“In term one, Trump had already had a pretty high appetite for risk. It is stratospheric in term two. In Regime Change, Jonathan and I wanted to present reality, not one person’s impression or somebody’s retroactive description of heroics. We wanted to explain how this unbelievably consequential first year and change of this presidency works.”
-Maggie Haberman, episode 459 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
All that glitters is not gold.
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The New York Times who’s been covering Donald Trump for nearly three decades. Her extraordinary level of access in and around the Oval Office has resulted in two best-sellers, including the book of the summer, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.
The new book, co-written with her Times colleague Jonathan Swan, chronicles the first year of Trump’s 2nd term: how the current Trump administration differs from the first (5:05), the “rotating cast of characters” that orbits the Oval Office (9:40), the president’s obsession with gold and interior decorating (13:15), and what his insatiable appetite for risk has meant for the country–and people–who delivered him back to the White House (28:25) . We also discuss the tentative release of the Epstein files (22:03), the ongoing wars in Iran and Ukraine (33:15), and how Trump’s health is like “a black box” inside the administration (41:00).
On the back-half, Haberman unpacks the early influence of her father, fellow Times journalist Clyde Haberman (47:00), finding her footing at New York tabloids (55:20), how her career took a left turn after Trump’s victory in 2016 (1:01:35), the “access journalism” critiques she’s received in recent years (1:04:33), and why she prefers to make journalistic assessments of the President rather than psychological ones (1:10:40). To close, she talks about interviewing Trump this past spring (1:13:09), a shocking exchange around power inside the Oval Office (1:14:30), and her commitment to covering this chapter of American history until we turn the page (1:30:20).
As always, our email: talkeasypod@gmail.com.
Watch this conversation on YouTube:
-
-
Show-notes:
- Order Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
- Read Maggie’s previous book Confidence Man.
- Find more of her reporting at The New York Times.
- For more episodes, hear Michelle Obama, Jacob Soboroff, and David Remnick.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
Photographs by Sarah Schneider. Design by Derek Gabryszak and Will Tuddenham.
Subscribe, rate, and review: Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
-