President Donald Trump sat down in the Oval Office with Second Lady Usha Vance to read a children's book about presidential hobbies, and couldn't resist grading his predecessors along the way. The episode of "Storytime with the Second Lady," pretaped in mid-June and posted online Friday, features Trump reading "Presidents Play!," a picture book published by the White House Historical Association, while offering running commentary on more than a dozen former commanders-in-chief.
The result is part storytime, part presidential color commentary, and a window into how Trump sees himself against the long sweep of American history, just ahead of the nation's Independence Day celebrations.
The book features illustrations of presidents enjoying sports and recreation on the White House grounds. Trump read through it page by page but rarely stuck to the script. When he reached Abraham Lincoln on horseback, he mused aloud about trying it himself, then thought better of it.
"That's great. 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 things happen. Falling off horses is not good."
His solution? Find "a nice old horse that's extremely slow, lazy" and "maybe ride it."
Gerald Ford's swimming pool prompted a different kind of self-assessment. "I don't know if I look good in a bathing suit," Trump said. "I haven't had a bathing suit in a long time." And when the book reached William Howard Taft, the nation's heaviest president, Trump offered a public-health advisory with a grin.
"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."
He had sharper words for Herbert Hoover, whose page depicted a game called "Hoover Ball" that the president invented. "That worked out better for him than the economy," Trump quipped, a reference to Hoover's tenure during the Great Depression.
Trump called Ronald Reagan "a high-quality person" and said having Reagan as president was "like your father was president." He labeled Lyndon Johnson "a tough cookie." Richard Nixon, the only president to resign the office, "got himself into trouble, I guess."
John F. Kennedy earned a compliment of a different sort: Trump called him "the second-most good-looking president." Who holds the top spot? That was left unsaid.
When the book's illustration showed Barack Obama playing basketball, Trump referred to him as "Barack Hussein Obama," doubted his basketball ability, said Obama's real favorite sport is golf, and added: "He won't be in the Masters anytime soon." The New York Post noted that Trump has consistently referenced past presidents throughout his second term, including at the opening of Teddy Roosevelt's presidential library and in a CNBC interview that touched on Herbert Hoover.
Bill Clinton's page showed the jogging track Clinton installed at the White House. "I don't think I'll ever do that," Trump said, but added he likes Clinton "a lot." That warmth toward a Democratic predecessor is consistent with Trump's broader tone toward Clinton in recent appearances.
John Quincy Adams, depicted swimming in what was then the Tiber Creek running past the South Lawn, prompted a forward-looking remark. "I think we're building a beautiful ballroom on top of it," Trump said, referencing ongoing construction on the White House grounds.
The podcast itself is part of a broader initiative by the Second Lady to address what she has described as a decades-long decline in childhood literacy. Fox News reported that Vance launched "Storytime with the Second Lady" with three initial episodes, available on YouTube and Spotify, featuring readings of classic and contemporary children's books alongside special guests.
Vance has framed the effort as a complement to what schools provide, emphasizing the role parents can play at home. "In the last few years, as I've been teaching my kids to read, and then reading a lot about this decline in literacy across the country and the way that this is a trend that's actually been stretching on now for a couple decades, it's incredibly worrisome," she said in her podcast debut.
The initiative builds on her 2024 Summer Reading Challenge, which encouraged children to read twelve books and offered White House visits to participants. Previous guest readers include former NASCAR racer Danica Patrick and Paralympic bronze medalist Brent Poppen, the Washington Examiner reported.
A White House spokesperson said the Second Lady "is passionate about childhood education, and hopes to inspire a lifelong love of learning in children across the country." The Trump episode, with the president himself as the guest reader, is the highest-profile installment yet.
For the taping, the Oval Office was outfitted with props alongside its abundant gold accents: a bald eagle stuffed animal, tables built from stacks of oversized books, and a globe made out of Legos. The staging leaned into the children's-show format, even as Trump's digressions kept pulling the conversation toward presidential legacy and self-comparison.
Vance asked Trump whether he has much time to read for fun. His answer was characteristically direct: "I usually read stories about myself." The broader political positioning of the Vance family within the administration has drawn increasing attention, and the podcast gives Usha Vance a distinct public profile rooted in education rather than partisan combat.
Trump's willingness to sit for a children's podcast, and to stay largely in good humor throughout, offers a contrast to the intensity of the policy fights consuming Washington. The same White House that has been preparing vetted lists of Supreme Court nominees and signing pardons found time for a stuffed eagle and a picture book about presidential recreation.
Vance closed the episode by asking Trump what he would tell children about why they should celebrate the Fourth of July. His answer moved from the lighthearted tone of the reading into something more direct.
"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. And we're going to make America greater than ever before."
It was a moment that captured the whole episode in miniature: a children's format, a presidential guest, and an inability, or unwillingness, to separate the lighthearted from the consequential. Trump reads a book about presidents at play and ends up talking about a country on a ledge.
That instinct, to steer every conversation back to the stakes of the present moment, may frustrate critics. But for the millions of Americans who share Trump's sense that the country's direction hangs in the balance, it probably sounded less like a digression and more like the point.
