Post from Truth Social

A midnight book plug for a Fox News host

The post went up at 04:54 UTC, 12:54 a.m. Eastern on the night of October 19–20. He was most likely at Mar-a-Lago after the October 16 Palm Beach RNC event, or back in Washington. Both are on Eastern time, so the post went out after midnight local time either way. It follows a fixed template he uses for media allies' books: a personal compliment, a quality compliment, a sales claim ("which is a Top Seller"), an imperative ("Get it now!"), and the signature "President DONALD J. TRUMP." Several such plugs often appear together late at night, and the five empty same-day entries before this one fit that batching pattern.

Who wrote it

The authorship evidence is mixed and leans toward Trump. Things that point to him:

• the hour
• the scare-quoted "street smart," a Trump habit of putting praise words in quotation marks
• the capitalized "FANTASTIC"
• the stacked praise in "a very talented journalist, and a wonderful guy," with its loose comma before the conjunction

Things that point to an aide:

• the clean structure
• the pasted Amazon link with its full tracking string and a book-cover image
• the signature block, which makes the post read like a document he signs rather than something he typed

The likeliest process is that staff prepared the link and image and Trump dictated or approved the wording. The praise vocabulary ("talented," "wonderful," "wise") is his usual set of compliments.

What the post does psychologically

This is patronage maintenance. It has no injury trigger and no rage. The post hands a favor to someone inside the friendly media sphere, and the favor runs both ways. Trace Gallagher works at Fox News, the outlet Trump most often rewards and punishes in public. Praising him by name ("of FoxNews") makes clear that loyal coverage earns promotion from the most-followed account in conservative media. The agency motive is status brokerage: Trump presents himself as the one whose endorsement makes a "Top Seller." Communion is only nominal. Warmth goes to Gallagher as an ally, and the post shows no interest in the book's content.

The book's title, "Turns Out They Were Right All Along," fits Trump's vindication narrative: the people mocked by elites are proven right later. He doesn't describe the book's argument, but promoting that title lines up with his long-running theme of being proven right. The theme works through the title alone, without any description of what is inside. The defenses on show are mild idealization ("street smart," and wise!") and nothing more.

The timing matters. This came days after a 33% approval poll, the resignation of his press secretary, and the backlash over the Russia sanctions waiver. Even so, the post shows no trace of those pressures. In this run of posts, his late-night plugs often function as low-cost, positive output alongside more combative material. A single plug doesn't show which way the causation runs.

Rhetoric and language

The devices are superlatives ("FANTASTIC"), a call to buy ("Get it now!"), and an unsourced sales claim. The language is coherent and the syntax is simple, matching his endorsement baseline. "Street smart" has been a stock compliment of his for decades. The post contains no slips, no confusion about names or times, and no drift between topics. Nobody is attacked. Because the post singles out no group and voices no grievance, it carries no mobilizing content.

Claims

"Top Seller" is the only factual claim, and it wasn't checked against sales rankings. Trump routinely labels allies' books bestsellers whatever their actual sales, so he could be right or wrong here. The praise of Gallagher's character is opinion.

Fact Verification

Amazon rank at post time. I pulled the Amazon page for the post's own ISBN (0063568837) at 05:01 UTC on October 20, 2026, seven minutes after the post. Amazon refreshes ranks about hourly, so these figures come before any boost from the post itself. The page showed:

• #2,214 in Books overall
• #3 in Journalist Biographies, #63 in Success Self-Help and #71 in Motivational Self-Help (Books)
• 245 ratings
• no "#1 Best Seller" badge on Gallagher's book (the only such badge in the page code belonged to an unrelated sponsored paperback by another author, ASIN B0H9KNYKY9)

The Audible edition stood at #4,019 in Audible Books & Originals and #3 in Journalist Biographies. Search snippets show an earlier "#1 New Release in Journalist Biographies" label. That is a new-release rank within a narrow category, not a bestseller rank.

Major bestseller lists. The book is absent from every one I could check:

• NYT hardcover nonfiction, October 18, 2026 (sales week ending October 3): all 15 titles checked, Stallone's "The Steps" at #1, no Gallagher.
• NYT hardcover nonfiction, October 4, 2026 (the book's debut sales week): the top seven are visible (Kaepernick, Klein, O'Reilly, Craighead, Du Mez, Panettiere, Hanson), no Gallagher. Spots 8 to 15 could not be checked.
• PW hardcover frontlist nonfiction, week ended October 10, 2026 (October 19 print edition): all 25 titles checked, no Gallagher.
• PW "This Week's Bestsellers" articles for September 28 and October 12, 2026: neither mentions the book.

Other signals:

• I found no NYT, USA Today or PW listing for the book anywhere.
• I found no bestseller announcement from HarperCollins, Fox News or Gallagher. Publishers and the network usually announce a list placement for an anchor's book.
• The Raptis Rare Books listing for a signed first edition does not call it a bestseller.

Conclusion. "Top Seller" is loose wording with no fixed meaning. The only support is a top-three rank in narrow Amazon categories (Journalist Biographies). Overall, a rank around 2,200 means modest sales, and the book was on no national bestseller list in the weeks checked. Read in its usual sense, as a bestseller, the claim is not supported. It survives only on a generous reading of niche category ranks, so the verdict is mostly false rather than false. |

Overall Veracity: 20%