Donald Trump Posts Presidential Rankings Declaring Him ‘The Greatest’
US President Donald Trump declared himself 'the greatest' president in American history in a ranking graphic he posted to Truth Social on Thursday, placing himself alone in the top tier while leaving nearly a dozen of his predecessors off the list entirely.
US President Donald Trump declared himself "the greatest" president in American history in a ranking graphic he posted to Truth Social on Thursday, placing himself alone in the top tier while leaving nearly a dozen of his predecessors off the list entirely. The graphic divides US presidents into six tiers, "The Greatest," "Great," "Near Great," "Average," "Below Average," and "Failures," with Trump occupying the top category by himself. The post appears to be an altered version of a presidential ranking published by LIFE magazine in 1948, based on a survey of 55 experts in American history, with Trump's version largely preserving the original rankings and omissions while adding three recent Democratic presidents to the "Failures" tier and his own name to the top.
How Trump Ranked The Presidents
The "Great" tier in Trump's graphic includes Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, John Adams, and James K. Polk are placed in the "Near Great" category.
Trump's "Average" tier lists Bill Clinton, John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Madison, Martin Van Buren, William Howard Taft, Chester A. Arthur, William McKinley, Andrew Johnson, Herbert Hoover, and Benjamin Harrison. John Tyler, Calvin Coolidge, Millard Fillmore, Zachary Taylor, James Buchanan, and Franklin Pierce fall under "Below Average."
At the bottom, the "Failures" tier consists of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, and Jimmy Carter.
US President Donald Trump Calls Himself "The Greatest" President In New Ranking
Several Presidents Missing From The List
Notably absent from the rankings are William Henry Harrison and James A. Garfield, who both died shortly after taking office, along with Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Why Donald Trump Has Declared National Emergency in the US.
A day before the ranking post, Trump had invoked the younger Bush on Truth Social with an image contrasting the two presidents' records, showing Bush beside a sign reading "Mission Not Accomplished 2001-2021" and Trump beside another declaring "Mission Accomplished 2026." The post appeared to portray Trump's war in Iran as a success while framing the two decade US war in Afghanistan, launched under Bush after the September 11 attacks, as a failure. Donald Trump Says Iran War May End ‘Fairly Soon’, Believes Mojtaba Khamenei Alive.
Trump's Past Comments On Former Presidents
In July, during an appearance on Second Lady Usha Vance's podcast, Trump offered his assessments of several former presidents while reading the children's book "Presidents Play." He called Johnson a "tough cookie," Reagan "high quality," and referred to the two Bushes as "the Bushies," all four of whom are absent from his new rankings. He also joked about Taft, whom he ranked "Average," being the nation's heaviest president, saying, "I have to be careful, 'cause I don't want to supersede his record."
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 28, 2026 07:15 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).