After nearly a week of dominating the political news cycle with a steady stream of excerpts, television interviews and behind-the-scenes revelations, “Regime Change,” the new book by veteran journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, has earned perhaps its most predictable review yet: President Donald Trump called it “mostly made up, Fake News, largely fiction.”
In a lengthy Truth Social post Saturday night, Trump dismissed Haberman as a “third rate writer and intellect,” revived his longtime nickname for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist — “Magot [sic] Hagerman” — and accused the authors of fabricating key details. He also denied that Haberman and Swan possess audio recordings “that they imply they have” before pivoting to familiar talking points about the 2024 election and Iran.
The broadside capped a week in which “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump” generated headlines well before its official release, with Haberman and Swan appearing on programs including CBS Mornings, The Daily Show, The View and Morning Joe to discuss the culmination of over two years of reporting and more than 1,000 interviews with administration officials, advisers and others close to Trump.
Rather than centering on a single revelation, the book offers a portrait of what the authors describe as an increasingly insulated White House where loyalty often outweighs dissent and Trump’s personal instincts increasingly shape policy. Swan has described the book as an examination of how Trump has expanded executive authority during his second term, while Haberman has said their reporting focuses on understanding how decisions are made inside the administration.
Still, it is the book’s more startling anecdotes that have fueled much of the public conversation.
Among them are accounts of Trump reportedly showing the authors a document comparing his influence to notorious historical figures including Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Napoleon Bonaparte, Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan — a document the authors later determined had been written not by a historian, but by longtime caddies of Trump ally and Hall of Fame golfer Gary Player.
The book also describes the growing influence of longtime aide Natalie Harp, portraying her as a constant presence who helps manage Trump’s information flow and social media, while other passages detail unusual habits and routines inside the White House. Trump proclaimed Harp’s personal loyalty: “She’ll never leave me.”
Haberman and Swan argue those episodes are not simply colorful anecdotes but illustrations of a presidency increasingly shaped by personal loyalty, image management and a shrinking inner circle.
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Trump, however, rejected the book wholesale, writing that Haberman “continues to spew out garbage” while insisting she had been “wrong about just about everything else.” The president has long responded to unfavorable reporting by attacking the journalists behind it, and Haberman has been one of his most frequent targets over the past decade.
The president’s response adds another chapter to a week in which “Regime Change” remains a fixture of the political news cycle, fueled by excerpts, media appearances and now Trump’s own public rebuke.
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