{"id":37893,"date":"2026-06-25T00:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/37893\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:12:21","slug":"regime-change-trump-on-sydney-sweeney-the-ellisons-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/37893\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Regime Change’: Trump on Sydney Sweeney, the Ellisons and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDozens of books are sure to result from the staggering events of Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s second term, from the president\u2019s unprecedented grip on the media to the spectacle of America\u2019s tech leaders kissing his ring and the constant challenges to civil liberties. One of the first major ones out of the gate is \u201cRegime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,\u201d from New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman and Times investigative reporter Jonathan Swan.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe book \u201cdraws on extensive interviews conducted on the condition of anonymity to recount internal discussions and sensitive issues,\u201d said the New York Times, which has come under some criticism for not immediately publishing any fresh revelations instead of waiting for the book to be published. But even more than revealing secrets, it\u2019s the sheer accumulation of unprecedented events that makes it a notable work: Trump\u2019s obsession with currying favor with the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos<\/a> and Mark Zuckerberg (\u201cX, Facebook, Apple, TikTok, and Google had all bent the knee,\u201d the book notes); the frantic White House scramble to head off fallout from the Epstein files, and the unusual positioning of the American president as some kind of uber-meme informed by the imagery of action movies and wrestling.<\/p>\n

\n\tHere are some of the book\u2019s revealing moments pertaining to the media and entertainment:<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump installed Steven Cheung as White House Communications Director, fascinated with his forbidding persona. Mel Gibson agreed:<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo less an authority than the actor Mel Gibson had taken note of the comms chief\u2019s attributes. Approaching Cheung at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event in 2023, the star of Mad Max and Lethal Weapon had told him, \u2018God, you have a great look. You look like you could be a villain in a movie.\u2019 Trump was often fixated on male beauty; his appraisal of a job seeker\u2019s handsomeness could be a prerequisite for the most highly visible administration posts\u2014but he liked his enforcers to look like enforcers. Similarly, he would say Cheung was his Luca Brasi \u2014 a reference to Don Vito Corleone\u2019s ruthless hit man in the Mafia classic \u2018The Godfather.\u2019 He would privately describe Cheung as \u2018like the more violent version of Kim Jong Un,\u2019 and in conversations with aides Trump would say that Cheung reminded him of Xi Jinping: \u2018No games.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tBorder Patrol commander Greg Bovino modeled his aggressive image on Jack Nicholson in \u201cThe Border,\u201d while Dr. Phil helped add to the \u201cpublic spectacle\u201d of ICE enforcement: <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe opening battle in the conflict between the Trump administration and the nation\u2019s major cities would not come in Washington, D.C., however, but in Los Angeles. Early on Friday, June 6, federal officials launched a series of raids to hunt for illegal immigrants in Los Angeles. Masked agents swarmed Home Depot parking lots, car washes, and a clothing company in the downtown Los Angeles Fashion District, among other worksites. The effort would soon be taken over by Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino. Short in stature, Bovino was inspired to do his job by the 1982 Jack Nicholson crime thriller \u2018The Border.\u2019 He had carefully honed an aggressive image, taunting his critics on social media and holding an assault rifle in an online profile picture. His swagger was on full display during the L.A. mission. \u2018We\u2019re not going to hit one location, we\u2019re going to hit as many as we can,\u2019 Bovino told the Associated Press. \u2018All over \u2014 all over \u2014 the Los Angeles region, we\u2019re going to turn and burn to that next target and the next and the next and the next, and we\u2019re not going to stop. We\u2019re not going to stop until there\u2019s not a problem here.\u2019 Television personality Dr. Phil McGraw had embedded with one of the ICE units, underscoring the premium the administration put on the public spectacle of enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEarly on, Trump complained about David Ellison, who had donated to the Joe Biden campaign. That seemed to change as he later characterized both David and Larry Ellison<\/a> as \u201cbig supporters.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCBS was owned by Paramount Global, the entertainment conglomerate mired in debt and run by media scion Shari Redstone. In July 2024, she had announced a merger with Skydance Media, a production company owned by David Ellison, son of the multibillionaire tech executive Larry Ellison. While Trump liked Larry, who was one of his own political donors, he would grouse about the son, who had donated nearly $1 million to support Joe Biden\u2019s reelection. Paramount\u2019s own parent company needed the FCC to approve its merger with Skydance, a deal that would bring Redstone more than $500 million. This was a concern that floated in the background; no federal approval meant no deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe White House had already ordered the \u201cDonald J. Trump\u201d letters for the Kennedy Center before the board had even approved the name change.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe White House quietly ordered the large letters \u2018DONALD J. TRUMP\u2019 to be added to the facade well before the board had even rubber-stamped the authorization to rename the building. Since Trump had taken control, scores of artists had canceled engagements and many more had announced they would refuse to perform in protest. By early November, programming was in trouble and ticket sales had plummeted to catastrophically low levels not seen since the Covid pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump didn\u2019t believe that Jeff Bezos couldn\u2019t control the Washington Post\u2019s coverage, and Bezos told Trump it was his \u201cworst investment\u201d at a dinner. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt first, Trump hadn\u2019t believed Bezos when the billionaire told him that he couldn\u2019t control the Post\u2019s coverage. As proof, Bezos told Trump that the newspaper\u2019s reporters would write negative stories about him, too. \u2018He said they write stories about him. And I didn\u2019t believe him the first time, first term. And I hated him for it,\u2019 Trump recalled. \u2018And then I believed him.\u2019 At their dinner after the 2024 election, Bezos described the newspaper that had once brought down a President as his worst financial investment. \u2018The people there are terrible,\u2019 he told Trump, complaining about the business side of a storied newsroom he had hoped to make profitable. \u2018They don\u2019t listen. My other companies, they listen.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Trump grew closer to Bezos, he was impressed by at least one notable name at the Amazon mogul\u2019s wedding. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEveryone was at your wedding, Trump marveled. How was it? It was great, Bezos replied. When the conversation turned to the guest list and Bezos mentioned that the actress Sydney Sweeney had attended, the President\u2019s interest deepened. \u2018Ooooh,\u2019 Trump said.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump tried to raise the settlement amount for the George Stephanopoulos ABC libel case to as high as $60 million, despite a settlement as low as $3 million being agreed on at one point. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn early December 2024, the President-elect\u2019s advisors and Disney had agreed on the framework of a settlement: $3 million to a charity for military veterans that the two sides would have to agree on. Trump also wanted a personal apology from the anchor. Stephanopoulos did not apologize, but he soon had what was deemed a \u2018cordial\u2019 meeting with the president-elect at Trump Tower, and the situation seemed to have been resolved. But days later, the Trump team began trying to change the terms. Boris Epshteyn had told associates the President could get a vastly higher sum from Disney \u2014 $60 million, if not more. Suddenly Trump was no longer interested in the deal he had previously agreed to\u2026 By the end of the mediation session, Trump appeared to accept he had hit his limit, and the deal was entered with the court. It would be $15 million, put in escrow for an eventual Trump presidential library account, plus $1 million for Trump\u2019s legal fees, which had been covered for years by donors to his political action committee.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of books are sure to result from the staggering events of Donald Trump\u2018s second term, from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2137,5126,31561,247],"class_list":["post-37893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-donald-trump","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-larry-ellison","tag-sydney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}