BOOK REVIEW: Regime Change Exposes the Thin Skin Beneath Trump’s Second-Term Swagger

Political books tend to follow familiar routes: a departing leader explains the battles of office, a senior aide settles scores, or a veteran journalist reconstructs how a politician reached power. Regime Change, by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, joins that crowded tradition while taking aim at Donald Trump’s second-term image of swagger and control.

The book follows Trump from the period after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020, when he was in political exile in Florida, through his return to the presidency. Its account extends to the decision to launch what the review describes as a devastating war of choice with Iran.

The review compares Regime Change with several established forms of political writing. Barack Obama’s account of his first term focused on the difficulties of governing and the people he encountered. John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened used memoir to settle scores. Theodore H. White chronicled presidential campaigns, while Joe McGinniss examined the advertising techniques that helped construct Richard Nixon’s public image in 1968.

The tradition also includes Bob Woodward’s books about presidents and lightly fictionalized political novels such as Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men and Joe Klein’s Primary Colors. Against that background, Haberman and Swan’s work is presented as a detailed, closely observed account of Trump’s political journey.

The review praises the authors’ attention to detail, their sensitivity to language and their ability to notice what goes unsaid. It argues that their revelations, together with Haberman’s more recent reporting, have reached the “notoriously thin skin” of the incumbent president.