Overview
- Maggie Haberman told a podcast that passages in Regime Change describe President Trump not realizing tariffs on Chinese goods had climbed to 145 percent before he registered the level.
- Haberman says the tariff rate rose over roughly a week after last year’s Liberation Day rollout and that the administration paused levies on most countries when the bond market neared a meltdown while China’s rate reportedly stayed at 145 percent.
- She portrays the tariff-setting process as ad hoc, saying Trump often chose numbers by gut — for example telling aides to “put them in for 10” — and reacted with disbelief when told how high the China rate had become.
- According to the account, competing figures came from advisers including Peter Navarro, Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick, and a close aide, Natalie Harp, produced the final numbers the president used.
- Regime Change is presented as based on more than 1,000 interviews, the book’s specific anecdotes have limited independent corroboration in published coverage, and President Trump has publicly called the book fiction.