“Regime Change” author Jonathan Swan believes there more “nuance” behind what drives President Donald Trump’s most devoted loyalists in his second term.
On Thursday’s episode of “The Weekly Show,” the co-author of “Regime Change” told host Jon Stewart that there are plenty who are outwardly very loyal to Trump who behind closed doors are trying to “untangle” exactly how deep that loyalty goes.
“It’s hard to know what a lot of them actually think,” Swan said. “I don’t want to sort of go beyond what I have in terms of reporting. It’s sometimes really hard to untangle, you know, personal ambition, pragmatism, cynicism, what you need to do to survive, the stories you tell yourself, all that stuff. It’s very hard to untangle. And I’m sure it’s much more nuanced – there’s a spectrum, right? Like, not everyone is Natalie Harp.”
He added: “When Trump starts a trade war with the whole world, right? Scott Bessant understands bond markets. He could see what was happening in the bond markets. And him and even Howard Lutnick, who has said all kinds of flattering things about Donald Trump. Both of them privately realized this could really go wrong. This could really go off the edge. They made a case to pull back on the tariffs, and Trump did. He put up a pause on tariffs for just about every country, I think, except for China. So, there are moments of that. If it was just total blind Natalie Harp-level adoration, you wouldn’t have an episode like that.”
And that “nuance” has been seen quite prominently seen in the president’s second term amid that trade war and the war he started in Iran. Vocally staunch supporters have turned critical and in some cases totally off of the president, including Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. This led to Trump arguing that such critics were never really a part of his MAGA movement.
“MAGA is Trump — MAGA’s not the other two,” Trump told reporter Rachael Bade back in March. He added that Carlson “can say whatever he wants; it has no impact on me,” while he said Kelly had opposed him for years before endorsing him, suggesting she may change her position again. He also said she “outta study her history book a little bit.”
Watch Swan and Stewart’s full “Weekly Show” episode below.
The post ‘Not Everyone Is Natalie Harp’: Trump Loyalists’ Devotion Is More ‘Nuanced’ in 2nd Term, White House Reporter Says appeared first on TheWrap.
