Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maggie Haberman discussed Trump’s imperial presidency and his administration’s handling of the Epstein files during an appearance on Democracy Now on August 18, 2026, promoting her new book “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” co-authored with fellow New York Times correspondent Jonathan Swan.
Haberman characterized the way Trump has been operating the government during his second term as “a form of regime change in our own country.” She described it as “a reimagining of the U.S. presidency, an expansion of executive power on a level we have not seen before in modern history, in some ways ever.”
The book reveals how Trump’s administration held a series of Situation Room meetings to manage the Epstein files controversy rather than pursue justice for victims. Haberman explained that Trump “wanted nothing to do with” the Epstein matter, even though his name appeared in the files. “It is also what became essentially a crisis comms hub for the Trump team — not the president, he was not in these meetings, but his team — trying to deal with the general issue of the Epstein files,” Haberman said, describing how senior officials including the vice president, attorney general, FBI director, and White House counsel gathered to discuss damage control.
The meetings focused on what to release publicly and how to handle Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate. Haberman noted that the discussions included secondhand allegations from a decade earlier, illustrating how the White House prioritized managing the president’s image over addressing victims’ concerns.
Haberman also detailed Trump’s decision to wage war on Iran, describing an unusual meeting in the Situation Room where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a regime change scenario. Trump moved his seat to sit across from Netanyahu rather than at the head of the table—an unprecedented protocol for a foreign leader’s presence at such a meeting. According to Haberman’s reporting, Netanyahu presented a video of possible Iranian leaders who could replace the regime and portrayed the Iranian government as “fairly easy to topple.” Trump responded with approval, saying something to the effect of “Sounds good to me,” despite concerns from his own advisers about the feasibility of such a plan.
Haberman emphasized that Trump “basically ignored many of his own advisers and just went ahead” with the military action. She noted that Trump believed the Iranian regime was vulnerable based on its response to a previous conflict and his earlier success in the Maduro raid in Venezuela.
The book describes Trump’s government as operating with minimal democratic oversight. “This is a government run by … about a half-dozen people, give or take,” Haberman stated. She highlighted what she called “a total eradication of the norm of DOJ independence that has existed since Watergate,” noting that the White House tasked Attorney General Todd Blanche—then deputy attorney general—with managing the Epstein files because they believed he would be responsive to their directives rather than independent.
Mark Danner, reviewing the book in The New York Review of Books, noted that Haberman and Swan’s account portrays “a president with a vast appetite for power” who has used emergency declarations and executive authority to reshape the government, from mass deportations and tariff impositions to gutting federal agencies and attacking institutions.
The book, published June 23, 2026, became an instant New York Times bestseller and offers an inside account of Trump’s first year of his second presidency, a period Haberman characterizes as fundamentally different from his first term due to the absence of institutional constraints and checks on executive power.
Sources
- Democracy Now! — Maggie Haberman’s August 18, 2026 interview on Trump’s imperial presidency, Epstein files handling, and Iran war decision
- The New York Review of Books — Mark Danner’s review of “Regime Change,” published August 20, 2026, analyzing the book’s portrayal of Trump’s executive power expansion
- Simon and Schuster — Publisher information on “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump” by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, published June 23, 2026
