Haberman: Trump Has "Fundamentally Reimagined" The Presidency And Shown The Post-World War II Order "Won't Stand"
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/09/19/haberman_trump_has_fundamentally_reimagined_the_presidency_and_shown_the_post-world_war_ii_order_wont_stand.html

"Regime Change" co-author Maggie Haberman argues the Trump presidency represents a fundamental reimagining of presidential power and a form of regime change in the United States.

MISHAL HUSAIN, BLOOMBERG: The subtitle of your first book, Confidence Man, is the making of Donald Trump and the breaking of America. Do you think that by the time he leaves office, he will have changed America? And I'm thinking primarily of what we're describing, the way the government works, this pattern that, you know, the use of executive orders or the mass use of pardons again.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I don't think that we are unlikely to see another Donald Trump anytime soon, if ever again, because he is sui generis for a lot of reasons, including the celebrity we were talking about. But this is also the reason that the title Regime Change exists for Jonathan in my book. We were describing and witnessing a form of regime change in our own country.

It's not about Iran. It was we thought of this title long before the Venezuela raid to capture Maduro earlier this year in Caracas. This is a fundamental reimagining of the U.S. presidency. It has shown that the post-World War II order won't stand. I don't know why any future president in this country would have the trust of European leaders, Democrat or Republican, frankly, certainly Republican, because I think they'll assume that it's from the same party of Trump, unless it's somebody who completely disavows Trump. And that's not going to be a Republican anytime soon.

What you're asking is essentially what levels of pushing the limits does a future president agree to pull back on? Biden actually did on a lot of them, almost all, in fact. And his party was frustrated with him.

They want to see a fighter. Expansions of executive power have occurred before, and there have been corrections, obviously, after Nixon in particular. The imperial presidency is a term that was coined in 1973. But it's going to really require a heave of different branches of government to try to institute more formal change for a system that is primarily norms and not laws. So we'll see.