I am going to be busy all day.
I know that because I just met with my Oval Office secretary, who’s filled me in about
the long day ahead.
I then have the Director of National Intelligence drop off my Daily Brief, which on this particular
day is packed full of Top Secrets.
No surprise there.
I have the sudden urge to pee, so I head to the bathroom.
Hey, we’re all human here in the White House.
After I’ve relieved myself my ex-wife is on the phone berating me for something I’d
done a decade ago, and then the White House Executive Chef calls me to tell me the veal
shanks are off the menu for dinner because he didn’t like the look of the cuts.
How can it be that the President can’t get the best veal!
I’ve got a looming natural disaster in Pittsburg, and a bunch of tech geeks and an Asian Prime
Minister to meet in the afternoon…
Meanwhile, helicopters are flying over the White House as a precaution for a security
threat that’s been hanging around a little too long.
Welcome to my kind of life.
As you’ll see, it’s pretty hectic being what some people still call the leader of
the free world.
The reason for the helicopters is because I have a lot of things going on today and
have to move around.
I barely have time to eat the sausages that I had the chef fry-up for me, when I am told
it’s time to go.
I notice some flowers in the office are drooping and so on my way out tell the white house
maid to make sure to water them.
I’d sooner just hop on the helicopter from the South Lawn, but my advisors tell me it’s
a good time to be seen travelling around in the presidential car.
That security threat isn’t high, but still, the motorcade I’m told has been bolstered
today.
That’s the thing most of you don’t realize; it’s hard on a man knowing there are lots
of people that want him dead, inside his own country, and outside.
Sure, YOU have your known enemies, but when you’re the head of a country it’s not
like someone is going to tell you they’re going to kill you.
It just doesn’t happen that way.
My enemies are everywhere and everyday I pray it won’t be my last.
It’s not like in the real world where you know who your enemies are.
You don’t get to fight or argue... if they get you it comes out of nowhere, and that
is a constant stress on me and my family.
You should see my blood pressure.
I was a regular 140/90 man before I took this job, and now I’m lucky if I get a 170/100.
You know what that’s called?
HYPERTENSION!
My personal physician says I’m in the high range of hypertension.
You know what that can lead to?
Heart failure, stroke, dementia, the loss of my eyesight.
I can tell you, this job would not be easy for a blind man.
As for dementia, well, it seemed to work for some in the past.
That’s a joke by the way...Presidents can joke guys.
We get in the car and the motorcade takes off.
It’s funny.
I know I’m safe and all, but I always look through the back windows to see if we’re
being trailed.
We’ve got a rally to attend at a University.
Intelligence reports state that I have a lot of support there, but after reading my social
media feeds lately, I don’t need intelligence to inform me I have a lot of haters there,
too.
You know what some journalist had the audacity to call me yesterday?
His exact words were “a war-mongering corporate shill dressed in sheep’s clothing.”
I’m not going to get into it with you, but I can tell you that I have a job to do and
you just can’t win at times.
It doesn’t matter what you do, the insults just keep flooding in.
It’s almost as bad as the youtube comments section.
What that guy wrote was opinion dressed as journalism.
Opinionism, that’s what most of them do these days.
“You can win all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time,
but you cannot win all the people all the time.”
You heard that first here, from your dear Mr. President.
I’m not a warmonger and I’ve been applauded for my work on foreign policy.
I’m certainly not a corporate shill, it just looks that way at times.
Ok, not everything trickles down, but a drop is better than a drought.
Sometimes I know for sure I’ve created a policy that is for the greater good of the
country, but you know what, even if its successful the media will just look for the next problem.
Bad news sells, if it bleeds it leads, and the public wants blood on the front page...often
my blood.
In the few months I’ve been in power I’ve already implemented some social policies to
benefit the underdogs.
That’s been mostly ignored by the press.
But you know something?
The President is always an underdog.
Like I said, we can’t win.
It’s like this: The job means you’re a target, you sell newspapers, and each day
you get lilliputian spears fired at you from one side for your failures, while the other
side is busy mending yesterday’s wounds.This never stops.
I’m a moving target, a fairground attraction, a fish in a great big barrel that’s called
the USA.
You know what my job feels like?
It feels like being inside one of those whack-a-mole machines and it’s my head their whacking.
My ex-wife is on the phone again?
“You do remember it’s your first child’s birthday in a week,” she says snarkily?
How could I forget I tell her, but I won’t be able to make the party.
I tell her I’ll send some guys round with a gift.
She hangs up without responding.
Not a second later and my present wife, The First Lady, calls me.
Did I take my beta-blockers this morning, she asks.
I tell her I indeed did.
She’s looking after my heart, and I’m trying to look after a nation.
I couldn’t do it without her support to be honest.
She tells me to watch my weight, while I’m reading a document about an exonerated man
from death row.
The whole world is criticising our justice system, and I’m the man that should fix
it.
Talk about juggling crises.
She keeps on talking as I’m watching the people stare at the motorcade passing by.
Someone waves, another person shows me the middle finger.
That’s the presidency in a nutshell.
My wife wants to change the color scheme in the White House bedroom, and why did she find
Alprazolam hidden in the bathroom cabinet?
Am I stressed?
Of course I’m stressed!
Look at me.
I’m eight months into the job and already my face is shriveling up like that Red Woman
in Game of Thrones when she takes off her necklace.
I’m ageing faster than any other human being.
I’m on dog years right now.
What’s that…four years in the White House means you serve 28 years.
I’ll probably leave that place on a walking frame looking like my wife’s great uncle.
I just got word that the rally has been canceled.
That’s a relief.
Students can be touchy, I prefer the old folks, their blood doesn’t run so hot.
Ok, turn around, we’re going back.
Now I’ve got time for a bite to eat, but I have to answer about 50 phone calls as I’m
trying to get down a corned beef and pastrami sandwich.
49 of those calls each take a minute off my life.
That’s what a phone call is for me, a kind of cigarette health hazard.
The only non-stressful call...the roofing is finally finished on my holiday home.
I’ve got those smarmy tech executives coming around in about 43 minutes to talk about automation
and security.
I’m not exactly as well versed in tech as those Silicon Valley guys, so I’ve got minutes
to read the details of the meeting and I’m going to get a short brief beforehand from
one of my advisors.
That’s another thing, you know, we don’t just talk about war and wages and environmental
matters.
We have to know a lot about everything.
Sure, I’m surrounded by able men and women, but if I make one comment that makes me sound
uneducated or naive I’ll be ripped to pieces in the media.
The tech guys are friendly enough, but billions in the bank to be honest has made them a little
too over-confident for my liking.
Talking with them you sometimes get the feeling they think they are in charge.
My $400,000 a year probably seems like chump change to them, but I could soon make a dent
in their fortunes.
“Fully-autonomous flying vehicles hovering over the streets of the USA in 2035” I’m
told … “There are no ‘bad actors’ exploiting our systems,” they say...Yeah
right…and I’ve got aliens hiding in the closet.
The press is allowed in at the end of the meeting and we tell them only a few of the
things we’ve actually said.
The meeting was successful, that’s all they need to know.
Headline in tomorrow’s newspapers: “White House Gives Green Light for Self-Driving Flying
Vehicle testing.”
God, the media is so predictable.
I could write tomorrow’s headlines myself…then again, I am the President.
After the meeting is lunchtime, spaghetti and meatballs and tiramisu for dessert.
The tomato sauce isn’t right again and I tell my Chief of Staff to have a quiet word
with the chef.
I should fire the guy...can I fire the guy...I wonder if i should fire the guy...the veal,
then the sauce...ah, I’ve got more important things to think about.
My ex-wife calls again.
“What’s it this time,” I ask, “I’m really busy today.
You do know I’m the President now.”
Can she have a security detail to take the kids to McDonalds?
“Do you know how much that costs?”
I tell her.
It can’t be done, but my advisor tells me she should use the Drive-Through.
She hangs up again.
Next are the handshakes.
Yep, that’s all I call it, the handshakes.
That’s all it is.
Sometimes it makes me feel like a performing monkey.
Here’s my hand, shake it, see, I’m just like you.
People who I don’t know come to the White House and I smile like a Cheshire cat and
thank them for whatever they’ve done.
It doesn’t matter what kind of mood I’m in, I have to look like a man without a care
in the world.
A serious man of course, but a man who holds the weight of the world in his hands like
a professional basketball player spins a ball on his finger.
Presidents are not allowed to show overt happiness, we don’t get giddy….we can’t show sorrow
or sadness unless the sorrow or sadness is a political thing.
We are unable to openly express our feelings about our relationships, we don’t discuss
our inner doubts, our reservations about what we do.
We cannot ponder the futility of existence, our words are scripted, or at least self-censored.
We have to be almost robotic, act like an automaton, and yet at the same time we have
to be more than human.
We are men pretending to be superhuman.
This, my friends, is not always easy.
You know why?
I do get depressed, I do have doubts, I have remorse and I sometimes cry, like a baby,
alone, where no one can see.
I have days I ate the wrong food and during a speech and I feel as though I’m gonna
drop a load in my pants live on TV in front of millions of viewers.
I’m normal!
But the President doesn’t run off to the bathroom and let loose a waste supernova.
I’ve even had to hold in my farts.
Presidents apparently are above letting one go.
I know you won’t pity me, but trying to be abnormal all day is tiresome.
We live two lives, and seldom can those two lives integrate.
A fine example of this fact is I’ve just had a raging argument with my wife.
She wants to spice-up the bedroom with raunchy vermillion drapes and wine-colored wall paint.
I just don’t understand this at all.
Red hues are just not presidential.
Sure, I probably need to liven things up in the bedroom, but since I took this job I’ve
kinda lost interest.
I tell her we’ll stick with the antique silver drapes and cosmic latte beige painted
walls for now.
“No,” she demands, “You might be the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth
but that doesn’t give you the right to think you’re an interior designer.”
“I’ve said what I have to say,” I tell her.
“This house is a democracy and right now it’s 1-1, stalemate, so things will just
have to stay the way they are.
That’s how things work in this country.”
Shaking her head in disgust she picks up the book I’m reading, “How to Win Friends
and Influence People.”
She looks me right in the eye and says, “And you say your progressive, a man of real change…I’VE
SEEN MORE PROGRESSION IN A TWO-FOOTED TORTOISE!” she shouts.
“You’re an idiot, and a selfish husband, too!”
“I’ve gotta go,” I tell her.
As soon as I open that bedroom door I know she has to be quiet and smile, because a President
and his First Lady can never be seen to be not getting along.
So, imagine just being in that heated domestic situation and then segueing into what happens
next.
I’ve just been informed that the leader of Quasiland is here and it’s time to entertain
him for a bit.
We shake hands first and a few photos are taken.
Before we get down to business I tell him I’ll take him for a tour around the White
House gardens.
His broken English is a bit hard to understand, but the man at least tries.
This is a show more than anything else.
I’ve been briefed of course about what’s going down in Quasiland and that the word
democracy is kinda flexible there, but the good news is the PM is looking to buy some
very expensive fighter jets.
This is how it goes.
You talk about the humanitarian stuff, and then you get down to business.
“Diplomacy”, it’s my middle name.
I wave goodbye to the PM and at last I can have some time to myself, well, with the family.
The Kids are back from school, which is a relief, because I won’t have to talk about
spicing-up the bedroom.
It’s not easy bringing up kids in the White House.
It’s not like they can just hang out with who they want.
Their freedom is compromised as much as mine, well, almost.
It bugs them, too, that they are seen as the President’s kids, rather than have their
own identity.
The poor things have very few choices, which makes life difficult for them.
“Can we have that chocolate mousse again daddy,” my first daughter asks.
“No darling,” I say, “I’ve decided we’re having apple pie for dessert tonight.”
They sit there, wishing they could just go out into the city and run around like normal
people.
They are well-aware that somewhere secret service guys are waiting.
They know that right now thousands if not millions of people are saying awful things
about their father.
The other day one of my daughters came home crying because a kid at school had shown her
a photo of me from my university days that has been circling around the internet.
The photo shows me lying on the floor asleep, covered in my own vomit, with the word, “LOSER”
written on my forehead.
I have to admit, for a moment I did wonder if it was ok to send a few guys around to
that kid’s house and make the 11-year sweat a bit.
Still, guilty as charged, the past is the past.
We watch a bit of TV and that usually means Netflix.
The news for me feels like watching work, so that’s a no no after 6 pm.
If news should happen, I’ll be the first to know.
Around 11 pm I get into bed with my wife.
I can tell she’s still a bit upset about the color scheme thing, but she’ll get over
it.
As usual I’m waiting for that late night call regarding some important matter or other,
but it doesn’t come.
I grab my self-help book and start reading from one chapter…
”Whenever we are wrong we should admit it immediately.
When we fight we never get enough, but by yielding we often get more than we expected.”
I lean over and hug my wife.
“Sorry about the argument today,” I say.
“Ouch!” she suddenly cries.
“Have you clipped your toenails lately?
Those things feel like talons.”.
“I can’t seem to find the clippers,” I tell her.
She turns off her bedside lamp, and mutters in a tired voice, “Don’t we have staff
for that kind of thing?”
For some reason those words dig into me.
I’m arguably the most powerful man in the world.
I have nuclear weapons on my responsibility list.
I can help speed up or slow down environmental degradation…I make decisions that can lift
up the poor or send them into a poverty spiral, I’m supposed to be a wise guy…and yet…and
yet I need someone to help me cut my own toenails.
Tomorrow I will wake up and half the world will be railing against me.
Some will be backing me up, others will just be calling me names... a minority will be
thinking analytically about my every move.
I’m an angel and a demon, a doppelganger of my former self, and I can actually see
myself getting older by the day, looking like someone I don’t know.
I can no longer see the child in my face.
He’s been erased.
I’m a theater now, a variety of impersonations, a troupe of players I’ve internalised.
Ok, I stole that from the author Philip Roth, but it shows I read great American literature.
I’m no dummy, despite what they say about me.
And what I’ve just said is true of my job.
I feel lost...yet at the top of the world.
I’m no longer a loser, but to be honest with you, winning the biggest prize in politics
hasn’t been the best thing I’ve achieved.
Will history be kind to me?
I don’t know the answer to that question.
Right now, I have to act like a Buddhist monk and empty my mind or those bags under my eyes
will just get bigger and bigger.
I’m slowly tuning out.
Being careful not to slash my wife’s legs with my toenails, I turn towards her now-sleeping
face and tell her I love her.
At that moment I truly feel human, like a real man, not just a President.
Maybe she’s right about the spicy color-scheme.
I’ll talk to her about it tomorrow night, after I get back from Davos.
. We had some fun with this fictional video,
but if you want to know some of the real things that go down in the White House then we suggest
you watch this educational show, “The President's Escape Plan If The US Is Attacked.”
Or perhaps you’d prefer this other video instead.
Either way, click one now!