President Donald Trump surprised Washington and the nation on Friday, musing about how he missed the private sector and how the top job in the nation is tougher than he thought.
“I loved my previous life. I had so many things going,” Trump told Reuters in a recent interview in the Oval Office, released Friday. “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”
“It doesn’t matter what he says, the liberals will pounce.”
The media pounced.
“It’s absolutely true that all presidents express — privately and then, eventually, publicly — some level of longing for the life they left behind or the life they will return to,” said CNN’s Chris Cillizza. “But that usually happens after, say, seven or eight years in the White House. Not after 99 days.”
It’s likely Cillizza didn’t do a content analysis of all presidents and what they said in the first 100 days, because CNN’s own website contains archives of former President Barack Obama telling Europeans, within the first 100 days of his first term, that he missed his previous life.
One conservative historian, Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, said the media are exaggerating Trump’s sentiments and forgetting Democrats’ statements.
“Washington missed Mt. Vernon. Jefferson missed Monticello. FDR missed Hyde Park. Reagan missed the ranch,” said Shirley, in an email to LifeZette. “Trump says the job is tougher because no one except a president or former president understands how tough the job is.”
A brief web search of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s comments show they complained plenty of times, including within months of the inauguration in 2009. On April 3, 2009, while visiting France, Obama was asked if he ever regretted having run for president, according to CNN (Cillizza’s new employer).
“That’s a good question. Michelle definitely asked that question,” said Obama. “You know, there have been times, certainly during the campaign, and there have been times over the last several months where you feel a lot of weight on your shoulders. There’s no doubt about it.”
CNN reported Obama expressed disappointment about the lack of privacy and anonymity he experienced since assuming office.
“You know, it’s very frustrating now,” he said. “It used to be when I came to Europe that I could just wander down to a cafe and sit and have some wine and watch people go by and go into a little shop and watch the sun go down. Now I’m in hotel rooms all the time. And I have security around me all the time. So just losing that ability to just take a walk, you know? That is something that is frustrating.”
Michelle Obama also complained. In a story published by the Associated Press on May 21, 2009, Michelle Obama spoke longingly of days when she was fairly unknown and anonymous.
“First lady Michelle Obama misses life without the constant commentary but does what works for her because there’s always someone who thinks she could have done better,” AP wrote in May 2009. “In the latest issue of Time magazine, hitting newstands today, Obama says it’s difficult to watch her husband, President Barack Obama, burdened by the world’s problems. She also revealed a bit of advice from her predecessors: Go to Camp David early and often.”
“It’s just one place you can go where you’re completely … where you feel some level of freedom and an ability to breathe,” Michelle Obama told AP in May 2009.
Asked what she missed of her life before she became a public person, she told an AP reporter that she missed the anonymity.
“It’s a lot easier to live your life when everything you do doesn’t have a consequence,” Michelle Obama told the AP.
So it’s not unusual for presidents and their spouses to miss the private life, the anonymity, the ability to drive, and more.
Trump said he especially missed being behind the wheel.
“You’re really into your own little cocoon, because you have such massive protection that you really can’t go anywhere,” Trump told Reuters. “I like to drive. I can’t drive any more.”
It’s a rather benign regret, but the media took the opportunity to bash Trump for it. Shirley says it’s just the media playing “gotcha.”
“If he had said he loved being president, the liberals would pounce,” said Shirley. “It doesn’t matter what he says, the liberals will pounce.”
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