He is acting and the system is trying to catch up to him.
In the long arc of American democratic governance, power has always tested the boundaries of its own constraints — but two journalists who spent years inside the machinery of the Trump administration argue that something qualitatively new has taken shape. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan describe a second Trump presidency that does not merely push against institutional limits but operates as though they are largely irrelevant, with war decisions made unilaterally, cabinet selections filtered through loyalty and aesthetics, and a circle of advisers so small that the secretaries of energy and treasury were excluded from Iran war planning. The question their reporting raises is not merely political but constitutional: whether a republic's immune system can respond to a strain it was not designed to recognize.
- Trump launched military action against Iran without consulting Congress — a break from even the most criticized war presidencies of the modern era.
- Cabinet selections were shaped less by expertise than by personal loyalty and visual presentation, with January 6th loyalty serving as the ultimate filter for who stayed and who was removed.
- The administration's inner circle shrank so dramatically that roughly six people now drive decisions of global consequence, with dissenting voices structurally excluded rather than merely overruled.
- The Situation Room — historically reserved for national security crises — was repurposed to manage the political fallout from the Epstein files, with senior officials convening repeatedly to control what the public would see.
- Haberman and Swan's core warning is that this is not a partisan realignment but a redefinition of the presidency itself, and the institutions meant to check it are still catching up.
After more than a thousand hours of interviews across government and beyond, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have arrived at a conclusion that frames their new book: Donald Trump's second presidency is not a louder or more aggressive version of what came before — it is a different conception of the office entirely.
The clearest illustration may be the decision to go to war with Iran. Congress was not consulted. George W. Bush, whose wars drew enormous criticism, at least sought and received congressional authorization. Trump acted, and the system responded after the fact. This was possible, Swan argues, because Trump commands his own party in Congress with a completeness no recent president has matched — they follow, and the traditional friction of co-equal branches largely disappears.
The administration's staffing logic runs on two tracks: loyalty and appearance. Before naming John Ratcliffe as CIA director, Trump reportedly noted that Ratcliffe looked like Cary Grant. Pete Hegseth earned his position partly through his television presence. But the deeper test was January 6th — where officials stood on that date, and the day after, determined whether they had a future in the administration.
What Haberman found most striking was the information environment Trump now inhabits. His first term had advisers willing to push back; his second has filtered that out almost entirely. Decisions of enormous weight are made by roughly six people. When war with Iran was being planned, the energy secretary and treasury secretary — the officials who would manage the economic and energy consequences — were kept out of the room because the inner circle feared leaks.
The Situation Room itself became a symbol of this closed-circle governance. In the summer of 2024, it was used not for national security deliberations but for repeated meetings on how to manage the release of the Epstein files — specifically, what to do when Trump's name appeared in documents on a Justice Department website. Swan described it as an extraordinary repurposing of the nation's most sensitive space for political damage control, with consequences that rippled further than the administration anticipated.
Haberman and Swan's conclusion is not that Trump is a more extreme Republican. It is that he has changed what the presidency means — and that the institutions designed to check executive power are still working out whether and how they can respond.
Two New York Times reporters who spent more than a thousand hours interviewing sources across government and beyond have concluded that Donald Trump's second presidency represents something fundamentally different from anything the country has seen before—not merely a shift in party control or ideology, but a wholesale reimagining of what the office itself can do and how it operates.
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, speaking to CBS News about their book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," describe a presidency marked by the unilateral exercise of executive power at a scale without modern precedent. Swan noted that Trump has wielded authority in ways that dwarf even the controversial presidencies that came before. When Trump decided to go to war with Iran, Congress was not consulted. George W. Bush, for all the criticism leveled at his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at least sought and obtained congressional authorization. Trump simply acted, and the system scrambled to respond. What makes this possible, Swan observed, is that Trump commands his own party in Congress in a way no recent president has—they do what he wants, period.
The machinery of this presidency runs on two principles above all others: loyalty and appearance. When Trump selected officials for his cabinet, he asked two questions. First, would they be fiercely loyal to him? Second, did they look the part? Before naming John Ratcliffe as CIA director, Trump remarked that he thought Ratcliffe resembled the actor Cary Grant—a comment that reveals how much the visual dimension mattered. Pete Hegseth became secretary of defense partly because Trump liked how he performed on television and appreciated that he spoke the language of defending warriors. Tulsi Gabbard received the director of national intelligence position with a shrug: what harm could she really do? But the deeper filter was January 6th. That date became the true litmus test. Where were you on January 6th, and where were you on January 7th? If Trump perceived any daylight between you and him on those dates, you were out.
What emerges from Haberman and Swan's reporting is a portrait of a president operating inside an information bubble of unprecedented tightness. Unlike his first term, when Trump had advisers willing to push back on occasion, his second administration filters out dissenting views almost entirely. Haberman emphasized that while Joe Biden also disliked receiving bad news, Trump's isolation is unlike anything she can remember covering. The inputs reaching him are so narrow that decisions of enormous consequence are made by roughly half a dozen people. When the administration moved toward war with Iran, the energy secretary and treasury secretary—the two officials who would have to manage the economic fallout and global energy crisis that would follow—were initially excluded from the planning meetings because the group worried about leaks.
Perhaps the most striking example of how this closed circle operates came in the summer of 2024, when the Situation Room—the secure facility where presidents typically convene for top-level national security decisions—was repurposed as a crisis management center for handling the fallout from the Epstein files. Senior government officials gathered there repeatedly to devise a public relations strategy. The problem they faced was concrete: the Justice Department had built a public-facing website to release documents, and when they searched it for Trump's name, they found material they deemed embarrassing. The meetings became exercises in deciding what to disclose and what to withhold. Swan described it as an extraordinary use of the nation's most sensitive space for what amounted to political damage control. The crisis that emerged from those decisions, he noted, had ripple effects far beyond what Trump's team anticipated.
Haberman and Swan's central finding is that Trump has fundamentally altered the conception of the presidency itself. This is not a Republican versus Democrat story, not a matter of different policy priorities within a shared constitutional framework. It is, they argue, a different understanding of what the office is and what it can do. The question now is whether the institutions designed to check executive power can adapt quickly enough to a president who operates as though those constraints do not apply to him.
Citas Notables
We were covering not the transfer of power from a Democrat to a Republican. This is a fundamentally different conception of the U.S. presidency.— Maggie Haberman, New York Times reporter
We haven't seen anything like this in our lifetime in terms of the unilateral expression of executive power.— Jonathan Swan, New York Times reporter
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
When you say Trump operates in an information bubble, what does that actually look like day to day? Who's in the room and who's not?
It's a very small group—maybe six people making decisions that affect the entire country. And the people who should be in the room, the ones with expertise in the consequences, are often locked out because someone worries about a leak. You end up with decisions made by people who don't have to live with the fallout.
The Situation Room being used for Epstein crisis management—that's almost absurd. How did that happen?
It happened because the stakes felt enormous to Trump personally. They were trying to figure out what to release and what to hide from documents about him. So they took the most secure room in government and turned it into a PR war room. That's the kind of thing that happens when loyalty and self-protection become the organizing principle.
You mentioned January 6th became a litmus test. What does that actually mean for who stays and who goes?
It means if you wavered for even a moment on January 7th—if you suggested anything other than total alignment with Trump—you were gone. It wasn't about competence or experience. It was about whether you passed that one test.
How is this different from past presidents who also wanted loyal staff?
Past presidents wanted loyalty, sure. But they also wanted people who would tell them hard truths. Trump's second term doesn't have that. The advisers around him now are selected specifically because they won't push back. That's a different animal entirely.
What happens when a president makes major decisions with almost no input from people who understand the consequences?
You get decisions that look good in the moment but create problems nobody anticipated. The Iran war is the clearest example—made without consulting the people who'd have to manage the economic aftermath.