ArcaMax

PARIS — Ever wonder how the President of the United States actually spends his time? You’d think that it would be a critically important issue, given how much work there is to get done.

The President’s own public itinerary reveals that he spends much of his time just fluffing himself up. Shuttling around to and from his New Jersey golf resort, receiving adulation from GOP party faithful at his golf club in Los Angeles, meeting with winning sports teams to snap pics of himself with their trophies, or promoting himself in Las Vegas at the Red Rock Casino, celebrating his socialist “Trump accounts” that launder $1,000 worth of your money through the government to a stranger's baby, and his “no tax on tips” for wait staff while his futile losing war with Israel on Iran hikes up their fuel and living costs.

“I love tariffs, right?” Trump said during his speech. “Because we’ve been screwed by tariffs used against us for years.” Guess that’s why he’s adding to the screwing of Americans by doing a little himself.

Then he started in on the golden retriever of the global pack: Canada. “Canada’s nasty. They are. They’re nasty. I love the people, but they’re nasty. Nasty leadership,” he said, clearly showing frustration over Canada’s total disinterest in engaging with him on his terms as they look to diversify trade away from unpredictability.

Trump changed topics so many times that each clip could have represented a separate event with its own unique theme. In reality, it was just one long, careening riff, mostly devoid of actual results. At least not in a reliable direction supported by the critical mass of voters who elected him. It had the general organizational structure of an internet browser with 55 tabs open.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, he can’t find an exit ramp in Iran. He can’t get his ballroom approved by Congress or the courts as it sits there half-baked, looking like someone blew up a Home Depot on the White House lawn. He can’t even renovate the reflecting pool in Washington without it somehow visually morphing into the swamp that he vowed to drain. Maybe because it was a no-bid contract to a buddy.

What else is new? I’m surprised his sons didn’t start up a pool cleaning company to cash in like they did with their private businesses now earning money from financial activity involving U.S. government securities and business from foreign state-backed investors. Or with drones, because they saw a chance to mosey up to the public teat and wet their whistle with some Pentagon cash. Or, most recently, with their Trump-hyped magnet venture.

Look, don’t get me wrong, I supported Trump’s re-election partly because of the passion and energy that he showed on the campaign trail for tackling the economy, jobs, and world peace. In retrospect, maybe he was really just motivated by the dismissal or suspension that a return to the presidency would mean for the federal cases against him on alleged election interference and mishandling of classified documents — both carrying a potential cumulative maximum prison sentence of up to 50 years or more.

Because what’s he really doing in office these days? Sure, he’s all over the media with press clips, giving the illusion of activity: one from his plane, another from the White House, yet another from some event. It’s a classic political marketing trick.

Here in France, when former President Nicolas Sarkozy was in office, his entire strategy — as one of his top communications advisers admitted to me — consisted of making announcements for every single action to create the illusion of productivity. It stood in stark contrast to his predecessor Jacques Chirac’s more conventional French discretion founded on the notion that the President shouldn’t be so omnipresent in citizens’ lives through the media that voters start feeling like they spend more time with the President than with their own family.

Chirac, who successfully kept France out of the Iraq war debacle despite enormous U.S. pressure, believed that the results should speak for themselves. But of course, those were different times. People weren’t scrolling for real-time entertainment and noise on digital devices, or expecting instant policy results. But it’s not like Trump is delivering instant results, either. Unless you consider bombing out a result.

But what actual work of value and substance is getting done? Seems that all these grifters are so obsessed with self-promotional or self-preserving optics that they’re now just busy mostly validating each other’s warped versions of reality. Which would explain reports that Trump recently blew up at war secretary and public burpee enthusiast and self-appointed testosterone cop, Pete Hegseth, accusing him of not being forthright about missile shortages caused by the war in Iran.

Trump denies that there’s a weapons shortage, and vows to hunt down whoever leaked details of the weapons shortage that definitely doesn’t exist.

At some point, all these jokers need to sit down and stop auditioning for attention long enough to actually do the jobs they were elected or appointed to do. Not every thought needs a camera or every tantrum a national event.

The thing about substance is that it’s pretty boring. It speaks exclusively through results. Which would explain why it doesn’t have very much to say these days.