This Author’s New Book Has Made Trump SUPER Mad

Congratulations on the book.It is making waves everywhere.It is full of revelations.

To be able to write those scenes in the Situation Room and get inside for meetings, it was just a brutal reporting period.The Vice President, on the record to Megyn Kelly, said he thought that we had tape recordings.

One individual you mention in the book, who many people may not have heard of, But stands out is Natalie Hopp.You report on a note she left the president in his personal space which said, you are all that matters to me.

Secret service during the campaign became aware of this, and they were concerned.

Trump and Netanyahu, they have had a love -hate relationship.

In the last few weeks, he's been very, very angry with Netanyahu, particularly with his actions in Lebanon.

He put out a Truth Social post on Sunday and said your book is, quote, mostly made up, fake news, largely fiction.Jonathan Swan, what is your response to Donald J. Trump?There's no question that President Donald Trump's second term is wildly different from his first.He's more emboldened, even more corrupt.and much more authoritarian.And he surrounded himself with a small group of loyalists who back his every move.

Now, two New York Times journalists, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, are taking us inside that Trump inner circle, inside a White House bent on acquiring more and more power, with a stunning new book that reveals exactly what's gone down in secret meetings on sensitive topics, including how Trump decided to attack Iran and how his team tried to do damage control over the Epstein files.while in the Situation Room.The book is called Regime Change Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.And my good friend, co -author Jonathan Swan is here with me now.Jonathan, welcome.

Thanks for having me.Appreciate it.

Congratulations on the book.It is making waves everywhere.It is full of revelations.I have to begin by asking you this.You have been covering Donald Trump for a long time.

I have.

You and I have been discussing Donald Trump for a long time.

Accurate.

You have written about Donald Trump for a long time.You've interviewed the man multiple times.So when you're writing this new book, when you and Maggie are doing the reporting, the research, the interviews, what shocks you most?What surprises you most?What makes Jonathan Swan go, wow, I didn't see that coming in a decade of covering Trump?

Well, it's not that I didn't see it coming, but it's that What occurred to us, and we realized very early on in the reporting process, is that the second term Trump administration was almost unrecognizable from the first term administration.In so many ways, you kind of outlined some of them, but the way he's using presidential power, it's not just unlike what we saw in his first term, it's unlike any president that we've seen in our lifetimes, in some respects.In some respects, it's unlike any president we've seen.That's not to say that other presidents haven't gone to war without Congress.Of course they have.But when you look at the totality of everything that he's doing and the way he's using executive power, we couldn't find a president.

And the reason we use the title regime change was actually before he went on his overseas adventures doing regime change.It occurred to us that we were covering a form of regime change in our own country.Sometimes when you're reporting I find the hardest thing is to sort of see what's in front of you.And there's no question.I've been covering Trump now for 11 consecutive years.You sort of, you know, you get desensitized.

But it became very clear early on that this was not at all like the first term.

Your co -author Maggie Haberman has said that writing this book really killed both of you.It was mentally and physically exhausting.Why was that?Was it because you were taking on the most powerful, most vindictive man in the world at the height of his powers?

It was more the You know this, establishing facts, it's so painful.for me to even contemplate the amount of material that we had to throw aside because we had like a 1 % or 2 % or 3 % doubt in our mind about whether it was accurate.Like, to be able to write those scenes in the Situation Room and get inside for meetings that, you know, in many cases are not particularly flattering, to say the least, it's really hard.It's really, really hard.You can't take one person's word for it.And It was just a brutal reporting period.

I mean, you mentioned 2%, 3 % doubt.You're dealing with an administration filled with shameless liars, fabulous people who have no compunction lying to your face about something you've seen with your eyes or heard with your ears.How do you verify this stuff?You've got stuff coming out of the Situation Room, which few reporters have reported out from.I know you're not going to reveal sources.I'm not going to ask you about that.

But there were kind of nine people in the room, two people on a call.People have speculated who might have been your source, even beyond the Situation Room.People are telling you different things from different aspects of this administration, people with different agendas.How, in general, writing this kind of book is up?I wrote a biography of the Labour Party leader in England 12 years ago, and different people had different narratives about what had happened in certain meetings.But with the Trump people, it's on a different level.

How are you and Maggie saying, well, we can't believe that?And don't just watch, hit like, share and subscribe.And tap the bell so you never miss a video or live show.But if you want early access to exclusive content, then you have to head to Zoteo .com and subscribe now.You'll be supporting fearless, independent journalism.

So the starting premise is false until proven otherwise.Yes.

Okay.That should be the motto for every journalist covering this administration.

But I mean that really sincerely.False until proven otherwise.When we had meetings where there were fundamentally differing accounts and we just couldn't, you know,again, I don't wanna go too deep into the sourcing, but when you talk to others and you really can't square accounts, again, painful, we mostly discarded that material.

You didn't go, come on, Maggie, we know that that one's a complete lie, and that one's not.

So we used our judgment.There's no question we used our judgment in certain circumstances, but I will say it's notable, especially notable for this administration, We published a story from our book in the New York Times about Epstein, about this extraordinary series of meetings that they had inside the White House Situation Room last summer, where the team was basically trying to figure out how to spin their way out of the Epstein crisis.Trump was not in the room, because they were treading very gingerly around Trump.He didn't really want to hear about it.There's a scene in the book where they built this website for the Justice Department.And it was in private form, beta form.

And it was supposed to be this sort of public website.It was going to be almost, think of it almost as like an Epstein library.All things Epstein.You know, not just the things in the Justice Department possession, but also civil cases and what have you.One of the aides in the room had been searching through the website.And obviously they put in Trump.

And one of the first things that came up was this uncorroborated, second -hand, but it was unsealed in a civil case a few years earlier, allegation that Trump had abused a young woman's nipples.So they're sitting in the Situation Room discussing this allegation of nipple abuse.This is the most senior people in the US government.

This is the Vice President of the United States.

The Vice President of the United States, the Chief of Staff, the top levels of the Justice Department, the top levels of the White House.

In the room where Barack Obama watched Osama bin Laden be taken out.

This is the most senior people in the US government.facility, this is the National Security Command Center of the United States and this is what they were discussing.And they're discussing Trump and Nipples.So you can imagine a scene like that, it's pretty high stakes if we're wrong, okay?Now there's a fair number of people in the room, very high stakes if we're wrong.We published that story in the New York Times excerpt, I want to say three weeks ago.

This hasn't been challenged.has denied one quote in that story.

Well done, which is impressive.

And in fact, the vice president on the record to Macon Kelly said he thought that we had tape recordings, which we're not commenting on.But again, No one has denied the accuracy of those scenes.

And you're not commenting on them.I should point out to people watching that in the Situation Room you can't bring phones into a Situation Room.That is the rule.You're not allowed to.But there were two people who dialed in, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.I would say this to you, Jonathan, that it is impressive that they didn't deny that because we know this administration denies things.

Sure.We know it to be true.So in this case, they knew they weren't going to go there.And I'll come back to Trump's take on the book a little later on.Let's just stick with that discussion.So you've got this stuff out of the Situation Room, the Epstein files, then they decide to drop this website, although they do the DOJ website where you can still see that FBI file.

How scared are you?are Trump and his inner circle about the content of the Epstein files, the impact of the Epstein files, even today, what's still in the unreleased Epstein files?

So one thing we found in our book, or we report in the book, is we obtained some confidential polling focus group memos that Trump's top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, had put together.And they're pretty remarkable.So they're from March this year.That's more than a year after they first started to deal with the Epstein situation.People are spontaneously bringing up Epstein in these focus groups and he had a ranking of issues in the focus group.It came up above, correct me if I get this wrong because I'm doing it off the top of my head, but it came up higher as more important than things like crime, data centers.

And they're bringing this up on their own?

Yeah.Some of the most salient political issues were lower than Epstein.So I'll say last summer, There were quite a few senior people in the White House that really underestimated the potency of the Epstein issue.And to be fair, I did too.You know, Trump is someone who has gone through Access Hollywood.I mean, this is someone who was indicted four times.

Pretty hard to imagine some new piece of scandal being relevant politically.But it was.And the weirdest, the most frustrating thing for Trump, and this is when he would get quite angry and frustrated in private, a little bit in public, was he's so used to telling his base, do this, think this, this is what your message should be.And on this issue, it's the first time covering Trump, maybe the second time, the COVID vaccine that the base did not like him when he praised it.They just didn't do it.They just, they weren't accepting his answers.

And so I would say it's been, It's hard to know when you say how scared they are.I don't get the sense that, put it this way, I don't think there's anyone at the senior level, at least no one that I could prove, who is really fearful of what's out there for Trump.At least no one has articulated that.to me, but I don't know.How could I get inside his head on that?It's not really possible.

You also give us in the book another inside look at another situation we're meeting.This one with Trump, some key advisors and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where the Prime Minister of Iran, Prime Minister of Israel comes to the White House, goes down to the situation.Trump gives up his usual spot at the head of the table.This was excerpted in The Times, caused a lot of fury.And he convinces Trump there'll be a near certain victory.It's going to be great.

There's all these people waiting in the wings to run Iran.Trump says sounds good to me.That is a remarkable scene in the Situation Room.It's not often, correct me if I'm wrong, that foreign leaders get to come and present to the President of the United States in the Situation Room of the White House.

Totally.It may have happened before, I'm not aware of it.Yeah, I haven't found that to happen.And it was a remarkable moment because, so you just picture the scene, so Trump's there in the middle, Netanyahu's opposite him, the CIA director Ratcliffe's in there.

The Mossad director on a screen.

Yeah, so they've got a big screen behind Netanyahu and it's the head of Mossad and some generals.And he had a video montage as part of the presentation and he put up on the video different people that he suggested could take over Iran.And it was people like Reza Pahlavi, you know.

The former Shah's son.

Right, who, is he living in Virginia now?

I think he's not far from this.Right, right.

Ahmadinejad, you know.So, but what happened after that meeting is really interesting.So, the CIA overnight did an analysis.

Yes.

Of Netanyahu's presentation.And we have seen the next day in the Situation Room where the analysts come in and they, or the And they dismiss it all?Completely.To the point of saying it was divorced from reality.Trump comes in and Ratcliffe tells him, to his face, that it was farcical, these regime change scenarios.And Rubio, the Secretary of State, says it's bullshit.

Rubio's a hawk, let's not forget.

Totally.But he did not think that those regime change scenarios were plausible.Trump's reaction was really interesting because he said, well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't.He still thought it was worth going in to take out the ballistic missiles and what have you.But as it became clear in the weeks after that, even though Trump had been warned by his chairman of the Joint Chiefs that there could be problems with the Strait of Hormuz, that there were munitions supply problems, he had a gut instinct, a gut feelingthat this would be a really fast war.

Because he'd just done Venezuela.This is weeks after Venezuela.He'd just done Venezuela.And he was loving Venezuela.He thought it looked like an action movie.

But even more, maybe even more salient in this sense was the year before in June.Israel had the 12 -day war.Trump bombs the nuclear sites.And Iran had a very tepid response.They sort of fired off some missiles, but it was heavily telegraphed, no US casualties.And I think Trump concluded that this regime was weak, was a paper tiger, and was going to fold really quickly.

And of course, that was a massive miscalculation.

Middle East geopolitics expert, of course, going with his gut there.So he listens to Bibi.Netanyahu makes the case.For a lot of people who've been arguing about the war since, your excerpt in The Times, now in the book that's out, is kind of exhibit A. When you hear people on the left say, we went to war for Israel, they'll often point to yours and Maggie's reporting.They'll say...We know from the New York Times that Benjamin Netanyahu came to the Situation Room and made the case to Trump.

That's why we went to war because Israel persuaded Trump.Do you believe that that was the top factor?Had Netanyahu not come, had that meeting not happened, would we have gone to war?Did your reporting show that there were other factors pushing Trump?

So I think it's a more nuanced situation than that.The thing that I think is very uncomfortable for the sort of anti -interventionist right, the people who sort of Trump is the President of Peace and he ran on no new wars.If you look at Trump's record on Iran specifically, he's obviously pretty comfortable with using military force.In the first term he killed Soleimani and some of his advisors thought that was a risky operation.He pulled America out of the Obama nuclear deal with Iran and some of his advisors thought that was risky.During the interregnum period, 21 through 24, I think Trump's feelings about Iran became even more personal.

He was briefed by the FBI.that there were various plots to assassinate him and what have you.So he's much more hawkish than his own team.There's no question that Netanyahu made a very determined and aggressive campaign to bring Trump into the war.If that didn't happen, I can't imagine that Trump just spontaneously would have done this operation.But I do think it's a lot more nuanced.

It's a necessary but not sufficient role.It really is.

It really is.And I think there's too much of a theme of Netanyahu as the puppet master, because I just don't think that's true of what actually happened.I think Trump himself...

Trump had an instinct for it.He really did.But Netanyahu came and exploited it.

I think that's right.I think that's right.

And he clearly has gotten more hawkish on it.Although, as I said to Vali Nasser, sitting exactly where you're sitting.If I was the Iranians, I would just build a Trump Tower in Tehran and then he would leave them alone.Let's talk about Trump and Netanyahu.They have had a love -hate relationship.I like the fact that in the book you guys do go back and give us some more context.

People are like, Oh, they're best pals.But they went through some ups and downs.In the first term, they loved each other.Then Trump loses, and then he blames Netanyahu for being one of the world leaders who congratulates Biden first.You write this great bit in the book where Netanyahu turns up with a list of other world leaders who congratulated Biden before him.Pathetic stuff, but there you go.

But then they have a falling out over some Gaza ceasefire negotiations, which you report on.A phenomenal quote, you say, Trump says to Bibi on the phone, Kushner and Witkoff are present.Everybody's sick of you, Bibi.All the Jews are sick of you.Even the two Jews on this call are sick of you, he says, referring to Kushner and Witkoff.So pretty strong language from an American president to an Israeli prime minister.

Where are they right now?And what is their relationship?Because, again, there have been ups and downs.It hasn't been consistent.But Trump last year really loved Bibi last year.He went out of his way, told the Israeli president to pardon him.

As of right now, we're speaking in the summer of 2026.Are they best pals?

No, it's very bad.The relationship's very bad right now, but you're right.It's been up and down.We actually asked Trump about his relationship with Netanyahu at the very end of our reporting process.

You have an interview with him in March, 2026, which is the epilogue of the book.

Yeah.So we asked him about that and he said something interesting.He said, and If I'm not getting the exact quote, I'm getting pretty close to it, paraphrasing.But he said something to the effect of, Bibi's not afraid of war.He said he's a good wartime partner.And what I've sort of discerned from our reporting, talking to some of Trump's advisors, Trump will tell different people different things about Netanyahu.

So early last year, one of his more anti -interventionist advisors said that Trump said to him, there's no way I'm joining his war.Bibi's a conman.We have in our book, Trump called him a conman.To others who are more hawkish, Bibi's the greatest, he's, you know, whatever.I think the reality is Trump views Bibi as a good wartime partner until the point at which Trump perceives that Netanyahu needs to be reined in.And I think we're at that point now where Trump has very clearly seen that this war did not go the way that he thought it would go or hoped it would go, and wants a deal, but he's also, I still think, I still think there's a decent chance he goes back in again with more...

It's so messy right now that Bibi could easily...

I mean the argument is that the Israelis will find a way to jeopardise this and Trump will go along with them.

I think there's always the possibility of that, but I will say in the last few weeks he's been very, very angry with Netanyahu, particularly with his actions in Lebanon.

Although we heard that from, do you remember the reporting under Biden?Biden's very angry at Netanyahu.Whether it translates into action.

That's why I don't really play it up in my reporting is because, you know, The US has huge leverage over Israel.

Unless it uses that leverage, the anger is meaningless.

Yeah, and he hasn't really.No.At any point.

You mentioned con man. which reminds me of a man who once called Donald Trump a con man, his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who plays an interesting role in the book.You write in the book how Rubio had always eyed regime change in Venezuela, obviously got to oversee it with Maduro.But also there's a line in the book, you say that when Rubio, he dreamed of liberating the country of his parents' birth.In his memoir, he recalled a boast made as a young boy to his grandfather, that he would someday lead an army of exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro and become president of a free Cuba.Is Cuba next on Trump's regime change list by the time your book is a paperback?Will we have gone to war with Cuba?

I don't want to make predictions.Is that the direction of travel?

It's very clearly on their radar, on their target list.And Rubio's been spending a lot of time working on Cuba.Rubio's actually spent very little time on Iran.He hasn't really been involved that much in these negotiations.It's been much more Vance, Witkoff, Kushner.And you saw Vance the other day when he was asked by a reporter about Cuba.

He said, you've got to ask Marco about Cuba.You know, that was, he wrote that as a, he said he said that as a nine -year -old boy.So this is a long, talking about a long -term dream there.

Indeed.Other characters in the book who pop up, important people.We hear a lot about Stephen Miller being the de facto prime minister of this administration, being the guy who's really the driving force of policy.His title is deputy chief, but White House deputy chief.You quote one senior administration official saying to you that Miller claims outsized credit for everything.So is this a lot of spin from Stephen Miller and now his very vocal wife on social media, Katie Miller?

Are they spinning him as more powerful than he is?Or is he really the brains behind this president?

No, I think he's very, very powerful.He has his hands in everything.In the first term, he was more narrowly focused on immigration, speech writing.

Now he's doing boat strikes in the Caribbean, national security.

So when he added that title of Homeland Security Advisor, it gave him a much bigger remit, and particularly Western Hemisphere, particularly anything concerning Mexico, the boat bombing campaign that you're talking about, he was heavily involved in that.So he's really got his hands in everything.We also report in the book that people around, at the senior level of the White House, believe that he wanted to be National Security Advisor after Mike Walsh.Constant speculation in the White House that he wants to be chief of staff.

I don't know whether that's true or not I have no we don't confirm that but he's it fair to say he's the driving force behind policy domestic policy There's no question Trump likes to surround himself with lackey sycophants one individual you mentioned in the book who many people may not have heard of but stands up is Natalie Hawkes She's an aide to the US president.She also leaves what sound like love letters in his personal spaces.You report on a note she left the president in his personal space which said, you are all that matters to me.And I'm sure people at home will be wondering, how did Jonathan and Maggie get these notes?Who is Natalie Harp exactly?

So she's a young woman who You probably see her in some of the photos in the Oval.

Off to the edge.

Blonde.She sits against the wall in the Oval with her laptop open in pretty much every meeting.She's there all the time.They call her in the White House the human printer.Let me back up.She's a young woman who used to be a host on OAN, the far -right TV network.

She was devoted to Trump.joined his team after he left office and famously would follow him around on the golf course, printing out positive stories to make him feel better at the time when he was at a real low ebb.She's also a conduit for information.So when people want to get around the vetting process or the chief of staff, they'll go through Natalie.As part of our reporting for the book,we obtained a number of letters that she had written for the President and left in at least one case in some of his private spaces.

They're very unusual.You quoted from one of them, you know, you're all that matters to me, but they're letters of absolute devotion.Do we know if Trump reciprocated?We don't.I don't have any evidence that he wrote any letters back, but the Secret Service during the campaign became aware of this and they were concerned about, you know, just Well, just having someone that close leaving letters like that, it alarmed them.Nothing happened, because Trump was quite happy with it.

We also have reporting in the book that he said things like...

Do we know if Melania is happy with it?

I don't want to speculate.

I can ask the question.

I don't have any reporting.

That's where my mind goes, I'm sure a lot of viewers' minds go.

I have no reporting on that, and I don't want to say...

But the Secret Service wouldn't have...

During the campaign, it reached their attention.Where was I going with this?You just threw me.

It doesn't matter.

You get the idea.

I do get the idea.We're running out of time.I've got a lot of things I still want to ask you about.One thing you don't spend that much time on in the book, you do reference it, but the president's health.You mentioned his poor sleep habits, falling asleep in meetings that we've all seen.The bruising on his hands, his swollen ankles, his trouble hearing nowadays.

But it's a few pages.And Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, as you know, wrote an entire book about Joe Biden's health after he left office.It being a cover up from his team that how bad his health was.There are a lot of people watching this interview, Jonathan, who will say the mainstream media, the liberal media, the New York Times, CNN, have not focused on Trump's clear mental and physical decline as much as they did on Biden.What do you say to them who make that criticism?And what do you make of Trump's health right now?

So to that criticism, Isay that the New York Times, I actually looked this up the other day because I was curious, we've published more than 20 news stories about Trump's health and age since he started.You know, it's quite a few.He's obviously 80 years old.And you can see what you can see.I would say it's one of the areas that this White House is least, there's this canard that this is the most transparent, you know, White House history.

They're actually very good at keeping secrets.It's why this book was so hard.They're actually very good at it, particularly when it's things that they really care about.

Because he's now surrounded by actual loyalists who love him, unlike the first term when people hated him.There's no question.

Like that MOU that was recently released for the Iran peace deal.

Very hard to get hold of it within the administration.

Yeah, senior people couldn't see the thing.So his health is a great example, you know.He saw 22 specialists.We don't know who those specialists are.We don't know what the imaging results showed.They're very selective about what they put out.

It's obviously hyperbolic.

But you sat down with him?

We did, yeah.What did you make of his health?

You've interviewed him in the past.As sharp and as clear as he was?

I'll be honest with you, I don't...He's 80.

You've battled with him.Yeah.You've done, in my view, and I've said this to you privately and publicly, the single best interview with Donald Trump that's ever been done on camera.

I appreciate you saying that.

When you were Axios.Is he different?

I honestly, I don't see a huge difference.I see some aging, but I'll be honest, I haven't had a huge amount of one -on -one time with him, but I don't see a huge difference.

One of the other critics has made it.Not specifically of this book, but in general, I want you to respond to it.A lot of people, and you've heard this for many years, there have been a lot of Trump books from a lot of White House correspondents.And people say, why the hell are these reporters saving all these important stories for their book?Why are they not publishing it right as soon as they get them?How do you respond to that criticism?

So this book, I sort of see as almost a miracle of real -time publishing.So this book covers the first 14 months of the Trump administration.We published it in month 17, okay?

You also spoke to him in March and published it in June.As someone who's written a book, that's a fast turnaround.

If anyone knows anything about publishing, this is like a unicorn.Simon and Schuster, we were supposed to do it in September, and we're like, we can't do September.They did every single lever.For the stuff that we really felt like the Iran war, right?What could be more consequential?The decision to take America to war in Iran.

And you did put that in the Times.

Yeah.To be fair.Six weeks after the war started, five weeks after the war started.You can't actually turn around a piece of reporting like that, of that depth, any quicker.So, look, books are different.They take longer.

You naturally go deeper into everything.You're making judgment calls on every issue.I actually don't mind people asking me that question at all.It's a totally legitimate question, but I actually think this book is almost Fair.The opposite, like a miracle of real -time publishing.

I mentioned the Axios interview.Yeah.That was a brilliant interview where you held his feet to the fire.He threw nonsense statistics at you.You did follow -ups.It wasn't just your face that got memed.

The whole interview was seen as a kind of...And I wrote a book about debating, and I cited that interview in the book.So I love that.

I read that book.

So I'm going to ask you this question then.Two questions, right?Yeah.One, do you miss doing that?Because I miss seeing you do that.It's great to see you write this book, and that's you as a great print reporter.

But some of us in the Cabro team TV world, we miss that Jonathan Swan.So number one, do you miss doing those interviews?And number two, serious question.Why don't other interviewers, it's been, what is it, six years since that interview?Why can't other interviewers in our media do interviews with Trump like that?

So do I miss it?Yeah, I do.But I also love this type of reporting.You can go deeper, you can do something that feels more permanent for history.I also reached a problemI think you have reached this problem as well with certain people, is once you sort of start to build a body of work, people, they're not so eager to say yes to interviews.

So I had certainly reached that point by the end of it.Trump's a hard interview, like he just is. I did the first interview I did with Trump, actually the first TV interview I ever did in 2018.It was a catastrophe.It was a train wreck.I just humiliated myself.It was so bad.

I'd prepared for it like a print...I'll tell you what happened.

I do, you didn't realize the camera did the cutaway and you were smiling and nodding.

It was actually the mindset, the whole mindset of the interview was like, I'm a newspaper reporter, I'm trying to get a scoop or a headline and I wasn't thinking about it.Like, when you're interviewing a head of state, it's by definition an accountability interview.So I think he's one of the hardest...

Wasn't that a birthright citizenship question?Which is ironic, because we're meeting on the day that he's just lost at the Supreme Court.

So I think it's really hard.I also think he's not giving that many extended sit -downs.

I mean, he gave a half an hour to Axios the other day and it wasn't great.Let me give you a last question.We're out of time, but I've got to ask this one.To give you the last word on this, Donald Trump sat down with you for the book, did an interview in March with you and Maggie Haberman.He's now obviously very bothered with the book and the coverage it's getting.He put out a Truth Social post on Sunday calling your co -author Maggie Haberman, maggot Haberman, called her a third -rate reporter and said your book is, quote, mostly made up, fake news, largely fiction.

Jonathan Swan, what is your response to Donald J. Trump?

Well, we try not to.sort of engage on this stuff.Maggie's the best reporter I've ever worked with and it's not even close.She's an absolute machine.You talk about someone who just runs through walls and gets information.I've never seen anything like it and the breadth of her relentlessness and soreness.

He can say what he likes, it has no effect on our reporting.

Has he read the book?Do you think Natalie Harp has printed out a PDF of Regime Change and brought it for him to black marker all over it?

I think it's more likely that he's consumed it through the screen than not.

Well you've done a lot of interviews, I'm sure he's been throwing stuff at the screen.We appreciate you taking time out for this interview.Thanks for having me.Jonathan Swan, the book is called Regime Change.You've got to get a copy of it as soon as you can.Did you like this video?

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