Donald Trump reposted a text in the early hours of Friday morning that compared him with Hitler, Mao, Stalin and other strongmen, then answered, “Sounds good to me!” The post placed Trump inside a list of rulers defined by conquest and fear, but the exchange now sits inside a broader account that is due to be published next week.
Dave King and the repost
The text Trump shared said the difference between Trump and those historical figures was global reach, and Trump identified the author as “presidential historian Dave King.” identified King as a Scottish-born businessman now living in South Africa who was previously the chair of Rangers Football Club in Glasgow. Trump appears to have first encountered King when King was caddying for Gary Player.
That detail matters because the label Trump used does not match the person described in the source. King is presented as a businessman, not a historian, which leaves the authority behind the comparison resting on a private assessment rather than an academic one.
March interview with Haberman and Swan
Trump first mentioned the document in a March interview with Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, who are writing Regime Change. The book is described as an account of the first 14 months of Trump's second term and is based on more than 1,000 interviews over a three-year period.
In that March interview, Trump also said, “Essentially I won every fucking time.” He added, “And I’m tired of winning and winning and winning and just getting bad fucking press. It’s about time that you tell the truth. Okay?” Trump also said, “We need plot twists.”
Regime Change next week
The same material includes Trump saying he considered making Ron DeSantis his secretary of defense, and he also said at a high-level Oval Office meeting, “I’m not a big fan of Ukraine … except their women. They keep winning Miss Universe.” Those lines place the repost inside a wider set of comments that the book uses to show how Trump talks about power, loyalty and public image.
Next week, Regime Change is scheduled to be published, and the Trump post has already turned one private-sounding comparison into a public endorsement. The unanswered point is the standard behind King's judgment: what specific actions he used to decide that Trump's reach went beyond Hitler, Mao, Stalin and the others.
