Stephen King's Obama Comment Goes Viral

While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to Barack Obama as the current U.S. president—and Stephen King has shared his thoughts.

During a "Get Out The Vote Rally" on March 2 in Richmond, Virginia, Trump mentioned Obama's name instead of President Joe Biden's. He said: "And [Vladimir] Putin has so little respect for Obama that he's starting to throw around the 'nuclear' word. He's starting to talk nuclear weapons, today."

This isn't the first time the former president has confused Obama and current President Joe Biden. According to a November 12, 2023 article in Forbes, Trump confused Obama and Biden at least seven times between September and November last year.

Newsweek emailed representatives for King, Trump, Biden and Obama for comment Thursday.

"Trump seems to think Obama is still president," King posted to X, formerly Twitter. At the time of writing his comment had been viewed 1.9 million times.

People have shared their thoughts on the critically acclaimed horror author's post, with many saying the former president referring to Biden as Obama was intentional. Others said they think Obama is the one who is making all of the current president's decisions.

"You clearly don't get the inside joke," one person commented.

"Well, there is plenty of reason to believe Obama is playing puppetmaster; pulling Joe's strings," said another.

"King seems to think Biden is capable of being president without someone calling the shots behind the scenes," a third person wrote.

Andrew Tate's brother, Tristan Tate, also weighed in when he commented: "Well Joe Biden isn't." The brothers were held by the Romanian organized crime squad, DIICOT, on charges of forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, human trafficking and evidence tampering. They have said they are innocent.

Others took the opportunity to criticize Trump.

"Trump also thinks he looks like Elvis, so..." one person commented. This refers to the fact that the former president once asked followers on Truth Social for their thoughts on his similarity to Elvis Presley.

A second added: "I sleep better knowing Trump isn't president."

Trump insists that calling Biden "Obama" isn't a blunder at all. In a post he made to Truth Social in November 2023, Trump said he calls Biden "Barack Obama" "sarcastically."

"I know both names very well, never mix them up, and know that they are destroying our country," he wrote.

Then after Biden appeared on Late Night With Seth Meyers on March 26 and joked that Trump forgot his wife's name, Trump took to his social media platform once again.

"They make up things constantly," he wrote. "You take a look at when I use 'Barack Hussein Obama' and I interject him into where it's supposed to be 'Biden' and I do it purposely for comedic reasons and for sarcasm — because a lot of people say that Obama's running the country, not Biden, because he's sleeping all the time. They say, 'Oh, I don't know the name of the president.'"

Trump has also previously insinuated that Obama is secretly still running the White House.

"It's never been worse than it is now under crooked Joe Biden and, frankly, his boss, Barack Hussein Obama," the former president said at an October stop in New Hampshire. "I think it's his boss."