President Donald Trump mused on his own reading habits, his waistline and John F. Kennedy’s good looks during a new podcast interview with Second Lady Usha Vance.
The president sat down with Vance for her Storytime podcast — centered on promoting child literacy — in a conversation taped inside the Oval Office and released Friday.
Early in the interview, Vance asked whether Trump, seated in front of the gilded fireplace and beside a stack of books, has time to read for pleasure. The president, characteristically self-referential, replied: “I end up reading mostly newspapers. I usually read stories about myself.”
Trump then recalled a childhood favorite book, Run, Spot, Run, before cracking open Presidents Play, which includes illustrations of U.S. leaders partaking in various sports, like bowling and sailing. He began reading aloud, but quickly went off script, pausing to riff on some of his predecessors.
Stopping on a page about John F. Kennedy, he said: “He was a great guy, handsome, he was the second-most-good looking president, they say.”
When reading about William Howard Taft — the famously hefty 27th president, who reportedly weighed over 300 pounds — Trump joked that he needs to watch his own weight. According to his latest medical report, he weighs 238 pounds, about 14lb more than in April 2025.
“William Taft was a large man,” Trump said. “Very large. Loved the hotdogs at the baseball games. He was our heaviest president, and I have to be careful because I don’t want to supersede his record. That would be possible if I allowed it to happen. Keep yourself in good shape.”
Another page showed Abraham Lincoln riding a horse, prompting Trump to say he would like to try riding, though he noted the risk of falling off. He said he’d settle on a “nice, old horse that’s extremely slow [and] lazy.”
Trump seemed to have something to say about all of his predecessors.
Bill Clinton, he said, was “a nice guy;” Ronald Reagan was “a high quality person;” Jimmy Carter “had a hard time as president.” And Richard Nixon — who resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal — “got himself into trouble, I guess.”
When it came to Obama, who was depicted shooting hoops, Trump couldn’t resist taking a few swipes.
“I don’t know if he’s a good basketball player. I tend to doubt it,” the president told Vance. “Actually, his favorite sport is golf…but he won’t be in the Masters anytime soon.”
Last month, Obama described Trump’s “obsession” with him as “strange,” claiming: “I obviously have a room in his head.”
The president closed out the interview by suggesting he could invite former presidents — including Obama, Bush and Joe Biden — to watch a football game together. “The press would go wild,” he said.
Vance recently interviewed another high-profile guest on her podcast: her husband, Vice President JD Vance. During the sit-down last month, the vice president patted his wife’s knee and said “good to see you”— a moment that quickly went viral, with some viewers describing it as awkward.
Several of Trump’s recent predecessors were voracious readers, including former President Barack Obama, who said he found solace in the writings of Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, and former President George W. Bush, who reportedly churned through two books a week while in office.
