Stephen King couldn’t write anything as terrifying as Donald Trump‘s America. In a new interview, the author answered a series of fan questions for The Guardian, including “If you had to invent an ending for Trumpian America, what would it be?”
“I think it would be impeachment – which, in my view, would be a good ending,” King responded. “I would love to see him retired, let’s put it that way. The bad ending would be that he gets a third term and takes things over completely. It’s a horror story either way. Trump is a horror story, isn’t he?”
King has been an outspoken critic of Trump for years, sharing his thoughts on social media on an almost-daily basis. In June, he tweeted, “Deep down in his heart, I believe Trump knows he’s an incompetent asshole.” He recently added, “Trump is like a spoiled child. When he doesn’t get his way, he does a tantrum.”
In 2022, King was asked for his views on Trump during an interview for the Sunday Times and he didn’t mince words. “I happen to think that Trump was a horrible president and is a horrible person,” King said. “I think he actually engaged in criminal behavior and, certainly, I felt that he was a sociopath who tried to overturn the American democracy not out of any political wish of his own but because he could not admit that he had lost.”
Ahead of the 2024 election, King speculated that Trump had refused to debate Democratic nominee Kamala Harris despite an official announcement. “Trump has announced he won’t debate Kamala Harris,” King wrote. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung responded in a statement to Newsweek, “Stephen King is a dumbass.”
Elsewhere in his interview with The Guardian, King reflected on the many adaptations of his books and stories that been made recently, including The Life of Chuck and The Monkey. “I’m still excited when somebody makes a movie out of something that I’ve done,” he said. “I was excited to see The Monkey earlier this year, and The Life of Chuck. I’m very excited to see [Edgar Wright’s remake of] The Running Man, which was filmed in England. I don’t write with movies in mind. I just write what seems like a good story that people and I will enjoy. Then whatever happens to it happens. That’s fine. I like the movies, but I think they’re different things, like apples and oranges, so to speak.”
He also responded to a question about whether he felt Netflix series Stranger Things was comparable to one of his novels. “I don’t see it as a Stephen King story as much as some other people do,” he said. “I think the Duffer Brothers give me more credit than I deserve. Like a lot of talented people, they grew up with my material. When they were young and malleable, they read a lot of Stephen King and said: ‘We wanna do something like that.’ But they’re very talented guys and the story they have developed has a lot more to it than Stephen King. It’s got a lot of Duffer Brothers in it. It’s good. I’ve seen all the episodes. I like it a lot.”
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