Reporting by New York Times journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman for their book “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” published in the Times on Tuesday, April 7, 2026, describes deep divisions among Trump's top advisers over the Iran war in the run-up to the first U.S. strikes on Feb. 28. The Daily Beast summarized it as cabinet members being “at each other's throats.”
Vice President JD Vance was the most opposed. According to the reporting, he warned Trump “in front of his colleagues” that the war “could cause regional chaos and untold numbers of casualties” and that Iran would shutter the Strait of Hormuz, sending gas prices up. The Hill reported that Vance also told Trump voters who backed the ticket because of its promises to avoid new wars would feel betrayed, and raised concerns about the U.S. munitions stockpile. The book reports that “nobody in Mr. Trump's inner circle was more worried about the prospect of war with Iran, or did more to try to stop it, than the vice president.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was “the biggest proponent of a military campaign against Iran,” believing “they would have to take care of the Iranians eventually, so they might as well do it now.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was described as ambivalent: “if our goal is regime change or an uprising, we shouldn't do it,” but “if the goal is to destroy Iran's missile program, that's a goal we can achieve.”
Chief of Staff Susie Wiles reportedly told colleagues she was concerned that the domestic impact of the conflict could essentially tank Trump's final two years in office. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reassured Trump that whatever he chose, the press team would “manage it as best they could.”
When the decision came, the opponents fell in line. Jewish Insider, reviewing the published book, reported that at a late-February Situation Room meeting Vance spoke first, telling Trump he thought the operation was a bad idea but would support him, and Wiles said she was on board if Trump felt it would protect America's national security.
Tucker Carlson, now a fierce war critic, repeatedly called Trump before the strikes. Trump told him: “I know you're worried about it, but it's going to be OK.” When Carlson asked how he could possibly be sure, Trump replied: “Because it always is.”
Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version of this entry cited a New York Times URL captioned as excerpts from “Regime Change” that we could not verify and believe was not a real address; that citation was removed. The title previously put “at each other's throats” in quotation marks as if it were the book's wording; it is The Daily Beast's description. We also added that Vance and Wiles told Trump at the decisive meeting that they would support him, and removed two unsourced characterizations: that Hegseth had “zero Pentagon experience” and that Trump's answer amounted to “magical thinking.”