Click here to read the full article.
Dozens of books are sure to result from the staggering events of Donald Trump’s second term, from the president’s unprecedented grip on the media to the spectacle of America’s tech leaders kissing his ring and the constant
challenges to civil liberties. One of the first major ones out of the gate is “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” from New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman and Times investigative reporter Jonathan Swan.
The book “draws on extensive interviews conducted on the condition of anonymity to recount internal discussions and sensitive issues,” said the New York Times, which has come under some criticism for not immediately publishing any fresh revelations instead of waiting for the book to be published. But even more than revealing secrets, it’s the sheer accumulation of unprecedented events that makes it a notable work: Trump’s obsession with currying favor with the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg (“X, Facebook, Apple, TikTok, and Google had all bent the knee,” the book notes); the frantic White House scramble to head off fallout from the Epstein files, and the unusual positioning of the American president as some kind of uber-meme informed by the imagery of action movies and wrestling.
Here are some of the book’s revealing moments pertaining to the media and entertainment:
Trump installed Steven Cheung as White House Communications Director, fascinated with his forbidding persona. Mel Gibson agreed:
“No less an authority than the actor Mel Gibson had taken note of the comms chief’s attributes. Approaching Cheung at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event in 2023, the star of Mad Max and Lethal Weapon had told him, ‘God, you have a great look. You look like you could be a villain in a movie.’ Trump was often fixated on male beauty; his appraisal of a job seeker’s handsomeness could be a prerequisite for the most highly visible administration posts—but he liked his enforcers to look like enforcers. Similarly, he would say Cheung was his Luca Brasi — a reference to Don Vito Corleone’s ruthless hit man in the Mafia classic ‘The Godfather.’ He would privately describe Cheung as ‘like the more violent version of Kim Jong Un,’ and in conversations with aides Trump would say that Cheung reminded him of Xi Jinping: ‘No games.’
Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino modeled his aggressive image on Jack Nicholson in “The Border,” while Dr. Phil helped add to the “public spectacle” of ICE enforcement:
“The opening battle in the conflict between the Trump administration and the nation’s major cities would not come in Washington, D.C., however, but in Los Angeles. Early on Friday, June 6, federal officials launched a series of raids to hunt for illegal immigrants in Los Angeles. Masked agents swarmed Home Depot parking lots, car washes, and a clothing company in the downtown Los Angeles Fashion District, among other worksites. The effort would soon be taken over by Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino. Short in stature, Bovino was inspired to do his job by the 1982 Jack Nicholson crime thriller ‘The Border.’ He had carefully honed an aggressive image, taunting his critics on social media and holding an assault rifle in an online profile picture. His swagger was on full display during the L.A. mission. ‘We’re not going to hit one location, we’re going to hit as many as we can,’ Bovino told the Associated Press. ‘All over — all over — the Los Angeles region, we’re going to turn and burn to that next target and the next and the next and the next, and we’re not going to stop. We’re not going to stop until there’s not a problem here.’ Television personality Dr. Phil McGraw had embedded with one of the ICE units, underscoring the premium the administration put on the public spectacle of enforcement.”
Early on, Trump complained about David Ellison, who had donated to the Joe Biden campaign. That seemed to change as he later characterized both David and Larry Ellison as “big supporters.”
“CBS was owned by Paramount Global, the entertainment conglomerate mired in debt and run by media scion Shari Redstone. In July 2024, she had announced a merger with Skydance Media, a production company owned by David Ellison, son of the multibillionaire tech executive Larry Ellison. While Trump liked Larry, who was one of his own political donors, he would grouse about the son, who had donated nearly $1 million to support Joe Biden’s reelection. Paramount’s own parent company needed the FCC to approve its merger with Skydance, a deal that would bring Redstone more than $500 million. This was a concern that floated in the background; no federal approval meant no deal.”
The White House had already ordered the “Donald J. Trump” letters for the Kennedy Center before the board had even approved the name change.
“The White House quietly ordered the large letters ‘DONALD J. TRUMP’ to be added to the facade well before the board had even rubber-stamped the authorization to rename the building. Since Trump had taken control, scores of artists had canceled engagements and many more had announced they would refuse to perform in protest. By early November, programming was in trouble and ticket sales had plummeted to catastrophically low levels not seen since the Covid pandemic.”
Trump didn’t believe that Jeff Bezos couldn’t control the Washington Post’s coverage, and Bezos told Trump it was his “worst investment” at a dinner.
“At first, Trump hadn’t believed Bezos when the billionaire told him that he couldn’t control the Post’s coverage. As proof, Bezos told Trump that the newspaper’s reporters would write negative stories about him, too. ‘He said they write stories about him. And I didn’t believe him the first time, first term. And I hated him for it,’ Trump recalled. ‘And then I believed him.’ At their dinner after the 2024 election, Bezos described the newspaper that had once brought down a President as his worst financial investment. ‘The people there are terrible,’ he told Trump, complaining about the business side of a storied newsroom he had hoped to make profitable. ‘They don’t listen. My other companies, they listen.’
As Trump grew closer to Bezos, he was impressed by at least one notable name at the Amazon mogul’s wedding.
“Everyone was at your wedding, Trump marveled. How was it? It was great, Bezos replied. When the conversation turned to the guest list and Bezos mentioned that the actress Sydney Sweeney had attended, the President’s interest deepened. ‘Ooooh,’ Trump said.”
Trump tried to raise the settlement amount for the George Stephanopoulos ABC libel case to as high as $60 million, despite a settlement as low as $3 million being agreed on at one point.
“In early December 2024, the President-elect’s advisors and Disney had agreed on the framework of a settlement: $3 million to a charity for military veterans that the two sides would have to agree on. Trump also wanted a personal apology from the anchor. Stephanopoulos did not apologize, but he soon had what was deemed a ‘cordial’ meeting with the president-elect at Trump Tower, and the situation seemed to have been resolved. But days later, the Trump team began trying to change the terms. Boris Epshteyn had told associates the President could get a vastly higher sum from Disney — $60 million, if not more. Suddenly Trump was no longer interested in the deal he had previously agreed to… By the end of the mediation session, Trump appeared to accept he had hit his limit, and the deal was entered with the court. It would be $15 million, put in escrow for an eventual Trump presidential library account, plus $1 million for Trump’s legal fees, which had been covered for years by donors to his political action committee.”
