Is there an audiobook of Regime Change?

Yes. Regime Change has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Robert Petkoff.

How long is the Regime Change audiobook?

The Regime Change audiobook runs 17 hr 7 min.

Is Regime Change on Kindle Unlimited?

No. Regime Change was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 25, 2026.

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman book cover for the Book of the Day politics book review

Our score

4.9/ 5

Incredible

Listen to Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

EDITION PUBLISHEDJune 2026

Genres

Non-Fiction Politics Journalism

Themes

The erosion of institutional checks on presidential powerHow proximity to power reshapes the people around itThe mechanics of an administration built on personal loyaltyJournalism as a check when other checks fail

Regime ChangeInside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

Name: Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump
Price: 16.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Maggie Haberman

Maggie Haberman

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's Regime Change is a reported nonfiction account of Donald Trump's second term, built from hundreds of interviews inside the West Wing, and it reads less like a news roundup than a portrait of a White House that has stopped pretending anyone can tell the president no.

The Review

Our take

The scene that sets the terms of Regime Change isn't a rally or a courtroom. It's a hallway conversation, relayed secondhand and confirmed a dozen ways, in which a senior aide explains that the job now is not to change the president's mind but to figure out which version of an order he'll actually remember giving. Haberman and Swan use that kind of moment over and over: small, procedural, almost bureaucratic, and devastating precisely because it isn't dramatic. Their argument, stated plainly enough that you could write it on an index card, is that the checks which shaped Trump's first term, wary generals, cautious lawyers, a press corps he still needed, have been replaced by people who learned exactly how far he'll go and stopped standing in the way.

What makes the book work is the reporting density. This isn't a thesis dressed up with a few illustrative anecdotes; it's built on interviews with people across the Situation Room, the counsel's office, and the cabinet who watched specific decisions get made and were willing to describe how. The chapters on the border surge and the deployment of National Guard troops into American cities carry the most weight, because Haberman and Swan resist the temptation to editorialize and instead lay out the sequence of meetings, the dissents that got overruled, and the language used to justify each escalation. The chapter reconstructing the decision to enter a new Middle East conflict reads the same way: procedural, sourced, and more unsettling for its restraint than a more polemical version of the same material would be.

The prose is plainer than you'd expect from two reporters this deeply credentialed, and that's a deliberate choice rather than a limitation. Long paragraphs of Situation Room dialogue sit next to short, almost clipped sections that function like scene breaks, and the effect is propulsive without feeling engineered for it. There's dry humor scattered through the book too, usually in the gap between what an official says on the record and what the authors' sourcing shows was actually happening, and it lands harder for being understated.

Why you should read

Readers who want reporting over commentary
Fans of inside-the-room political journalism
Anyone tracking the mechanics of the second Trump term
Readers who prefer sourced detail to punditry

What to expect

Scene-driven chapters built from named and unnamed sourcing
A procedural, restrained tone even in high-stakes moments
Dense reporting that rewards close attention
Occasional dry humor amid the gravity

The throughline, once you notice it, is about consequence: the idea that Trump's brushes with prosecution and political near-death didn't chasten him so much as convince him nothing could actually stop him, and that this conviction now shapes every major decision coming out of the West Wing. Haberman and Swan don't argue that thesis loudly. By the closing chapters, watching how routinely the old guardrails simply aren't there anymore, it argues itself.

Reviewed by Ellis · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.9/ 5

Incredible

Listen to Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of Regime Change?: Yes. Regime Change has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Robert Petkoff.
Listen to Regime Change free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the Regime Change audiobook?: The Regime Change audiobook runs 17 hr 7 min.
Is Regime Change on Kindle Unlimited?: No. Regime Change was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 25, 2026.
How much does Regime Change cost?: On Amazon: Kindle $16.99, Hardcover $16.99. Prices as of August 26, 2026 at 3:46 AM EDT and may change.

Filed underPolitics Journalism Browse the archive →

Common questions

What is Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump about?: The scene that sets the terms of Regime Change isn't a rally or a courtroom. It's a hallway conversation, relayed secondhand and confirmed a dozen ways, in which a senior aide explains that the job now is not to change the president's mind but to figure out which version of an order he'll actually…
Is Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump worth reading?: We scored Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump 4.9 out of 5. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's Regime Change is a reported nonfiction account of Donald Trump's second term, built from hundreds of interviews inside the West Wing, and it reads less like a news roundup than a portrait of a White House that has stopped pretending anyone…