Listen up, Mr. President. I should not have to explain this to you, but I will anyway, because I have the time to do so.

Don’t try to fool us into believing that ridiculous claim that you can “relate” to American federal employees who have been furloughed because of the partial government shutdown that you initiated with your insistence on money to build The Wall.

I read your remarks to reporters today, about how you supposedly can relate to the misery that’s been inflicted on these dedicated public servants.

Let me remind you, sir, of a key difference between you and them.

Those employees work because they have to work. They need the income to feed their families, pay their bills, keep a roof over their heads and maybe — if there’s money left over — to take a vacation once in a while.

You, Mr. President, are working for free because you chose to forgo the presidential annual salary of $400,000. You did so because you are so fabulously wealthy (or so you keep telling us) that you don’t need the pittance the government pays you to “make America great again.”

I’ll be clear on this point: I appreciate your willingness to give up the presidential salary. I also applaud your decision to donate the money each year to various charities. They need the cash more than you do . . . apparently.

However, do not attach this idiotic form of false equivalence to what you are foisting on federal employees and your decision to voluntarily give up your salary.

You cannot possibly “relate” to what they’re enduring.

As for whether those furloughed employees agree with your decision to shut down the government and deprive them of their paychecks, hmm . . . I’d bet real American money they don’t.