Not sure I understand those last two sentences. Could you clarify?
For him it's been a minor nuisance at worst. He has strong restrictions on travel. I think he needs approval to travel abroad. He has relatives in other countries and visits them often, so it can't be too much of a nuisance.
I believe he told me that he does have to report details of where he went in each country and who he interacted with upon his return. Not sure about the details.
Official website: https://www.dm.usda.gov/ohsec/TravelResource.htm
Anyone who thinks differently is arguing for a shadow gov, i.e. unelected bureaucrats who answer to no one and can make decisions unilaterally without consequence... not exactly democracy.
I also never said he had access to everything. Nobody has access to everything. Not arguing for a shadow government--it's already a fact. It happened when classification rules went from "what would harm national security" to "what would cause problems if American citizens found out we were doing this."
The only thing he does not have unrestricted access to is Justice department stuff (e.g. FBI), although there'd better be a damn good reason to deny it to POTUS if he asks, and legislative branch secrets which really infrequently comes into play. That's due to the whole separation-of-powers, checks-and-balances thing. But security clearances for everything in the executive branch stem FROM the president. If he wants to reveal some state secret, he can just tweet it with no consequences, or blurt it out while on the phone with foreign states. As Trump did on multiple occasions.
That said, of course there is a significant deep state bureaucracy which attempts at times to keep certain things hidden, even from the current president. But if the president were to ask about it, they have to tell him.
Lots of countries have an establishment "civil service" comprised of those "unelected bureaucrats" that you mention, and it actually works out quite well for them.
That said, they aren't unaccountable: they answer to departmental heads, MPs, committees, etc. A big advantage of the system is to prevent mad-swings in policy just because the head-of-government changed.
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Service_(United_Kingdom)
You can frame this another way: it prevents meaningful change even if the electorate demands it.
Sorry, I watched too much Yes Minister to think this is a good thing x)
I recognize I'm basically describing a utopia.
Does that include regular old things like ADHD meds?