Donald Trump was in ebullient form last Friday. It had been a good week: Iran put in its place, Nato brought to heel, and at a White House ceremony, the signing of “his” deal to stem the 30-year war in Democratic Republic of Congo. The deal would see Rwanda withdraw and it would secure, in Trump’s words, “a lot of mineral rights” for the US.
“A Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World!” he boasted on social media, but “I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for this ... I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran ... but the people know, and that, is all that matters to me!” Right!
An official, passing the treaty to the two foreign ministers, said “we’ll call it the Washington Treaty”. “Why not the Trump Treaty?” Trump interrupted, startling his guests. “I’m joking.”
With Trump, you can’t tell. There’s no typeface for irony, and no limit to his righteous certainty that his historic role is criminally underappreciated. Most “jokes” require flagging by aides.
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We know, however, that Trump has coveted a Nobel at least since Barack Obama won it, and friends have repeatedly, unsuccessfully nominated him. No role, it seems, is beyond our hero – days before Pope Francis died Trump posted an AI-generated picture of himself in a white cassock with gold crucifix and mitre, his finger pointed at the sky, and said he would “like to be pope”. A “joke,” officials confirmed.
[ The Irish Times view on the central African deal: an uncertain peaceOpens in new window ]
Nothing better, however, illustrates his folies de grandeur than his “dream” to join George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore. A Florida congresswoman has duly moved a bill to “direct the secretary of the interior to arrange for the carving of the figure of president Donald J Trump” on the monument.
“They definitely have room,” the secretary says. Not so, says the National Parks Service which oversees it.
“You wouldn’t add another face to … Mount Rushmore, just like you wouldn’t add one to da Vinci’s Last Supper,” complains former monument superintendent Dan Wenk. Its fragility means a new face next to Lincoln might cost Abe his nose. But surely Trump could delete one of the four to take his place?
Trump has also long had a royal fixation. It speaks volumes to his determination to rule unconstrained by Congress, judiciary or anyone, and to be held in awe. King Charles’s invitation to Buckingham Palace to the royalty-struck Trump appeared key to fawning PM Keir Starmer’s success in wooing him. An overnight in the Dutch royal palace was the highlight of his recent “historic” Nato trip.
[ New US ambassador to Ireland takes office, thanking friend Donald TrumpOpens in new window ]
While Trump may not yet be seeking a crown for his head, he is going about claiming the unfettered regal right to control the executive branch the way he sees fit, supported by last year’s Supreme Court ruling that former presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts. His mantra, he has proclaimed, is Napoleon’s “he who saves his country does not violate any law”. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissenting, warned that “the president is now a king, above the law.”
Rule by presidential fiat is the order of the day. As former US secretary of Labour Robert Reich wrote recently, Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill” will also remove the courts’ newly limited ability to hold executive officials in contempt and will undermine efforts to stop the administration. “Trump will have crowned himself king,” Reich warned.
At his recent inauguration, Trump spoke of how he “was saved by God to make America great again”, echoing the divine right of kings. King-like, he started to rename territory and laid claim to independent states … Panama, Greenland, Canada, Gaza, mineral rights in Ukraine.
In one of his first decrees, he abolished New York’s congestion pricing. Then, delighted with his power, he posted “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”
After the “No Kings” protests against him last month, he backtracked, complaining that unlike a king he was constrained: “I don’t feel like a king. I have to go through hell to get things approved ... No, we’re not a king. We’re not a king at all.” Note the royal ‘we’.
Trump particularly delights in his pardon power, described by constitutionalists as the most kingly element of a president’s authority, one that cannot be challenged or overturned. Among other things, he wiped away the charges and convictions of about 1,600 supporters who rampaged through the Capitol five years ago. The pardon is an odd monarchical power tucked into the constitution, whose framers clearly had another sort of president in mind.
[ Trump’s first hours: With each stroke of the pen came seismic hammer blowsOpens in new window ]
Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers, wrote optimistically that affording the president an undivided pardon power by “sole fiat” would “naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution”. King Trump does not do either.
