2026-06-18T19:36:36.876Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/18/politics/new-book-reveals-how-trump-compared-himself-to-mao-stalin-atilla-the-hun
- 总统唐纳德·特朗普曾向记者展示一份文件，将自己的权力与斯大林、毛泽东等历史人物相提并论。
- 这份文件的作者后来被证实是一名高尔夫球童，而非特朗普所称的历史学家。
- 一本新书披露了特朗普第二任期内的诸多细节，从粘贴金色装饰到下令开展联邦调查。
AI生成摘要经CNN编辑审核。
当唐纳德·特朗普总统在3月接受《纽约时报》记者玛吉·哈伯曼和乔纳森·斯旺的采访，为他们的新书准备素材时，他向两人展示了一份文件，声称自己比历史上一些最令人畏惧、最阴险的领导人更有权势，其中包括匈奴王阿提拉、成吉思汗、拿破仑、斯大林、毛泽东和希特勒。
哈伯曼和斯旺曾询问特朗普第二任期内行使的权力以及他的历史定位，这促使他讲述了一份两页文件的来历：他是在致敬名人堂高尔夫球手加里·普莱耶的活动中从“一位历史学家”手中收到这份文件的。特朗普得意地让助手拿来这份文件的副本，文件中称其他每位领导人“无论在其时代多么令人畏惧，都没有全球影响力，他们的权力是区域性的，但（特朗普的）权力不是”。
哈伯曼和斯旺在书中写道，特朗普自豪地向他们展示了这封信，“背诵了一些历史上最有权势人物的名字，解释了为何每个人都比不上他作为美国总统所拥有的权力”。
据书中记载，特朗普称这些领导人“通过恐惧维持权力”。“谁会做出这样的事？对吧？”
但当斯旺和哈伯曼试图查找文件作者时，发现他并非历史学家，而是普莱耶的长期球童和私人密友。这名球童告诉哈伯曼和斯旺，他“最初向普莱耶分享了自己对特朗普权力的评价，后来在佛罗里达州打高尔夫时直接向特朗普本人解释了这一观点”。
特朗普在周四午夜过后于Truth Social上发布了这份文件。一位消息人士告诉CNN，这一时间点可能是为了抢先于新书发布，颇具巧合意味。特朗普在帖文中写道，作者是一名“总统历史学家”。
这则轶事只是哈伯曼和斯旺的新书《政权更迭》中众多引人注目的场景之一。CNN在该书周二正式发售前提前获取了内容。本书直白地描绘了特朗普第二任期最初14个月的幕后图景：总统不受约束地行使权力——常常以随意、即兴的方式——迫害他认定的敌人、扰乱全球市场并在海外发动战争。
哈伯曼和斯旺记录了大大小小的诸多时刻，包括政府应对爱泼斯坦文件丑闻时的手足无措，以及特朗普决定对伊朗开战。他们始终在书中说明，特朗普的第二任期比第一任期更加不受约束，展现了他愿意打破长期以来的既定规范，并揭示了这位总统对 fellow 世界领导人乃至自己团队成员常常尖锐直白的看法。
本书基于三年多来的1000多次采访创作而成，哈伯曼和斯旺在书中注明，直接引语来自发言者本人、直接听闻讲话的人，或是“同期笔记、录音或 transcripts”。
除了3月与特朗普进行的一小时专访外，二人在日常报道过程中还多次与特朗普交谈。
以下是《政权更迭》中的更多关键时刻：
哈伯曼和斯旺讲述了椭圆形办公室内的一幕，展现了特朗普对白宫办公室内金色装修的痴迷程度。
一天早上，白宫新闻秘书卡罗琳·莱维特走进椭圆形办公室，发现特朗普“攥着一管强力胶，试图将金色装饰品粘在大理石壁炉台面上”，书中如此写道。
哈伯曼和斯旺写道：“众所周知，特朗普更喜欢自己动手做美学装饰，因此总统将胶水挤在镀金饰件上并亲自上墙的场景，在他的核心圈子里并不让人意外。”
去年重新就职后，特朗普迅速改造了椭圆形办公室的外观，四处添加金色元素：壁炉台上新增了镀金小雕像、壁炉上的徽章、边桌上的金雕、门上的镀金洛可可镜子，还有嵌在门框上方三角楣饰里的迷你金色小天使，这些装饰品都是从海湖庄园运来的。
“骗子”和“比《学徒》精彩”
特朗普第二任期的外交政策以他与以色列一同对伊朗开战的决定为主线。
哈伯曼和斯旺记录了特朗普对以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡冷热不定的态度，包括他最初对与伊朗开战的犹豫。他们写道，特朗普在政府最初几个月告诉一位对以色列持怀疑态度的顾问，他“完全不想”卷入内塔尼亚胡对伊朗的战争。
据作者称，特朗普曾告诉另一位顾问，内塔尼亚胡是个“骗子”，这是特朗普词典中最严厉的侮辱之一。
在《纽约时报》4月发布的本书节选内容中，哈伯曼和斯旺描述了2月白宫 Situation Room 内的一场会议，参会者包括特朗普、内塔尼亚胡以及多名美以高级官员。会上，内塔尼亚胡提出了以色列对伊朗开战的理由，特朗普最终决定支持。
哈伯曼和斯旺还写道，随着俄乌战争拖入特朗普第二任期的第二年——尽管他曾承诺在24小时内解决冲突——特朗普对乌克兰及其领导人弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基持怀疑态度。
今年2月，特朗普、泽连斯基和副总统JD·万斯在椭圆形办公室发生激烈争执后，哈伯曼和斯旺写道，特朗普认为这场对峙棒极了。
“比《学徒》精彩多了，”他告诉一位顾问，书中如此引用他的话。
哈伯曼和斯旺记录了总统对自己内阁的尖锐批评，包括商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克——这位特朗普的长期盟友在过去一年中在落实特朗普关税政策方面发挥了关键作用。
作者们讲述了2025年4月的一幕场景：卢特尼克试图说服特朗普，关税不会让美国汽车制造商陷入重大劣势。
哈伯曼和斯旺写道，特朗普称卢特尼克“曾经很强硬”，但来到华盛顿后变得“软弱”。
“你过去是个狠角色，霍华德，”特朗普说，“我记得你35岁的时候，是个狠角色。现在你有了漂亮的妻子、大房子，你只是变得软弱了。你就是个软蛋。你知道你是什么吗？你就是个软蛋。”
几个月后，关税收入开始入账，作者们写道，卢特尼克用特朗普的侮辱回敬了一句俏皮话，他告诉总统：“你每月250亿美元的软蛋。”
本书深入探讨了特朗普在第二任期内没有跨越的一条红线：试图解雇时任美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔。
相反，特朗普在去年发起了一场运动，试图让鲍威尔的日子不好过。
一位助手当时告诉作者，特朗普不会解雇鲍威尔，他只是想“折磨”他。
哈伯曼和斯旺讲述了管理和预算办公室主任拉斯·沃特向特朗普提交了一份计划，打算就美联储大楼的翻新工程攻击鲍威尔，这导致总统于去年7月进行了一次非同寻常的工地视察。
“说实话，我想操他妈的鲍威尔，”特朗普在7月的一次工作人员会议上谈到鲍威尔时说，“那该死的建筑怎么样？我们能叫停吗？能停止施工吗？我就是想操他妈的鲍威尔。去他妈的。”
特朗普问他们是否可以停止施工。“我会调查的，”沃特说。
“不用调查，”特朗普回答，“给我一份计划。”
沃特在OMB的法律顾问马克·保莱塔想出了一个计划：任命特朗普的盟友加入国家首都规划委员会——这是一个处理华盛顿特区地区建设事务的晦涩委员会。
特朗普告诉他当时的副幕僚长詹姆斯·布莱尔加入该委员会。据作者称，特朗普说：“这就像一场为期两周的竞选活动。你知道该怎么做。我刚任命你加入委员会。好好玩，要凶狠，把工作做好。”
会议结束后，布莱尔去找特朗普的幕僚长威尔·沙夫，让他也加入了委员会。沙夫在次日主持了一场会议，布莱尔下令对美联储翻新项目进行“全面审查”。
2025年4月，特朗普发布行政命令，指示司法部调查多名他认定的敌人，其中包括前国土安全部网络安全与基础设施局局长克里斯·克雷布斯——此人在2020年11月因公开称2020年大选是“美国历史上最安全的选举”而被解雇。
哈伯曼和斯旺透露，此次调查源于特朗普记不起克雷布斯的名字。
据书中记载，特朗普在与包括其有权势的政策副幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒和长期助手鲍里斯·埃普什泰因在内的多名幕僚开会时，“开始回想过去的不满”。
“我记得有个在政府里的律师说选举是公平的，没有舞弊。他是谁？”特朗普问道。
“哦，国土安全部的——我想你说的是那个国土安全部的人，”米勒回答，“我忘了他的名字。”
埃普什泰因随后用谷歌搜索了克雷布斯的名字。“对，克里斯·克雷布斯，”特朗普说，“他后来怎么样了？他是个坏人。查一下他。”
哈伯曼和斯旺写道，米勒随后起草了一份总统备忘录，“动用联邦政府的资源对付一个唯一冒犯特朗普的人——他只是证实了2020年大选的安全性和合法性”。
哈伯曼和斯旺还提供了新细节，披露特朗普的特使史蒂夫·威特科夫试图拉拢俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京，以结束俄乌战争。
特朗普任命长期好友、纽约房地产开发商威特科夫作为其首席谈判代表，处理包括加沙和乌克兰在内的多起外交危机。
作者们写道，威特科夫试图通过个人 chemistry 与普京达成突破，并称普京“似乎配合了这一点”，但在战场上并未做出任何让步。
哈伯曼和斯旺写道，去年在克里姆林宫的一次会议上，普京在自己的私人信纸上涂鸦。威特科夫问那是什么，普京举起纸，上面写着“3+2”，这是威特科夫与他讨论过的停火领土框架的简写。
“你能帮我签个名吗？我能把它带回家吗？”威特科夫问道，书中如此引用他的话。
普京在这幅画上签了名，威特科夫将其装裱起来，黑色外框搭配灰褐色衬板，哈伯曼和斯旺写道。
New book reveals how Trump compared himself to Mao, Stalin, Attila the Hun
2026-06-18T19:36:36.876Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/18/politics/new-book-reveals-how-trump-compared-himself-to-mao-stalin-atilla-the-hun
- President Donald Trump showed reporters a document comparing his power to historical figures like Stalin and Mao.
- The document’s author turned out to be a golf caddy, not a historian as Trump claimed.
- A new book reveals Trump’s second term, from gluing gold decorations to ordering federal investigations.
AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
When President Donald Trump sat down for an interview in March with New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan for their new book, he showed them a document arguing he was more powerful than some of the most feared and treacherous leaders in history — including Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler.
Trump had been asked by Haberman and Swan about the power he wielded as president in his second term and his place in history, which prompted him to tell the story of a two-page document he had received from “a historian” during an event honoring the hall of fame golfer, Gary Player. Trump proudly asked an aide to fetch a copy of the document, which argued that each of the other leaders, “however fearsome in his day, had no global reach. Their power was local. But (Trump’s) was not.”
Trump proudly showed them the letter, Haberman and Swan write, “reciting the names of some of history’s most powerful figures, explaining how each fell short of his own power as US president.”
These leaders “maintained power through fear,” Trump said, according to the book. “Who would ever do a thing like that? Right?”
But when Swan and Haberman tried to find the author, it turned out, he was not a historian, but actually Player’s longtime caddy and personal confidant. The caddy told Haberman and Swan that he “had first shared his assessment of Trump’s power with Player and later explained it directly to Trump over golf in Florida.”
Trump posted the document on Truth Social just after midnight Thursday — an interesting coincidence that one source told CNN may have been an attempt to get out in from of the book. Trump wrote that the author was a “presidential historian.”
The anecdote is one of many striking scenes captured in Haberman and Swan’s new book, “Regime Change,” which was obtained by CNN ahead of its release on Tuesday. The book provides a blunt, behind-the-scenes portrait of the first 14 months of Trump’s second term, in which the president has wielded his power without constraint — often in a haphazard, improvisational manner — to persecute his perceived enemies, rattle global markets and wage war abroad.
Haberman and Swan capture moments big and small, including the administration’s flailing response to the Epstein files scandal and Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran. Throughout, they illustrate how Trump’s second term is even more unconstrained than his first, depicting his willingness to break with longstanding norms and offering insight into the president’s often biting and unvarnished views of fellow world leaders and even members of his own team.
Based on more than 1,000 interviews over a three-year period, Haberman and Swan’s book contains direct quotes that they explain come from the person speaking, someone who heard them directly or from “contemporaneous notes, recordings, or transcripts.”
They both spoke to Trump several times over the course of their daily reporting, in addition to their hourlong sit-down with Trump in March.
Here are more key moments from “Regime Change”:
Haberman and Swan recount a scene in the Oval Office that reveals how invested Trump is in the golden redecorating inside his White House office.
One morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt walked into the Oval Office and found Trump “clutching a tube of superglue and attempting to affix gold decorations to the marble fireplace mantel,” according to the book.
“As he was known to prefer his own aesthetic handiwork to anyone else’s, the sight of the President squeezing glue onto gilded appliques and mounting them on the wall himself surprised no one in his inner circle,” Haberman and Swan write.
After retaking office last year, Trump quickly transformed the look of the Oval Office, adding gold everywhere, including new gold vermeil figurines on the mantle and medallions on the fireplace, gold eagles on the side tables, gilded Rococo mirrors on the doors, and, nestled in the pediments above the doorways, diminutive gold cherubs shipped in from Mar-a-Lago.
A ‘con man’ and ‘better than The Apprentice’
Trump’s second-term foreign policy has been dominated by his decision to go to war with Iran alongside Israel.
Haberman and Swan capture Trump’s hot-and-cold feelings about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including his initial hesitation about war with Iran. They write that Trump told an Israel skeptic in the early months of his administration that he didn’t want “any part” of a Netanyahu war with Iran.
Trump told another adviser that Netanyahu was a “con man,” according to the authors, who say that it is one of the worst insults in Trump’s lexicon.
In an excerpt of the book released by The New York Times in April, Haberman and Swan describe a February gathering in the White House Situation Room that included Trump, Netanyahu and a handful of top US and Israeli officials. In the meeting, Netanyahu presented Israel’s case for going to war with Iran, which Trump ultimately decided to back.
Haberman and Swan also write about Trump’s skepticism toward Ukraine and its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, as Russia’s war in Ukraine dragged into Trump’s second year despite his campaign promise to resolve it within 24 hours.
After a remarkable argument in the Oval Office between Trump, Zelensky and Vice President JD Vance last February, Haberman and Swan write that Trump thought the confrontation was great.
“Better,” he would tell an advisor, “than The Apprentice,” according to the book.
Haberman and Swan capture some of the president’s vitriol toward his own Cabinet, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a longtime associate of Trump’s who played a key role in carrying out Trump’s tariffs over the past year.
The authors recount a scene in April 2025 where Lutnick was trying to convince Trump that tariffs couldn’t put US automakers at a major disadvantage.
Trump said that Lutick “used to be tough” but had gotten “weak” after coming to Washington, Haberman and Swan wrote.
“You used to be a killer, Howard,” Trump said, according to the authors. “I remember when you were thirty-five, you were a killer. And now you’ve got your beautiful wife, and your big house, and you’re just soft. And you’re a pussy. You know what you are? You’re a pussy.”
Months later, as tariff revenues began coming in, the authors write that Lutnick used Trump’s insult with a quip of his own, telling the president he was “your twenty-five-billion-dollar-a-month pussy.”
The book dives into one line that Trump chose not to cross in his second term: Trying to fire then-Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Instead, Trump launched a campaign last year to try to make Powell’s life miserable.
An aide told the authors at the time that Trump was not going to fire Powell, he was just going to torture him.
Haberman and Swan recount how Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought brought Trump a plan to attack Powell over the renovations of the Federal Reserve building, which led to an extraordinary visit by the president to tour the site last July.
“I want to bust his fucking balls, honestly,” Trump said of Powell during a July staff meeting, according to the book. “What about that fucking building? Can we stop it? Can we stop construction. I just want to bust his fucking balls. Fuck him.”
Trump asked if they could stop construction. “I’ll look into it,” Vought said.
“No don’t look into it,” Trump replied. “Bring me a plan.”
Vought’s general counsel at OMB, Mark Paoletta, came up with the plan to appoint Trump allies to the National Capital Planning Commission, an arcane board that dealt with construction in the Washington, DC, region.
Trump told his then-deputy chief of staff, James Blair, to join the board. “It’s like a two-week campaign. You know what to do. I just put you on the board. You have fun, you be vicious, you do a job,” the president said, according to the authors.
After the meeting, Blair went to Will Scharf, Trump’s staff secretary, and had him join the board, too. Scharf chaired a meeting the very next day, where Blair ordered up a “full review” of the Federal Reserve renovation project.
In April 2025, Trump issued executive orders instructing the Justice Department to investigate several perceived enemies, including Chris Krebs, the former head of DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency who was fired in November 2020 after he stated publicly that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”
Haberman and Swan reveal that the investigation came after Trump couldn’t remember Krebs’ name.
According to the book, Trump “began to muse about past grievances” while in a meeting with several staff, including his powerful deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller and Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s longtime aide.
“I remember there was this lawyer who was in the administration who said the election was fair and there’s no fraud. Who was he?” Trump asked.
“Oh the DHS — I think you’re talking about the DHS guy,” Miller replied. “I forget his name.”
Epshteyn then googled Krebs’ name. “Yeah, Chris Krebs,” Trump said, according to the book. “Whatever happened to him? He was a bad one. Take a look at him.”
Haberman and Swan write that Miller then proceeded to have a presidential memo drawn up, “unleashing the resources of the federal government on a man whose sole offense against Trump had been to attest to the security and validity of his 2020 election.”
Haberman and Swan offer new insights into the efforts of Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to win over Russian President Vladimir Putin and end the war in Ukraine.
Trump tapped Witkoff, a longtime friend and New York real estate developer, as his chief negotiator for a number of diplomatic crises, including Gaza and Ukraine.
Witkoff sought a breakthrough with Putin based on personal chemistry, the authors write, adding that Putin “seemed to play into this” while giving up nothing on the battlefield.
Haberman and Swan write that during a meeting last year at the Kremlin, Putin was doodling on his personal stationary. Witkoff asked what it was and Putin held up the paper, which said “3+2,” which was shorthand for the territorial framework that Witkoff had discussed with him to stop the fighting.
“Can you sign that for me and can I take it home?” Witkoff asked, according to the book.
Putin signed the drawing, and Witkoff had it framed in black with a taupe mat, Haberman and Swan write.