President Trump sat down with Second Lady Usha Vance on her children's literacy podcast Friday and turned a picture-book reading into a freewheeling tour of presidential history, complete with jabs at Barack Obama's golf game, a warning about his own waistline, and a kind word for Bill Clinton.
The appearance on "Storytime with the Second Lady" featured Trump reading "Presidents Play," a children's book produced by the White House Historical Society that chronicles how America's commanders-in-chief spent their leisure time. But as the New York Post reported, the president barely stayed on the page, flipping through illustrations and launching into extemporaneous commentary that ranged from self-deprecating humor to pointed observations about his predecessors.
The episode dropped just ahead of the Fourth of July, and the nation's 250th birthday, giving the podcast a holiday backdrop that the second lady leaned into.
Trump's riffs started early. When the book reached John F. Kennedy, the president offered a characteristically confident assessment:
"He was handsome. He was the second-most good-looking president, they say."
He left little doubt about who holds the top spot.
Obama drew a longer treatment. Trump questioned the former president's basketball credentials before pivoting to the links:
"Obama is a basketball player. I don't know if he's a good basketball player, I tend to doubt it. Actually, his favorite sport is golf... But he won't be in the Masters anytime soon."
The comment was vintage Trump, delivered with a grin, aimed squarely at a political rival, and calibrated to entertain rather than wound. It also tracked with Trump's prior suggestion that he'd like to host Obama and other former presidents at the White House for a football game, another moment where he mixed competition with camaraderie across party lines.
William Howard Taft's page prompted a rare moment of self-awareness. Trump acknowledged the 27th president's distinction as the heaviest man to hold the office, then turned the lens on himself:
"He was our heaviest president, and I have to be careful, because I don't want to supersede his record, and a thing like that would be possible if I allowed it to happen. For all of you out there watching, keep yourself in good shape, right?"
The book's pages on presidential hobbies gave Trump openings to talk about the White House itself, and the changes he is making to it. Gerald Ford's outdoor pool came up, but Trump said he doesn't use it. His reason was characteristically blunt:
"I don't get to use it. I don't know if I look good in a bathing suit. I haven't had a bathing suit in a long time."
Dwight Eisenhower's putting green on the South Lawn drew a more deliberate explanation. Trump said he has never touched it, not because he doesn't enjoy golf, but because of optics.
"I've never used it, because I don't want to be seen putting at the White House. I wanted to be seen working at the White House."
Bill Clinton's jogging track earned a polite pass. Trump said he couldn't see himself running laps, but offered a surprisingly warm assessment of the 42nd president:
"I don't think I'll ever do that. I don't see myself doing that. I don't know, but he's actually was a nice guy. I like Bill Clinton a lot. I still do."
The conversation drifted into Trump's ongoing construction projects at the executive mansion. He described plans for a ballroom to replace the old East Wing, noting that the site sits on the former bed of Tiber Creek, a waterway that once ran near the White House before being redirected as Washington grew in the mid-1800s. He also mentioned renovations to the Rose Garden, new signage outside the Oval Office, and a planned triumphal arch near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery.
John Quincy Adams, the book noted, liked to swim in Tiber Creek. Abraham Lincoln rode horses. Harry Truman took walks around Washington. Trump said Lincoln's habit gave him an idea, then caught himself.
"I'd like to ride horses too. In fact, it gives me an idea, but when you fall off a horse, I've seen too many bad things happen."
The podcast itself reflects the second lady's expanding role as a public figure in the administration. Usha Vance launched "Storytime with the Second Lady" to promote children's literacy, inviting guests to discuss books and read aloud. Her social post promoting the episode called on families to celebrate the country's 250th birthday with the special reading.
Vance has steadily built a public presence that goes well beyond the ceremonial. She made headlines earlier when she turned the tables on the New York Times with an $8.75 maternity dress receipt, and she has spoken publicly on issues ranging from family life to judicial independence.
She has also called for respect toward Supreme Court justices and federal judges amid rising political hostility, a position that drew attention given her own legal background. The literacy podcast fits a pattern: Vance choosing substantive, family-oriented platforms rather than the combative media circuits that define most political figures' public schedules.
Landing the president as a guest reader was a coup for the show. Trump is not known as a bookworm, he acknowledged as much during the episode.
"I end up reading mostly newspapers. I usually read stories about myself."
The podcast capped a packed stretch for the president. On Wednesday, Trump traveled to North Dakota for the opening of Teddy Roosevelt's presidential library, where he interacted with a hologram of the 26th president and steered remarks toward the Panama Canal.
Trump used the library event to revisit a favorite grievance, the transfer of canal control to Panama, framing it as a bipartisan failure:
"What do you think about the Panama Canal? Do you consider that your greatest achievement and how do you feel about the fact that the Democrats gave the Panama Canal away to Panama for $1?"
He followed up with a broader indictment of the decision:
"We gave it away. It was the most expensive thing we ever built and it was also the most profitable thing we ever built. How stupid was that?"
On Thursday, Trump sat for an interview with CNBC in which he discussed the start of negotiations to end the war with Iran and invoked Herbert Hoover as a cautionary tale.
"I don't want to be a president that oversees the great worldwide depression, that was Herbert Hoover, and it was a terrible thing."
He also described Washington, D.C. as having "become a very safe place" because of his crime crackdown and a surge in federal law enforcement, though specifics of those measures were not detailed.
The Vance family's own trajectory has continued to draw public interest. Usha Vance recently opened up about a personal loss that shaped the family's decision to welcome a fourth child, and her husband has signaled that bigger political decisions, including any 2028 ambitions, will wait until after the midterms.
Trump closed the reading with a Fourth of July message aimed at the podcast's young audience, though the words carried a broader edge:
"We have a great country. We have a country that, it's on a little bit of a ledge right now. It can go one way or another, you understand that. But we're going to make it go the other way."
It was an unscripted moment on a children's show, and it landed like a campaign line. But that is the nature of a president who treats every microphone as an opportunity and every audience, no matter how small, as worth persuading.
The episode also served as a quiet reminder of something the administration's critics rarely acknowledge: the Vances are building institutions, a literacy podcast, a public role grounded in family and books, while their opponents build outrage cycles. One of those projects ages better than the other.
Say what you will about a president who can't stay on the page. At least he showed up to read.