Haberman reveals 'basic tenets' of Trump’s psychology that led to cascading quagmire

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio with U.S. President Donald Trump in Ankara, Turkey, July 8, 2026. REUTERS/Yves Herman

When U.S. President Donald Trump went to war against Iran in late February, his administration promised a quick and efficient military operation — not the type of "forever war" Trump criticized both Democrats and traditional GOP conservatives for. But almost five months later, the war is still raging on. And New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, during an appearance on David Axelrod's podcast, described the psychology that got Trump into a conflict that, she said, isn't going well for the United States.

Haberman, author of the new book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," told Axelrod that a big part of Trump's mentality is a hostility to expertise. The Times reporter described Trump's viewpoint as essentially "In my first term, the experts kept telling me what I couldn't do, and they screwed me up."

Haberman covered Trump's first president extensively for the Times. But "Regime Chang" is focused primarily on Trump's second presidency, and Haberman, in interviews, has been laying out the ways in which the second differs greatly from the first.

On Axelrod's podcast, she described the second Trump administration's lead-up to the Iran war — telling the Democratic insider and former Barack Obama senior adviser, "So, one of the things that I think gets overlooked in our reporting around the lead-up to this war was — and this really is something that is a theme throughout the book — and it's: these (White House) Situation Room meetings were really illustrative of a basic tenet. Which (is) A: the expertise tends to be dismissed in this administration — and B, they are incredibly, incredibly paranoid about leaks."

During his first presidency, Trump famously clashed with a long list of traditional conservatives he appointed — from then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to two U.S. attorneys general (first Jeff Sessions, then William Barr). But since returning to the White House, Trump has made a point of surround himself with ultra-MAGA loyalists. And the Iran war, according to Haberman, demonstrates that "the decisions" in the second Trump administration "are being made in this government by a small handful of people."

Haberman told Axelrod, "And if they are not in the room, if one is not in the room, they often, no matter how senior their role is at an agency, they often have no idea what's happening. And ... Trump could change his mind several times before (someone) ... makes it there. So, to that point, it's sort of remarkable, these first meetings, up until the very last one, on the preparations for this war, the treasury secretary, (Scott Bessent), and the energy secretary, (Chris Wright,) were not in the room."

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