Judging from the DC news this week, our president has retired | Opinion
I wonder if there is going to be much difference between President Donald Trump’s life after he leaves the White House and his life now. I mean, he already seems to be semi-retired.
Besides a record amount of golf, the president seems to focus himself on the least important parts of his job with the most enthusiasm. Plenty of things that aren’t his job at all seem to have his attention. It is like sitting at John F. Kennedy’s desk is a hobby.
Take the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. After all the sturm and drang over weeks, Trump has achieved a tiny indictment for a lie to Congress that most legal observers say has an eensy weensy chance of sticking and a much bigger chance of getting the Trump loyalist lawyer who filed such a flimsy thing disbarred.
Lies to Congress are not the president’s job. They’re Congress’ job — or if the executive branch is going to be involved at all, after Congress files a referral, some career lawyers will look at it.
A president who is busy presidenting doesn’t have time for such minutiae. He should be off handling matters of global importance like, say, wars involving nuclear armed powers.
On Tuesday, Trump tried to do just that with a speech to the United Nations unveiling, among other important things, a maybe, sorta tough new policy on Russia and new appreciation for the fighting chances of Ukraine. War in Europe is a big deal. Russian warplanes in NATO airspace is worthy of any president’s time.
But the aftermath of that big speech had Trump sounding like a skinflint retiree mad at rundown facilities at a golf club. The escalators don’t work! The teleprompter and microphone are glitchy! The staff isn’t as obsequious as I demand!
Yeesh. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that no president in my lifetime — no Democrats, no Republicans — had time to turn moving steps into a foreign affairs crisis. Even Joe Biden would go up steps without complaint if you led the way and held his hand.
Which reminds me of the other news out of the White House this week. The Trump administration has replaced the picture of Biden in a gallery of former presidents with a gag picture of an autopen.
It is funny, but really, it seems like the kind of joke that would go down with a bunch of retirees welcoming the newest member fresh from the workforce.
So what could be more welcome for a semi-retired president than a government shutdown? Keeping the thing running with a bunch of carping Democrats in Congress seems far more trouble than it is worth when you could just take a long weekend for golf and then maybe have a nice nap.
This week, Trump did have a meeting scheduled with Democratic leaders. That sounded like the work of a president, meeting with the opposition to iron out funding for the government working and important things that people depend on, like keeping late-night comedians in line.
But Trump cancelled it. No work for our president — that’s just asking too much.
This story was originally published September 27, 2025 at 5:07 AM.
