Trump is the President Who Just Won’t Grow UpInstead of focusing on governing, Trump spends his days chasing entertainment, attention and renovation projects that reflect a presidency stuck in adolescence.
U.S. President Donald Trump gifts Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba a signed photo during a joint press conference at the White House on Feb. 7, 2025 in Washington, D.C. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
By Jonathan Martin12/04/2025 05:55 AM EST
Jonathan Martin is POLITICO’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. He’s covered elections in every corner of America and co-authored a best-selling book about Donald Trump and Joe Biden. His reported column chronicles the inside conversations and major trends shaping U.S. politics.
Sometimes, in journalism, the metaphors come easy. This is one of those times.
One day before Tennessee voters went to the polls this week for a special election in a House seat Donald Trump carried by 22 percentage points last year, the president quite literally phoned it in.
Instead of taking Air Force One to Nashville to campaign for Republican Matt Van Epps, who only won by nine percentage points, Trump dialed into a so-called tele-town hall to rally his supporters. It was the same approach he took earlier this month in the New Jersey governor’s race — which could at least be explained by Trump’s presence being more harm than help in a blue state.
But why can’t he be bothered to show up in a blood-red House district when base turnout is vital to his party’s majority, which is so threadbare it may not survive this Congress? And why won’t he, as his advisers and allies keep hoping, start focusing on how he’s addressing the cost of living while trumpeting his party’s accomplishments going into next year’s mid-term election?
The answer is that Trump is living his best life in this second and final turn in the White House. Coming up on one year back in power, he’s turned the office into an adult fantasy camp, a Tom Hanks-in-Big, ice-cream-for-dinner escapade posing as a presidency.
The brazen corruption, near-daily vulgarity and handing out pardons like lollipops is impossible to ignore and deserves the scorn of history. How the president is spending much of his time reveals his flippant attitude toward his second term. This is free-range Trump. And the country has never seen such an indulgent head of state.
Yes, he’s one-part Viktor Orbán, making a mockery of the rule of law and wielding state power to reward friends and punish foes while eroding institutions.
But he’s also a 12-year-old boy: There’s fun trips, lots of screen time, playing with toys, reliable kids’ menus and cool gifts under the tree — no socks or trapper keepers.
Yet, as with all children, there are also outbursts in the middle of restaurants.
Or in this case, the Cabinet Room.
After weeks of GOP pleading with him to address the cost of living following the Democratic rout last month, Trump this week used a Cabinet meeting to belittle “affordability,” calling his party’s central political challenge “a con job” and “fake narrative.”
Then there is Trump’s play-time schedule.
He not only goes to a Yankees game on Sept. 11, he ducks into the locker room afterward to pal around with stars a half-century younger, still the Queens kid whose first sports memories were of Willie, Mickey and the Duke.
Same as at the Ryder Cup, at Bethpage on Long Island: Trump didn’t just show up to take in some golf, he walked up to the first tee with PGA great Bryson DeChambeau.
Didn’t know Trump was a big soccer guy? Neither did I. But there he was at the Meadowlands in New Jersey at the FIFA Club World Cup in July, standing alongside Chelsea FC and baffling the English club’s players as they celebrated while the American president remained on stage.
And it wasn’t enough for the president to pop over to suburban Maryland last month for the Commanders-Lions game. He also had to duck into the broadcast booth to get some airtime with the Fox Sports crew and also have Air Force One execute a flyover above the stadium.
Of course, part of these outings goes with the office, and presidents have long played the role of first fan. But Trump’s cavorting goes well past sports.
A celebration of the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary in Norfolk becomes an excuse to preen on an aircraft carrier and commandeer the ship’s PA system to do a now-hear-this riff, as if Chris Farley had come back to life and was doing a Trump bit.
Any excuse to hang out with the celebrities who will be seen with him is taken, whether it’s Sly Stallone, Kid Rock or Andrea Bocelli crooning in the Oval. And hey, isn’t that Vince Vaughn?
Not surprisingly, companies and countries have figured out what animates Trump, same as every adolescent: presents. So the Brits present a gilded invitation to Windsor Castle, the Qataris offer a tricked-out plane and most every other country pitches their golf courses whenever he wants to come.
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And these nations know not to serve him foie gras. Catering to Trump’s forever-young palate, the South Koreans offered beef patties with ketchup and gold-embossed brownies to the American president in October.
What really holds Trump‘s attention, as much as anything can, is the sandbox once known as the White House.
He could be pacified in the first term by being allowed to get in the driver’s seat of a big rig, parked outside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. But now he wants to remake the place entirely.
It started with the gateway drug of a larger flagpole, then moved onto paving over the Rose Garden, and now he is constructing a massive ballroom in what used to be the East Wing that will tower over the rest of the building.
Cranes, excavators, fellas in hard hats. Fun!
Lest you think he can be satisfied with just one property renovation, look no further than his Oval Office desk, which includes a model of the Arc de Trump he wants to build between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House.
Why be bothered to know the basic details of a potential healthcare plan — homework! — when you can do L’Enfant cosplay?
Also different from the first term, there are a few people around him willing to steer him away from his impulses. The easiest way to find job security in Trumpworld is to not control Trump.
And about those phone calls and meetings, which the White House likes to spotlight. If you think he’s spending those focused entirely on policy and not bragging on his short game, I’ve got a ballroom to sell you.
Which leads me to the best spin of our time: Trump’s transparency. He has no more interest in open government than any pre-adolescent would, but he does like attention.
That’s why the cameras are brought in nearly every day, for whatever executive order he is ostensibly there to promote or a foreign leader whose name he can’t always summon. The point is to see himself on TV.
Of course, like any kid, that’s not the only screen he craves — which is why he spends so much time on social media, posting all manner of content his parents would disapprove of if they found his account.
This isn’t to say it’s all recess all the time. There are chores Trump can’t get out of. Yet even his most substantive work is driven by a longing for validation — namely the quest to be viewed as a great president, as he thinks a Nobel Peace Prize or his big, beautiful head on Mount Rushmore would confer.
However, even the most acute case of arrested development can’t slow age. And the older one gets, the more they reflect their true selves. Trump will be 80 next year. Why would Republicans think he’d grow up now?