President Donald Trump sat down in the Oval Office to read a children's book about presidential hobbies, and ended up delivering an unscripted, freewheeling commentary on his predecessors that included something few expected: genuine praise for Bill Clinton.
The moment came during an appearance on Second Lady Usha Vance's podcast, Storytime with the Second Lady, where Trump read aloud from Presidents Play!, a book published by the White House Historical Association. The episode, pretaped in mid-June and posted online Friday, featured Trump doing what he does best, going off-script.
When the book reached Bill Clinton's page, noting the former president's fondness for jogging, Trump paused to ad-lib.
"And then you have President Bill Clinton, he ran on a special jogging track. He had a little track built for him at the White House. That's nice. I didn't even know that until recently, but he had a track built at the White House."
Then came the line that caught attention.
"But he actually was a nice guy. I like Bill Clinton a lot. I still do."
That is not the kind of remark most people associate with Donald Trump when the subject is the Clinton family. Trump ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016, defeated her, and has spent years as one of the most vocal critics of the Clinton political operation. Before that campaign, though, the relationship looked different. Trump had been a donor to the Clinton Foundation and moved in some of the same social circles as the Clintons.
The podcast appearance was anything but a standard reading. Breitbart reported that the Oval Office was decorated for the occasion with a bald eagle stuffed animal, stacks of oversized books, and a Lego globe. Trump sat with Vance and moved through the book page by page, but rarely let the text speak for itself.
When Vance asked if Trump reads for fun, he gave a characteristically direct answer.
"I usually read stories about myself."
The book covered a range of presidents and their recreational habits. Trump offered running commentary on many of them. When he reached Abraham Lincoln, he noted Lincoln's love of horseback riding, then pivoted to 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."
Vance agreed: "No, it's not," she said, backing up the point about the danger.
Trump then suggested he might ride a slow, lazy horse before moving on to the Bush family. Reading about the father-and-son presidents' love of pitching horseshoes, he offered his own label for the clan: "the Bushies."
The podcast appearance fits a broader pattern. The New York Post noted that Trump has frequently referenced and compared himself to past presidents throughout his second term, including at the opening of the Teddy Roosevelt presidential library and in various media interviews. The children's book gave him a structured excuse to do it again, and he took full advantage.
When the book reached William Howard Taft, known as the heaviest president in American history, Trump cracked wise about not wanting to break Taft's record.
"I have to be careful because I don't want to supersede his record."
He commented on other presidents too, including LBJ, Reagan, JFK, Nixon, Hoover, Obama, Ford, and the Adams family. The book cataloged their outdoor activities and hobbies. Trump cataloged his own opinions.
At one point, he offered a broader reflection on the country's direction.
"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."
Even on a children's podcast, the president found a way to make the moment about the stakes of his presidency.
The warm words for Bill Clinton stand out precisely because of how rare they are. The 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton was defined by sharp personal exchanges. Trump's post-campaign rhetoric about the Clintons has been consistently tough. For him to say, unprompted, "I like Bill Clinton a lot. I still do", while reading a children's book, no less, is the kind of moment that reveals something about how Trump actually thinks about political rivals when the cameras are on but the format is relaxed.
It is worth remembering that before the 2016 race, Trump and the Clintons were not adversaries. Trump was a donor to the Clinton Foundation. He attended social events where the Clintons were present. The political war between them was real, but it was also relatively recent in the span of Trump's public life.
None of this means Trump has gone soft on the broader Clinton legacy or the Democratic establishment. But it does suggest that Trump draws a distinction between political combat and personal regard, at least when it comes to Bill Clinton.
The episode also highlights Usha Vance's growing public role. Storytime with the Second Lady is a podcast format that lets her engage the public in a low-key, family-friendly way. Getting the sitting president as a guest is a significant booking for any show, let alone one built around reading children's books. The format gave Trump room to be conversational, funny, and occasionally reflective, a side the cable news cycle rarely captures.
The full scope of the podcast, how many episodes have aired, where it is distributed, and how large its audience has grown, remains unclear. But the Trump episode will almost certainly be its most talked-about installment.
Washington runs on grudges. Entire media ecosystems are built on the assumption that political rivals hate each other permanently. Trump's offhand praise for Bill Clinton is a small reminder that the people in the arena sometimes see each other more clearly than the people shouting from the stands.
