Proximity as Power in the White House

Hey everyone, welcome back to Newsgirls. I'm Mabel. And guys, we finally have one of the clearest pictures yet of the very weird world that President Trump has built around himself. So journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan spent years interviewing more than a thousand people for their new book called Regime Change. I actually have it here. I read the entire thing on a flight. And the biggest takeaway for me wasn't some crazy, like unexpected Trump scandal. It was really how bizarre Trump's day to day life is and just how different it is from any other president that we've had. The book paints a really vivid picture of how time passes in the Oval Office, the random quality and people that Trump is attracted to, and how exactly important decisions get made. So let's walk through what a day inside Trum p's White House actually looks like. Whenever I imagine the White House, I always think of a scene kind of out of West Wing where staffers are running around with papers and pens and everyone has back to back meetings and nobody has time for anything or anyone and especially the president . I mean, in real life or in TV shows, the way that a president is portrayed is so inaccessible and busy beyond anything that we can even comprehend . But from this reporting that's based off again, thousands of interviews from aides and senior officials and anonymous insider sources, time inside Trump's oval office stands still, quote, unless the meeting concerned an imminent military operation, Trump was usually relaxed, gossipy, and unhurried. So the book says that when people visit the Oval Office, they're almost corded. They're given dye coke and candy and Trump is just talking to them, super relaxed. Apparently, he's usually very nice to guests and very flattering to them, especially about their physical appearances. He signs Maga hats for people and their kids and then invites everyone to come visit him at Moralago. And I mean, that does check out. Presidents are usually very social people by nature, but just remember that this isn't a campaign rally or meeting greet. This happens every single day while Trump is supposed to be just super busy running the country. As we all know, he's also super obsessed with decorating, so you can find him on any given day just kind of tinkering around the oval office and White House. We've reported on how press Secretary Caroline Levitt literally found him super gluing gold decorations around his oval office. And apparently also if he sees something that he likes from another part of his White House, he'll just order staff to come take it. Like reportedly he saw a gold leaf mirror that was at the center of his wife, Melania Trump's bedroom in the White House, and he just randomly became obsessed with it and without asking, had it moved to the colonade, and it's now known as the selfie mirror. The book also talks about oval office meetings and how unproductive they can be because of how sidetracked Trump can get, which is very easy to imagine. So the meeting can kind of be about anything, but somehow he always gets to talking about other things, usually about how he won the election or complaining about Joe Biden. This quote really helps explain what the environment is like. So in the book, one visitor said quote, I still can't fully describe what the Oval Office is like with him. You'd have two people on two different speaker phones, another person on a cell phone. I'll never forget talking about a highly class ified program and this guy looked like a just salt of the earth country guy, walks in and he's got samples for the rose garden paving, pops them on the desk, and the president stops what we're talking about, gets up and walks out there with him and I see a lot of hand s moving. And he comes back and then looks over our shoulders and the curator is there with somebody to drill the cherubs into the wall that he had brought up from Marlago. Then he goes back to the people on the phone, then he comes back to us but we're out of time. And that description, I think, perfectly paints the picture of what Trump's day in the life is really like. Time kind of seems to melt away without holding that much importance. He usually starts his official day at around eleven AM, which is different since past pres idents usually get started a lot earlier. So Biden, Clinton, and Reagan were kind of known as the six AM presidents. That's when they would get started. George W. Bush was an early bird. He came down at around seven. And then if we go way back, John Quincy Adams would literally start his day at four thirty AM. Even Obama, who was known for starting a little on the later side because he was exercising in the morning, which we know Trump does not do, would start his day at nine. So already , Trump is a little late to the party and his White House functions differently because of it. And I don't know, maybe it's related to the fact that Trump is a notorious night owl and has become only more so in the second term as we can all attest to after seeing his like two AM late night truth social rants. We know that he's up and online. His bedroom also has three TVs so at night he just kind of watches multiple broadcasts at the same time to keep up with what people are saying. So it's just kind of funny because as much as he pretends to kind of hate the mainstream news and maybe he does, he is still so consumed by what others are saying about him. But yeah, even though Trump's day to day is impulsive and scattered and unscheduled, he doesn't seem to gravitate towards hectic people. So something in the book that I thought was really interesting is that Trump seems to be drawn to soft voices. Reportedly, one of the reasons Trump really liked Jared Kushner is because he spoke softly. And again, Trump seems to gravitate towards people who project a calmness to, I think, probably counterbalance the noise that he's dealing with all the time and in his own head, like Susie Wiles, who is Trump's Chief of Staff and one of the only people in the world that Trump will actually listen to became the Trump whisper because of the way that she holds herself. The book describes her as quiet and observant, and even though she can be very sharp and intimidating, she's known as the Ice Maiden, she has a very unique ease and comfortability with Trump . And that really does go a long way because he's had more experienced chiefs of staff his first term, but he went through four of them. So basically just fired them one after the other, but no issues have really come up with her. According to this book, Wiles also has a lot of emotional intelligence and is good at reading and handling people and has an overall soothing presence. And this concept of Trump really liking soft voices came up again in the book in an anecdote where Claudia Scheinbaum, who's obviously the president of Mexico called Trump to talk about the crazy tariffs that the U. S. had imposed on Mexico last year. And she was basically trying to negotiate with him saying, Can you give us an extension on these tariffs? And at one point he just randomly cuts the conversation and says, You've got such an elegant voice. And she's like, ha , thanks and then continues to push her point and Trump eventually agrees. And not to say that her voice is why, but just making the point as the book did, that a soft, calming demeanor goes again a very long way with Trump, which I think makes sense because he's probably around so many kind of aggressive, toxic people who are all fighting for his attention and inside of his mind is probably so disorganized and crazy that it's nice to be around something a little bit more zen. Another person who has surprisingly wiggled her way into Trump's heart is Natalie Harp, who's a thirty year old who's Trump's executive assistant, and their relationship is super weird. According to this book, she leaves him adoring notes like, quote, you're all that matters to me. And these notes are just so weird that they even confuse Susie Wildes. She's like, I have no idea what this relationship is. And Harp and Trump are so close that Trump has said Natalie is the only one who loves him as much as his wife and kids. He said, quote, all of you will go off and make money. She'll never leave me. And what she does at the White House is primarily like follow Trump around and read him positive comments and favorable news coverage about him. The book says she even carries around a portable printer so she can print these things on demand for the president since actually apparently he likes things on paper . And she is also a part of this very odd oval office ecosystem. So during meetings, you can see her on a chair kind of off to the side with her laptop, always listening and just ready to fetch anything for Trump at a moment's notice, whether it's Trump twenty twenty eight hats or a news story, fresh data , she's just kind of always there. She is also responsible for posting a lot of Trump's truth socials, which is interesting. Like she posted that racist AI photo of Barack and Michelle Obama is apes and the AI image of Trump is Jesus . And that really stuck out to me. I think that's an important detail because truth social isn't Trump's side hobby, you know, it's his main form of communication to the public. He announces wars and strikes and bills and attacks on enemies on this platform and this low level aide who's just kind of always fluttering around him is somehow in charge of that. So I think Natalie Harp as random as she is really illustrates one of the biggest themes running through this book, which is that in Trump's White House, proximity to the president is power. Trump is spending a lot of his time in DC or at his golf clubs these days. He's not traveling that much. He's not meeting people or campaigning for the midterms. He's pretty hol uped at the White House, specifically in the Oval Office , and so that in this administration has kind of become the center of the universe. So people who spend the most time physically around Trump often end up becoming one of the most influential people in his orbit regardless of what their official title is. It's kind of almost like the White House has its own law of gravity and the closer you are to Trump, the more influence you seem to have. And the farther away you are, the easier it is to not only just become irrelevant but kind of miss what's actually happening . And that is such a well known point in his inner circle that Marco Rubio has actually spent less time traveling than any other secretary of state ever . And as head of the State Department, his office is actually not in the White House, so it's in foggy bottom, but he's never there. So he's had to apologize to staff for just never being in his building in his office because the Oval Office has become his new headquarters. And it's because Trump just makes decisions so rapidly and impulsively that missing a day can mean missing a bill or a decision in a war. Quote, if you were not by Trump's side every day, you might as well not have existed. And I think that's kind of just what surprised me most about this book because going into it, I did expect to come across more bombshells about Trump and his administration, but instead I came away thinking a lot more about power because even though every presidency kind of develops its own culture obviously . This book argues that Trump's personality hasn't just shaped the mood and like little traditions at the White House, it has shaped how power itself actually works there. And I actually think that's why this reporting matters because when people ask, why did this administration do this or that, which we are asking ourselves a lot these days, we usually point to ideology or policy or something more tangible and concrete to show us why the administration made a certain decision. But after reading this book, I think we should be asking a different question, which is who was in the room at that time? Because I think in this White House, that question might matter more than anything else. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in to another episode of News Girls. This book really got me thinking about a lot. So if you want more analysis and breakdowns, let me know because I can just keep them coming. And make sure to like this video and subscribe to Newsgirls on all of our platforms. We're on Instagram, TikTok. We have a substack twice a week, and you know, I always say this, but it is just me and Ren running this entire operation. We do all of the research, the producing, the editing, just everything. So any and all support is just super appreciated so that we can keep this going and make sure we're getting you guys credible news. And yeah, let me know what you guys want to see more of. Do you want to see more of me and Ren together, more in the fields, more of these solo explainers, because we can just make sure to do more of it. And yeah, I'll see you guys later. Bye