The Michael Knowles Show - February 15, 2026


Michael Knowles TOP 10 Presidents Compared To ＂Expert's＂ TOP 10


Episode Stats

Length

23 minutes

Words per Minute

173.55266

Word Count

4,041

Sentence Count

359

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

11


Summary

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Mayflower, the producers at C-SPAN have asked me to list my Top 10 Presidents. This is not some idle exercise, this is based on the definitive list compiled by presidential historians every single year.


Transcript

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00:00:44.120 One of the worst presidents we have ever had.
00:00:47.060 Worse than, like, Buchanan.
00:00:49.280 I was more sympathetic to their list
00:00:50.860 before I read everything that happened after 10.
00:00:53.200 These presidential historians are jokes.
00:00:55.260 We're in for it.
00:00:56.060 To celebrate America's 250th anniversary,
00:00:58.660 America's actually older than 250.
00:01:01.400 America goes all the way back over 400 years
00:01:03.240 to the Mayflower,
00:01:04.400 which is an excellent cigar brand, by the way.
00:01:06.880 But to celebrate the official 250th anniversary,
00:01:10.280 the producers have asked me
00:01:11.700 to list my top 10 presidents.
00:01:14.780 And this is not some idle exercise.
00:01:18.420 This is based on the C-SPAN list,
00:01:20.840 which C-SPAN does every single year,
00:01:23.120 consulting all the genius presidential historians
00:01:25.780 to come up with the definitive list of the top 10 presidents.
00:01:28.780 What are the qualities that they consider?
00:01:31.400 Because I want to make sure I'm using the same criteria as C-SPAN.
00:01:33.860 I will begin with the honorable mention.
00:01:54.140 A guy who doesn't make the list,
00:01:55.480 but it's the honorable mention.
00:01:56.640 And that, of course, you could probably guess it.
00:01:58.860 If you're a frequent viewer or listener to the show,
00:02:03.600 Mr. Muttonchops himself, Chester Alan Arthur,
00:02:05.960 one of the great men.
00:02:07.160 He doesn't make the list.
00:02:08.260 There were some problems.
00:02:09.900 He became president accidentally.
00:02:11.860 He was a crooked New York politician.
00:02:13.740 He ran the customs house.
00:02:15.320 He just doled out patronage to his buddies.
00:02:17.680 And when his president was killed, Garfield,
00:02:22.120 he actually sobbed because he didn't want to be president.
00:02:24.400 He just wanted to be VP and dole out more patronage.
00:02:26.460 He sobbed, but he took the job.
00:02:28.640 His wife had died.
00:02:30.040 He kept fresh flowers constantly at the White House for her.
00:02:32.900 And he was reformed.
00:02:34.160 He was a crooked politician, but he became reformed,
00:02:36.460 in part because he received correspondence
00:02:39.680 from this odd invalid woman in New York.
00:02:42.420 And this was probably the classic example
00:02:45.460 of the office making the man.
00:02:47.400 And he actually didn't dole out patronage
00:02:49.100 to all of his cronies.
00:02:49.960 And he reformed the civil service.
00:02:51.840 And he became a much better man.
00:02:53.320 And he was a really clean politician.
00:02:54.520 And he did very well.
00:02:55.380 But he doesn't make the list
00:02:56.220 because he kind of flunked on some other qualities.
00:02:59.160 So coming in after the honorable mention
00:03:01.480 at number 10, Calvin Coolidge.
00:03:05.440 Coolidge was great.
00:03:07.440 The conservative movement types,
00:03:09.580 especially the more libertarian among them,
00:03:11.000 they always rank Coolidge as number one,
00:03:14.000 or at least within the top three.
00:03:15.640 They love Coolidge because he was small government.
00:03:18.540 He says the business of America is business.
00:03:20.760 And he was good for business.
00:03:21.980 You know, we had the roaring 20s under his leadership.
00:03:24.460 That was great.
00:03:25.180 But he's got some marks against him.
00:03:27.420 One mark against him is that he supported
00:03:30.940 the direct election of senators, 17th Amendment.
00:03:33.360 It's one of the worst amendments ever
00:03:35.980 in the history of the United States.
00:03:37.860 He also supported the 19th Amendment.
00:03:41.000 We don't have to get into that too much.
00:03:43.580 But anyway, there were some issues with Coolidge.
00:03:46.560 And he was great.
00:03:48.420 But he also didn't really have long enough.
00:03:50.860 He became president after his predecessor,
00:03:53.940 when he was vice president, died.
00:03:55.540 And he didn't, this is actually very noble,
00:03:58.160 he didn't want to serve longer than George Washington.
00:04:01.000 He didn't want to serve longer
00:04:02.260 than any president before him had ever served.
00:04:05.060 And that was two terms, precedent set by Washington.
00:04:07.080 So because he got that little bit extra
00:04:09.760 at the end of the Harding administration,
00:04:11.600 he decided he wasn't going to run for another term.
00:04:15.180 He didn't have a ton of time.
00:04:16.380 And then FDR promptly smashed through that precedent.
00:04:20.780 Democrat, would-be king of America,
00:04:23.560 ran for and was elected to four terms.
00:04:26.180 So he was good.
00:04:27.840 And if I were a libertarian,
00:04:29.220 he'd be in the top three.
00:04:31.380 But he gets 10.
00:04:32.120 Number nine, William Howard Taft.
00:04:37.660 William Howard Taft, a very large man,
00:04:40.400 who I have a personal affinity for
00:04:43.340 because he's the only man who served
00:04:46.280 as a quasi-ambassador to the Vatican,
00:04:49.060 who then went on to become president.
00:04:50.760 He's a Yale man.
00:04:52.060 I think they actually had to combine two seats for him
00:04:55.420 in one of the halls at Yale
00:04:56.640 because he was corpulent.
00:04:58.240 He also served, technically,
00:05:00.500 you could, stretching the definition,
00:05:02.120 you could say he served
00:05:02.720 in all three branches of government.
00:05:04.120 Really, he served as president
00:05:06.140 and chief justice of the United States.
00:05:08.160 So he was a larger-than-life figure in many senses.
00:05:11.600 And he was quite conservative.
00:05:13.680 He was seriously conservative.
00:05:15.620 He was economically very effective.
00:05:18.440 He was just, I don't know,
00:05:19.480 a standard Republican conservative president.
00:05:23.760 He helped grow the strength of the United States,
00:05:27.300 a bit of a protectionist,
00:05:28.720 which used to fall out of favor
00:05:29.860 with the conservative movement.
00:05:30.740 Now it's kind of back in fashion
00:05:32.380 because of President Trump.
00:05:33.500 So I'll give it to him.
00:05:34.080 Number nine.
00:05:35.780 Number eight.
00:05:39.260 Teddy Roosevelt.
00:05:40.900 T.R.
00:05:41.680 And T.R.
00:05:42.400 was a progressive Republican in many ways.
00:05:45.260 You know, he wasn't like a blue hair
00:05:46.320 with a septum piercing or anything,
00:05:47.600 but he was progressive in some ways.
00:05:49.440 But he, like Taft, was a conservationist,
00:05:51.900 really a more ardent federal conservationist
00:05:53.960 even than Taft was.
00:05:55.500 And he was a real man's man.
00:05:57.340 So he's important,
00:05:58.840 not even so much for his policies,
00:06:01.640 though his policies were very important.
00:06:02.800 He grew the military stature of the United States,
00:06:04.960 helped to really fuel America's global ambitions
00:06:07.380 in the 20th century.
00:06:08.580 But he was an important figure
00:06:10.580 for the thumos of America,
00:06:12.840 for the spiritedness of America.
00:06:15.440 Trump especially has taken clearly
00:06:17.380 a lot of lessons from T.R.
00:06:19.920 Speak Softly, Carry a Big Stick.
00:06:22.080 This is a guy who gets shot giving a speech,
00:06:24.240 but his thick speech stopped the bullet,
00:06:27.120 and he just kept on giving his speech
00:06:28.920 before he even saw medical treatment.
00:06:30.540 He was a real scrappy kind of guy.
00:06:32.760 So for those reasons and many others,
00:06:34.920 he makes the list.
00:06:36.320 Above him,
00:06:37.760 this might be a little controversial,
00:06:40.000 McKinley.
00:06:40.860 Now, McKinley was assassinated,
00:06:42.880 but McKinley,
00:06:44.200 I think he deserves a place here.
00:06:46.380 Because, again, this really ties in.
00:06:49.720 McKinley was fueling America's global ambitions.
00:06:53.120 He got us Hawaii.
00:06:54.040 He got us some other territories.
00:06:57.020 He wrapped up the Spanish-American War.
00:06:59.620 He was a protectionist,
00:07:00.860 but as we see today,
00:07:02.920 people said that his economic policies
00:07:04.780 would damage the economy.
00:07:05.540 They didn't.
00:07:06.020 He was a very, very strong economic president.
00:07:10.080 Probably doesn't have as much stature
00:07:11.560 in the historical memory as some others do,
00:07:13.920 but he was great.
00:07:14.640 We love him.
00:07:15.020 We like Mount McKinley, too.
00:07:16.220 The Libs are trying to rename his mountain.
00:07:17.660 No surprise there.
00:07:18.500 You know, we stand for him.
00:07:20.520 Above him,
00:07:22.140 John Adams,
00:07:25.380 who's probably the most conservative founding father.
00:07:29.380 He becomes president after George Washington.
00:07:32.140 Keeps Washington's cabinet
00:07:33.360 basically entirely in place,
00:07:35.280 even though Washington's cabinet
00:07:36.560 was more loyal to Hamilton.
00:07:38.560 He was far preferred
00:07:40.540 to the alternative, Thomas Jefferson,
00:07:43.120 who ended up beating him.
00:07:44.280 But even there,
00:07:45.100 Adams sets this precedent
00:07:46.160 of peacefully transferring power.
00:07:48.800 So that's good,
00:07:49.720 even the historians like that.
00:07:51.340 He passed the Alien and Sedition Acts,
00:07:53.300 which a lot of people count as a mark against him,
00:07:55.120 I think was very based and awesome
00:07:56.980 and are still on the books today.
00:07:58.920 And they're very important
00:07:59.580 because they set guardrails
00:08:00.560 and they give us
00:08:01.640 a much more conservative understanding of freedom
00:08:03.340 than the libertine left-wing version.
00:08:04.880 So for all those reasons,
00:08:06.040 he makes the list.
00:08:06.960 Above Adams,
00:08:10.740 Dwight Eisenhower.
00:08:12.080 I like Ike, baby.
00:08:13.440 I like him.
00:08:15.080 Eisenhower, very underrated
00:08:16.480 because he was moderate.
00:08:19.640 And so the Republicans and the Democrats
00:08:21.540 both liked Eisenhower.
00:08:23.420 It was unclear if he would run for president
00:08:25.140 as a Republican or a Democrat.
00:08:26.680 He helped win World War II
00:08:27.880 and he set the stage for America
00:08:30.240 to win the Cold War.
00:08:31.700 He was much better than his successors,
00:08:33.800 JFK and certainly LBJ.
00:08:35.700 Anyway, the ways in which he was moderate,
00:08:37.900 by the way,
00:08:38.220 don't really matter all that much
00:08:39.480 because today when we talk about moderate,
00:08:41.240 you know, squishy Republicans,
00:08:42.480 liberal Republicans even,
00:08:43.900 we tend to think of these culture war issues,
00:08:46.160 abortion, marriage,
00:08:48.080 transgenderism, immigration.
00:08:51.060 Those were not an issue in the 50s.
00:08:54.960 They were just not an issue.
00:08:56.380 There was no such thing
00:08:57.220 as a debate over abortion.
00:08:58.260 Everyone knew it was wrong to kill babies.
00:08:59.620 There was certainly no such thing
00:09:00.520 as a debate over marriage.
00:09:01.640 That wouldn't come about
00:09:02.560 until the 21st century.
00:09:04.360 Transgenderism, give me a break.
00:09:05.340 Everyone agreed.
00:09:06.160 Those people, we got to lock them up.
00:09:07.360 It's a made-up thing.
00:09:08.720 And then even on immigration,
00:09:09.820 I think it was Eisenhower
00:09:10.860 who presided over Operation Wetback
00:09:13.040 when we deported a million illegals from America.
00:09:16.300 It was pretty good.
00:09:17.240 A million?
00:09:17.820 That's right.
00:09:18.140 I could use those numbers.
00:09:19.120 It was great.
00:09:19.720 So he makes it.
00:09:20.900 Above him,
00:09:22.660 Ronald Reagan.
00:09:26.320 Saint Gipper himself makes the list,
00:09:28.580 coming in at number four.
00:09:30.640 Gipper makes the list
00:09:31.520 because he won the Cold War
00:09:32.520 and he revitalized America.
00:09:34.300 He made America feel good about herself again
00:09:36.180 after the malaise of the Kennedy assassination
00:09:39.760 and then the hideous presidency of LBJ
00:09:42.620 and then the Nixon presidency,
00:09:46.140 which could have been great,
00:09:46.900 except the libs took him out
00:09:47.920 in a bunch of nonsense.
00:09:49.180 And then the malaise of Carter.
00:09:53.480 Ford really never stood a chance
00:09:54.940 because he did the patriotic thing
00:09:56.120 and pardoned Nixon.
00:09:56.800 And Carter, obviously,
00:09:58.060 stagflation and foreign collapse
00:10:00.060 and it was just a disaster.
00:10:01.460 Reagan comes and revitalizes the country,
00:10:03.560 juices the economy again,
00:10:05.120 wins us the Cold War.
00:10:06.240 He's great.
00:10:06.760 He really deserves
00:10:07.580 a lot of the plaudits he receives.
00:10:09.300 Above Reagan,
00:10:10.980 Trump.
00:10:14.200 Trump.
00:10:14.780 Trump is kind of the apotheosis
00:10:17.140 of the Reagan revolution.
00:10:19.100 And he's more historic
00:10:20.820 because he won
00:10:22.500 the non-consecutive second term.
00:10:24.060 It's the greatest political comeback
00:10:25.300 in American history,
00:10:26.980 better even than Richard Nixon's.
00:10:28.740 They counted Nixon out.
00:10:29.640 I kind of want to put Nixon on the list,
00:10:31.580 but given these qualities
00:10:33.240 that they're making us judge it by,
00:10:35.640 it's a little tricky.
00:10:37.000 Look, maybe could Nixon
00:10:38.060 take it above Taft?
00:10:40.100 Yes.
00:10:40.620 Maybe I should have rethought
00:10:41.940 that too late now.
00:10:43.240 Could he take it over even McKinley?
00:10:45.040 Maybe not because he was
00:10:46.240 cut down in his prime.
00:10:47.920 But certainly without Watergate,
00:10:49.400 without not even the scandal
00:10:50.580 of Watergate,
00:10:51.000 just without him having
00:10:52.300 to resign the presidency,
00:10:53.480 you'd put him in one of those spots.
00:10:55.040 But because of that,
00:10:55.780 Reagan takes it.
00:10:56.520 Reagan takes the cake there
00:10:57.400 and then Trump above him.
00:10:59.440 Trump restores America's
00:11:00.800 moral authority
00:11:01.460 after the hideousness
00:11:02.460 of Barack Obama.
00:11:04.140 You know,
00:11:04.740 stands against
00:11:05.560 pretty basic things
00:11:06.960 like he's against infanticide,
00:11:09.160 his first president
00:11:09.800 to ever show up
00:11:10.220 to the March for Life.
00:11:11.360 He appoints the justice
00:11:12.620 that overrules Roe v. Wade.
00:11:14.000 He's probably the best
00:11:14.980 foreign policy
00:11:15.780 international relations president
00:11:17.180 of any of our lifetimes.
00:11:19.080 His administrative skills
00:11:20.100 are quite good, actually,
00:11:21.160 especially in the second term.
00:11:22.740 Relations with Congress
00:11:23.560 are a little bit weaker,
00:11:24.480 but okay,
00:11:24.980 he loses some points there
00:11:26.060 because Congress
00:11:26.700 is like herding cats.
00:11:28.020 His vision,
00:11:28.740 of course,
00:11:29.020 he has the Make America
00:11:29.660 Great Again vision,
00:11:30.380 which he takes,
00:11:31.340 he borrows from Ronald Reagan.
00:11:33.080 Equal justice role,
00:11:33.900 crisis leadership,
00:11:34.640 of course.
00:11:35.340 Economic management
00:11:35.980 keeps beating
00:11:36.920 every expectation.
00:11:38.580 And his public persuasion.
00:11:39.800 He's blunter,
00:11:40.700 he's crasser
00:11:41.340 than Ronald Reagan,
00:11:42.380 but he's effective.
00:11:43.320 He's communicating
00:11:43.820 to people who had been
00:11:44.860 disillusioned with politics,
00:11:45.980 who hadn't been really engaged.
00:11:46.940 So he gets it.
00:11:48.320 Now, that's still number three,
00:11:49.740 who comes in at number two
00:11:50.540 and number one.
00:11:51.300 I think you do have to give
00:11:52.300 number two to Lincoln.
00:11:54.340 Lincoln,
00:11:54.800 no matter what you think,
00:11:55.580 even if you're a Southerner
00:11:56.360 and you don't like
00:11:57.360 the War of Northern Aggression,
00:11:59.060 on these marks,
00:12:00.980 public relations,
00:12:01.760 he's the greatest writer
00:12:02.920 and orator probably
00:12:04.280 in American political history.
00:12:06.020 Crisis leadership,
00:12:06.760 we've never had a greater crisis
00:12:07.780 than the Civil War.
00:12:09.240 Economic management,
00:12:10.460 pretty good,
00:12:11.360 all things considered.
00:12:12.340 Moral authority,
00:12:12.920 of course,
00:12:13.440 he's considered
00:12:14.020 one of the great moral visionaries
00:12:16.560 of American history.
00:12:18.420 International relations,
00:12:19.880 depends if we count
00:12:21.000 the Confederacy as international,
00:12:22.600 but he did manage that crisis.
00:12:25.260 Administrative skills,
00:12:26.480 relation with Congress,
00:12:27.560 visions,
00:12:28.080 equal justice for all.
00:12:28.920 I think he gets it.
00:12:29.980 And then number one,
00:12:30.740 no doubt about it,
00:12:31.480 the indispensable man,
00:12:32.500 father of our country,
00:12:34.540 George Washington,
00:12:35.480 who set the precedent,
00:12:36.740 who has never been surpassed.
00:12:39.700 And it was an American painter
00:12:41.040 who related the story
00:12:42.260 that when he relinquished
00:12:43.900 his military commission,
00:12:45.740 no less an adversary
00:12:47.280 than King George III
00:12:48.320 said that if he really
00:12:49.340 relinquishes his commission,
00:12:51.160 George Washington
00:12:51.820 will be the greatest man
00:12:52.980 in the world.
00:12:53.940 That's the list.
00:12:55.460 Washington, Lincoln,
00:12:56.660 Reagan, Eisenhower,
00:12:57.960 Adams, McKinley,
00:12:59.440 Roosevelt, Taft,
00:13:00.380 and Coolidge.
00:13:01.640 What did C-SPAN say?
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00:14:25.220 C-SPAN's honorable mention,
00:14:26.660 LBJ.
00:14:27.640 Oh my goodness.
00:14:28.800 We're in for it.
00:14:29.600 Well, look,
00:14:30.240 I'm glad to say
00:14:30.840 that LBJ,
00:14:31.920 one of the worst presidents
00:14:33.340 we have ever had,
00:14:35.040 a man who did
00:14:36.880 almost as much as he could
00:14:38.320 to destroy this country,
00:14:39.980 the mess that we are in
00:14:41.580 is largely thanks to him
00:14:43.140 that he would not make
00:14:45.160 the full list.
00:14:45.720 He just gets the honorable mention.
00:14:46.940 In fairness to LBJ,
00:14:48.340 LBJ does have
00:14:50.880 great administrative skills,
00:14:52.020 there's no doubt about that.
00:14:53.360 Good relationship with Congress.
00:14:54.820 The guy really knew
00:14:55.360 how to work around Congress.
00:14:57.380 He tried to pursue
00:14:58.100 equal justice for all.
00:14:58.980 It's not what happened.
00:14:59.560 The opposite happened
00:15:00.360 as a result.
00:15:01.060 He wasn't exactly
00:15:01.680 a moral authority.
00:15:02.620 You read some of the stories
00:15:03.500 about him whipping out
00:15:04.620 LBJ Jr.
00:15:05.980 in cabinet meetings.
00:15:07.440 That's pretty gross.
00:15:08.760 Economic management,
00:15:09.800 crisis leadership,
00:15:10.900 public persuasion.
00:15:11.760 He wasn't the greatest
00:15:12.860 public persuader,
00:15:13.840 but he was good
00:15:14.240 in smoke-filled rooms.
00:15:18.040 Number 10,
00:15:19.100 Barack Obama.
00:15:23.980 Arguably the worst
00:15:25.040 president we've ever had.
00:15:26.700 Arguably worse
00:15:27.560 than like Buchanan.
00:15:29.520 Arguably worse
00:15:30.440 than Millard Fillmore.
00:15:31.840 Wow.
00:15:32.520 Obama just so awful.
00:15:34.100 Okay.
00:15:34.340 Okay.
00:15:37.860 Nine,
00:15:38.500 Ronald Reagan.
00:15:39.260 Okay,
00:15:39.520 this is good.
00:15:40.060 I'm glad they placed
00:15:42.600 Reagan above Obama.
00:15:43.940 It's kind of ridiculous
00:15:45.140 that these two men
00:15:45.980 would be anywhere
00:15:46.680 near each other
00:15:47.340 on the list.
00:15:48.940 Ronald Reagan,
00:15:49.560 one of the greatest
00:15:50.100 presidents we've ever had.
00:15:51.080 Barack Obama,
00:15:51.600 one of the worst.
00:15:52.320 But I'm glad at least
00:15:53.140 the libs at C-SPAN.
00:15:54.540 Even they could not
00:15:56.300 stretch reality so far
00:15:58.100 as to pretend
00:15:58.780 that Obama
00:15:59.460 was ahead
00:16:00.560 of Ronald Reagan.
00:16:05.720 Number eight,
00:16:06.400 JFK.
00:16:07.100 Totally ridiculous.
00:16:07.780 I know in recent years
00:16:09.820 some conservatives
00:16:10.580 have taken a shine
00:16:11.480 to JFK
00:16:12.120 because they
00:16:13.340 like to make this point
00:16:14.820 which is that,
00:16:15.620 you know,
00:16:15.860 by today's standards,
00:16:16.880 John F. Kennedy
00:16:17.420 would be a conservative
00:16:18.200 Republican.
00:16:18.860 And it's true
00:16:19.340 because the libs won
00:16:20.360 because they totally
00:16:21.360 won the culture
00:16:22.120 and shifted the Overton window
00:16:23.540 immensely to the left.
00:16:25.120 But the reality is
00:16:26.120 if JFK had lived
00:16:27.440 to be, you know,
00:16:28.180 150 or whatever
00:16:29.000 he'd be now,
00:16:29.980 had he lived,
00:16:30.640 he would just be
00:16:31.380 a liberal Democrat.
00:16:32.180 That's just what happened
00:16:32.820 to basically all the Kennedys
00:16:34.400 with the slight exception
00:16:35.440 of Bobby Kennedy Jr.
00:16:36.380 So, no,
00:16:37.780 JFK is one of the
00:16:38.400 most overrated presidents,
00:16:39.320 probably the single
00:16:39.940 most overrated president
00:16:40.860 we have.
00:16:41.920 Basically everything
00:16:42.660 he touched turned to pot.
00:16:43.940 He stole the election
00:16:44.620 from Richard Nixon
00:16:45.660 who should have won
00:16:46.320 in 1960.
00:16:47.880 He bungled,
00:16:48.540 he almost sent us
00:16:49.060 into nuclear war
00:16:49.920 because of his handling
00:16:51.180 of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
00:16:52.720 Luckily they managed
00:16:53.420 to get out of it
00:16:53.920 when he pulled his weapons
00:16:54.740 out of Turkey.
00:16:55.660 But he was just a disaster.
00:16:57.240 The only reason people
00:16:58.000 care about him at all
00:16:59.160 is because of the mythology
00:17:00.060 built up around him
00:17:01.100 before he won
00:17:01.840 because he looked
00:17:02.800 relatively youthful
00:17:03.980 and handsome
00:17:05.140 compared to some
00:17:05.840 of his predecessors
00:17:06.560 and because he was assassinated.
00:17:08.520 So there's this mythology
00:17:09.260 but he didn't really
00:17:10.320 do anything of consequence
00:17:11.400 that was positive.
00:17:15.220 Next up,
00:17:15.860 Thomas Jefferson.
00:17:17.140 Yeah, well, of course,
00:17:17.800 because Jefferson
00:17:18.300 is the most liberal
00:17:19.360 of the prominent
00:17:20.180 founding fathers.
00:17:21.420 So, of course,
00:17:21.940 C-SPAN and the
00:17:22.620 presidential historians
00:17:23.480 like him.
00:17:24.440 You know, he's
00:17:25.220 the man who said
00:17:26.340 that the tree of liberty
00:17:27.760 must be quenched
00:17:28.480 from time to time
00:17:29.160 in the blood
00:17:29.640 of patriots and tyrants.
00:17:30.760 It was pretty radically liberal.
00:17:33.740 So I'm not a Jefferson hater.
00:17:35.560 I mean, you know,
00:17:36.340 I admire the man
00:17:37.240 in as much as is reasonable,
00:17:39.220 but he doesn't make my list.
00:17:42.060 Number six,
00:17:45.100 Harry Truman.
00:17:46.300 Truman did the best he could
00:17:49.240 with a tough situation
00:17:50.220 and he concluded
00:17:51.020 World War II,
00:17:52.540 but that said,
00:17:53.700 he, you know,
00:17:55.500 spilled the beans
00:17:56.340 to Stalin
00:17:57.780 about our military capabilities.
00:18:00.760 And in some ways
00:18:01.500 made the Cold War worse.
00:18:03.180 There is the moral question
00:18:04.500 of dropping the atomic bomb
00:18:06.400 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
00:18:08.560 I like that he was
00:18:09.160 a haberdasher
00:18:09.860 who left the White House
00:18:10.740 just driving his own car.
00:18:12.120 He's going back home,
00:18:12.980 didn't really have a lot of money
00:18:13.720 or anything.
00:18:14.720 But he's not,
00:18:16.580 he's a man who met
00:18:18.100 the crisis of his age
00:18:19.280 reasonably well,
00:18:20.820 but he's not a great president
00:18:22.600 by any stretch.
00:18:27.060 Dwight Eisenhower.
00:18:28.020 Oh, that's funny.
00:18:29.340 Wow, that's kind of cool.
00:18:30.920 C-SPAN and I put Ike
00:18:32.440 in exactly the same spot.
00:18:34.000 So there is a little bit
00:18:34.940 of bipartisan agreement here.
00:18:36.840 Ike gets the spot,
00:18:37.680 probably for different reasons,
00:18:39.560 but that's great.
00:18:40.280 Okay, so we're not totally
00:18:41.420 speaking different languages.
00:18:43.280 Number four,
00:18:45.120 Teddy Roosevelt.
00:18:47.800 I like Roosevelt.
00:18:49.040 He's on my list,
00:18:50.660 but I wouldn't put him
00:18:52.220 up that high.
00:18:52.680 They probably like Roosevelt
00:18:53.560 because he was
00:18:54.040 a progressive Republican,
00:18:55.680 whereas I like him
00:18:56.940 because he was
00:18:57.620 an unrepentant materialist
00:18:59.360 who slayed,
00:19:00.900 you know,
00:19:01.620 500 animals in Africa
00:19:03.520 or something like that
00:19:04.560 and carried a very big stick.
00:19:06.880 Number three,
00:19:10.180 Franklin Roosevelt.
00:19:11.880 Give me a break.
00:19:14.060 A truly awful president
00:19:15.440 who is great
00:19:17.180 in his tyranny.
00:19:20.780 You know,
00:19:20.960 he's great in his ability
00:19:22.320 to transform
00:19:23.040 the U.S. government.
00:19:24.300 He really took
00:19:24.960 the blueprint
00:19:25.700 written by Woodrow Wilson,
00:19:27.980 also one of the worst
00:19:28.880 presidents in American history.
00:19:30.020 He took that blueprint
00:19:31.020 and actually put it into action.
00:19:32.360 So to be fair to him,
00:19:34.000 kind of like LBJ,
00:19:35.160 but much more so,
00:19:36.440 FDR,
00:19:36.920 who was a mentor of LBJ,
00:19:38.340 did have great
00:19:39.040 administrative skills.
00:19:40.120 Obviously,
00:19:40.400 his international relations
00:19:41.240 were pretty impressive
00:19:41.920 because he did preside
00:19:43.860 almost over the winning
00:19:45.360 of World War II.
00:19:47.020 His moral authority
00:19:48.100 was weak
00:19:49.660 because he was a huge lib
00:19:51.080 who completely rewrote
00:19:52.420 our system of government,
00:19:53.860 but he claimed moral authority
00:19:55.420 like liberals do today.
00:19:56.780 His economic management
00:19:57.540 was horrible
00:19:58.000 and he prolonged
00:19:58.500 the Great Depression
00:19:59.180 and, you know,
00:20:00.400 the fact that he got us
00:20:01.280 into World War II
00:20:02.120 or, you know,
00:20:04.040 acceded to getting
00:20:04.700 into World War II
00:20:05.440 after the Japanese
00:20:06.100 actually got us
00:20:06.660 into World War II,
00:20:07.280 that's really all
00:20:07.780 that took us out
00:20:08.280 of the Depression.
00:20:09.180 His economic leadership
00:20:09.820 was horrible though.
00:20:10.820 Crisis leadership
00:20:11.500 was reasonably good.
00:20:13.880 Public persuasion
00:20:14.520 was impressive,
00:20:15.200 of course,
00:20:15.600 but he had a
00:20:16.100 complicit press
00:20:17.040 that would work with him
00:20:18.540 as the press works
00:20:19.620 with Democrat presidents today.
00:20:21.580 Relations with Congress
00:20:22.680 were fine
00:20:23.620 and then he bullied
00:20:24.340 the Supreme Court
00:20:25.120 and also upended
00:20:26.080 our system of government
00:20:26.960 by threatening
00:20:28.060 to destroy the court
00:20:28.980 and blow up
00:20:29.400 the constitutional order
00:20:30.280 if they didn't give him
00:20:30.900 his unconstitutional
00:20:31.680 New Deal.
00:20:32.740 He obviously set an agenda.
00:20:33.880 He had a vision.
00:20:34.400 It was a bad one,
00:20:35.100 but he set the agenda.
00:20:36.140 Okay, number two.
00:20:40.520 Number two is Washington,
00:20:41.940 of course,
00:20:42.300 because number one
00:20:42.740 is going to be Lincoln, right?
00:20:43.740 Just spill it.
00:20:44.700 Yeah, number one is Lincoln
00:20:45.640 for them, of course,
00:20:46.820 because Lincoln,
00:20:49.680 and look,
00:20:50.040 I put Lincoln
00:20:50.440 as number two,
00:20:51.760 but I put Lincoln
00:20:52.520 as number two
00:20:52.960 because of the times
00:20:54.300 in which he found himself,
00:20:55.460 because the Civil War
00:20:56.900 had finally come
00:20:57.940 and he managed
00:20:58.640 as best as he could.
00:21:00.800 You know,
00:21:01.080 the Civil War
00:21:01.760 was to be avoided,
00:21:03.360 but Lincoln,
00:21:04.280 my defense of Lincoln
00:21:05.420 is he met the moment
00:21:06.960 and played the best
00:21:08.920 he could
00:21:09.240 with a bad hand.
00:21:10.880 I suspect
00:21:11.460 the reason
00:21:12.280 that C-SPAN
00:21:13.120 would flip
00:21:13.680 Washington and Lincoln
00:21:14.820 is they would want
00:21:16.360 the Civil War to come.
00:21:17.180 They kind of wish
00:21:18.380 Lincoln had hastened
00:21:19.100 the Civil War
00:21:19.740 and upended
00:21:21.700 or refounded the country,
00:21:23.060 you know,
00:21:23.360 upended our constitutional order,
00:21:25.100 probably don't have
00:21:25.600 much of a problem
00:21:26.120 with suspending
00:21:26.700 habeas corpus
00:21:27.660 and the radicalism
00:21:29.440 that followed
00:21:29.840 that Lincoln himself
00:21:30.560 probably would not
00:21:31.380 have encouraged.
00:21:32.800 I'm not surprised at all.
00:21:34.240 It's a very liberal reading
00:21:35.420 of Lincoln
00:21:36.100 and of American history,
00:21:37.680 but Washington's
00:21:38.500 the indispensable man
00:21:39.440 who dealt with
00:21:41.740 greater crises
00:21:43.320 in some ways
00:21:44.440 in the pre-founding
00:21:46.260 of our constitutional order
00:21:47.780 and even a little bit afterward.
00:21:49.560 He dealt with those crises.
00:21:51.280 I'm talking about
00:21:51.780 the Newburgh conspiracy,
00:21:53.220 obviously,
00:21:53.660 the Whiskey Rebellion,
00:21:54.400 Shades Rebellion.
00:21:55.460 He dealt with them
00:21:56.260 in a much more graceful way
00:21:57.460 than his successors
00:21:59.320 dealt with crises.
00:22:00.340 So he doesn't maybe
00:22:01.500 get enough credit for that.
00:22:03.080 It could have been worse
00:22:03.840 from C-SPAN.
00:22:05.400 It's just,
00:22:05.740 what's amazing is
00:22:06.580 even when we came
00:22:07.680 to the same
00:22:08.200 or similar conclusions,
00:22:09.060 you can tell
00:22:09.780 it was for totally,
00:22:11.260 totally different reasons.
00:22:12.720 It's like the Anakin meme.
00:22:14.440 You're going to put
00:22:15.920 LBJ on your list, right?
00:22:18.380 Right?
00:22:19.220 And just have Anakin like...
00:22:21.660 They're going to put Trump
00:22:23.240 beneath William Henry Harrison
00:22:25.000 who was president
00:22:26.160 for like 15 minutes
00:22:27.220 because he got it cold.
00:22:28.560 Are you kidding me?
00:22:30.080 I probably wish
00:22:30.900 that Trump had spoken
00:22:31.720 outside of that
00:22:32.260 really cold inauguration
00:22:33.100 last time.
00:22:35.000 If he had
00:22:36.200 lived about as long
00:22:37.840 as Harrison,
00:22:38.380 maybe they'd put him
00:22:38.860 higher on the list.
00:22:40.320 Below Harding,
00:22:41.240 Fillmore,
00:22:41.700 it's such a joke.
00:22:43.660 They couldn't put him
00:22:44.600 below Buchanan
00:22:45.400 because Buchanan
00:22:46.060 basically caused
00:22:46.740 the Civil War.
00:22:48.420 Oh boy.
00:22:49.920 Okay.
00:22:50.500 I was more...
00:22:51.680 I was more sympathetic
00:22:53.020 to their list
00:22:53.620 before I read
00:22:54.420 everything that happened
00:22:55.240 after 10.
00:22:56.900 It's a joke.
00:22:58.220 It's a joke.
00:22:58.940 These presidential historians
00:23:00.060 are jokes.
00:23:00.740 No surprise there.
00:23:02.080 You see what they do
00:23:02.700 to the news.
00:23:03.240 Imagine what they do
00:23:03.860 to history.
00:23:04.580 Okay.
00:23:05.300 Happy birthday,
00:23:06.040 America.
00:23:09.920 Yeah, well,
00:23:10.460 Buchanan's kind of
00:23:11.440 undisputed the worst.
00:23:13.800 Yeah, yeah.
00:23:14.520 No one really.
00:23:15.520 I mean,
00:23:15.680 he like caused
00:23:16.160 the Civil War,
00:23:16.800 you know.