{"id":877188,"date":"2026-06-19T01:55:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T01:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/877188\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T01:55:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T01:55:18","slug":"new-book-details-trumps-push-to-press-the-limits-of-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/877188\/","title":{"rendered":"New book details Trump’s push to press the limits of power"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Showing off towering new flagpoles he had erected on the White House North and South Lawns last summer, President Donald Trump<\/a> suggested that he wanted to make similar renovations in his first term but was worried about the negative press. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou guys were after me,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cI was the hunted. And now I\u2019m the hunter.\u201d <\/p>\n

The incident, recalled in \u201cRegime Change,\u201d New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan\u2019s new book on the first year of Trump\u2019s second term, encapsulates how different Trump\u2019s return to the White House in 2025 has been from his first term. <\/p>\n

The book spells out a thesis that Trump himself believes: Had he not lost the 2020 election, he would not be as powerful in his second term as he is now \u2014 emboldening him to trample norms, dismantle established institutions<\/a> and push the limits of presidential power<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Trump still falsely claims to have won in 2020<\/a>. But a second term coming then might have been marred by pushback from members of his own administration, the coronavirus pandemic<\/a> and the runaway inflation<\/a> it caused, as well as an antagonistic Congress controlled by Democrats. He hasn\u2019t faced those issues this time.<\/p>\n

Here are some takeaways from the book:<\/p>\n

Vance or Rubio in 2028? Trump will loom large in the choice<\/p>\n

The authors recount how Trump frequently quizzed aides about whether Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> would be better to succeed him.<\/p>\n

Some donors promoted Rubio and some aides thought the secretary and the president had better personal chemistry than Trump and Vance. But Trump also indicated that he was impressed by Vance\u2019s intellect and abilities during television interviews \u2014 particularly tough ones, the book says.<\/p>\n

Trump is also said to be impressed by the background of Rubio, who is the son of Cuban immigrants. The book describes how, after Trump redecorated the Oval Office to fill it with gold flourishes, someone asked the president about the likelihood that the next president would undo all that he had done. Trump retorted: \u201cCubans love gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, Haberman and Swan write, Rubio and Vance are also friends. An example they offer is Rubio texting Vance after the 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee\u2019s comments about \u201c childless cat ladies<\/a> \u201d became a scandal. Rubio offered to campaign with Vance to show his support. <\/p>\n

As those two men jostle for position before 2028, it\u2019s possible Trump won\u2019t soon yield the spotlight to them.<\/p>\n

The president frequently talks about the two and a half years left in his term, a timeline that carries him right up to Inauguration Day 2029 \u2014 suggesting that he\u2019s unlikely to let the Republicans running in the presidential race overshadow him. <\/p>\n

A case in point occurred during an Oval Office meeting with Trump, Vance and Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the House Democrats. As Haberman and Swan recount, the president showed off \u201cTrump 2028\u201d baseball caps, prompting Jeffries to gesture at Vance and ask, \u201cHow does he feel about that?\u201d Trump responded \u201cAh, he\u2019s fine. He doesn\u2019t care,\u201d adding, \u201cWe\u2019re giving him a little more training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance, speaking up for himself, offered, \u201cNo comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panic inside the White House over the Epstein files release <\/p>\n

Haberman and Swan detail the deep level of alarm over the administration\u2019s handling of the release of files from the investigation into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>. That included White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles convening a crisis response meeting in the Situation Room and Vance suggesting enlisting friendly interviewer Tucker Carlson to sit down with Epstein\u2019s imprisoned former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That revelation has now raised questions about whether the reporters got audio recordings of what was said in a secure area of the White House, which would be a security concern. <\/p>\n

Trump redecorated while the first lady was away <\/p>\n

The book details how the president and first lady are the first first couple to sleep in separate bedrooms since Richard and Pat Nixon, though Bill and Hillary Clinton slept apart briefly when his affair with Monica Lewinsky became public. First lady Melania Trump sleeps in the White House\u2019s traditional master bedroom of the Executive Residence \u2014 Room 219 \u2014 while the president sleeps in Room 220, next to second-floor space known as the Yellow Oval.<\/p>\n

The president fitted his bedroom with gold and other flourishes, carrying in some objects himself from the corridor where his wife had selected the decor during the first term, the book said. Because the first lady wasn\u2019t in Washington much during the start of the second term, she wasn\u2019t there to stop the president from rearranging things.<\/p>\n

Among the items moved was a gold-leaf-framed mirror that had been part of the first lady\u2019s redesign of the second-floor Queen\u2019s Bedroom. But that actually ended up outside, on the Colonnade outside the Oval Office, where it is used to facilitate selfies.<\/p>\n

The first lady had also overseen first-term Rose Garden renovations and objected to Trump wanting to pave over the area for his patio space<\/a> reminiscent of his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. The president relented, and the surrounding grass was covered, but not the roses. She lost a larger battle, the authors write, as the East Wing was demolished to make room for the $400 million ballroom her husband is building. <\/p>\n

Trump long had a Venezuela fixation<\/p>\n

The president began his second term talking frequently about seizing Greenland and making Canada the 51st state, but was privately more focused on Venezuela \u2014 even suggesting it could become a state where he\u2019d be allowed to appoint the governor. <\/p>\n

Initially, Trump allowed special envoy Ric Grenell to negotiate with Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, but he was eventually sidelined as Rubio made the case that Maduro would string along the administration for years, in an attempt to wait until Trump was out of power in 2029, Haberman and Swan write. <\/p>\n

Rubio told White House officials that Maduro\u2019s vice president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, was corrupt but serious and could most likely keep Venezuela together. Rubio spoke with Rodriguez on the night U.S. forces stormed into Venezuela and deposed its president. He told her she had to bring stability to her country and prevent mass migration and violence. Rodriguez remains head of Venezuela after Maduro\u2019s ouster. <\/p>\n

Trump also told the authors during a March 2026 interview that he had a \u201clove affair\u201d with Venezuela that began with his years of owning the Miss Universe pageant and the beautiful women representing that country in it. That wasn\u2019t enough to improve his opinion of Ukraine, though, which Trump said he didn\u2019t like, except for its women who kept winning Miss Universe, the book says. <\/p>\n

Trump said he was talking to a historian. It was Gary Player\u2019s caddy <\/p>\n

Haberman and Swan conclude with the president telling them about a historian introduced to him by golfer Gary Player who described the president as the most powerful man the planet had ever known \u2014 surpassing even Alexander the Great, William the Conqueror and Napoleon. <\/p>\n

Trump, who promoted the anecdote himself on social media Thursday,<\/a> was unable to recall the historian\u2019s name during that interview. However, a White House staffer later revealed to the authors who the golf legend actually had been talking about. It was Player\u2019s longtime caddy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Showing off towering new flagpoles he had erected on the White House North and South…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":877189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[356517,2147,1613,8120,84,69,62289,57,49022,8298,8123,18652,2066,15053,356515,1612,181260,410,13754,8132,356516,50,92550,80,225479,28967,4217,114557,313941,20965,8128,32322,93,123361,103],"class_list":["post-877188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-alexander-the-great","tag-canada","tag-central-america","tag-charles-schumer","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-gary-player","tag-general-news","tag-ghislaine-maxwell","tag-greenland","tag-hakeem-jeffries","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-jd-vance","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-jonathan-swan","tag-latin-america","tag-maggie-haberman","tag-marco-rubio","tag-melania-trump","tag-military-and-defense","tag-monica-lewinsky","tag-news","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-politics","tag-ric-grenell","tag-richard-nixon","tag-south-america","tag-susie-wiles","tag-trump-hub","tag-tucker-carlson","tag-united-states-congress","tag-venezuela","tag-washington-news","tag-william-the-conqueror","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}