WASHINGTON, D.C. — Reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan discussed their book, "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," during an appearance on "CBS Mornings." Haberman said, "This is a fundamentally different conception of the U.S. presidency."

Swan stated, "We haven't seen anything like this in our lifetime in terms of the unilateral expression of executive power." He cited an instance where "Congress wasn't even consulted when he went to war with Iran." Haberman said, "It is changing how countries around the world, leaders around the world, how people in the U.S. look at their president, and we're not used to covering regime change, as you say, here. But that is what we were doing."

Haberman described loyalty as a key characteristic sought by Trump, noting, "Loyalty was a premier characteristic he was seeking, and loyalty — and we write about this — has a bit of a fungible definition." She said, "What became the real litmus test was January 6th. Where you were on January 6th and where you were on January 7th? If on January 7th in Trump's mind in any way you were separated from him, he did not want you around." Swan added, "Trump is just acting. He is acting and the system is trying to catch up to him. That's really the way it's working."

The authors also discussed how Trump's appointments were influenced. According to the book, Trump stated that John Ratcliffe resembled actor Cary Grant prior to his appointment as CIA director. Haberman noted, "The 'central casting' aspect is a big one. Part of that is Pete Hegseth, how you now have him as the secretary of defense/war. He liked that Hegseth was good on TV. He liked that Hegseth defended, quote unquote, warriors. When it comes to someone like Tulsi Gabbard, who was the director of national intelligence, it was, 'Let's give it to her, what harm could she really do?'"

Haberman also stated, "Trump is in an information bubble that is unlike anything that I can remember." She added, "The inputs that are reaching him are so small, adding that many times decisions are being made by a group of about a half a dozen people." Details from the book indicated that the energy and treasury secretaries were not initially included in meetings about a potential war with Iran due to leak concerns.

Swan stated, "Over the summer of last year they essentially turned the Situation Room into an Epstein crisis response center, and you had the most senior officials in the U.S. government gathering in that room to figure out essentially a PR strategy to deal with the Epstein crisis." He added, "One of the problems they had was they built this website that they were going to release — a Justice Department public-facing website. And they were searching around in it for Trump and they were finding a lot of stuff on Trump and some of it was, you know, embarrassing, so they had to make decisions about what to disclose and what not to disclose. But that really was a political crisis that has had long-term effects way beyond what his team expected."