My book for August is Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. I saw the authors interviewed on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and decided to read the book.
Written by veteran New York Times investigative reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the book provides an inside look at the foreign and domestic political maneuvers during the first fifteen months of Donald Trump's second administration. The authors detail how the guardrails of Trump's first administration—such as traditional military leaders and legal advisors—were largely replaced by loyalists committed to executing executive directives.
I was disappointed by the book. While it is a well written summary of the first fifteen months of Trump's second term, there was very little that I hadn't heard or read about before.
There are a few nuggets. I didn't realize how entwined Charlie Kirk was with the Trump adminstration. He was very close to JD Vance. Kirk had moved his family to Florida to help interview staff for the new adminstration. The process used to establish the initial tariff levels seemed capricious; Trump was just pulling numbers of the air. Finally, the descriptions of the meetings held to decide to attack Iran in February were very disconcerting. Trump isn't willing to listen to everyone's feedback and challenge his own world view; he always thinks that he knows the answer.
Overall, I don't recommend the book.
I was raised in a large corporate farming family in rural Northern California. I still self identify as a Republican. I have read more than fifty books about American presidents. The books about the Trump presidencies are very disturbing. I previously documented my concerns about Trump's leadership here and here.
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