Trump ranks himself 'greatest' US president ever, above Lincoln, Washington
A ranking of former U.S. presidents shared by President Donald Trump on Truth Social on Friday / Captured from Truth Social
Please enter a subtitle
U.S. President Donald Trump has ranked himself as the "greatest" president in American history, placing even George Washington and Abraham Lincoln one tier below him.
Trump shared a chart on Truth Social on Friday ranking 34 U.S. presidents across six tiers: "The Greatest," "Great," "Near Great," "Average," "Below Average" and "Failures."
Trump was the only president placed in "The Greatest" category.
Washington, the first U.S. president, and Thomas Jefferson, one of the nation's Founding Fathers, were relegated to the "Great" tier, along with Lincoln, who led the country through the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
Meanwhile, some of Trump's most prominent political rivals received the harshest assessment. Former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama were both placed in the "Failures" category, along with Jimmy Carter.
An image shared by conspiracy theory researcher Mike Rothschild on X on Friday compares the U.S. presidential ranking posted by President Donald Trump, left, with the original ranking created in 1948. Captured from X
The unusual ranking quickly drew ridicule online. But there was another twist: The chart was largely based on a presidential ranking created nearly eight decades ago.
Mike Rothschild, a researcher and writer who covers conspiracy theories, pointed out that the original chart was published by Life magazine in 1948 based on a survey of more than 50 historians and other experts.
That helps explain some conspicuous omissions from Trump's version. Presidents who served after the survey was conducted — including John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and George W. Bush — do not appear on the chart.
Trump's version added a new tier above "Great" called "The Greatest" and placed himself there. It also added Biden, Obama and Carter to the bottom "Failures" category.
Rothschild posted the two images side by side on X, formerly Twitter, sarcastically describing Trump's version as exactly the kind of material a “healthy, high-functioning” person would share.
The Daily Beast also mocked the ranking, noting that Trump was generous enough to classify Lincoln and several other former presidents as "Great" — just not at the same elite level as himself.
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, was translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.