“The word ‘loyalty’ almost isn’t strong enough to describe the bond that some of them have with him,” says New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan about many of the officials in Trump’s White House.Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty
President Donald Trump’s second term has often felt like an exercise in mass distraction. As soon as he’s directing people to pay attention to one issue like the Iran war or immigration, he’s already moved on to false claims about widespread voter fraud, taking over Greenland, or building a massive arch in the nation’s capital.
In the new book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, New York Times reporter and co-author Jonathan Swan has tried to make sense of Trump’s unprecedented tenure by bringing readers inside the room where major decisions happen. And Swan says the loyalists Trump has surrounded himself with in his second term have made Trump’s overwhelming and exhausting presidency possible.
“The word ‘loyalty’ almost isn’t strong enough to describe the bond that some of them have with him,” Swan says. “It’s a belief that this man is a figure of destiny, a figure of history, that God has put him here to save the country.”
On this week’s More To The Story, Swan talks about the immense challenges of covering the Trump administration, how the Jeffrey Epstein scandal sent the White House into crisis mode behind closed doors, and why he’s not eager to write another book about the president anytime soon.
Find More To The Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, or your favorite podcast app, and don’t forget to subscribe.
