Trump Shares Letter Calling Him “Most Powerful Man the Planet Has Ever Known”

President Trump endorsed a two-page letter from a writer identified as “Presidential Historian Dave King” that ranks him above Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and other historical figures.

WHITE HOUSE — Donald J.Trump posted on Truth Social on June 17, 2026 at 11:08 PM EST, posted on Truth Social on June 17, 2026, sharing a two-page letter attributed to “Presidential Historian Dave King” that declares Trump “without question, the most powerful man that the planet has ever known — by a long way.” Trump endorsed the letter with the comment, “Sounds good to me!” The letter, posted as two image attachments, argues that historical figures such as Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, and Stalin all lacked the “global reach” that Trump commands through modern logistics, technology, and economic leverage. King’s text characterizes several of these conquerors as “butchers” and “terrorists” whose influence was confined to limited geographic areas, and contends that the collapse of communism left the United States as “the first truly global superpower” with Trump as “the first leader to be willing to use that power on a global scale.” The letter also addresses what it describes as “the President’s reference to William the Conqueror,” dismissing the 1066 Norman king’s historical significance by noting he “only conquered one country, England” and “never even conquered Scotland or Ireland.” King concludes with a metaphor: “If President Trump is the American Eagle, then William the Conqueror was merely a sparrow.” The identity and credentials of the letter’s author remain unclear. A well-known American historian named David King, born in 1970, is a New York Times best-selling author and Cambridge University graduate who taught European history at the University of Kentucky and has written books on Napoleon-era diplomacy, Nazi-era crime, and the Beer Hall Putsch (see wikipedia.org). That David King’s published works focus on European history and narrative nonfiction (see davidkingauthor.com). It could not be independently confirmed whether the Dave King who authored the letter shared by Trump is the same person as the academic historian. The post is part of a broader pattern of Trump sharing supportive content from admirers on his social media platform. In the last 30 days, 54 of Trump’s 662 Truth Social posts fell under the category of media and self-promotion, including 24 specifically classified as supporter reposts and MAGA memes. The letter’s sweeping historical claims — including its characterization of Genghis Khan’s empire as merely “small villages” and its assertion that no prior leader possessed meaningful global power — represent the author’s personal interpretation rather than mainstream historical consensus.