You might not think that going out to dinner or video calling a friend is such a big deal, but when you’re the president of the United States, doing totally normal things is not that simple. As the head of the Executive Branch, there are a lot of things the incumbent president is not allowed to do but there are also tons of mundane activities that we take for granted, that he cannot do, mostly for security reasons. That being said, here are eleven surprisingly normal things the US president cannot do while in office…
Have a normal phone call/video chat with friends
What could possibly go wrong with making a simple call phone to a friend? Well, when you are the president of the most powerful country in the world, even a simple phone call is complicated. “The Secret Service goes to great lengths to plan, coordinate, and secure all of the president’s activities. For example, talking to a friend over the phone or video-chat can only be done on a secured line,” says Matt Pinsker, a Homeland Security professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.
For the rest of us, citizens, it’s perfectly normal to just grab the phone and make a call to whoever we want, or, better yet, video chat, whenever, wherever. The president, on the other hand, needs to inform the Secret Service for a simple chit chat. Do you still think presidents have it easy?