Former President Donald Trump was ranked 41st out of 45 presidents in C-SPAN’s presidential leadership survey of 142 presidential historians, released Wednesday.
C-SPAN has conducted the survey since 2000, asking historians to rate presidents based upon 10 categories.
The twice-impeached former president scored last in moral authority and administrative skills, and 32 in public persuasion and 34 in economic management.
Rachel Katz, C-SPAN’s survey project coordinator, said during a C-SPAN segment Wednesday that C-SPAN understands there’s a high interest in presidential history.
“And this is a way to start a conversation. Get people talking about it. Get people thinking about what makes for a good president,” Katz said.
Abraham Lincoln ranked first overall, a position he’s held since the first survey, with George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt holding the second and third spots since the start.
Barack Obama moved up from the 12th spot to 1oth, and his “pursued equal justice for all” rating remained his highest individual rating, at third, just below Lincoln.
“Despite the fact that we’ve become more aware of the historical implications of racial injustice in this country and we’re continuing to grapple with those issues, we still have slaveholding presidents at or near the top of the list,” Howard University professor Edna Greene Medford said in a statement. “Washington, still the second president on the list, enslaved people during his term. “So even though we may be a bit more enlightened about race today, we are still discounting its significance when evaluating these presidents.”
