Five jaw-dropping revelations from the bestselling Trump book he hates ...Middle East

A new book about the first 14 months of Donald Trump’s second presidential term has become a word-of-mouth bestseller, selling 300,000 copies in its first week on sale for its gossipy insights into goings-on in the White House – and its interviews with key stakeholders.

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan depicts in detail key White House meetings, Trump’s military decisions, how he’s wielded the power of the US Department of Justice (DoJ) against his political opponents, and his remodelling of the White House.

For his part, Trump, who sat with Haberman and Swan for an interview for the book, now calls it “mostly made up.”

In the book’s final chapter, the authors interview Trump in the Oval Office 17 days into the Iran war. After discussing his recent purchase of some maple trees, he hands them a list of history’s most powerful people, which he claimed was by a historian – it later transpired a hobbyist golf caddy had written it – with his name at the top.

“He then said: ‘Look, it goes through the top ten,’ and it’s like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan … the worst people you’ve ever met,” Swan told The Times. “We were just listening a lot,” Haberman said.

That listening has resulted in a book that has arguably had as much impact as the merciless Vanity Fair photoshoot in December, which showed the White House team in unrelenting close-up.

Here are five of the wildest revelations from Regime Change.

White House staff met to discuss Epstein files

On July 17, 2025, Vice President JD Vance chaired a meeting with FBI Director Kash Patel and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, among others, to figure out what to do about the case of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The US President’s repeated appearances in the files were engulfing the presidency, but Trump himself was not at the meeting. Instead, his underlings clashed.

Vance was “panicked” at the meeting. He was privately pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files: everything in the DoJ’s possession.

He even suggested that the former Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson be enlisted to interview Epstein’s jailed accomplice, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, in the hope that they would manage to get an exoneration for Trump from her on camera. A pardon for Maxwell was even discussed.

Others shot down both ideas in the room. “With all due respect,” said deputy White House chief of staff James Blair, “the communications strategy of this group got us here. I don’t know that it’s going to get us out.”

Melania Trump and the White House

It has often been speculated that Melania Trump is a reluctant First Lady, and this is a point that Regime Change appears to confirm.

The book claims that Melania does not like her husband’s changes to the White House because she doesn’t like living in a “construction zone.”

“Mrs Trump, who preferred a quiet environment with minimal disturbances and objected to living in a construction zone, had repeatedly expressed concern about the size and location of the ballroom,” the authors write, referring to the President’s new project, for which he demolished part of the historic building – including, crucially, the East Wing, which has traditionally housed the First Lady’s offices.

Melania also reportedly objected to the billionaire Elon Musk sleeping over at the White House during the early months of the administration as he ran the US Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE].

“Musk had asked if he might sleep in the White House residence, and Trump said yes,” Haberman and Swan report. “The First Lady initially objected, but Musk would end up spending several nights in the Lincoln Bedroom.”

The Lincoln Bedroom is a guest room on the second floor of the White House, once used by former president Abraham Lincoln as an office.

Trump Arch image

Trump has campaigned to remake Washington and its monuments in his image, including proposing to build the world’s largest arch, inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

But according to Haberman and Swan’s research, the President wanted to devote it even more to his memory.

“Privately, he had also been asking confidants what he should have on top of the arch. Should it be, he mused, a large replica of the famous pose he struck after the assassination attempt … in 2024.

“During one White House meeting, Trump reportedly phoned French President Emmanuel Macron to consult about the arch, given Macron’s familiarity with the Paris lookalike.

“We have a viewing deck? I don’t know. Could be dangerous? People throw bottles and s**t off it, right? Do you think they’d throw bottles?” the book quotes Trump as saying. “Maybe we should have a viewing platform. You can see Arlington Cemetery; it’s a great view.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, it’s dangerous. You can jump off it,” Trump reportedly continued. “What do you think, Emmanuel, do people jump off it? No?”

Trump wanted to host January 6 rioters

I JUST GOT THE NEWS FROM MY LAWYER…I GOT A PARDON BABY!THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!NOW I AM GONNA BUY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!!GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!J6ers are getting released & JUSTICE HAS COME…EVERYTHING done in the dark WILL come to light! pic.twitter.com/g9pwc7v9EQ

One of the first official actions Trump made after returning to power was to pardon or commute the sentences of more than 1,500 supporters who had been charged or convicted of crimes connected to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“On the first afternoon of his second term, Trump said: ‘F–k it. Let’s release them all,'” the writers reported.

“Serious conversations” between Trump and his staff followed over his first week in office about hosting the rioters he often described as “hostages” at the White House – but even “Trump would privately acknowledge it might be too much of a bad look” and was “aware of the optics”.

The one issue they couldn’t crack

People spoke to Haberman and Swan about all kinds of other issues, including the war in Iran, Trump’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the way Trump targeted those who had investigated him, even on one occasion when he couldn’t remember the man’s name.

But in an interview the authors did with The Guardian, they said there was one crucial story they had trouble finding any information about: Trump’s health.

“Illness freaks him out; he perceives illness as weakness, usually, and he certainly perceives any sense that he is having an issue as a projection of weakness,” Haberman said.

“So the number of people who actually know what is happening with his health … they’ve provided less and less information, except for saying things like: ‘He saw 22 specialists,’ but they won’t say who the specialists are.

“Remember, they were not honest at all about how sick he was during Covid in 2020, and so we’ve never really known the extent of that, or any after-effects.”

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