The guardrails are off. The swamp is not being drained, it is being embellished in gold. Stephen Miller is the defining figure of domestic US policymaking. Sycophancy is the order of the day. These are some summaries of Trump II that can be garnered from Haberman and Swan’s meticulously researched exposé of the first year of the second Trump administration. After having conducted over a thousand interviews, the authors are able to provide us with a deep dive into the inner workings of a vengeful presidency, bent on using the full toolkit of the American state to enrich himself, take revenge on his political enemies and leave his physical mark on the capital. It is in equal part a deeply worrying and fascinating read. Regime Change provides a clear argument for how the Trump presidency has completely transformed presidential power. A pattern emerges where Trump has great disdain for expertise, but an equally great admiration of power and wealth. Those that possess the latter are worth listening to and they gain unfettered access. What those engaging with Trump have in common is their use of flattery to stay within the president’s orbit. Tellingly, the president has no qualms about recounting how a ‘historian’ – in reality a caddy – has called him the most powerful man in human history. But power has its limits. The authors quote Tucker Carlson warning Trump that ‘the only thing that can blow up your administration is if you get into a war with Iran’ (p. 74). The book ends with the president starting that war. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.