Just over six months after he was inaugurated in 2017, former President Donald Trump told a crowd in Youngstown, Ohio that he could be "more presidential than any president that’s held this office" other than Abraham Lincoln.
Presidential historians disagreed in a survey released on Wednesday.
A total of 142 historians participated in C-SPAN’s "Historians Survey on Presidential Leadership," and they ranked Trump 41st out of 44 presidents to hold the office.
Trump finished 41st in congressional relations, 43rd in international relations and last in administrative skills and moral authority. He was 40th in having "pursued equal justice for all."
Survey participants were asked to rate all 44 presidents across 10 categories using a 10-point scale. All of their ratings were then averaged in order to calculate a president’s score.
Participants interpreted the categories' definitions as they saw fit.
The survey has been conducted four times this century: Once in 2000, and then after new presidents were inaugurated in 2009, 2017 and 2021. Neither Barack Obama nor George W. Bush debuted as low as Trump in the survey.
Obama, whom Trump repeatedly and falsely accused of not being born in the U.S. during Obama’s presidency, was 10th this year after debuting 12th in 2021. Bush, meanwhile, was 29th after debuting at 36th in 2009 and finishing 33rd in 2017.
Trump finished no better than 32nd in any of the 10 categories, months after becoming the first president to be impeached twice in one term.
The House of Representatives impeached the Republican on two charges – abuse of power and obstruction of Congress – on Dec. 18, 2019 along a mostly party-line vote after an inquiry determined Trump tried to pressure Ukraine into investigating then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The Senate acquitted Trump the following February on the charges, both of which were along mostly party-line votes. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney voted to convict Trump on the abuse of power charges, becoming the only Republican to do so on either charge and the first U.S. senator to vote to convict a president from their own party in an impeachment trial.
Trump was impeached again this Jan. 13, this time on an incitement of insurrection following the U.S. Capitol riots a week prior, when Congress convened to certify Trump’s 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. Trump repeatedly and falsely said the election was “stolen” from him, and many of the rioters were in the capital to attend a “Stop the Steal” rally on the National Mall.
The Senate acquitted Trump once again on Feb. 13, finishing three votes shy of the 60 needed to convict him.
In the last year of his term, the COVID-19 pandemic became perhaps the defining issue of Trump’s presidency. Over 600,000 Americans have now died because of the virus, and his administration’s handling of the pandemic has been widely criticized.
In the survey released Wednesday, Trump also finished 42nd in performance within the context of the times.
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