‘Long live the king’: Trump adds monarch rhetoric to actions

Trump has already sought to test the limits of executive power.

President Donald Trump is branding himself a monarch.

The president of the United States made an unprecedented declaration on Wednesday while applauding his administration’s decision to terminate federal approval of New York’s congestion pricing program.

“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED,” Trump wrote on his social platform Truth Social. “LONG LIVE THE KING!”

The official White House social media accounts on X, Instagram and Facebook soon quoted his post, all sharing a fake magazine cover depicting an illustration of Trump smiling in a suit — and wearing a bejeweled golden crown. In the corner of the magazine cover appears the text: “LONG LIVE THE KING.”

The posts come as critics have accused him of exceeding his constitutional authority during his first weeks in office.

Since starting his second presidential term about a month ago, Trump has issued more than 60 executive orders — including multiple directives that have been challenged in court and blocked by judges. On Tuesday, Trump announced that he has directed the Department of Justice to fire “ALL remaining ‘Biden Era’ U.S. Attorneys.”

Trump has also sought to consolidate even more power. Earlier this week, he signed an executive order essentially declaring legal authority over independent agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, stating that only he and the attorney general could interpret law for the executive branch.

And on Saturday, the White House shared a post that included a statement from Trump appearing to declare himself above the law.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any law,” Trump wrote.

Trump’s proclamation of “LONG LIVE THE KING” became a trending topic on X, the platform (formerly Twitter) now owned by his political ally Elon Musk. The White House’s circulation of the phrase — and the accompanying imagery of Trump wearing a crown — stirred a flurry of immediate backlash.

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul rejected Trump’s and the White House’s posts in a press conference Wednesday.

“I’m here to say: New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years and we are not — we sure as hell are not going to start now,” Hochul said. “The streets of this city, where battles were fought, we stood up to a king and we won then and we will. In case you don’t know New Yorkers, when we’re in a fight, we don’t back down, not now, not ever.”

Other government officials quickly joined the chorus of concerns.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker took to X to post that his “oath is to the Constitution of our state and our nation.”

“We don’t have kings in America, and I won’t bend the knee to one,” Pritzker wrote.

Some of Trump’s supporters online lauded his declaration, even making and sharing their own imagery of him wearing a king’s crown. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich similarly posted what appears to be an AI-generated image of Trump dressed in king’s garb. Others who claimed to have voted for him, however, expressed discomfort with this branding.

Trump’s monarch proclamation is the latest in a series of unusual posts coming from the White House’s official social media accounts.

On Tuesday, the White House posted a video of people in handcuffs and chains preparing to board a deportation flight, stating that it was an ASMR video. ASMR, which stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, refers to the calming sensation triggered by certain unusually pleasant sounds — it’s a popular genre of content typically made to help viewers relax.

In another attempted joke about his administration’s deportation efforts, the account on Valentine’s Day posted a poem with the faces of Trump and his border czar Tom Homan, complete with hearts dotted over a pink background. It reads: “Roses are red, Violets are blue, Come here illegally and we’ll deport you.”

The White House has also repeatedly shared photos of Trump’s mugshot, which is now hung in a frame outside the Oval Office.

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