198. How Trump’s Imperial Presidency Really Works
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Thanks for listening to The Rest Is Politics. Sign up to The Rest Is Politics Plus to enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolitics.com. That's therestispolitics.com. Is it chaotic or is there a method to the madness?
The two people would have to manage the fallout from the biggest global energy shock in history. They just learn about this, you know, the day of.
He was being compared with Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Hitler, Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin.
This is a president who is operating so much on pure gut.
The White House press corps generally have lost the battle of how to cover this guy.
What I think that the Trump era has shown more broadly, I would say, is the limits of what daily journalism can do.
Stephen Miller immediately saw that this was an opening to crush the left.
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How does Donald Trump's imperial presidency really work? Well, to help us answer that question, I'm joined today by two very, very good journalists, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan of The New York Times. And they've written a book, Regime Change, which is already the fastest selling nonfiction book of 2026 in the USA. They've done More than a thousand interviews with people attached to the Trump presidency. Their book, which I've read now twice, really does give you a sense of life inside Trump world, from the Oval Office to the Situation Room. And it also gives you an extraordinary insight into the decision-making process surrounding the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran. So I hope you enjoy listening to me talking to them as much as I enjoy talking to them.
I wonder if I can start with that commercial success, and please don't take this the wrong way. We're a British podcast, but I can tell you that more than half of our top 10 episodes last year were about Donald Trump. So how much is that amazing first week sale down to your undoubted journalistic skills? And how much is it actually how much is it actually down to the fact that the world is obsessed with Donald Trump?
Can I give you an obnoxious answer?
Yeah, go on. Go on. Do that. Do that.
It's down to us. I'm telling you that because every Trump book in the last three years has sold like 10,000 copies. So we must be doing something right. We actually had been told by many people that the nonfiction market was dead, that everyone was exhausted by Trump. I was very bearish about this book. uh actually commercially i thought it was the best work we'd ever done journalistically um but commercially i was very bearish because all the signs in the market were that people were just not reading this stuff anymore um so we must have done something right i was just saying to maggie before you came on jonathan i have both listened to the book and read the book uh in in in this form and it's a very different experience i found reading it
more pleasurable than listening because listening, not because you're not a brilliant journalist, just because Trump is who he is, who he is. I found it gave me a headache quite regularly and I had to sort of just slow down and stop.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–9:28
2
How did Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan research Regime Change and secure interviews with Trump?
9:28–21:07
3
How did Netanyahu persuade Trump toward a regime‑change approach on Iran?
21:07–35:22
4
Is the White House decision‑making process chaotic or is there a method to the madness?
35:22–41:33
5
How secretive was the planning that led up to the U.S.‑Israeli strikes on Iran?
41:33–48:03
6
Why did Trump grant an in‑person Oval Office interview and what did it reveal about his view of presidential power?
48:03–50:08
Speakers
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