July 11, 2026 • 52 mins
John Ellis talks with The New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about their book, Regime Change, an account of Donald Trump’s second presidency. They discuss how power operates inside a White House built around speed, instinct, and direct access to the president, often with little traditional process. The conversation covers Stephen Miller’s influence, Trump’s tariff decisions, the role of tech executives, the administration’s handling of the Epstein files, and the path to war with Iran. Haberman and Swan also describe the unusual figures who shape Trump’s information flow, the limits of internal dissent, and the tension between his visible stamina and questions about his age and health. It is a detailed look at an administration moving quickly, personally, and with few institutional brakes.
Hosted by John Ellis
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the News Items Podcast.
I'm John Ellis.
I am the founder and editor oftwo Substack newsletters.
One is called News Items, theother is called Political News
Items, and you can find themboth at news-items.com.
My guests today are MaggieHaberman and Jonathan Swann.
(00:21):
They are the authors of afantastic new book called Regime
Change inside the ImperialPresidency of Donald Trump.
How they got this book out is amystery to me.
So my first question is, are youboth married still, or did this
cause the end, so to speak?
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
John, you're touching on a far more sensitive
nerve than you might evenimagine.
So uh we are both still marriedto our respective partners.
SPEAKER_02 (00:49):
Correct.
But they're not they're veryhappy to have this done.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
It was not beloved in my household.
SPEAKER_02 (00:55):
The process was certainly not beloved in mine.
The book itself is beloved, butnot the process.
SPEAKER_03 (00:59):
Aaron Powell How long did it take to do I mean
obviously the reporting wasongoing.
Maggie, you told me that you hada book contract almost
immediately after Trump waselected.
You obviously split thereportorial duties, but when you
actually sat down to do thebook, you both had book leave
from the New York Times.
How long did it take from pointA to publication by Simon and
(01:22):
Schuster?
SPEAKER_02 (01:23):
I don't think we can completely quantify it.
The book contract was actuallysigned in 2023 because we both,
you know, Jonathan came to theTimes in January, and he had
been a uh a a very difficulthuman to compete against, and I
was very happy that uh he camehere.
He's also uh a fantasticcollaborator and colleague and
an immense talent.
But we realized that we werecovering, you know, envisioning
(01:46):
this as the last act of Trump,whether that was court cases
that were going to endpotentially with a with a you
know a prison sentence, whichwas in fact a real possibility
at the time, or whether it wasgoing to be him back in the
White House, but that we hadsomething that we could tell a
unique story about and provideunique reporting on.
And then by the time we got intothe first term the first year of
(02:09):
the term, the the volume ofactivity was so huge from the
administration that it becamevery clear to us early on that
we were covering somethingvastly different than a even
frankly, even then the Trumphandoff to Biden in 2020.
This was just a fundamental seachange of what a a US presidency
looks like, which is why thetitle is what it is in terms of
(02:30):
regime change.
But we had to jettison like 99%of our reporting.
And we started the writing.
God, I don't even rememberexactly when we started the
writing.
We started the writing, I think,fairly early last year,
Jonathan.
Am I right about that?
SPEAKER_00 (02:43):
I would say for real, for real, it kind of was
like June, July, June last yearwhen we really started the
writing.
Basically, we've got thousandsof pages of reported scenes and
things that we have that that ison the cutting room floor.
And we were reporting andwriting somewhat in real time
for about a year and a halfbefore we started the actual
(03:03):
writing of the book in earnest.
I took 10 months off from theTimes.
Maggie took five and a half off.
Yeah.
Five and a half.
We took a lot of time off for itvery at a at a very, you know,
high stakes moment.
So the Times was very good withus.
Quite very supportive.
SPEAKER_03 (03:18):
So Trump was elected in 2024, obviously, with 49.8%
of the vote, had 230,000 votesgone the other way in Wisconsin,
Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Kamala Harris would havereceived 270 elector votes and
would have been electedpresident of the United States.
Trump describes this as one ofthe greatest, if not the
(03:39):
greatest, landslide in Americanpolitical history.
Does he believe that?
Or is that just uh, you know, away of positioning himself as
more powerful than he in factmight be?
SPEAKER_02 (03:50):
I don't know how to quantify whether he believes it
or not.
I think there's a very longhistory of him saying everything
that he does at which hesucceeds, or frankly, even the
things he doesn't are a massivesuccess.
And so the the salesman aspectis is is key.
He had this line in the 90s whenhe was giving someone a tour of
Mar-a-Lago, and uh he was sayingsomething like that, you know,
(04:13):
we have the we want acompetition for the best doors
or something like that.
And he said to the person, theword the best is very the the
phrase the best is veryimportant to me.
And that, you know, you see thatplay out on a number of fronts.
What I do think it is, is himunderlining the fact that I
mean, look, he he was the firstRepublican to win the the
popular vote in 20 years.
And so I think it was justunderscoring how legitimate this
(04:37):
win was.
You know, his his last one wastwo in 2016, but he did not win
the popular vote, and it wasunder a cloud of investigations.
So that's always been how Iinterpret that.
SPEAKER_03 (04:46):
Aaron Powell And there was a document that was
prepared by I think the AmericanFirst Policy Institute, and I
think the Heritage Foundationhad a similar document that sort
of sketched out what Trump woulddo with this mandate.
How much has that been followedby by the administration?
Has that really framed whatthey've been up to, or is that
(05:08):
something that, you know,changed as things went along?
SPEAKER_00 (05:11):
Mostly I think you're probably referring to
Project 2025, which was theheritage effort.
AF, the American First Policy,had a bunch of stuff.
Look, American First Policyended up being much more
involved in the transition thanheritage because Project 2025
became so politically toxicduring 2024 that the Trump
people sort of distancedthemselves from them.
In reality, a lot of the peoplewho were involved at different
(05:33):
levels in Project 2025 ended upgoing into the administration.
Russ Vose is the most prominentexample, going in as budget
director.
He was a very central figure inProject 2025.
Look, a bunch of Project 2025policy ended up becoming
administration policy, but Idon't think that's so much
because they sat down and said,well, this is our blueprint.
It was more of a menu of thingsthat, you know, people agreed
(05:55):
with or didn't agree with,picked and choosed.
And, you know, you see some AFPideas come through, but it
didn't end up being this sort ofguiding light.
And certainly when it comes toissues that Trump himself cares
about, like trade and foreignpolicy, those efforts are
completely irrelevant, couldn'tbe more irrelevant, have had no
bearing whatsoever on anythingthat Trump has done.
(06:17):
There may be areas where theyintersect, but not because
anyone's following a blueprint.
SPEAKER_02 (06:21):
There's also a whole downstream list of uh items that
Trump, at least I think to thebest of our knowledge, isn't
especially interested in,doesn't pay much attention to.
A lot of it is intricate agencypolicy.
And that is the kind of thingthat Russ Vogt is very
interested in, or Stephen Milleris very interested in.
And so those things may be goingon, but it's not because Trump
is saying get that done.
SPEAKER_03 (06:42):
Aaron Powell That's a great thing in the at the, I
guess the last chapter of yourbook where you're meeting with
him to fact check and sort offinish up uh your research, and
Trump says he's off to sign someexecutive orders that he has no
idea.
Uh, not even sure what I'msigning.
SPEAKER_02 (07:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (07:00):
The thing that just surprises me is that the
administration is incrediblyactive on any number of fronts.
You have the presidentincredibly active on social
media, watching TV, talking topeople about what's going on in
the official business, thenmeeting people, you know, the
five-minute photo op kind ofthing.
How much does Trump know aboutwhat the administration is
(07:24):
doing?
SPEAKER_02 (07:24):
Aaron Powell It's a good question.
And I I think that it depends onwhat the issue is.
You know, one of the things thatwe talk about in the book is how
the immense power of StephenMiller as Trump's top domestic
policy advisor is not properlyunderstood, but it's certainly
seen uh throughout any number ofactions.
One of the things that was verystriking about the whole signal
(07:46):
gate controversy where they werediscussing the battle plans in a
in a signal chat group was thatStephen Miller was the final
word that everybody heard from.
The president wants this and wemove forward.
And Stephen is very involved ina number of a number of matters.
He part of how he succeeds is hewill say, you know, that he
speaks as if he has thepresident's authority in
(08:07):
conversations not with Trump andthe, you know, the president
wants this, the president sayshe wants this.
And his his statements on thosethings are very rarely
challenged.
So does Trump know everythingthat is happening?
Almost certainly not.
For instance, you know, I'llgive you an example in the book.
We described Stephen Millerbeing quite surprised to learn
that that Christy Nohm at DHSwas requisitioning a bunch of
(08:29):
warehouses that were going to bemorphed into detention centers
for migrants.
And he thought that was anincredibly stupid use of money
and of of time.
There's no chance that thatTrump knew about that.
Or I shouldn't say no, but it'sextremely unlikely.
But on major items like tradepolicy, like sanctions, you
(08:50):
know, you can go down the list,they won't make a move unless
he's consulted.
So it just depends on the issue.
SPEAKER_00 (08:55):
There are whole vast areas of the federal government
in which he has zero interestand couldn't tell you like there
are whole departments andagencies that he has never
learned what they do or paid anyattention to.
You know, he spends zero timethinking about the activities of
HUD, of housing and urbandevelopment, of transportation,
of health and human services.
Nobody spent less time thinkingabout healthcare policy than
(09:18):
Donald Trump.
So there are whole areas of thegovernment, EPA, where the
secretaries are completelyautonomous.
He he sort of gives them aattaboy pat on the back if he
sees a segment on Fox that givesthem good press, you know, great
job.
I remember talking to onecabinet secretary in the first
term, and they told me thatTrump's marching orders to them
when they took over this agency,an agency he cares nothing about
(09:41):
to this day, and Trump'sinstructions was just win.
I just want you to go and win.
And so they interpreted that tomean I'm just gonna do whatever
I think is right until I hearotherwise.
And they basically never heardfrom him.
I mean, very rarely he wouldtalk to them at a cabinet
meeting or whatever, but that'sstill the case.
SPEAKER_02 (09:57):
And to the extent that he pays attention to
something like H I'll just addone thing, to HHS or, you know,
the EPA, it's because he has,you know, oil executives or
industry, you know, energyexecutives coming in to meet
with him.
And HHS, it's because of thissynergy that he has with RFK Jr.
and this interest in what hedoes.
And Trump is, you know, has beena a a vaccine skeptic for a very
(10:22):
long time.
But, you know, I mean, Trump itit just depends on the issue.
In term one, he was interestedin HHS so much as it related to
like vaping policy.
But it's on very, very discreteissues.
I don't think he would even bethinking about the Department of
Labor were it not for the factthat there's a scandal involving
the head of it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:38):
I think he was complaining recently about how
boring it was when Mehmet Oz wastrying to describe to him
Medicare policy on a planeflight.
So so yes, I agree.
Like when the farmer executivescome in, it it's usually when
someone complains aboutsomething or there's bad press,
for sure.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Generally speaking, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (10:54):
One of the things that bus top business executives
have said repeatedly, uh anumber of them has said anyway,
that the great thing about theTrump administration is that you
can get things done quickly.
Uh you can go to theadministration, and if you have
an issue, if you have a problemwith this, that government
agency, it can get resolved veryquickly, and they've been, you
(11:16):
know, they were constantlycomplaining about Biden.
Right.
Is that true?
I mean, is that you can getthings done quickly if you're a
business significant businessoperation?
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
I mean, there's no there's no question.
There's no question.
We have a pretty extraordinaryscene in the book where you have
big CEOs of the big oilcompanies, energy companies uh
in the I want to say the cabinetroom.
Is it the cabinet room or theRoosevelt room?
I think it was the cabinet room.
Anyway, you know, we're talkingabout Exxon, Chevron, Conaco,
whatever.
(11:47):
And it's like a fun house inthere.
They're just complaining aboutregulations and Trump's just
like, we'll get rid of it.
Stephen Miller at the table istexting, live texting with Pam
Bondi, the Attorney General,well, we'll do this, we'll do
that, complain about theEuropean Union.
Trump's like, Howard, we'lltariff them, put 20%.
And it was this sort of like,there was no policy process.
It was just direct to him, andhe's like, yes, instinctively
(12:11):
get it done.
And one of them who was in theroom, I spoke to them
afterwards, and they saidthey've never seen, they've
dealt with many presidents, andthey've never seen a president
who has such a feel for hisexecutive power.
And they said, I would neverwant a Democrat to have this
sort of grasp of executivepower, but this guy does, and
you know, it's good for us, kindof thing.
If you hire the right lobbyist,if you hire the right, if you if
(12:32):
you, you know, you you don'teven need to hire lobbyists
anymore.
You can actually just go intobusiness with the Trump family.
That's right.
You can get a lot of businessdone at a very high clip in this
administration, no question.
SPEAKER_02 (12:44):
Well, and it's one of the things, just to just to
add one more piece to that, youknow, the the remarkable thing
about Stephen Miller's textingwith Pam Bondy is, you know,
Stephen Miller says in thatmeeting when the president is
directing this, I'm on it.
And and that is the wholeapproach.
One of the things that we detailin the book is how Miller and
Trump, I mean, Trump disdainsgovernment process for a variety
of reasons, one of which is thathe's a form, you know, he was a
(13:06):
developer and he can't stand it.
Miller dislikes agency processesbecause they often stymie the
power that the executive branchcan have or the decision making
that can be done quickly.
And so one of the mostillustrative and instructive
episodes for them was imposingTitle 42 as a health emergency
during the pandemic in 2020.
It sealed the border.
And everything once they cameback in power was not
(13:29):
everything, but a lot of things,were emergencies, a tariff
emergency, a fentanyl emergency,things were invasions.
And Miller would say to peoplethat it wasn't just that you
could do you unlockedextraordinarily sweeping powers,
but it was the speed to yourquestion, John.
SPEAKER_00 (13:44):
But I've I've talked to senior executives at
different major companies whohad previously served in either
the Bush administration or theObama administration.
And they've told me they've hadto basically unlearn everything
they understand about WhiteHouse policy, you know, about
what they understand about thepolicy process.
And in some cases, they've justrecommended to their CEO, just
call Trump himself or just, youknow, just get a meeting with
(14:06):
him at Mar-a-Lago or text him.
And that has a if you're one ofthe big CEOs, you don't even
need to be that big a CEO.
He'll take calls from reallyanyone.
So you can circumvent a lot.
I mean, this is a I'm I'm goingon a tangent here, but just for
us to get an interview withDonald Trump, if it was up to
his staff, we wouldn't have hadthe interview.
They were, they were not helpingus get an interview.
SPEAKER_01 (14:27):
Let me just said that as an understatement of the
statement.
SPEAKER_00 (14:30):
It was there was a believed that.
There was a very there was verymuch a locked door there that
we're so we just called Trumpand he made it happen.
He ordered the interview to beset up.
So there's the corporate versionof that as well.
SPEAKER_02 (14:42):
I just want to just make clear we had to we had to
call more than once.
He uh he he he he he took a bitof nudging as well.
SPEAKER_03 (14:48):
So I have two w I think non-serious questions, but
they urgently need to beanswered.
One is This could be terrible.
SPEAKER_02 (14:57):
I'm waiting for it.
SPEAKER_03 (14:58):
Maggie wrote about this in in Confidence Man, which
is her first book on Mr.
Trump, uh which was a meeting inthe White House in which Rupert
Murdoch brought down a seniorGoldman Sachs investor, excuse
me, a senior Goldman Sachsexecutive to, I guess, audition,
or at least in Rupert's mind,have him audition uh to be the
next chief of staff.
(15:19):
And your description isbasically, you know, dozen not
dozens, but number of peoplesort of walking in and out and
you know, looking at theirphones and maybe 10, 12 people
in there for a meeting that uhthat Goldman that particular
Goldman Sachs executive thoughtwould be Rupert Murdoch, Donald
Trump, and himself.
Is that continued?
(15:39):
Or is it is that sort of chaosin the Oval Office, everybody
walking in and, you know, uhsort of looking at what Trump's
what's on Trump's desk.
Is that is that still thestandard operating procedure?
Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_02 (15:53):
I think it's accelerated, in fact.
Uh you know, we describe in thebook what a what an average I
mean there were efforts in termone.
That moment came just to foryour listeners.
That was A, I don't think thatthat's that particular executive
really wanted to be the chief ofstaff.
But it was after Right.
It was after Rheinz Priebus wasabout to be getting his swan
(16:14):
song in the summer of 2017,Trump's first chief of staff.
And Priebus had tried imposingorder on Trump.
He had tried imposing a schedulebecause, as you know well, John,
a a president's most valuablecommodity is is their time.
And they were looking forsomebody.
They they, by the way, when Isay they, it was, you know,
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trumpwere looking for somebody who
they thought could manage this.
(16:34):
And I I think I think Murdochwas somebody who they were
speaking to.
They ended up settling on JohnKelly, who had a terrible
relationship with Trump, was awas a retired general who
monitored his calls, who wantedto set very strict controls on
who could come in and talk toTrump.
And it backfired spectacularlybecause Trump got really angry
about that.
(16:55):
And then you had two subsequentchiefs of staff.
Susie Wiles, his current chiefof staff, doesn't function that
way.
And we say in the in the book,it's it's you know, her her aim
is not to try to control him.
And she, I, I suspect, sees noutility in trying to do that.
So what you do have is more ofthese kind of collapsing
meetings where one rolls intoanother and you've got, you
(17:18):
know, the we describe like thewe we talk to somebody who is
describing being in a meeting inthe Oval Office, a highly
sensitive, classified briefing.
And like in comes the the guywith the stones for the paving
over the rose garden, and it'slike he's got walk-in
privileges.
And so it's just much more of aflattened experience.
Um, but it's very muchreflective of the person who's
(17:40):
in the Oval Office.
SPEAKER_00 (17:41):
At the same time, so there's this sort of rolling,
you know, sometimes it canalmost be like a circus-like
atmosphere.
You've got, you know, prowrestlers strolling in, you
know, people crypto bros,whatever.
But when it comes to stuff thatthey really do want to keep
quiet, and they're actually,it's completely different.
It's a tiny circle.
They do not share theinformation with the rest of the
(18:03):
government.
Um, we we show in our reportingon the lead up to the Iran War
that the two officials who wouldbe charged with having to manage
the biggest global oil shock inhistory, Scott Bessant, the
Treasury Secretary, ChrisWright, the energy secretary,
they were not in the room.
They were not in the meetingsthat led up to the Iran War, the
planning meetings.
Neither was the director ofnational intelligence, Tulsi
(18:24):
Gabbott.
So they were not brought intothe loop until the war began.
So when they really do want tokeep stuff quiet, they're
actually very, very good at it.
But there are also hugedownsides to that.
SPEAKER_03 (18:33):
Aaron Ross Powell The less substantive question,
but we do have to talk about thehuman printer.
SPEAKER_00 (18:38):
Natalie Hart?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:40):
The question is
survive?
Aaron Ross Powell I'm curiousbecause it would seem to me that
there are a lot of people in theWhite House who would want her
no longer there.
And uh Susie Wiles seems to beone of those people.
So given her position as chiefof staff, I guess, you know, I
mean she gave up trying to getrid of her, get rid of her.
(19:03):
But but it seems to meremarkable that she was able to
do that given Ms.
Wiles' uh discomfort with herrole.
SPEAKER_00 (19:10):
Aaron Ross Powell, she survives for the same reason
that Boris Epstein on theoutside survived.
Boris Epstein.
Who is Trump's personal lawyer,top legal advisor?
Top legal advisor on the phoneto him constantly.
You know, many people to to bevery understated about it are
not fans of Mr.
Epstein in Trump's orbit.
But he survives.
(19:31):
In fact, Trump's White Housecounsel wrote a report, which we
report on in the group, aconfidential report, or what's
the official term for it?
I don't know, Maggie.
A memo.
SPEAKER_01 (19:39):
It's it was a it was a review.
It was a it was a it was areview.
It was an inf it was an informalreview.
SPEAKER_00 (19:45):
But basically warning Trump that you know
Boris should not be in hisemployment and that there'd be
risks of indictments and allkinds of exposure.
And Trump completely ignored it,and Boris is more powerful than
FO right now.
Trump is the only one whomatters, and he likes having
Natalie Harp around.
She she is a young woman whoused to be a host on OAN, a
(20:06):
far-right television network.
In term one, in term one.
In term one.
And then uh when when Trump leftoffice, she went and joined him
and worked for him.
She became known as the humanprinter because she carries,
lugs around in her backpack aportable printer.
And particularly in Trump'sdarkest days, sort of after he
left office when he was in avery at a very low point, she
would constantly print out andand show him positive news
(20:29):
stories that would boost hismood.
She would follow him around onthe golf course.
We would sometimes literallyrunning.
We were, yeah, we had photos andthings of her like on foot.
Chase for some reason shecouldn't get a cart.
So she was a big thing.
SPEAKER_02 (20:41):
Yeah, they weren't, they weren't getting they
weren't affording her seats atthat point.
She moved up later.
SPEAKER_00 (20:45):
Running after him.
And we also obtained in the bookletters that she'd written for
Trump that were left in some ofhis personal spaces.
Very personal letters that saidthings like, You are all direct
quote, you are all that mattersto me.
Very devoted, you know, justidolizes him.
Trump has said to people, hisstaff, you know, you're all
gonna go off and make money, butNatalie, she she knows she's the
(21:08):
only one who really loves me.
She'll be here, you know, whenyou guys are all left me.
She sits on the wall in the OvalOffice through basically every
meeting with her laptop open.
And we have a scene in the bookthat's very illustrative of her
role as a conduit ofself-affirming information for
Trump or affirming things healready believes.
He they're in a tariff meetingbefore Liberation Day, and Trump
(21:31):
is pissed.
And he's Howard Lutnick is infront of him across the desk.
And Trump says, Howard, you keepgiving me these bullshit
numbers.
You know, give me the realnumbers on how much India and
China are tariffing us.
You know, this is bullshit.
And Howard says, These are thereal numbers.
This is the numbers from USTR.
And Trump says, Natalie, Google,do your Google thing.
(21:51):
Get your computer, tell me thereal numbers.
And of course, Natalie Harp isgoogling, and of course, there
are no real numbers, the realnumbers are the USTR numbers.
But that's a great example.
She's basically a conduit forinformation that Trump wants to
seek out himself that willaffirm whatever he believes.
Or if there are people on theoutside that want to get around,
(22:12):
you know what it's like in aWhite House.
Typically, there should be somesort of vetting for paper that
reaches the president.
That doesn't exist in this WhiteHouse because Natalie will just
give it straight to Trump.
And so that's it, it's sort of apipeline of, you know, gateway
pundit stories and rumors andjust whatever, but but stuff
that will not be vetted by thechief of staff.
SPEAKER_03 (22:32):
Yeah, that when George W.
Bush was president and HarrietMears was uh was his legal
counsel, everything had to gothrough her.
Literally, everything.
SPEAKER_02 (22:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is a little this is alittle it's a little different.
SPEAKER_03 (22:44):
It's a little bit different.
So a great part of I mean thereare many great parts, but one of
the great parts is LiberationDay.
Trump's obsession with tariffsis goes back long before he was
president, longer.
I think even, you know, we canMaggie and I can remember
interviews he gave to variouspublications decades ago about
(23:05):
tariffs and how great they are.
So can you set the scene for uhthe listeners as to that day uh
when he announced it and thenthe the immediate reaction and
then his reaction to thereaction?
SPEAKER_00 (23:18):
Aaron Powell It's hard for me to summarize because
it was so chaotic, and we laythat out in the book.
I mean, for for a policy of thismagnitude and this gravity, you
know, starting a trade war withthe whole world, you would
imagine there would be a prettyrigorous policy process, pretty
rigorous analysis, you know, notthe case.
There was a rolling series ofmeetings in the Oval Office
(23:40):
where Trump could clear, was notreally sure about what kind of a
formula he wanted for thetariffs.
He was devising some kind offormula in his mind.
They had some discussion aboutcolor coding and different tiers
of tariffs.
Ultimately, Trump decided thatwas too complicated.
And they only settled on theformula the night before the
announcement.
(24:00):
The night before.
So the formula that you sawwheeled out in the rose garden
on those foam boards, that wasdecided the night before.
And it was a Peter Navarro ideaof this tariff formula with a
little bit of help from theCouncil of Economic Advisors.
Howard Lutnick told people he hedidn't agree with Peter
Navarro's formula because,quote, he graduated from the
ninth grade.
Scott Bessant, the TreasurySecretary, when people would
(24:22):
sort of sarcastically say tohim, Happy Liberation Day, he
said happy libation day, morelike happy libation day.
It was a very difficult periodfor them because Trump was just
going by pure gut.
This was not something that wasrooted in deep analysis.
And by the way, you had peoplelike Bessant and Lutnick who had
to deal, who were sort ofdeputized to deal with foreign
(24:43):
governments in the weeks before.
And they couldn't give thegovernments any clarity because
they didn't know.
Trump didn't.
So how can you tell them, well,you should expect this tariff
rate or this one when the personin charge had no earthly idea
what he was going to do?
So that was that was the way itplayed out.
And then what we lay out in thein the book, it actually became
even more fraught afterLiberation Day because you had
(25:04):
these very alarming signalscoming from the bond markets
with yields going up, and itlooked like we were on the edge
of potential, real potentialcalamity.
And so we have this scene in thebook where Lutnick and Bessant
are on Air Force One with Trump.
This is the Sunday before, Ithink it was a Tuesday or
Wednesday when Trump put out.
Yeah.
(25:25):
And they're they're not pleadingit probably goes too far, but
they're really just urging himto just back off, to, to, you
know, that they could see thathe was pushing the car right to
the edge of the cliff.
And, you know, they weren't surewhere he was going to land.
And it took right to the endwhen all the sirens were going
off that Trump kind of pulledback.
(25:46):
So it was a very uh frighteningmoment for many senior people in
the government because this wasjust Trump behind the wheel,
foot on the gas.
Let's just try it.
SPEAKER_02 (25:56):
Well, and it was to just to add one thing to that
too, John, you know, and I Ithink we make this clear in the
book that he, yes, he has beentalking about tariffs for the
majority of his adult life, ifnot his entire adult life.
He has not been sent, he had itit wasn't backed by an economic
theory.
It was the idea that tariffs arethe, you know, the the world is
lip the the rest of the countrythe globe is ripping off America
(26:18):
and tariffs are an equalizerbecause they're a weapon,
they're a way to force changefrom other countries.
But, you know, to Jonathan'spoint about the formula and
Trump having no idea what he wasgoing to do, this was something
he, you know, he wanted to try.
But it was not rooted.
I mean, I I know I feel like I'msaying I'm a broken record here,
(26:39):
but it was not rooted in somekind of a global economic theory
about trade balances.
It was and imbalances.
It was the rest of the world isscrewing with us.
We're going to screw back.
Let's see what happens.
And and the only person who didnot look close to terrified
during the lead up to the pause,which was April 9th, and I was
at the White House for severaldays leading up to the pause,
(27:02):
uh, was the president.
Uh, but most of his aides werewere pretty ashen because they
were aware of how close thiscame.
SPEAKER_03 (27:09):
Aaron Ross Powell And so that leads to a backing
off, which leads to, I think itwas Robert Armstrong and the FT
describing what happened as thetaco trade, Trump always
chickens out.
That had to piss Trump off like8,000%.
But he did, in fact, stand down.
I guess the question is, howinfluential are the markets in
(27:33):
sort of quickly altering Trump'sbehavior or Trump's uh policy
initiatives?
SPEAKER_00 (27:39):
It's not zero.
It's not black and white.
It's a bit nuanced, but it lessreactive than in the first term,
uh, where he was hyper, hyperreactive to not just markets,
but also domestic politics,polls, all kinds of there were
all kinds of domestic shockcollars that are just weakened
now.
It's not that they don't existat all.
He still cares, as you're seeingright now with Iran, he still
(28:00):
obviously cares about the oilprice and the markets.
There's no question.
But in this case with LiberationDay, it's a good example.
In term one, the when the Dowplummets, you'd see him kind of
re reverse.
It actually took almost us tohave a bond market meltdown that
forced him to pull back.
So again, it's not zero, butit's less.
SPEAKER_03 (28:21):
One thing that's fascinated me about the Trump
administration is if you go backto the end of the first term,
and you look at what happenedthereafter, he was banned from
Facebook, he was banned fromTwitter, he was, you know, I
can't imagine that he didanything but despise the mi the
(28:41):
big tech folk in Silicon Valley.
And lo and behold, by the timethat the second term begins, big
tech has more influence, itseems to me, than any single
quote, interest group end quotearound.
What accounts for what accountsfor that?
Is it just money or is it thatthey they offered a path to more
(29:04):
power, I guess?
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02 (29:05):
It's a combination of factors.
Uh and Jonathan should shouldanswer this too.
But in the case of, say, MarkZuckerberg, you know, this was
somebody who had funded apro-immigration group for many,
many years that was prettyantagonistic toward Trump.
He's not involved in that groupas far as we know anymore.
He also did not like a lot ofthe policies around DEI that the
(29:26):
Biden administration favored andsupported.
You know, he he was pretty clearabout that in a meeting, a
pretty remarkable meeting thatwe wrote about between himself
and Stephen Miller and someother folks uh down at
Mar-a-Lago during thetransition.
Yes, he has Zuckerberg hasinterests that he needed to
solve, but for Trump, there wasa personalist aspect to it with
folks like Zuckerberg, which wasthat he was deplatformed, uh, to
(29:49):
your point earlier, after heleft office in disgrace in 2021.
And these folks were restoringhim, and they were restoring him
with financial tributes too.
It was, you know, donations tosuper PACs.
Or, you know, in the case ofElon Musk, certainly, during the
summer of 2024, Musk spent a tonof money uh to try to help
(30:09):
Trump.
The idea of these folksgroveling to Trump at at the
this the social media tech firmswas very appealing to him.
In terms of AI, you know, Trumphad a a pretty deep conversion.
We have this incredible scene inthe book in 2024 in the summer
where he's meeting with two ofthe open AI top brass, and uh
Sam Altman couldn't make themeeting because he was sick.
(30:30):
But uh, they're they're showinghim how it works.
And Trump expresses thisconcern.
What if somebody fakes my voiceabout launching a nuke, right?
Or a nuke is coming at the US.
I forget the specific.
But, you know, he was havingpretty reasonable concerns, but
it has completely transformedinto, you know, Trump is like
the biggest, you know, shitposter of AI slop, excuse my
(30:51):
language, um, from a prominentperch.
I mean, he posts that stuff alot.
And in that case, it was somecombination of sort of being
wowed by the tech, but alsoobviously, you know, donations
and interest or, you know, thepossibility of.
And then there's the chipsaspect, which is in Trump's mind
about dominance over China.
And so there's not one singlereason, but he has in many cases
(31:15):
done things like with Intelreaching into corporate
boardrooms that we just wouldn'tsee in outside of an emergency
situation.
Jonathan, they have a smarterthought than I do about that.
SPEAKER_00 (31:25):
No, look, I think it's a couple of things.
Firstly, I I also think it's notvery deeply rooted, and you're
seeing that right now with their180 on AI policy.
Seems to be the start of a 180on, oh, actually, we need to
start thinking about riskmanagement with some of these
models, which was not theirposture at all last year.
And he doesn't really have manypeople on his senior team who
(31:46):
know anything about AI anymore.
So that's another issue.
But Trump understands attention.
And what you saw on the dais athis inauguration was someone
described it as this way, so I'mstealing someone's phrase, but
sort of the lords of theattentional universe.
Right?
You had line.
You had the the great masters ofthe attentional universe Google,
(32:09):
Facebook, Apple, X.
And Trump gets that.
Of course.
Someone whose whole life, oneof, you know, besides amassing
wealth, has been about amassingfame and amassing attention and
amassing influence.
And, you know, if there'ssomething he understands at, you
know, a sort of cellular level,it's that.
So I think that's part of it.
And if he knew during the firstterm that these people could
(32:30):
become boosters and allies, hewould have leapt at that, but
they were in a you know ahostile posture throughout the
first term.
And once they startedgenuflecting in the latter half
of 2024, he welcomed it.
I mean, we we have a he braggedabout it.
I mean, we have a scene in ourbook at his golf club in Durral
showing off for guests textmessages from Zuckerberg and
(32:52):
Bezos.
You know, look at this.
Basically, they quote unquote,they're kissing my ass.
And, you know, a letter fromZuckerberg's child that was very
flattering.
So this is what he was doing.
He was showing it off.
And, you know, what a flex,right?
The richest, most powerful menin the world running the most
powerful companies in the worldthat account for an inordinate
amount of the stock market.
(33:14):
Of course, Trump didn't evenknow Trump had no idea who
Jensen Wong was or what Nvidiawas, Nvidia was until the second
term.
I mean, he used to say, who'swho's this Jensen?
What's this Jensen thing?
And then Jensen Wong, Trumpsuddenly realizes he's quote
unquote hot.
And then, you know, Trumphimself becomes a shareholder in
NVIDIA and he's checking that,you know, each time you look at
(33:34):
the the vet cap, it's, you know,add an extra trillion.
So there's a sense of just aweat the the sheer sums of money
involved.
And there's another aspect toit, which is during his first
term, Trump was still verywedded to this idea of bringing
back heavy industry to America.
You know, the sort of coal minesand and that kind of thing was
(33:56):
his vision.
I I think Trump realized by thesecond term that's not really
happening.
SPEAKER_02 (34:01):
Although he will not say, although he won't say that.
He won't he won't articulatethat, but he's yeah, you get it.
SPEAKER_00 (34:06):
The coal industry is not gonna um be what it wants
was.
But what AI and these companiesare promising is capital
expenditure on just a plane thatis almost unimaginable.
And so Trump can see, obviously,that this is a way to
reindustrialize America, givehim huge investments coming into
the country, et cetera, etcetera.
(34:27):
So it's an obvious winner forhim if you come from his point
of view.
SPEAKER_03 (34:30):
Aaron Powell Yeah.
The shift, uh the beginning of ashift on AI, I thought was
perfectly captured by Sam Altmanoffering Trump five percent of
AI.
I guess the US government fivepercent of AI, although I'm not
sure about that.
Aaron Powell But the argument ofthe AI community has always been
if we don't get there first,China will.
(34:50):
Right.
Therefore, we have to, you know,keep you know the horses out of
the barn, and we should nevereven think about putting the
horse back in the barn becauseotherwise China will get first
and and we won't, and that'll bethe end of the United States in
some way.
This is not an argument that isresonating uh with what is
(35:11):
called the MAGA movement, and abig part of the MAGA movement is
white evangelical Christians whosee big tech almost uniformly as
a menace given that split.
I I'm curious because I saw aninterview with Steve Bannon in
which he said 90% of the MAGAmovement is opposed to big tech.
The Trump admin, you know, theTrump White House is off
(35:33):
completely off message, etcetera.
How much of the pushback fromthe quote MAGA movement end
quote has made a difference orhad an impact on the Trump White
House?
SPEAKER_02 (35:44):
Aaron Powell They're certainly aware of it, but John,
there's nothing in our reportingthat has so far that has
suggested, and maybe that'llchange, that that's why.
Our understanding is actuallythat a lot of it is coming from
Scott Bessent, uh among theTreasury Secretary, but also,
you know, obvious concerns aboutabout hacking and cybersecurity
that I think just weren'tnecessarily anticipated.
(36:04):
And it wasn't anticipated whatthe models might be maybe
capable of doing.
I am I have no doubt that thereare people who are in Trump's
ear directly talking about this.
And I do know that the WhiteHouse is aware of these kinds of
concerns from folks like Bannon,but I don't believe that again,
maybe there'll be something thatwe turn up in our reporting
(36:25):
going forward that suggestsotherwise, but I don't believe
that that is the driver.
I think if anything, they arethey are seeing the the split
over AI as significant as athreat to their coalition.
And other, and I'll actuallygive you a I'll give you a
perfect example as to why.
You know, so we got hold ofprivate polling memos and focus
(36:45):
group memos that Trump's toppollster Tony Fabrizio conducted
over the course of the last yearand a half, and one, well, I
should say the 14-month periodwe were writing about, and one
related to affordability, whichwas in December of last year,
but the other was summarizingtwo focus groups that two days
of focus groups that were donein March, one of which
overlapped with the day that wewere in the Oval Office.
(37:05):
And it's pretty clear that thatthe Jeffrey Epstein saga and
crisis and ongoing questionsabout what might still be the
unreleased material, voters werebringing that up proactively.
And it wasn't just, you know,hardcore MAGA folks, it was
various folks, according to thememo that Fabrizio wrote up.
And it ranked, it outweighedserious issues for these voters,
(37:28):
like crime and safety, like datacenters.
So I don't think that this isthe huge engine that Bannon, who
no doubt will light me up on hisshow for saying this, you know,
believes it is in terms of theWhite House.
I do believe it is with someaspects of the MAGA base, but I
don't think that's why the WhiteHouse is doing what it's doing.
SPEAKER_03 (37:45):
Aaron Powell I wanted to ask the question of,
you know, the presidency, youhave the formal advisors, and
then you have the people whosort of you talk to at night or
talk to over the weekend.
Who are the most influentialoutside voices or outside
friends who are on the phonewith Trump?
And I'm curious as to who theyare before we get to the
(38:08):
greatest scene ever, which isEpstein and the Situation Room.
SPEAKER_00 (38:11):
Aaron Powell Well, one of them is we just mentioned
him earlier, Boris Epstein.
Trump talks to him all the time.
It's it's sometimes hard totrace his his influence and
involvement because he's verysecretive in the way he
operates, but he has his handsin all kinds of things.
He was, for example, anintermediary, which we document
in the book in dealing with thelaw firms when Trump was trying
(38:32):
to get these huge pro bono probono commitments out of law
firms that employed orrepresented people that he
considered enemies.
Boris Epstein was in thosemeetings negotiating on Trump's
behalf.
So he's one.
And then I think it's it's sortof issue specific.
So for example, on the lead upto the Iran War, Trump was, I
think pretty much everyone inhis inner circle will tell you
(38:54):
that Mark Levin, theconservative host, had a
significant sway on histhinking.
Very hawkish, pro-Israel voice.
Mark Tyson as well, actually,who writes columns for the
Washington Post.
Jack Keane, who's a formergeneral that you see on
television.
So there's people like that onIran that have had a significant
say.
And then it's less clearbecause, you know, a lot of it
(39:16):
is sort of his interactions are,you know, he'll be on the
Mar-a-Lago patio at night withhis iPad, playing Pavarotti and
James Brown, and people willwander over to the table, have a
little chat.
He'll play golf with someone, hehears from a lot of business
people and what have you.
And so he's very easy just toget to directly.
(39:38):
So it's actually sometimes quitehard to trace a lot of his
conversations because they'renot going through
intermediaries.
They're just people callingTrump.
And there's a lot of it.
SPEAKER_02 (39:45):
One person who used to have a fair amount of
influence just from I was justthinking about the Senate and
lawmakers before he went intothe government, or at least had
frequent interactions with thepresident.
The president really liked him,was Mark Wayne Mullen.
And I wonder about what thatends up looking like now that
Mullen is at DHS and leading anagency that uh Stephen Miller
considers to be pretty brokenand is now being led by somebody
(40:07):
who has direct access to Trumpin a way that Christian Ohm just
never did.
But it it just, it's like whatJonathan said, it really does
depend on the issue.
Uh I am struck though at thingslike, you know, Trump having,
you know, his whatever hedescribed, you know, my pool guy
as doing the reflecting pool orreflecting whatever the hell we
call it now.
I I can't even remember.
He's used so many differentterms for it near the Lincoln
(40:28):
Memorial.
He's more open about the factthat his inputs are uh much more
personalist and not governmentalthan he was in term one, even
though some of them were thesame.
SPEAKER_03 (40:36):
Aaron Powell I mean, the subject of Jeffrey Epstein
is is one that uh, you know, asyou point out, it's something
that voters proactively bringup.
It comes up at dinner parties,it comes up at lunch counters,
it's it has and it hasremarkable staying power.
On the other hand, if you're anadvisor to the president of the
United States and you're gonnawalk into the Oval Office and
(40:58):
say, let's talk about Epstein,you're probably buying yourself
a one-way ticket out of theTrump administration.
So you have this wonderful scenein the book where a Epstein
meeting is held, how to dealwith the Epstein problem, but
it's it's held in the SituationRoom.
Um, can you describe thatmeeting for the listeners?
SPEAKER_02 (41:20):
Aaron Powell There's a handful of meetings that we
focused on.
There's three in particular thatwere large in the situation
room.
And as you say, you know, ththere were many that were held
during this period of time inwhich Donald Trump just wanted
Epstein to go away.
And anybody, as we write in thebook, who was bringing it up was
getting snapped at or ignored.
And so, you know, to your point,they knew this was not a winning
(41:43):
track to have conversations withhim on.
But it couldn't go away becausethere was a clamor for much more
information, because there was awidespread feeling in the
administration that Pam Bondyhad committed a huge error by
appearing to confirm there was aclient list sitting on her desk
in an interview in February of2025.
So all of this and uh, you know,efforts to tamp it down didn't
work.
There were, there were a seriesof these crisis, Epstein crisis
(42:06):
comms meetings by the top levelsof the government in this room
that is incredibly private, thatis usually used for monitoring
wars or for national security.
One in particular that we wroteabout was in August of last
year.
And this really is evocative ofwhy every path these aides had,
and to be clear, I'm not saying,you know, this is not a poor
(42:28):
them tale, just describing thatthe situation they were in.
They had built a beta version ofa website.
So by they're under subpoena inthe house by then, they were
going to put everything JeffreyEpstein related out, civil
cases, of which there are many,DOJ-related material.
That was the initial plan.
Before one of these other largemeetings in the situation room,
(42:49):
one of the aides had justentered Trump's name and up
popped this secondhand,unverified allegation that was
already public, by the way.
It had been unsealed in a in anunrelated civil case year and a
half earlier, that Trump hadabused some woman's nipples, uh,
that he had a nipple fetish andlike to flick and suck this
woman's nipples and the quotingfrom the document, and the they
(43:13):
were looked swollen and painfulto this other person who relayed
this.
So this Trump person says inthis meeting, you know, this is
out there.
This is, you know, this isthere.
And J.D.
Vance, who along with DanBongino were the most vocal
about just transparency, Vanceactually wanted to release all
of the unverified stuff,including about Trump.
And he says that he doesn'tthink the president would mind.
(43:33):
He's been accused of worse.
And Susie Wiles, the White Housechief of staff, pretty quickly
said actually, no, he he wouldmind having this put on this
website.
And so then that's the end ofthe website conversation, and
that's the end of trying to dosomething that was proactive.
One of the participants told usit was just surreal to be
describing, you know, nipples inthe situation room.
You know, we really couldn'tthink of any kind of an analog
(43:56):
or find any kind of an analog,and we checked historically.
So this was just a I don't knowhow else to describe it.
It it it is, I would urge peopleto read this reporting because
it speaks to so much about notjust how, you know, rooms in the
White House are used and who'smaking decisions, but how that
was the moment where Trumpreally started losing altitude
(44:17):
with his own base.
And you could see it, and itreally paralyzed them, unlike
anything since the Muellerinvestigation had.
SPEAKER_03 (44:27):
And you described the lead up to the war.
And the thing that's astonishingabout the reporting, and the
reporting throughout the book isastonishing, but the it's the, I
guess Trump would call it hisgut guiding the decision-making
process.
You have people uh you describeGeneral Kane as being as
non-opinionated as he possiblycan be, but uh clearly he thinks
(44:51):
this is not a good idea.
J.D.
Vance doesn't think it's a goodidea.
Mark Rubio doesn't think it's agood idea.
And boom, Trump says, let's go.
When you did the reporting onthis, was it was it just were
they as or the people who knowthem as surprised by Trump's
decision making on this as asyou were, as we were?
SPEAKER_00 (45:12):
Well, Trump is always there's a sort of an
element of not seeing what's infront of you with Trump on Iran.
Yeah.
And there are a lot of thepeople in this sort of
anti-interventionistisolationist camp who have
refused to see that Trump hasalways been more hawkish about
Iran than they have.
During the first term, a numberof his advisors counseled him to
stay in the Obama nuclear deal.
(45:34):
He pulled out.
There were several people aroundhim who thought it was risky and
a bad idea to kill QasimSuleimani.
He obviously went ahead withthat.
And then, you know, from Trump'spoint of view, the world didn't
collapse.
During the interregnum period,he was briefed by the FBI that
Iran was trying to kill him,that they'd hired kill teams
(45:54):
inside the United States.
So, you know, that probably hada personal effect on him.
We have some reporting in thebook that Netanyahu's top
advisor, Ron Derma, visited withTrump after the election and
came away from that meetingtelling associates that he
thought there was an 80% chancethat Trump would join Israel in
a war against Iran.
So he came away very much of theview that Trump was willing to
(46:16):
act more aggressively in asecond term.
There's a little bit of Trumptells different people different
things and what they want tohear.
So through the earlyadministration, he was
definitely telling people likeTucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk,
I'm not going to get draggedinto this war.
BB's, you know, a disaster.
He he described Netanyahu as acon man, uh direct quote, con
(46:38):
man, to some of his uh aides atdifferent times.
He's obviously had a fraughtrelationship with Netanyahu.
But I think that the combinationof the 12-day war last year,
which Trump saw as a spectacularsuccess, and it concluded with
Iran very tepidly firing off apretty small number of missiles
that didn't kill any Americans.
(46:58):
I think Trump concluded that theregime was not all they were
hyped up to be, that this was apaper tiger regime.
Netanyahu could be verypersuasive.
He was very aggressive andrelentless in pushing for this.
And we have a scene where hecomes down to the White House
Situation Room and gives Trump apresentation about regime change
scenarios.
But, you know, Trump didn't theidea that this was sort of
(47:20):
Netanyahu puppeteering Trump, itjust doesn't comport with our
reporting at all.
Trump had a gut instinct thatthis regime was going to fall,
that he was going to be thepresident to deal with this
problem once and for all after47 years of US policy failure.
And despite what the CIAdirector John Ratcliffe told him
about the implausibility ofNetanyahu's regime change
(47:42):
scenarios, despite what Rubiosaid, despite the risks that
were raised to him by Dan Cain,the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, Trump just felt what hefelt.
He felt this was going to go theway that it was going to be a
quick war and that none of theseproblems would happen, the
closure of the strait or themunitions issues, because the
war would be over before any ofthat happened.
(48:04):
Obviously, it was a majormiscalculation, but it was,
again, Trump gut-driven decisionmaking.
And I think there's one otherthing that we we draw out in our
reporting that's reallyimportant to understand, which
is even though you can'tactually find anyone in his
inner circle who thought thatthis war was a good idea.
I mean, the closest you'll findis Pete Hageseth.
(48:25):
But basically all of them wereskeptical.
The only one who really vocallymade a case against the war to
Trump in the room was the vicepresident.
And it cost him with Trump.
It irritated Trump.
Trump was getting, you didn'twant to hear it.
But others really kind of eitherkept their concerns to
themselves or delivered them insuch a neutral and diluted way,
(48:47):
like Dan Cain, that Trump didn'treally hear them as concerns.
He just sort of saw it as, onthe one hand, this, on the other
hand, that.
And that's how it happened.
SPEAKER_03 (48:56):
I have one last question before we let Maggie
go, and you go, uh, Jonathan.
Which is people marvel atTrump's energy and stamina and
just, you know, just keep onplowing along.
And pretty much the same peopleare concerned about his health.
They think he looks terrible.
(49:16):
They think he's getting moreforgetful.
Um and you're reporting, youknow, how do you square that
circle of this incredible energyand stamina with a person in his
80s who was clearly, if you lookat film from 2016 and compare it
to today, it it's almost liketwo different people.
How do you square that circle?
(49:37):
How what do your sources tellyou on it?
SPEAKER_02 (49:39):
Yeah, I mean, so his health is is is not an area of
success.
It is the most closed-off blackbox in his world, has been for
decades.
You know, his his former doctor,Harold Bornstein, who has since
passed away, but told a story tothe New York Times' Larry Altman
about how Trump aides came andjust absconded with his his
(50:00):
files when the president waselected the first time.
He does not like people knowingabout his health.
By the way, which doesn't meanthat there is something there.
He's just incredibly closedabout it.
And he sees he seeshealth-related issues and and
illness and disease as signs ofweakness or, you know,
indicators of weakness.
I do think two things can betrue at once.
You we all can see the anklesthing, although I don't think
(50:24):
I've seen his ankles lately.
Uh the chronic venousinsufficiency, the bruising on
the hands, that theirexplanation, I I don't entirely
understand how that ishandshaking and and people
scratching him.
You know, he's he's got he's 80.
He he he he has clearly sloweddown in terms of how he speaks.
I mean, as you said, I can lookat the same videos you do.
(50:44):
Um, and then I can look at themfrom 30 years ago, and his
speech is even crisper there.
So I don't know whether it issomething beyond that, you know,
and it may not be, but there's areason that there have been very
few 80-year-olds who arepresident of the U.S.
And it's because they tend notto be as spry as they once were.
That said, you know, he is doingthese foreign trips with these
(51:06):
insanely compressed time frames.
You know, he had some he hadsome screw-ups when he was
talking that were obvious.
You know, the the the well, Iforget what he said, but he
called he called Iran Japan andZelen Zelensky Putin.
Right.
And so he's tired.
But, you know, that he wouldn'tbe the first president in the
world who had that either.
I I just I don't know what wedon't know.
(51:26):
But what we knew what we do knowis he's 80 and he's he's clearly
not in in tip-top shape.
That doesn't mean that hedoesn't have significant stores
of energy.
And I guess the only other thingI would say, John, is that there
is this comes up often and youknow over and over again about
the comparison to Biden andcoverage of Biden's health.
Well, I mean, we see Trump muchmore than we saw Biden.
(51:47):
We just do in terms of theday-to-day.
And that is uh that is a factortoo, and I think how people make
these assessments, just asviewers.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03 (51:54):
That really comes through in the book that Trump,
you know, is engaged and he'snot is not Biden at all.
He's he's in those meetings,he's traveling all the time,
he's you know, as you say,transparent uh almost to a
fault.
I mean, it you know, Bidendidn't.
(52:14):
But I mean he's available topress gaggles all the time.
And so anyway, taking more thanenough of your time.
And I appreciate your doing itfor the listeners again.
The book is Regime Change,authored by our guests, Maggie
Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
It's this tells the story ofinside the imperial presidency
(52:35):
of Donald Trump.
I urge you to buy not one copy,but two.
Thank you very much forlistening.
SPEAKER_00 (52:40):
Thanks for having us, John.
SPEAKER_02 (52:41):
Thanks for having us, John.
Hello and welcome back to the News Items Podcast.
I'm John Ellis.
I am the founder and editor oftwo Substack newsletters.
One is called News Items, theother is called Political News
Items, and you can find themboth at news-items.com.
My guests today are MaggieHaberman and Jonathan Swann.
(00:21):
They are the authors of afantastic new book called Regime
Change inside the ImperialPresidency of Donald Trump.
How they got this book out is amystery to me.
So my first question is, are youboth married still, or did this
cause the end, so to speak?
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
John, you're touching on a far more sensitive
nerve than you might evenimagine.
So uh we are both still marriedto our respective partners.
SPEAKER_02 (00:49):
Correct.
But they're not they're veryhappy to have this done.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
It was not beloved in my household.
SPEAKER_02 (00:55):
The process was certainly not beloved in mine.
The book itself is beloved, butnot the process.
SPEAKER_03 (00:59):
Aaron Powell How long did it take to do I mean
obviously the reporting wasongoing.
Maggie, you told me that you hada book contract almost
immediately after Trump waselected.
You obviously split thereportorial duties, but when you
actually sat down to do thebook, you both had book leave
from the New York Times.
How long did it take from pointA to publication by Simon and
(01:22):
Schuster?
SPEAKER_02 (01:23):
I don't think we can completely quantify it.
The book contract was actuallysigned in 2023 because we both,
you know, Jonathan came to theTimes in January, and he had
been a uh a a very difficulthuman to compete against, and I
was very happy that uh he camehere.
He's also uh a fantasticcollaborator and colleague and
an immense talent.
But we realized that we werecovering, you know, envisioning
(01:46):
this as the last act of Trump,whether that was court cases
that were going to endpotentially with a with a you
know a prison sentence, whichwas in fact a real possibility
at the time, or whether it wasgoing to be him back in the
White House, but that we hadsomething that we could tell a
unique story about and provideunique reporting on.
And then by the time we got intothe first term the first year of
(02:09):
the term, the the volume ofactivity was so huge from the
administration that it becamevery clear to us early on that
we were covering somethingvastly different than a even
frankly, even then the Trumphandoff to Biden in 2020.
This was just a fundamental seachange of what a a US presidency
looks like, which is why thetitle is what it is in terms of
(02:30):
regime change.
But we had to jettison like 99%of our reporting.
And we started the writing.
God, I don't even rememberexactly when we started the
writing.
We started the writing, I think,fairly early last year,
Jonathan.
Am I right about that?
SPEAKER_00 (02:43):
I would say for real, for real, it kind of was
like June, July, June last yearwhen we really started the
writing.
Basically, we've got thousandsof pages of reported scenes and
things that we have that that ison the cutting room floor.
And we were reporting andwriting somewhat in real time
for about a year and a halfbefore we started the actual
(03:03):
writing of the book in earnest.
I took 10 months off from theTimes.
Maggie took five and a half off.
Yeah.
Five and a half.
We took a lot of time off for itvery at a at a very, you know,
high stakes moment.
So the Times was very good withus.
Quite very supportive.
SPEAKER_03 (03:18):
So Trump was elected in 2024, obviously, with 49.8%
of the vote, had 230,000 votesgone the other way in Wisconsin,
Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Kamala Harris would havereceived 270 elector votes and
would have been electedpresident of the United States.
Trump describes this as one ofthe greatest, if not the
(03:39):
greatest, landslide in Americanpolitical history.
Does he believe that?
Or is that just uh, you know, away of positioning himself as
more powerful than he in factmight be?
SPEAKER_02 (03:50):
I don't know how to quantify whether he believes it
or not.
I think there's a very longhistory of him saying everything
that he does at which hesucceeds, or frankly, even the
things he doesn't are a massivesuccess.
And so the the salesman aspectis is is key.
He had this line in the 90s whenhe was giving someone a tour of
Mar-a-Lago, and uh he was sayingsomething like that, you know,
(04:13):
we have the we want acompetition for the best doors
or something like that.
And he said to the person, theword the best is very the the
phrase the best is veryimportant to me.
And that, you know, you see thatplay out on a number of fronts.
What I do think it is, is himunderlining the fact that I
mean, look, he he was the firstRepublican to win the the
popular vote in 20 years.
And so I think it was justunderscoring how legitimate this
(04:37):
win was.
You know, his his last one wastwo in 2016, but he did not win
the popular vote, and it wasunder a cloud of investigations.
So that's always been how Iinterpret that.
SPEAKER_03 (04:46):
Aaron Powell And there was a document that was
prepared by I think the AmericanFirst Policy Institute, and I
think the Heritage Foundationhad a similar document that sort
of sketched out what Trump woulddo with this mandate.
How much has that been followedby by the administration?
Has that really framed whatthey've been up to, or is that
(05:08):
something that, you know,changed as things went along?
SPEAKER_00 (05:11):
Mostly I think you're probably referring to
Project 2025, which was theheritage effort.
AF, the American First Policy,had a bunch of stuff.
Look, American First Policyended up being much more
involved in the transition thanheritage because Project 2025
became so politically toxicduring 2024 that the Trump
people sort of distancedthemselves from them.
In reality, a lot of the peoplewho were involved at different
(05:33):
levels in Project 2025 ended upgoing into the administration.
Russ Vose is the most prominentexample, going in as budget
director.
He was a very central figure inProject 2025.
Look, a bunch of Project 2025policy ended up becoming
administration policy, but Idon't think that's so much
because they sat down and said,well, this is our blueprint.
It was more of a menu of thingsthat, you know, people agreed
(05:55):
with or didn't agree with,picked and choosed.
And, you know, you see some AFPideas come through, but it
didn't end up being this sort ofguiding light.
And certainly when it comes toissues that Trump himself cares
about, like trade and foreignpolicy, those efforts are
completely irrelevant, couldn'tbe more irrelevant, have had no
bearing whatsoever on anythingthat Trump has done.
(06:17):
There may be areas where theyintersect, but not because
anyone's following a blueprint.
SPEAKER_02 (06:21):
There's also a whole downstream list of uh items that
Trump, at least I think to thebest of our knowledge, isn't
especially interested in,doesn't pay much attention to.
A lot of it is intricate agencypolicy.
And that is the kind of thingthat Russ Vogt is very
interested in, or Stephen Milleris very interested in.
And so those things may be goingon, but it's not because Trump
is saying get that done.
SPEAKER_03 (06:42):
Aaron Powell That's a great thing in the at the, I
guess the last chapter of yourbook where you're meeting with
him to fact check and sort offinish up uh your research, and
Trump says he's off to sign someexecutive orders that he has no
idea.
Uh, not even sure what I'msigning.
SPEAKER_02 (07:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (07:00):
The thing that just surprises me is that the
administration is incrediblyactive on any number of fronts.
You have the presidentincredibly active on social
media, watching TV, talking topeople about what's going on in
the official business, thenmeeting people, you know, the
five-minute photo op kind ofthing.
How much does Trump know aboutwhat the administration is
(07:24):
doing?
SPEAKER_02 (07:24):
Aaron Powell It's a good question.
And I I think that it depends onwhat the issue is.
You know, one of the things thatwe talk about in the book is how
the immense power of StephenMiller as Trump's top domestic
policy advisor is not properlyunderstood, but it's certainly
seen uh throughout any number ofactions.
One of the things that was verystriking about the whole signal
(07:46):
gate controversy where they werediscussing the battle plans in a
in a signal chat group was thatStephen Miller was the final
word that everybody heard from.
The president wants this and wemove forward.
And Stephen is very involved ina number of a number of matters.
He part of how he succeeds is hewill say, you know, that he
speaks as if he has thepresident's authority in
(08:07):
conversations not with Trump andthe, you know, the president
wants this, the president sayshe wants this.
And his his statements on thosethings are very rarely
challenged.
So does Trump know everythingthat is happening?
Almost certainly not.
For instance, you know, I'llgive you an example in the book.
We described Stephen Millerbeing quite surprised to learn
that that Christy Nohm at DHSwas requisitioning a bunch of
(08:29):
warehouses that were going to bemorphed into detention centers
for migrants.
And he thought that was anincredibly stupid use of money
and of of time.
There's no chance that thatTrump knew about that.
Or I shouldn't say no, but it'sextremely unlikely.
But on major items like tradepolicy, like sanctions, you
(08:50):
know, you can go down the list,they won't make a move unless
he's consulted.
So it just depends on the issue.
SPEAKER_00 (08:55):
There are whole vast areas of the federal government
in which he has zero interestand couldn't tell you like there
are whole departments andagencies that he has never
learned what they do or paid anyattention to.
You know, he spends zero timethinking about the activities of
HUD, of housing and urbandevelopment, of transportation,
of health and human services.
Nobody spent less time thinkingabout healthcare policy than
(09:18):
Donald Trump.
So there are whole areas of thegovernment, EPA, where the
secretaries are completelyautonomous.
He he sort of gives them aattaboy pat on the back if he
sees a segment on Fox that givesthem good press, you know, great
job.
I remember talking to onecabinet secretary in the first
term, and they told me thatTrump's marching orders to them
when they took over this agency,an agency he cares nothing about
(09:41):
to this day, and Trump'sinstructions was just win.
I just want you to go and win.
And so they interpreted that tomean I'm just gonna do whatever
I think is right until I hearotherwise.
And they basically never heardfrom him.
I mean, very rarely he wouldtalk to them at a cabinet
meeting or whatever, but that'sstill the case.
SPEAKER_02 (09:57):
And to the extent that he pays attention to
something like H I'll just addone thing, to HHS or, you know,
the EPA, it's because he has,you know, oil executives or
industry, you know, energyexecutives coming in to meet
with him.
And HHS, it's because of thissynergy that he has with RFK Jr.
and this interest in what hedoes.
And Trump is, you know, has beena a a vaccine skeptic for a very
(10:22):
long time.
But, you know, I mean, Trump itit just depends on the issue.
In term one, he was interestedin HHS so much as it related to
like vaping policy.
But it's on very, very discreteissues.
I don't think he would even bethinking about the Department of
Labor were it not for the factthat there's a scandal involving
the head of it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:38):
I think he was complaining recently about how
boring it was when Mehmet Oz wastrying to describe to him
Medicare policy on a planeflight.
So so yes, I agree.
Like when the farmer executivescome in, it it's usually when
someone complains aboutsomething or there's bad press,
for sure.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Generally speaking, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (10:54):
One of the things that bus top business executives
have said repeatedly, uh anumber of them has said anyway,
that the great thing about theTrump administration is that you
can get things done quickly.
Uh you can go to theadministration, and if you have
an issue, if you have a problemwith this, that government
agency, it can get resolved veryquickly, and they've been, you
(11:16):
know, they were constantlycomplaining about Biden.
Right.
Is that true?
I mean, is that you can getthings done quickly if you're a
business significant businessoperation?
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
I mean, there's no there's no question.
There's no question.
We have a pretty extraordinaryscene in the book where you have
big CEOs of the big oilcompanies, energy companies uh
in the I want to say the cabinetroom.
Is it the cabinet room or theRoosevelt room?
I think it was the cabinet room.
Anyway, you know, we're talkingabout Exxon, Chevron, Conaco,
whatever.
(11:47):
And it's like a fun house inthere.
They're just complaining aboutregulations and Trump's just
like, we'll get rid of it.
Stephen Miller at the table istexting, live texting with Pam
Bondi, the Attorney General,well, we'll do this, we'll do
that, complain about theEuropean Union.
Trump's like, Howard, we'lltariff them, put 20%.
And it was this sort of like,there was no policy process.
It was just direct to him, andhe's like, yes, instinctively
(12:11):
get it done.
And one of them who was in theroom, I spoke to them
afterwards, and they saidthey've never seen, they've
dealt with many presidents, andthey've never seen a president
who has such a feel for hisexecutive power.
And they said, I would neverwant a Democrat to have this
sort of grasp of executivepower, but this guy does, and
you know, it's good for us, kindof thing.
If you hire the right lobbyist,if you hire the right, if you if
(12:32):
you, you know, you you don'teven need to hire lobbyists
anymore.
You can actually just go intobusiness with the Trump family.
That's right.
You can get a lot of businessdone at a very high clip in this
administration, no question.
SPEAKER_02 (12:44):
Well, and it's one of the things, just to just to
add one more piece to that, youknow, the the remarkable thing
about Stephen Miller's textingwith Pam Bondy is, you know,
Stephen Miller says in thatmeeting when the president is
directing this, I'm on it.
And and that is the wholeapproach.
One of the things that we detailin the book is how Miller and
Trump, I mean, Trump disdainsgovernment process for a variety
of reasons, one of which is thathe's a form, you know, he was a
(13:06):
developer and he can't stand it.
Miller dislikes agency processesbecause they often stymie the
power that the executive branchcan have or the decision making
that can be done quickly.
And so one of the mostillustrative and instructive
episodes for them was imposingTitle 42 as a health emergency
during the pandemic in 2020.
It sealed the border.
And everything once they cameback in power was not
(13:29):
everything, but a lot of things,were emergencies, a tariff
emergency, a fentanyl emergency,things were invasions.
And Miller would say to peoplethat it wasn't just that you
could do you unlockedextraordinarily sweeping powers,
but it was the speed to yourquestion, John.
SPEAKER_00 (13:44):
But I've I've talked to senior executives at
different major companies whohad previously served in either
the Bush administration or theObama administration.
And they've told me they've hadto basically unlearn everything
they understand about WhiteHouse policy, you know, about
what they understand about thepolicy process.
And in some cases, they've justrecommended to their CEO, just
call Trump himself or just, youknow, just get a meeting with
(14:06):
him at Mar-a-Lago or text him.
And that has a if you're one ofthe big CEOs, you don't even
need to be that big a CEO.
He'll take calls from reallyanyone.
So you can circumvent a lot.
I mean, this is a I'm I'm goingon a tangent here, but just for
us to get an interview withDonald Trump, if it was up to
his staff, we wouldn't have hadthe interview.
They were, they were not helpingus get an interview.
SPEAKER_01 (14:27):
Let me just said that as an understatement of the
statement.
SPEAKER_00 (14:30):
It was there was a believed that.
There was a very there was verymuch a locked door there that
we're so we just called Trumpand he made it happen.
He ordered the interview to beset up.
So there's the corporate versionof that as well.
SPEAKER_02 (14:42):
I just want to just make clear we had to we had to
call more than once.
He uh he he he he he took a bitof nudging as well.
SPEAKER_03 (14:48):
So I have two w I think non-serious questions, but
they urgently need to beanswered.
One is This could be terrible.
SPEAKER_02 (14:57):
I'm waiting for it.
SPEAKER_03 (14:58):
Maggie wrote about this in in Confidence Man, which
is her first book on Mr.
Trump, uh which was a meeting inthe White House in which Rupert
Murdoch brought down a seniorGoldman Sachs investor, excuse
me, a senior Goldman Sachsexecutive to, I guess, audition,
or at least in Rupert's mind,have him audition uh to be the
next chief of staff.
(15:19):
And your description isbasically, you know, dozen not
dozens, but number of peoplesort of walking in and out and
you know, looking at theirphones and maybe 10, 12 people
in there for a meeting that uhthat Goldman that particular
Goldman Sachs executive thoughtwould be Rupert Murdoch, Donald
Trump, and himself.
Is that continued?
(15:39):
Or is it is that sort of chaosin the Oval Office, everybody
walking in and, you know, uhsort of looking at what Trump's
what's on Trump's desk.
Is that is that still thestandard operating procedure?
Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_02 (15:53):
I think it's accelerated, in fact.
Uh you know, we describe in thebook what a what an average I
mean there were efforts in termone.
That moment came just to foryour listeners.
That was A, I don't think thatthat's that particular executive
really wanted to be the chief ofstaff.
But it was after Right.
It was after Rheinz Priebus wasabout to be getting his swan
(16:14):
song in the summer of 2017,Trump's first chief of staff.
And Priebus had tried imposingorder on Trump.
He had tried imposing a schedulebecause, as you know well, John,
a a president's most valuablecommodity is is their time.
And they were looking forsomebody.
They they, by the way, when Isay they, it was, you know,
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trumpwere looking for somebody who
they thought could manage this.
(16:34):
And I I think I think Murdochwas somebody who they were
speaking to.
They ended up settling on JohnKelly, who had a terrible
relationship with Trump, was awas a retired general who
monitored his calls, who wantedto set very strict controls on
who could come in and talk toTrump.
And it backfired spectacularlybecause Trump got really angry
about that.
(16:55):
And then you had two subsequentchiefs of staff.
Susie Wiles, his current chiefof staff, doesn't function that
way.
And we say in the in the book,it's it's you know, her her aim
is not to try to control him.
And she, I, I suspect, sees noutility in trying to do that.
So what you do have is more ofthese kind of collapsing
meetings where one rolls intoanother and you've got, you
(17:18):
know, the we describe like thewe we talk to somebody who is
describing being in a meeting inthe Oval Office, a highly
sensitive, classified briefing.
And like in comes the the guywith the stones for the paving
over the rose garden, and it'slike he's got walk-in
privileges.
And so it's just much more of aflattened experience.
Um, but it's very muchreflective of the person who's
(17:40):
in the Oval Office.
SPEAKER_00 (17:41):
At the same time, so there's this sort of rolling,
you know, sometimes it canalmost be like a circus-like
atmosphere.
You've got, you know, prowrestlers strolling in, you
know, people crypto bros,whatever.
But when it comes to stuff thatthey really do want to keep
quiet, and they're actually,it's completely different.
It's a tiny circle.
They do not share theinformation with the rest of the
(18:03):
government.
Um, we we show in our reportingon the lead up to the Iran War
that the two officials who wouldbe charged with having to manage
the biggest global oil shock inhistory, Scott Bessant, the
Treasury Secretary, ChrisWright, the energy secretary,
they were not in the room.
They were not in the meetingsthat led up to the Iran War, the
planning meetings.
Neither was the director ofnational intelligence, Tulsi
(18:24):
Gabbott.
So they were not brought intothe loop until the war began.
So when they really do want tokeep stuff quiet, they're
actually very, very good at it.
But there are also hugedownsides to that.
SPEAKER_03 (18:33):
Aaron Ross Powell The less substantive question,
but we do have to talk about thehuman printer.
SPEAKER_00 (18:38):
Natalie Hart?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:40):
The question is
survive?
Aaron Ross Powell I'm curiousbecause it would seem to me that
there are a lot of people in theWhite House who would want her
no longer there.
And uh Susie Wiles seems to beone of those people.
So given her position as chiefof staff, I guess, you know, I
mean she gave up trying to getrid of her, get rid of her.
(19:03):
But but it seems to meremarkable that she was able to
do that given Ms.
Wiles' uh discomfort with herrole.
SPEAKER_00 (19:10):
Aaron Ross Powell, she survives for the same reason
that Boris Epstein on theoutside survived.
Boris Epstein.
Who is Trump's personal lawyer,top legal advisor?
Top legal advisor on the phoneto him constantly.
You know, many people to to bevery understated about it are
not fans of Mr.
Epstein in Trump's orbit.
But he survives.
(19:31):
In fact, Trump's White Housecounsel wrote a report, which we
report on in the group, aconfidential report, or what's
the official term for it?
I don't know, Maggie.
A memo.
SPEAKER_01 (19:39):
It's it was a it was a review.
It was a it was a it was areview.
It was an inf it was an informalreview.
SPEAKER_00 (19:45):
But basically warning Trump that you know
Boris should not be in hisemployment and that there'd be
risks of indictments and allkinds of exposure.
And Trump completely ignored it,and Boris is more powerful than
FO right now.
Trump is the only one whomatters, and he likes having
Natalie Harp around.
She she is a young woman whoused to be a host on OAN, a
(20:06):
far-right television network.
In term one, in term one.
In term one.
And then uh when when Trump leftoffice, she went and joined him
and worked for him.
She became known as the humanprinter because she carries,
lugs around in her backpack aportable printer.
And particularly in Trump'sdarkest days, sort of after he
left office when he was in avery at a very low point, she
would constantly print out andand show him positive news
(20:29):
stories that would boost hismood.
She would follow him around onthe golf course.
We would sometimes literallyrunning.
We were, yeah, we had photos andthings of her like on foot.
Chase for some reason shecouldn't get a cart.
So she was a big thing.
SPEAKER_02 (20:41):
Yeah, they weren't, they weren't getting they
weren't affording her seats atthat point.
She moved up later.
SPEAKER_00 (20:45):
Running after him.
And we also obtained in the bookletters that she'd written for
Trump that were left in some ofhis personal spaces.
Very personal letters that saidthings like, You are all direct
quote, you are all that mattersto me.
Very devoted, you know, justidolizes him.
Trump has said to people, hisstaff, you know, you're all
gonna go off and make money, butNatalie, she she knows she's the
(21:08):
only one who really loves me.
She'll be here, you know, whenyou guys are all left me.
She sits on the wall in the OvalOffice through basically every
meeting with her laptop open.
And we have a scene in the bookthat's very illustrative of her
role as a conduit ofself-affirming information for
Trump or affirming things healready believes.
He they're in a tariff meetingbefore Liberation Day, and Trump
(21:31):
is pissed.
And he's Howard Lutnick is infront of him across the desk.
And Trump says, Howard, you keepgiving me these bullshit
numbers.
You know, give me the realnumbers on how much India and
China are tariffing us.
You know, this is bullshit.
And Howard says, These are thereal numbers.
This is the numbers from USTR.
And Trump says, Natalie, Google,do your Google thing.
(21:51):
Get your computer, tell me thereal numbers.
And of course, Natalie Harp isgoogling, and of course, there
are no real numbers, the realnumbers are the USTR numbers.
But that's a great example.
She's basically a conduit forinformation that Trump wants to
seek out himself that willaffirm whatever he believes.
Or if there are people on theoutside that want to get around,
(22:12):
you know what it's like in aWhite House.
Typically, there should be somesort of vetting for paper that
reaches the president.
That doesn't exist in this WhiteHouse because Natalie will just
give it straight to Trump.
And so that's it, it's sort of apipeline of, you know, gateway
pundit stories and rumors andjust whatever, but but stuff
that will not be vetted by thechief of staff.
SPEAKER_03 (22:32):
Yeah, that when George W.
Bush was president and HarrietMears was uh was his legal
counsel, everything had to gothrough her.
Literally, everything.
SPEAKER_02 (22:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is a little this is alittle it's a little different.
SPEAKER_03 (22:44):
It's a little bit different.
So a great part of I mean thereare many great parts, but one of
the great parts is LiberationDay.
Trump's obsession with tariffsis goes back long before he was
president, longer.
I think even, you know, we canMaggie and I can remember
interviews he gave to variouspublications decades ago about
(23:05):
tariffs and how great they are.
So can you set the scene for uhthe listeners as to that day uh
when he announced it and thenthe the immediate reaction and
then his reaction to thereaction?
SPEAKER_00 (23:18):
Aaron Powell It's hard for me to summarize because
it was so chaotic, and we laythat out in the book.
I mean, for for a policy of thismagnitude and this gravity, you
know, starting a trade war withthe whole world, you would
imagine there would be a prettyrigorous policy process, pretty
rigorous analysis, you know, notthe case.
There was a rolling series ofmeetings in the Oval Office
(23:40):
where Trump could clear, was notreally sure about what kind of a
formula he wanted for thetariffs.
He was devising some kind offormula in his mind.
They had some discussion aboutcolor coding and different tiers
of tariffs.
Ultimately, Trump decided thatwas too complicated.
And they only settled on theformula the night before the
announcement.
(24:00):
The night before.
So the formula that you sawwheeled out in the rose garden
on those foam boards, that wasdecided the night before.
And it was a Peter Navarro ideaof this tariff formula with a
little bit of help from theCouncil of Economic Advisors.
Howard Lutnick told people he hedidn't agree with Peter
Navarro's formula because,quote, he graduated from the
ninth grade.
Scott Bessant, the TreasurySecretary, when people would
(24:22):
sort of sarcastically say tohim, Happy Liberation Day, he
said happy libation day, morelike happy libation day.
It was a very difficult periodfor them because Trump was just
going by pure gut.
This was not something that wasrooted in deep analysis.
And by the way, you had peoplelike Bessant and Lutnick who had
to deal, who were sort ofdeputized to deal with foreign
(24:43):
governments in the weeks before.
And they couldn't give thegovernments any clarity because
they didn't know.
Trump didn't.
So how can you tell them, well,you should expect this tariff
rate or this one when the personin charge had no earthly idea
what he was going to do?
So that was that was the way itplayed out.
And then what we lay out in thein the book, it actually became
even more fraught afterLiberation Day because you had
(25:04):
these very alarming signalscoming from the bond markets
with yields going up, and itlooked like we were on the edge
of potential, real potentialcalamity.
And so we have this scene in thebook where Lutnick and Bessant
are on Air Force One with Trump.
This is the Sunday before, Ithink it was a Tuesday or
Wednesday when Trump put out.
Yeah.
(25:25):
And they're they're not pleadingit probably goes too far, but
they're really just urging himto just back off, to, to, you
know, that they could see thathe was pushing the car right to
the edge of the cliff.
And, you know, they weren't surewhere he was going to land.
And it took right to the endwhen all the sirens were going
off that Trump kind of pulledback.
(25:46):
So it was a very uh frighteningmoment for many senior people in
the government because this wasjust Trump behind the wheel,
foot on the gas.
Let's just try it.
SPEAKER_02 (25:56):
Well, and it was to just to add one thing to that
too, John, you know, and I Ithink we make this clear in the
book that he, yes, he has beentalking about tariffs for the
majority of his adult life, ifnot his entire adult life.
He has not been sent, he had itit wasn't backed by an economic
theory.
It was the idea that tariffs arethe, you know, the the world is
lip the the rest of the countrythe globe is ripping off America
(26:18):
and tariffs are an equalizerbecause they're a weapon,
they're a way to force changefrom other countries.
But, you know, to Jonathan'spoint about the formula and
Trump having no idea what he wasgoing to do, this was something
he, you know, he wanted to try.
But it was not rooted.
I mean, I I know I feel like I'msaying I'm a broken record here,
(26:39):
but it was not rooted in somekind of a global economic theory
about trade balances.
It was and imbalances.
It was the rest of the world isscrewing with us.
We're going to screw back.
Let's see what happens.
And and the only person who didnot look close to terrified
during the lead up to the pause,which was April 9th, and I was
at the White House for severaldays leading up to the pause,
(27:02):
uh, was the president.
Uh, but most of his aides werewere pretty ashen because they
were aware of how close thiscame.
SPEAKER_03 (27:09):
Aaron Ross Powell And so that leads to a backing
off, which leads to, I think itwas Robert Armstrong and the FT
describing what happened as thetaco trade, Trump always
chickens out.
That had to piss Trump off like8,000%.
But he did, in fact, stand down.
I guess the question is, howinfluential are the markets in
(27:33):
sort of quickly altering Trump'sbehavior or Trump's uh policy
initiatives?
SPEAKER_00 (27:39):
It's not zero.
It's not black and white.
It's a bit nuanced, but it lessreactive than in the first term,
uh, where he was hyper, hyperreactive to not just markets,
but also domestic politics,polls, all kinds of there were
all kinds of domestic shockcollars that are just weakened
now.
It's not that they don't existat all.
He still cares, as you're seeingright now with Iran, he still
(28:00):
obviously cares about the oilprice and the markets.
There's no question.
But in this case with LiberationDay, it's a good example.
In term one, the when the Dowplummets, you'd see him kind of
re reverse.
It actually took almost us tohave a bond market meltdown that
forced him to pull back.
So again, it's not zero, butit's less.
SPEAKER_03 (28:21):
One thing that's fascinated me about the Trump
administration is if you go backto the end of the first term,
and you look at what happenedthereafter, he was banned from
Facebook, he was banned fromTwitter, he was, you know, I
can't imagine that he didanything but despise the mi the
(28:41):
big tech folk in Silicon Valley.
And lo and behold, by the timethat the second term begins, big
tech has more influence, itseems to me, than any single
quote, interest group end quotearound.
What accounts for what accountsfor that?
Is it just money or is it thatthey they offered a path to more
(29:04):
power, I guess?
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02 (29:05):
It's a combination of factors.
Uh and Jonathan should shouldanswer this too.
But in the case of, say, MarkZuckerberg, you know, this was
somebody who had funded apro-immigration group for many,
many years that was prettyantagonistic toward Trump.
He's not involved in that groupas far as we know anymore.
He also did not like a lot ofthe policies around DEI that the
(29:26):
Biden administration favored andsupported.
You know, he he was pretty clearabout that in a meeting, a
pretty remarkable meeting thatwe wrote about between himself
and Stephen Miller and someother folks uh down at
Mar-a-Lago during thetransition.
Yes, he has Zuckerberg hasinterests that he needed to
solve, but for Trump, there wasa personalist aspect to it with
folks like Zuckerberg, which wasthat he was deplatformed, uh, to
(29:49):
your point earlier, after heleft office in disgrace in 2021.
And these folks were restoringhim, and they were restoring him
with financial tributes too.
It was, you know, donations tosuper PACs.
Or, you know, in the case ofElon Musk, certainly, during the
summer of 2024, Musk spent a tonof money uh to try to help
(30:09):
Trump.
The idea of these folksgroveling to Trump at at the
this the social media tech firmswas very appealing to him.
In terms of AI, you know, Trumphad a a pretty deep conversion.
We have this incredible scene inthe book in 2024 in the summer
where he's meeting with two ofthe open AI top brass, and uh
Sam Altman couldn't make themeeting because he was sick.
(30:30):
But uh, they're they're showinghim how it works.
And Trump expresses thisconcern.
What if somebody fakes my voiceabout launching a nuke, right?
Or a nuke is coming at the US.
I forget the specific.
But, you know, he was havingpretty reasonable concerns, but
it has completely transformedinto, you know, Trump is like
the biggest, you know, shitposter of AI slop, excuse my
(30:51):
language, um, from a prominentperch.
I mean, he posts that stuff alot.
And in that case, it was somecombination of sort of being
wowed by the tech, but alsoobviously, you know, donations
and interest or, you know, thepossibility of.
And then there's the chipsaspect, which is in Trump's mind
about dominance over China.
And so there's not one singlereason, but he has in many cases
(31:15):
done things like with Intelreaching into corporate
boardrooms that we just wouldn'tsee in outside of an emergency
situation.
Jonathan, they have a smarterthought than I do about that.
SPEAKER_00 (31:25):
No, look, I think it's a couple of things.
Firstly, I I also think it's notvery deeply rooted, and you're
seeing that right now with their180 on AI policy.
Seems to be the start of a 180on, oh, actually, we need to
start thinking about riskmanagement with some of these
models, which was not theirposture at all last year.
And he doesn't really have manypeople on his senior team who
(31:46):
know anything about AI anymore.
So that's another issue.
But Trump understands attention.
And what you saw on the dais athis inauguration was someone
described it as this way, so I'mstealing someone's phrase, but
sort of the lords of theattentional universe.
Right?
You had line.
You had the the great masters ofthe attentional universe Google,
(32:09):
Facebook, Apple, X.
And Trump gets that.
Of course.
Someone whose whole life, oneof, you know, besides amassing
wealth, has been about amassingfame and amassing attention and
amassing influence.
And, you know, if there'ssomething he understands at, you
know, a sort of cellular level,it's that.
So I think that's part of it.
And if he knew during the firstterm that these people could
(32:30):
become boosters and allies, hewould have leapt at that, but
they were in a you know ahostile posture throughout the
first term.
And once they startedgenuflecting in the latter half
of 2024, he welcomed it.
I mean, we we have a he braggedabout it.
I mean, we have a scene in ourbook at his golf club in Durral
showing off for guests textmessages from Zuckerberg and
(32:52):
Bezos.
You know, look at this.
Basically, they quote unquote,they're kissing my ass.
And, you know, a letter fromZuckerberg's child that was very
flattering.
So this is what he was doing.
He was showing it off.
And, you know, what a flex,right?
The richest, most powerful menin the world running the most
powerful companies in the worldthat account for an inordinate
amount of the stock market.
(33:14):
Of course, Trump didn't evenknow Trump had no idea who
Jensen Wong was or what Nvidiawas, Nvidia was until the second
term.
I mean, he used to say, who'swho's this Jensen?
What's this Jensen thing?
And then Jensen Wong, Trumpsuddenly realizes he's quote
unquote hot.
And then, you know, Trumphimself becomes a shareholder in
NVIDIA and he's checking that,you know, each time you look at
(33:34):
the the vet cap, it's, you know,add an extra trillion.
So there's a sense of just aweat the the sheer sums of money
involved.
And there's another aspect toit, which is during his first
term, Trump was still verywedded to this idea of bringing
back heavy industry to America.
You know, the sort of coal minesand and that kind of thing was
(33:56):
his vision.
I I think Trump realized by thesecond term that's not really
happening.
SPEAKER_02 (34:01):
Although he will not say, although he won't say that.
He won't he won't articulatethat, but he's yeah, you get it.
SPEAKER_00 (34:06):
The coal industry is not gonna um be what it wants
was.
But what AI and these companiesare promising is capital
expenditure on just a plane thatis almost unimaginable.
And so Trump can see, obviously,that this is a way to
reindustrialize America, givehim huge investments coming into
the country, et cetera, etcetera.
(34:27):
So it's an obvious winner forhim if you come from his point
of view.
SPEAKER_03 (34:30):
Aaron Powell Yeah.
The shift, uh the beginning of ashift on AI, I thought was
perfectly captured by Sam Altmanoffering Trump five percent of
AI.
I guess the US government fivepercent of AI, although I'm not
sure about that.
Aaron Powell But the argument ofthe AI community has always been
if we don't get there first,China will.
(34:50):
Right.
Therefore, we have to, you know,keep you know the horses out of
the barn, and we should nevereven think about putting the
horse back in the barn becauseotherwise China will get first
and and we won't, and that'll bethe end of the United States in
some way.
This is not an argument that isresonating uh with what is
(35:11):
called the MAGA movement, and abig part of the MAGA movement is
white evangelical Christians whosee big tech almost uniformly as
a menace given that split.
I I'm curious because I saw aninterview with Steve Bannon in
which he said 90% of the MAGAmovement is opposed to big tech.
The Trump admin, you know, theTrump White House is off
(35:33):
completely off message, etcetera.
How much of the pushback fromthe quote MAGA movement end
quote has made a difference orhad an impact on the Trump White
House?
SPEAKER_02 (35:44):
Aaron Powell They're certainly aware of it, but John,
there's nothing in our reportingthat has so far that has
suggested, and maybe that'llchange, that that's why.
Our understanding is actuallythat a lot of it is coming from
Scott Bessent, uh among theTreasury Secretary, but also,
you know, obvious concerns aboutabout hacking and cybersecurity
that I think just weren'tnecessarily anticipated.
(36:04):
And it wasn't anticipated whatthe models might be maybe
capable of doing.
I am I have no doubt that thereare people who are in Trump's
ear directly talking about this.
And I do know that the WhiteHouse is aware of these kinds of
concerns from folks like Bannon,but I don't believe that again,
maybe there'll be something thatwe turn up in our reporting
(36:25):
going forward that suggestsotherwise, but I don't believe
that that is the driver.
I think if anything, they arethey are seeing the the split
over AI as significant as athreat to their coalition.
And other, and I'll actuallygive you a I'll give you a
perfect example as to why.
You know, so we got hold ofprivate polling memos and focus
(36:45):
group memos that Trump's toppollster Tony Fabrizio conducted
over the course of the last yearand a half, and one, well, I
should say the 14-month periodwe were writing about, and one
related to affordability, whichwas in December of last year,
but the other was summarizingtwo focus groups that two days
of focus groups that were donein March, one of which
overlapped with the day that wewere in the Oval Office.
(37:05):
And it's pretty clear that thatthe Jeffrey Epstein saga and
crisis and ongoing questionsabout what might still be the
unreleased material, voters werebringing that up proactively.
And it wasn't just, you know,hardcore MAGA folks, it was
various folks, according to thememo that Fabrizio wrote up.
And it ranked, it outweighedserious issues for these voters,
(37:28):
like crime and safety, like datacenters.
So I don't think that this isthe huge engine that Bannon, who
no doubt will light me up on hisshow for saying this, you know,
believes it is in terms of theWhite House.
I do believe it is with someaspects of the MAGA base, but I
don't think that's why the WhiteHouse is doing what it's doing.
SPEAKER_03 (37:45):
Aaron Powell I wanted to ask the question of,
you know, the presidency, youhave the formal advisors, and
then you have the people whosort of you talk to at night or
talk to over the weekend.
Who are the most influentialoutside voices or outside
friends who are on the phonewith Trump?
And I'm curious as to who theyare before we get to the
(38:08):
greatest scene ever, which isEpstein and the Situation Room.
SPEAKER_00 (38:11):
Aaron Powell Well, one of them is we just mentioned
him earlier, Boris Epstein.
Trump talks to him all the time.
It's it's sometimes hard totrace his his influence and
involvement because he's verysecretive in the way he
operates, but he has his handsin all kinds of things.
He was, for example, anintermediary, which we document
in the book in dealing with thelaw firms when Trump was trying
(38:32):
to get these huge pro bono probono commitments out of law
firms that employed orrepresented people that he
considered enemies.
Boris Epstein was in thosemeetings negotiating on Trump's
behalf.
So he's one.
And then I think it's it's sortof issue specific.
So for example, on the lead upto the Iran War, Trump was, I
think pretty much everyone inhis inner circle will tell you
(38:54):
that Mark Levin, theconservative host, had a
significant sway on histhinking.
Very hawkish, pro-Israel voice.
Mark Tyson as well, actually,who writes columns for the
Washington Post.
Jack Keane, who's a formergeneral that you see on
television.
So there's people like that onIran that have had a significant
say.
And then it's less clearbecause, you know, a lot of it
(39:16):
is sort of his interactions are,you know, he'll be on the
Mar-a-Lago patio at night withhis iPad, playing Pavarotti and
James Brown, and people willwander over to the table, have a
little chat.
He'll play golf with someone, hehears from a lot of business
people and what have you.
And so he's very easy just toget to directly.
(39:38):
So it's actually sometimes quitehard to trace a lot of his
conversations because they'renot going through
intermediaries.
They're just people callingTrump.
And there's a lot of it.
SPEAKER_02 (39:45):
One person who used to have a fair amount of
influence just from I was justthinking about the Senate and
lawmakers before he went intothe government, or at least had
frequent interactions with thepresident.
The president really liked him,was Mark Wayne Mullen.
And I wonder about what thatends up looking like now that
Mullen is at DHS and leading anagency that uh Stephen Miller
considers to be pretty brokenand is now being led by somebody
(40:07):
who has direct access to Trumpin a way that Christian Ohm just
never did.
But it it just, it's like whatJonathan said, it really does
depend on the issue.
Uh I am struck though at thingslike, you know, Trump having,
you know, his whatever hedescribed, you know, my pool guy
as doing the reflecting pool orreflecting whatever the hell we
call it now.
I I can't even remember.
He's used so many differentterms for it near the Lincoln
(40:28):
Memorial.
He's more open about the factthat his inputs are uh much more
personalist and not governmentalthan he was in term one, even
though some of them were thesame.
SPEAKER_03 (40:36):
Aaron Powell I mean, the subject of Jeffrey Epstein
is is one that uh, you know, asyou point out, it's something
that voters proactively bringup.
It comes up at dinner parties,it comes up at lunch counters,
it's it has and it hasremarkable staying power.
On the other hand, if you're anadvisor to the president of the
United States and you're gonnawalk into the Oval Office and
(40:58):
say, let's talk about Epstein,you're probably buying yourself
a one-way ticket out of theTrump administration.
So you have this wonderful scenein the book where a Epstein
meeting is held, how to dealwith the Epstein problem, but
it's it's held in the SituationRoom.
Um, can you describe thatmeeting for the listeners?
SPEAKER_02 (41:20):
Aaron Powell There's a handful of meetings that we
focused on.
There's three in particular thatwere large in the situation
room.
And as you say, you know, ththere were many that were held
during this period of time inwhich Donald Trump just wanted
Epstein to go away.
And anybody, as we write in thebook, who was bringing it up was
getting snapped at or ignored.
And so, you know, to your point,they knew this was not a winning
(41:43):
track to have conversations withhim on.
But it couldn't go away becausethere was a clamor for much more
information, because there was awidespread feeling in the
administration that Pam Bondyhad committed a huge error by
appearing to confirm there was aclient list sitting on her desk
in an interview in February of2025.
So all of this and uh, you know,efforts to tamp it down didn't
work.
There were, there were a seriesof these crisis, Epstein crisis
(42:06):
comms meetings by the top levelsof the government in this room
that is incredibly private, thatis usually used for monitoring
wars or for national security.
One in particular that we wroteabout was in August of last
year.
And this really is evocative ofwhy every path these aides had,
and to be clear, I'm not saying,you know, this is not a poor
(42:28):
them tale, just describing thatthe situation they were in.
They had built a beta version ofa website.
So by they're under subpoena inthe house by then, they were
going to put everything JeffreyEpstein related out, civil
cases, of which there are many,DOJ-related material.
That was the initial plan.
Before one of these other largemeetings in the situation room,
(42:49):
one of the aides had justentered Trump's name and up
popped this secondhand,unverified allegation that was
already public, by the way.
It had been unsealed in a in anunrelated civil case year and a
half earlier, that Trump hadabused some woman's nipples, uh,
that he had a nipple fetish andlike to flick and suck this
woman's nipples and the quotingfrom the document, and the they
(43:13):
were looked swollen and painfulto this other person who relayed
this.
So this Trump person says inthis meeting, you know, this is
out there.
This is, you know, this isthere.
And J.D.
Vance, who along with DanBongino were the most vocal
about just transparency, Vanceactually wanted to release all
of the unverified stuff,including about Trump.
And he says that he doesn'tthink the president would mind.
(43:33):
He's been accused of worse.
And Susie Wiles, the White Housechief of staff, pretty quickly
said actually, no, he he wouldmind having this put on this
website.
And so then that's the end ofthe website conversation, and
that's the end of trying to dosomething that was proactive.
One of the participants told usit was just surreal to be
describing, you know, nipples inthe situation room.
You know, we really couldn'tthink of any kind of an analog
(43:56):
or find any kind of an analog,and we checked historically.
So this was just a I don't knowhow else to describe it.
It it it is, I would urge peopleto read this reporting because
it speaks to so much about notjust how, you know, rooms in the
White House are used and who'smaking decisions, but how that
was the moment where Trumpreally started losing altitude
(44:17):
with his own base.
And you could see it, and itreally paralyzed them, unlike
anything since the Muellerinvestigation had.
SPEAKER_03 (44:27):
And you described the lead up to the war.
And the thing that's astonishingabout the reporting, and the
reporting throughout the book isastonishing, but the it's the, I
guess Trump would call it hisgut guiding the decision-making
process.
You have people uh you describeGeneral Kane as being as
non-opinionated as he possiblycan be, but uh clearly he thinks
(44:51):
this is not a good idea.
J.D.
Vance doesn't think it's a goodidea.
Mark Rubio doesn't think it's agood idea.
And boom, Trump says, let's go.
When you did the reporting onthis, was it was it just were
they as or the people who knowthem as surprised by Trump's
decision making on this as asyou were, as we were?
SPEAKER_00 (45:12):
Well, Trump is always there's a sort of an
element of not seeing what's infront of you with Trump on Iran.
Yeah.
And there are a lot of thepeople in this sort of
anti-interventionistisolationist camp who have
refused to see that Trump hasalways been more hawkish about
Iran than they have.
During the first term, a numberof his advisors counseled him to
stay in the Obama nuclear deal.
(45:34):
He pulled out.
There were several people aroundhim who thought it was risky and
a bad idea to kill QasimSuleimani.
He obviously went ahead withthat.
And then, you know, from Trump'spoint of view, the world didn't
collapse.
During the interregnum period,he was briefed by the FBI that
Iran was trying to kill him,that they'd hired kill teams
(45:54):
inside the United States.
So, you know, that probably hada personal effect on him.
We have some reporting in thebook that Netanyahu's top
advisor, Ron Derma, visited withTrump after the election and
came away from that meetingtelling associates that he
thought there was an 80% chancethat Trump would join Israel in
a war against Iran.
So he came away very much of theview that Trump was willing to
(46:16):
act more aggressively in asecond term.
There's a little bit of Trumptells different people different
things and what they want tohear.
So through the earlyadministration, he was
definitely telling people likeTucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk,
I'm not going to get draggedinto this war.
BB's, you know, a disaster.
He he described Netanyahu as acon man, uh direct quote, con
(46:38):
man, to some of his uh aides atdifferent times.
He's obviously had a fraughtrelationship with Netanyahu.
But I think that the combinationof the 12-day war last year,
which Trump saw as a spectacularsuccess, and it concluded with
Iran very tepidly firing off apretty small number of missiles
that didn't kill any Americans.
(46:58):
I think Trump concluded that theregime was not all they were
hyped up to be, that this was apaper tiger regime.
Netanyahu could be verypersuasive.
He was very aggressive andrelentless in pushing for this.
And we have a scene where hecomes down to the White House
Situation Room and gives Trump apresentation about regime change
scenarios.
But, you know, Trump didn't theidea that this was sort of
(47:20):
Netanyahu puppeteering Trump, itjust doesn't comport with our
reporting at all.
Trump had a gut instinct thatthis regime was going to fall,
that he was going to be thepresident to deal with this
problem once and for all after47 years of US policy failure.
And despite what the CIAdirector John Ratcliffe told him
about the implausibility ofNetanyahu's regime change
(47:42):
scenarios, despite what Rubiosaid, despite the risks that
were raised to him by Dan Cain,the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, Trump just felt what hefelt.
He felt this was going to go theway that it was going to be a
quick war and that none of theseproblems would happen, the
closure of the strait or themunitions issues, because the
war would be over before any ofthat happened.
(48:04):
Obviously, it was a majormiscalculation, but it was,
again, Trump gut-driven decisionmaking.
And I think there's one otherthing that we we draw out in our
reporting that's reallyimportant to understand, which
is even though you can'tactually find anyone in his
inner circle who thought thatthis war was a good idea.
I mean, the closest you'll findis Pete Hageseth.
(48:25):
But basically all of them wereskeptical.
The only one who really vocallymade a case against the war to
Trump in the room was the vicepresident.
And it cost him with Trump.
It irritated Trump.
Trump was getting, you didn'twant to hear it.
But others really kind of eitherkept their concerns to
themselves or delivered them insuch a neutral and diluted way,
(48:47):
like Dan Cain, that Trump didn'treally hear them as concerns.
He just sort of saw it as, onthe one hand, this, on the other
hand, that.
And that's how it happened.
SPEAKER_03 (48:56):
I have one last question before we let Maggie
go, and you go, uh, Jonathan.
Which is people marvel atTrump's energy and stamina and
just, you know, just keep onplowing along.
And pretty much the same peopleare concerned about his health.
They think he looks terrible.
(49:16):
They think he's getting moreforgetful.
Um and you're reporting, youknow, how do you square that
circle of this incredible energyand stamina with a person in his
80s who was clearly, if you lookat film from 2016 and compare it
to today, it it's almost liketwo different people.
How do you square that circle?
(49:37):
How what do your sources tellyou on it?
SPEAKER_02 (49:39):
Yeah, I mean, so his health is is is not an area of
success.
It is the most closed-off blackbox in his world, has been for
decades.
You know, his his former doctor,Harold Bornstein, who has since
passed away, but told a story tothe New York Times' Larry Altman
about how Trump aides came andjust absconded with his his
(50:00):
files when the president waselected the first time.
He does not like people knowingabout his health.
By the way, which doesn't meanthat there is something there.
He's just incredibly closedabout it.
And he sees he seeshealth-related issues and and
illness and disease as signs ofweakness or, you know,
indicators of weakness.
I do think two things can betrue at once.
You we all can see the anklesthing, although I don't think
(50:24):
I've seen his ankles lately.
Uh the chronic venousinsufficiency, the bruising on
the hands, that theirexplanation, I I don't entirely
understand how that ishandshaking and and people
scratching him.
You know, he's he's got he's 80.
He he he he has clearly sloweddown in terms of how he speaks.
I mean, as you said, I can lookat the same videos you do.
(50:44):
Um, and then I can look at themfrom 30 years ago, and his
speech is even crisper there.
So I don't know whether it issomething beyond that, you know,
and it may not be, but there's areason that there have been very
few 80-year-olds who arepresident of the U.S.
And it's because they tend notto be as spry as they once were.
That said, you know, he is doingthese foreign trips with these
(51:06):
insanely compressed time frames.
You know, he had some he hadsome screw-ups when he was
talking that were obvious.
You know, the the the well, Iforget what he said, but he
called he called Iran Japan andZelen Zelensky Putin.
Right.
And so he's tired.
But, you know, that he wouldn'tbe the first president in the
world who had that either.
I I just I don't know what wedon't know.
(51:26):
But what we knew what we do knowis he's 80 and he's he's clearly
not in in tip-top shape.
That doesn't mean that hedoesn't have significant stores
of energy.
And I guess the only other thingI would say, John, is that there
is this comes up often and youknow over and over again about
the comparison to Biden andcoverage of Biden's health.
Well, I mean, we see Trump muchmore than we saw Biden.
(51:47):
We just do in terms of theday-to-day.
And that is uh that is a factortoo, and I think how people make
these assessments, just asviewers.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03 (51:54):
That really comes through in the book that Trump,
you know, is engaged and he'snot is not Biden at all.
He's he's in those meetings,he's traveling all the time,
he's you know, as you say,transparent uh almost to a
fault.
I mean, it you know, Bidendidn't.
(52:14):
But I mean he's available topress gaggles all the time.
And so anyway, taking more thanenough of your time.
And I appreciate your doing itfor the listeners again.
The book is Regime Change,authored by our guests, Maggie
Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
It's this tells the story ofinside the imperial presidency
(52:35):
of Donald Trump.
I urge you to buy not one copy,but two.
Thank you very much forlistening.
SPEAKER_00 (52:40):
Thanks for having us, John.
SPEAKER_02 (52:41):
Thanks for having us, John.
Popular Podcasts
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com