Stephen King, the man who made a career out of fiction, apparently decided to try his hand at it on social media Monday. The horror author posted on X that President Donald Trump "has never had a child," among other claims, in a post that was immediately torn apart by anyone with even a passing familiarity with reality.

Trump, of course, is the father of five children.

King's full post read:

"Trump: has never had a child. Has been married 3 times. Ran several businesses into the ground. Never ran a home, couldn't make a bed to save his a--. Calls people he works with dumb, losers, ect. Has never done sweat labor. Has never served on a local committee."

He added that Trump "has no life experience." This is about a man currently serving his second presidential term and set to deliver the 2026 State of the Union address Tuesday evening.

The receipts came fast

As reported by Fox News, Donald Trump Jr. was among the first to respond, noting the obvious problem with King's central claim:

"Well, this is news to me… unless he means birthed a child which would also hold true for every male ever. TDS is real and it's scary."

Libs of TikTok kept it simple:

"Trump literally has 5 kids. What is this sh--?"

Ryan Girdusky, founder of 1776 Project PAC, offered understated disbelief: "Um… I'm pretty sure Donald Trump had children." Conservative writer Bonchie wondered aloud whether there was "a 25th Amendment for taking people's phones away." Conservative reporter Jerry Dunleavy deployed dry sarcasm: "Donald Trump, famously childless."

The ratio was swift and merciless. King's office did not respond to a request for comment on the message behind his post.

Not even original

The post wasn't just wrong. It wasn't even King's own material.

As multiple users pointed out, King had reshared and reworked a post originally written by an account called "Stacy is Right," a self-described MAGA mother of three. That post had been directed at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., mocking her for a lack of children, having never been married, never having run a business, and never having had a "professional job." The original post concluded that Ocasio-Cortez "has no real life experience. Is a typical deadbeat socialist."

King apparently lifted the structure, swapped in Trump's name, and posted it as his own. The problem: the claims that arguably applied to Ocasio-Cortez don't apply to Trump. A twice-elected president with five children and a decades-long business career does not fit the "no life experience" template, no matter how aggressively you copy-paste.

Matt Van Swol, a former Department of Energy nuclear scientist, put it bluntly:

"You literally plagiarized an entire post…which was about AOC… and then applied it to Trump…… for whom it isn't true and doesn't make any sense. Why are you plagiarizing? I thought you were a writer?"

A pattern, not an accident

This isn't King's first descent into unhinged political commentary. In February 2025, he posted that he "just wanted to say that Trump is a traitorous, Putin-loving dipsh--! Goes double for Elon!" Earlier this year, he compared ICE to Nazi Germany's Gestapo, writing that "ICE is the American Gestapo." In April, he declared that "Trump is ruining the economy with his stupid tariffs."

None of this is serious political analysis. It's a famous person shouting into the void, insulated by celebrity from the kind of accountability that would follow anyone else posting verifiably false claims to millions of followers.

Something is revealing about the trajectory. King built his reputation on meticulous storytelling, on worlds so carefully constructed that readers suspend disbelief willingly. His political posts demand the opposite: that his audience suspend their knowledge of basic, checkable facts. Trump has children. Trump has run businesses. Trump has won the presidency. Twice. These are not matters of interpretation.

The real horror story

The episode is minor in the grand scheme of things. One celebrity posted something stupid on the internet. It happens hourly. But it illustrates something conservatives have watched unfold for years: the absolute confidence with which prominent voices on the left assert things that are demonstrably, provably untrue, and the expectation that their audience will simply nod along.

King didn't even bother to check whether the borrowed attack made sense when applied to a different target. He didn't need to. The audience he was writing for doesn't require accuracy. It requires tone. It requires the right villain. The details are optional.

That's not political commentary. That's fan fiction. And from Stephen King, you'd think it would at least be well-crafted.