Political and legal analysts were shocked to see President Donald Trump declare himself the king of the United States.
'Long live the king!" he blared in a Truth Social as he gloated about killing a congestion pricing system in New York City.
Trump statement left critics amazed. They quickly said that, while it wasn't entirely shocking, that didn't mean it was acceptable.
"Well...it only took him a month to declare himself King," said The Nation's legal analyst Elie Mystal on Blue Sky.
After political commentator Keith Olbermann posted the screen capture, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch promised, "I'm sure he means the Pastrami King, which people will now again be able to drive to in their massive SUVs."
ALSO READ: Trump poised to destroy US democracy — and only the right-wing Supreme Court can stop him
Politico commentator and host Nicole Sandler quipped, "Democracy is panicKing."
"Any Republican who pretends they don’t know where this is going is lying to you," YouTube political host Keith Edwards commented.
Yale Law School Professor Scott Shapiro asked, "Which law professor(s) will write an op-ed arguing that Trump really is king?"
Longtime writer and reporter David Itzkoff suggested the reasoning would be, "The text of the US Constitution doesn't contain the word 'king,' therefore it is impossible to say the framers were opposed to one."
"He’s not talking about Elvis," explained Gizmodo tech reporter Matt Novak.
"Well, I was going to write today about Trump throwing our allies and democratic values under the bus for Putin...then GOP said they'll cut Medicaid, so I wanted to write about that...now Trump is coming out and saying he's King after quoting Napoleon a few days ago..." confessed Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali.
Civil rights lawyer Joshua Erlich predicted the New York Times would respond to the post with a headline like "Is Trump King? Legal Experts Differ."
"He's managed to effectively fuse the technocrat/'libertarian' arm of the party, which wants a secular dictator, with the fundamentalist arm of the party, which wants a theocratic sovereign. And both arms are OK with the idea of a king. It's wild. Once again, people look at Trump & see what they want," assessed astrophysicist and professor Mike Boylan-Kolchin.
