The catastrophic 108-day war with Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz, killed 16 Americans, wounded hundreds more and cost taxpayers an estimated $113 billion was overseen by a shockingly small group of advisers — and two cabinet officials whose job it was to manage the oil crisis weren’t even in the room, according to a bombshell book published on June 23, 2026, by New York Times reporters.
“Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” co-authored by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, sold 150,000 copies on its first day and prompted publisher Simon & Schuster to immediately order 150,000 additional copies to keep up with demand, according to Politico’s Playbook analysis of Circana BookScan data.
The Iran War and Its Hidden Decision-Makers
In their reconstruction of the final White House Situation Room meeting before U.S.-Israeli strikes began against Iran on February 26, the authors detail who held power over a decision with global consequences. Vice President JD Vance attended, along with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House Counsel David Warrington, Communications Director Steven Cheung, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.
But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright — the two officials responsible for managing the economic fallout from a catastrophic oil supply disruption caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — were not present and were excluded from the discussions, Swan told MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has since been replaced by acting director Bill Pulte, was also kept out.
“Take the war, for example,” Swan said. “You have a tiny group of people that are running this country, five or six people and Donald Trump.” The memorandum of understanding that ended the conflict was signed on June 17, bringing the oil price spike and supply shortages to a close.
A Presidency Shrouded in Secrecy
The book published on June 23, 2026, offers a detailed examination of an 80-year-old president whose medical condition remains largely hidden from the American public. According to Haberman, observers have noted President Donald Trump’s slurred speech, unsteady movement on stairs, visible bruising on his hands and swelling around his ankles, and his falling asleep in meetings.
The White House has confirmed Trump’s consultations with 22 specialists at Walter Reed but refuses to name them. The last credible health disclosure came in 2018, Haberman reported, and Trump’s serious 2020 COVID-19 infection was never honestly revealed to the public.
“His health has always been a very specific lockbox for him, going back decades,” Haberman said, noting that Trump views sickness as a sign of weakness and his staff respects this concern. Additional health revelations seem doubtful before his term concludes, she observed.
Trump’s hearing has deteriorated to the point where joint press conferences with visiting heads of state, traditionally held in the larger East Room, are now routinely moved to the more intimate Oval Office, the book discloses. Behind closed doors, staff deal with a different kind of disorder: Trump has been found in the Oval Office attempting to affix gold decorative appliques to the marble fireplace mantel himself, and he discards White House sterling silver utensils. His private quarters are often strewn with empty potato chip bags, Starbucks wrappers and ice cream cartons.
Loyalty, January 6 and the Epstein Fallout
Trump built his second administration around a single loyalty test: January 6, the book chronicles. Anyone seeking proximity to power had to affirm that the Capitol rioters were patriots later mistreated by the Biden administration, a demand that required prospective staffers to publicly abandon their integrity before walking through the door.
The result is an administration that operates as a feedback loop of sycophancy, with rare exceptions. Bessent urged Trump to publicly commit to keeping Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in place to calm rattled markets. Then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Trump there was no legal basis to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James, a warning Trump ignored. The indictment proceeded and quickly collapsed.
The book reveals that Situation Room discussions were consumed at times by efforts to manage the scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, and that some of the book’s reporting drew on secretly recorded and leaked audio of those meetings.
In the book’s concluding interview with Trump, the president recounted how someone he described as “a historian,” who turned out to be golfer Gary Player’s caddie, drew favorable comparisons between Trump and a series of historical military conquerors and dictators spanning from antiquity through the twentieth century. Trump relayed the comparison approvingly.
What the Book Means for Trump’s Second Term
What emerges is not simply a portrait of a chaotic president but something more unsettling: an administration engineered to amplify Trump’s worst instincts, with aides who either share those instincts or have learned that dissent is pointless. The sending of National Guard troops into American cities to enforce immigration law and Trump’s suggestion that the United States take possession of Gaza complete a picture of a presidency operating with few institutional guardrails. According to the book, Trump’s aides largely supported deploying the Guard without objection.
For an administration that has repeatedly claimed to be the most transparent in American history, the picture Haberman and Swan paint is one of extraordinary opacity. Swan explained that despite Trump’s claims, this White House is “incredibly good at keeping secrets.” He told MS NOW there’s a reason inside-the-room reporting has been scarce: “It’s because it’s really **** hard. This is a tiny group of people running the government.”
The two journalists describe the effort in stark terms, saying they “nearly killed ourselves” to bring the story to light.
