Overview
- President Trump reposted on Truth Social a two‑page memo that calls him “by far the most powerful person that has EVER walked this planet,” adding the caption “Presidential Historian Dave King — Sounds good to me!” during an extended overnight posting session as he returned from the G7 and after signing an Iran memorandum.
- News reporting traced the memo’s credited author, Dave King, not to an academic but to Gary Player’s longtime caddie and confidant, prompting corrections to earlier accounts that misidentified a Harvard‑affiliated David King.
- Excerpts in the forthcoming book Regime Change say Trump showed the same document to reporters in the Oval Office in March and appeared pleased by comparisons that included Hitler, Stalin, Mao and other brutal historical figures.
- Media and pundits have responded with a mix of ridicule and alarm, focusing both on the blunt comparisons to dictators and on the lapse in vetting the memo’s provenance before the president amplified it.
- The episode spotlights a broader theme in Trump’s rhetoric about unprecedented presidential reach, and it is likely to intensify scrutiny of how he defines and tests executive power and of the sources he promotes.