President Donald Trump said Monday that he thinks Americans may like a “dictator,” though he wouldn’t describe himself as one.
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“They say: ‘We don’t need him. Freedom, freedom, he’s a dictator, he’s a dictator,’” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office. “A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we like a dictator.’ I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense and a smart person.”
Trump’s remarks came as he signed a raft of executive orders, including one in which he tasked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to lead the training of a specialized National Guard unit dedicated to “ensuring public safety” in Washington, D.C.
The President’s deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and threats to deploy the National Guard to other Democratic-led cities purportedly to crack down on crime—despite decreasing crime rates—have raised concerns about his authoritarian tendencies and presidential overreach.
“When I see what’s happening to our cities and then you send in troops, instead of being praised, they’re saying you’re trying to take over the Republic,” Trump said of his critics. “These people are sick.”
It’s not the first time Trump has rebuffed criticism of being dictator-like while also seeming to sympathize with the idea. On the campaign trail in December 2023, Trump said on Fox News that he would not be a dictator “except for Day 1,” adding “after that, I’m not a dictator.”
Trump clarified that 2023 remark in a 2024 TIME interview, saying that he said it “sarcastically” but also that he thought that “a lot of people like it.”
A Public Religion Research Institute poll conducted earlier this year shows a majority of Americans see Trump, who has repeatedly talked about the possibility of staying in office beyond constitutional term limits and whose Administration has shown a disdain for judicial oversight, as a “dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.”
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