Following his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, President Donald Trump indicated that he isn’t opposed to being described as a dictator.
Claiming that he received “great reviews” for what critics called an erratic and blistering hour-long speech to the forum, the U.S. president noted that critics frequently label him as an authoritarian.
“Usually they say, he’s a horrible dictator-type person, [that] I’m a dictator. But sometimes, you need a dictator,” Trump said.
Notably, Trump didn’t appear to be troubled by criticisms that he is acting as a dictator, and his comments are not out of character for him. Indeed, just this past summer, Trump claimed that Americans wanted him to have dictatorial powers.
“A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator,” Trump said in August, discussing his plans to send National Guard and, potentially, military forces to U.S. cities. He then insisted, “I’m not a dictator.”
Examples abound of Trump trying to use his office unilaterally, including his militarizing U.S. cities in the name of his draconian mass deportation plans, his use of immigration agencies to terrorize residents across the country, his attempt to rewrite the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, his declaration of questionable “national emergencies” to enact his economic policies without congressional approval, and more.
Ahead of his 2024 campaign, Trump said he would like to be dictator, albeit for a short period of time, telling Sean Hannity on Fox News in December 2023 that, if elected again, he wouldn’t rule as a dictator “other than day one.”
Trump also made dictator-like remarks a year before that interview. In December 2022, Trump demanded that then-President Joe Biden be removed from the White House so that he (Trump) could be immediately “declare[d] the RIGHTFUL WINNER” of the 2020 election, which he lost. Within those remarks, Trump said it would be justifiable to “terminate” the U.S. Constitution in order to get him back into office.
In polling from his first year back in office, most Americans indicated that they believed Trump was seeking to become a dictator. A Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) poll published in September 2025, for example, found that 56 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that the president “is a potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.”
One month later, amid the nationwide No Kings protests, another poll found that most Americans viewed Trump not only as dictatorial, but also as wanting to become a monarch. According to a YouGov poll from around that time, 52 percent of respondents said they believe Trump wants to become king of the United States, while only 36 percent disagreed.
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