Henry Kissinger, who served as the U.S. national security adviser and secretary of state, played a key role in shaping foreign policy under presidents Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon. He controversially shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for his part in negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam.
Kissinger continued to share his views on world affairs through opinion pieces and interviews until his death in 2023.
In early June 2025, posts (archived) on Facebook (archived) claimed to show comments Kissinger made about U.S. President Donald Trump. Here's one example:
Snopes readers also searched our website for information about Kissinger's comments on Trump.
The Facebook posts include two quotes that are accurate representations of Kissinger's comments about Trump, while several others appear to be fabricated. As a result, we've rated them a mixture of truth and falsehood.
The posts' quote about Trump being a "phenomenon foreign countries have not seen before" is nearly verbatim what Kissinger said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" in December 2016.
The posts also quoted Kissinger as saying the following:
Each country now has to consider two things: One, their perception that the former president, or the outgoing president, basically withdrew the United States from international politics, so they had to make their own assessments of their needs. And secondly, there's a new president who's asking a lot of unknown questions. And because of the combination of partial emptiness and new questions, one could imagine something remarkable and new emerges.
Kissinger made very similar comments during the 2016 "Face the Nation" appearance. A transcript of that interview is available here (archived).
Here's an excerpt of his comments (emphasis ours):
JOHN DICKERSON: You told Jeffrey Goldberg of "The Atlantic" that, with Donald Trump, it could create opportunity, but also serious dislocation. What's your assessment now on that?
HENRY KISSINGER: Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven't seen.
So it is a shocking experience to them that he came into office, at the same time, extraordinary opportunity. And I believe he has the possibility of going down in history as a very considerable president, because every country now has two things to consider, one, their perception that the previous president or the outgoing president basically withdrew America from international politics, so that they had to make their own assessment of their necessities, and, secondly, that here is a new president who is asking a lot of unfamiliar questions.
And because of the combination of the partial vacuum and the new questions, one could imagine that something remarkable and new emerges out of it. I'm not saying it will. I'm saying it's an extraordinary opportunity.
But a handful of other quotes attributed to Kissinger in the Facebook posts appear to be fabricated. There's no evidence Kissinger made the following comments about Trump:
Liberals and all those who favor [Hillary] Clinton will never admit it. They will never admit that he is the one true leader. The man is making changes like never before and he does everything for the good of the people of this nation. After eight years of tyranny, we finally see a difference.
Trump puts America and its people first. That's why people love him and that's why he will remain in charge for so long. There's nothing wrong with him and people need to open their eyes.
Trump is the only true leader in world affairs and he's forcing policy changes that put America first!
Two of the quotes falsely attributed to Kissinger appear to have originated from a 2017 article published by the conservative website Liberty One News.
The article includes the following language that's similar to what's in the Facebook posts, but it's the author's commentary — not a direct quote from Kissinger:
Liberals and all those who favor Clinton will never admit it. They will never admit that he is the one true leader. The man is doing changes like never before and does all of it for the sake of this nation's people. After eight years of tyranny, we finally see a difference.
The author wrote another piece of commentary that includes similar language to that found in the Facebook posts:
Trump puts America and its people first. This is why people love him and this is why he will remain in charge for so long. There is not a single thing wrong with him and people need to open their eyes.
Searches on Google, Yahoo, Bing and DuckDuckGo did not find any credible media outlets reporting on the following quote attributed to Kissinger:
Trump is the only true leader in world affairs and he's forcing policy changes that put America first!
Instead, those searches brought up social media posts sharing the quote. If Kissinger would have said this about Trump, multiple credible media outlets likely would have reported on it.
For further reading, Snopes investigated claims that Kissinger said it's "dangerous to be America's enemy" but "fatal" to be its friend.