20 February 2025 , 19:29
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The White House reacted by sharing a doctored image of Trump wearing a crown on social media.
As Donald Trump attempts to consolidate power within the executive branch, his declarations of despotism are becoming increasingly explicit.
On Wednesday afternoon — after ordering his administration to intervene in New York City’s recently implemented congestion pricing model — Trump wrote on Truth Social: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”
Shortly after, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich posted a screenshot of Trump’s post on X, alongside an AI-generated image of the president in a crown and cape. The White House’s official X account also shared an image of a fake cover of Time magazine depicting Trump in a golden crown, with the headline “LONG LIVE THE KING.”
New York Governor Katchy Hochul, a Democrat, responded to the federal government’s attempt to quash the ordinance in a Wednesday statement. “We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king,” she wrote. “The MTA has initiated legal proceedings in the Southern District of New York to preserve this critical program. We’ll see you in court.”
The declaration is the latest in a string of statements and legal actions by Trump and his allies pointing to a belief that the president has absolute — if not monarchical — power over the federal government.
On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order deeming that he and his attorney general have supreme authority to “interpret the law for the executive branch,” while granting the president and the executive branch oversight over independent agencies.
In a press conference announcing the directive, White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf told reporters that the order would “reestablish the long-standing norm that only the president or the attorney general can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is.”
The night before, during a joint interview with Trump on Fox News, DOGE head Elon Musk suggested to Sean Hannity that real “democracy” is Trump being able to do whatever he wants, regardless of the Constitution, because Americans voted for him to be president.
“If the will of the president is not implemented and the president is representative of the people, that means the will of the people is not being implemented,” he said.
Trump’s brute force overhauling of executive power in his first month in office reflects a political delusion of grandeur and absolute authority. Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly indicated that he wanted to “to be a dictator for one day.” Days ago, the president — who is facing a slew of legal challenges regarding his early administrative actions, wrote on X that “he who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
His single day of dictatorship seemingly satisfied, the American president is now aiming for something adjacent, but just as potentially damaging: kingship.