President Donald Trump reposted a document in the early hours of Friday that compared his power favorably to a rogues’ gallery of history’s most notorious autocrats, writing “Sounds good to me!” in response.
The short text Trump shared, which he attributed to “presidential historian Dave King,” lists figures including Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Tamburlaine, Napoleon, and “more recently, Hitler, Mao, and Stalin.” The author argues that those leaders “maintained power through fear” and that the “overwhelming difference between each of the above when compared with President Trump is their lack of global reach.”
The author, Dave King, is not a historian. King is a Scottish-born businessman now living in South Africa who served as chairman of Rangers Football Club, which competes in the Scottish Premiership. Trump appears to have first encountered King when King was caddying for Hall of Fame golfer Gary Player at an event, according to CNN.
Trump first mentioned the document during a March 2026 interview with New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan for their book “Regime Change,” an account of the first 14 months of Trump’s second term that is scheduled for publication next week, CNN reported Friday.
According to CNN’s account of the book, when Haberman and Swan asked Trump to describe the power he wields and his place in world history, Trump called for aides to bring him a two-page document he had received from someone he described as a historian. Brandishing the document, Trump recited the names of history’s most powerful figures, explaining how each fell short of his own power as president, the reporters write.
The leaders “maintained power through fear,” Trump reportedly said, according to the book. “Who would ever do a thing like that? Right?”
Haberman and Swan eventually identified the author of the document as King, who told them he had first shared his assessment of Trump’s power with Player and later explained it directly to Trump over golf in Florida, CNN reported.
The book, based on more than 1,000 interviews conducted over a three-year period, contains additional remarks from Trump that the Times published in a review Friday.
Asked to reflect on his legal battles and presidential campaigns, Trump said, according to the book: “Essentially I won every fucking time. 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?”
The book also reports that Trump said he considered making Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had been a rival for the Republican presidential nomination, his secretary of defense. “We need plot twists,” Trump reportedly told a “startled ally,” according to the New York Times.
In a separate high-level Oval Office meeting, Trump said, “I’m not a big fan of Ukraine … except their women. They keep winning Miss Universe,” according to the Times.
The authors also recount that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt found Trump in the Oval Office “clutching a tube of superglue and attempting to affix gold decorations to the marble fireplace mantel,” CNN reported.
Regarding former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, the book reports that Trump chose to make Powell’s life miserable instead of firing him, focusing on the cost of renovations to the Federal Reserve building. “I want to bust his fucking balls, honestly,” Trump said of Powell during a meeting last year, 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’s pleasure at being compared to dictators follows years of comments expressing admiration for autocrats and strongmen including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.