With their latest book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Australian-American Jonathan Swan have written an “inside-the-beltway” account, as they say in Washington, for political nerds and Trump obsessives. It covers in intricate detail the first year of Trump’s second term in office. And, as one would expect from two journalists of their calibre, it is scrupulously researched and thoroughly sourced.
Up front the two authors announce that they conducted “more than a thousand interviews with a wide range of people close to President Trump”. These interviews were carried out “on the journalistic ground rule of deep background”. This is an arrangement whereby a source gives out information on the basis that it will not be attributed to them.
