By Dan Geddes

President Donald Trump announced today that he would not “sign on for a second season playing the President.” Trump admitted that the role of U.S. President was more challenging than he had ever imagined, and his previous acting experience had not fully prepared him for the part.

“Playing the President only pays $500,000 per year, and you have to do it every single day. It has more downsides than other roles; it has brought forward a lot of negative publicity and questions about my taxes. When I first auditioned for the role of the President in 2015, I thought it would require the same time commitment as when I played on NBC’s The Apprentice, a role I played for fourteen years earning more than one hundred million dollars.”

“After I completed the grueling 18-month audition for the role of President and started playing the part every single day, I realized what a difficult role it was.”

“Playing the President has proven not only far more time-consuming even than The Apprentice, but it demands even more of my charm and vast reservoir of talents,” Trump confessed.

Trump added: “You have to make huge, huge sacrifices for the role. Keeping up my world-class golfing skills while playing the President has been an enormous challenge. I also have less time on Twitter.”

However, Trump was optimistic that they could find a worthy successor. “I know they will never, ever, find anyone as charismatic as me to play the President. That is for sure. But Ronald Reagan was also a great, great President.”

“I’m sure Ivanka and Tony can help Mike Pence or Kevin Spacey or whoever they get, do a great, great job playing the President. I don’t think I’m giving away too much when I say that they have been grooming others for the part anyway, as you can imagine,” Trump admitted.

“Being President is an amazing part. It’s a lot like that Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show about that guy who is always on TV, and he doesn’t know it. But when you’re the President, you’re always on TV, and you know it.”

“It’s been a tough first 100 days, but I will finish out the first season all the way through January 2018. I think you will be pleased how the North Korea subplot turns out. The Syria storyline is a bit muddier, and I have a NDA on that, so I won’t say more. The Obamacare story also has a happy ending, I’m told.”

“But Season 1 will have a surprise ending, you can be sure of that,” Trump predicted. “And I will finally get to say my great, great line: ‘You’re fired!’”.

Dan Geddes is the editor of The Satirist. In addition to satire, Geddes’ serious criticism in The Satirist online has been widely cited in books, English courses, academic papers, newspapers, and websites.