Donald Trump leaned right into his opponents’ fears that he considers himself a dictator, instead of president of a democracy, on Wednesday when he shared a social media message in which he declared, “Long Live the King.” If that wasn’t shocking enough, the White House’s official social media accounts then amplified the message and added a fake cover of Time Magazine with an illustrated Trump wearing a crown with the same words.

Naturally, that has riled a lot of folks up, so it was the first “Hot Topic” of the day on The View‘s Thursday (February 20) edition.

“See that? He’s the Lyin’ King,” Joy Behar joked of the image before adding, “If he’s king, I’m Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands.”

She then introduced footage of Trump talking about his decision to run for president, calling it “risky” and “dangerous” for him to lose because he would’ve had a “nasty” life filled with consequences, like the then-pending sentencing for his 34 felony convictions in New York state.

“He says he would have had a hard life if he wasn’t elected, and now we all have a hard life because he was,” Behar said in response.

Sunny Hostin said that she thinks this is just a preview of what’s to come. She cited Ezra Klein of the New York Times to state, “Trump has never really wanted to be president. He actually has always wanted to be king.” She then went on to predict that this social media medicine is just a precursor for more to come. “His plan this time is to first play King on television, and if we believe he’s already a king, we will be likelier to let him govern as a king.” Citing the congestion pricing issue that Trump referenced, Hostin added, “People seem to think that things are happening by executive order, and I think that that is his plan. He wants to run for a third term.”

Ana Navarro jumped in to say, “Frankly, I think Elon Musk is king, and he’s much more of a court jester,” but also suggested that the image is meant to be a “distraction” from the real problems underway in America right now. “He’s trolling the opposition, and he is distracting us, distracting the media, so that we don’t talk about the nuclear scientists who were accidentally fired, right? So that we don’t talk about the bird flu experts that were accidentally fired, so that we don’t talk about the 9/11 survivors who are going to lose their benefits. So that we don’t talk about the price of eggs that is through the roof that he had promised to slash on day one, so that we don’t talk about Jocelyn, the 11-year-old girl in Texas who died by suicide because she was being bullied … by being told that her parents were going to be taken away by ICE.”

Sara Haines echoed Navarro’s point to say, “I also think the fact that he called himself a king is not surprising, shocking, anything, because he’s been acting like a king the whole time. He told us he’d be a dictator for his first day only. But that’s because he also knew then he’d just become a king. So same messaging there…. This is the same thing he said: The Constitution is inconvenient for him… but I think it is to distract from a lot of the things we’re seeing right now.”

“Where is the Republican Party is what I want to know, who could step up and stop this nonsense,” Behar wondered.

Alyssa Farah Griffin assured audiences that “America doesn’t have a king” and warned that Trump’s team shouldn’t overplay their hand with extreme actions. “He does have a historically high approval rating with the Republican Party right now, but it’s already dropping in his first month in office by nearly seven points. If he treats our allies worse than our enemies, that is going to backfire, even with his own party, but broadly with the country. If he doesn’t address the things he was elected to do, the cost of living, and instead puts in place trade wars that raise the cost of living, that is going to backfire. And finally, if he comes after things like birthright citizenship, where there are voters who voted for him in this country who support him for citizens because of birth rate citizenship, it will backfire. So I just would caution him and those around him as thinking that they have this sweeping endorsement to do anything that they want.”

“And I would caution the Republicans in Congress to step up and do their jobs… Stop kissing his butt,” Behar said to conclude the segment.

The View, Weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC

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