Who Doesn’t Miss Donald Trump’s Old Life?

Somewhere out there, there is an alternative timeline where the biggest to-do in Donald Trump‘s household at the moment is what Ivanka and Melania will be wearing to the Met Ball on Monday. Melania has not bothered to attempt to dress on theme, and is still deciding between two shiny, single-hued strapless ballgowns with fishtail cuts. Ivanka has spent the better part of a month poring through the Comme Des Garçons archives for inspiration, somewhat bemusedly. She thinks the CDG x Converse sneakers are cute, but ultimately decides to stick to her standard attire.

Donald, meanwhile, has an assistant making arrangements to rescue Tiffany from Great Exuma. “Fyre Festival is a disaster! No planning! SAD!” he fires off on Twitter. He then checks in on how his plan to buy the Miami Marlins baseball team with Derek Jeter is going, while it’s Jeb Bush sitting in the Oval Office (as opposed to the exact opposite of our current reality). Donald is very excited about his plan to “Make the Marlins Great Again!” He’s promised the people of Miami that they’re going to win so many World Series titles that they’ll be tired of winning.

Meanwhile, the only thing Jared Kushner is being accused of controversially running from behind-the-scenes is the New York Observer.

The biggest Trump-related headlines of the day are not on the front page, but rather safely ensconced on Page Six, where they should be (apparently, Eric only tipped 11 percent at Del Frisco’s on Wednesday). Donald, meanwhile, is skipping the White House Correspondents Dinner this year not because of his feud with the press, but rather because no one bothered to invite him this time around. The novelty of novelty guests tends to wear off when they’re always present.

Instead, of course, in reality Donald is a President two days away from completing his first 100 days in office with little to show for it. Obamacare is still the law of the land. Not a single brick has been laid down at the border. Courts continue to overturn his executive orders on constitutional grounds. His approval ratings sit at historic lows.

And it still seems like Trump hasn’t quite wrapped his head around the enormous responsibility of his position.

In a new interview released this morning with Reuters, Trump looks back with wistfulness at his old life, and admits he thought his new one might be easier.

“I loved my previous life. I had so many things going,” he told the news agency. “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”

He laments the fact that he’s followed by Secret Service everywhere he goes and can no longer even drive himself. He compares it to living in a cocoon. And though he’s been in office now for almost 100 days, he’s still caught up on the election. He passed out maps showing county-by-county election results to the Reuters reporters.

He misses not only the days of the campaign, but his old life—the one where people didn’t care about him enough to resist him; the one where he was an almost cartoonish “only in New York” figure, whom the media loved to cover because he was always good for a cheap headline, not because it was their responsibility to society; the one when people could buy units in his buildings or book rooms at his resorts without it being a political statement; the one when he could play golf every weekend without being accused of political hypocrisy.

And, frankly, don’t we all sort of miss those times? Oh, for the days when he was just a guy deploying a catchphrase to fire a Real Housewife from a reality television competition. If only we could go back in time to make Donald Trump great again.

“Women’s Rights Are Human Rights”: 62 Fashion Insiders Speak Out in a Powerful Video for International Women’s Day: