.
In Regime Change, Haberman and Swan meticulously chronicle the first 14 months of Trump’s precedent-shattering second term, from the DOGE-driven gutting of the federal government to the administration’s pressure campaign against cultural institutions, universities, law firms, and the media. The authors reveal conversations in the Oval Office and, shockingly, the Situation Room, where top officials discussed going to war with Iran and containing the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. In the process, they conducted more than 1,000 interviews with a multitude of sources — how many precisely, they won’t say. One source is clear: Donald Trump. In a vivid scene, the president shows the authors a document written by a golf caddy and amateur historian asserting that he is more powerful than any historical figure, from Genghis Khan to Attila the Hun, Mao to Hitler. “He wants to be the Napoleon of this period,” says Swan, “the figure that we see as the capital-G Great man.”
Documenting private meetings and high-level conversations with such specificity, says Swan, is “a very hard thing to do page after page after page.” The “painstaking” reporting process, says Haberman, took a toll. “This book really almost killed both of us physically and mentally,” she says, “and it was well worth it.”
Given the years of extensive reporting, what made the cut and why?
Swan: We don’t do wispy, like, “Trump has been thinking this amorphous thing.” No, no, no. In this room, at this day, at this time, with these people around the table, this is what was said. And that’s a very hard thing to do page after page after page after page after page. That was the discipline of this book, to actually try to penetrate these rooms, which are very well guarded this time.
It’s a government run by half a dozen people, and the most senior people in the U.S. government across agencies have no earthly idea what’s actually happening. There’s this bullshit kind of line: “We’re the most transparent administration ever.” That’s complete nonsense. They’re the best at performing transparency. They’re actually incredibly good at keeping secrets. And you saw that recently in the Iran negotiations. The memorandum of understanding, to end the war. Basically no one had seen that document until it was published. I mean, no one — forget the public — I mean, senior people at the State Department, Pentagon, U.S. intelligence community. They had no idea —
Haberman: — and White House.
Swan: It was a tiny circle. And so actually, for stuff that they really care about, they’re very good at keeping secrets. And that was the challenge of this book. Totally different from term one.
Haberman: Including, by the way, the number of days that I remember us saying to each other, “No one is calling me back.” This was just repeatedly going at the same targets over and over and over again. We were very painstaking.
I think there is a misconception with books that are written in real time, as real-time histories, that everyone is sitting around sort of, Okay, well, give me this and then I’m going to store it in a jar for about a year and a half. That’s not the case.
In terms of how we dealt with things, one example is the excerpt about how Trump went to war. That was published April 7. So it was like six weeks after this war had started, and we killed ourselves over a very small period of time trying to figure out what had happened. It was for the book. We put it in the New York Times because we thought it was really significant and needed to be there as soon as possible.
Without betraying any sources, can you talk a bit about the challenge of reporting on scenes inside the Situation Room — one of the most guarded places in the world — about what was happening inside around Benjamin Netanyahu making a case for war, and then also this moment where aides are trying to handle the Epstein fallout.
Swan: I don’t know how much I really want to say here. But let’s just say it’s hard. And we didn’t give vague accounts. We gave very detailed accounts. Very specific and detailed accounts, with extensive dialogue. And check our work. Is anyone denying what they said in the Situation Room? Has there been a single denial of any of that dialogue? I haven’t heard it. They might now, if Trump gets angry, maybe they will retroactively. But we published those stories now, it’s been weeks, and I haven’t heard a single participant deny the dialogue. It’s not just the intense effort during this period, it’s also the product of years and years of sourcing. I’ve been covering Trump now for 11 consecutive years. Maggie’s been covering him for even longer. It’s only because of that that we can do something like this.
There was a report in Axios that White House officials believed that audio from the Situation Room may have leaked out. Can you say anything about........