These American Presidents were disastrous. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the U.S. Presidents who have been condemned by history and scholars for their lackluster leadership.
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00:00 President Trump ranked among the worst in history.
00:04 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the US presidents who have
00:09 been condemned by history and scholars for their lackluster leadership.
00:13 That he was one of America's worst presidents ever.
00:16 Number 10. George W. Bush. If PEPFAR, the program to combat HIV/AIDS,
00:24 were the main component of George W. Bush's legacy, he would be beloved by historians.
00:29 "What an extraordinary legacy. We talk about the 25 million lives that have been saved."
00:36 The program has saved millions of lives and curbed the spread of HIV in the developing world.
00:41 Unfortunately, his eight years in office left the United States with a heap of dark consequences.
00:47 He allowed a 90s-era assault weapons ban to lapse, resulting in a 20-year spike in mass shootings.
00:54 His administration also defended torture and violated civil liberties with the bipartisan
00:59 Patriot Act. His presidency also ended with the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
01:05 "The USA Patriot Act allows for searches of medical and financial records,
01:09 computer and telephone conversations, and even for the books you take out of the library."
01:14 Ultimately, however, Bush will be remembered for war. He launched both the calamitous war in Iraq
01:20 and the nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan.
01:23 "I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office
01:28 and foreign policy matters with war on my mind."
01:30 9. Zachary Taylor
01:33 "In 1849, there arose to the high office a 64-year-old fighting man
01:39 who was so politically inexperienced he had never even voted."
01:43 Zachary Taylor followed a common pattern for presidents in the 1800s.
01:47 His reputation as a war hero got him elected. Once in office, though, he had no idea what he
01:53 was doing. Taylor had one of the shortest presidencies in American history, dying after
01:58 just one year and four months into his term. "He may have actually recovered from it,
02:02 but the medical theories and practices of the day pretty much assured his death."
02:08 Still, his time in office was forgettable at best. His country boy demeanor wasn't an
02:13 affectation. He was a fairly simple man, unsuited for the complex rough-and-tumble of politics.
02:19 Taylor was a slave owner, but vehemently opposed its expansion beyond the southern slave states.
02:25 He resisted the Compromise of 1850, exacerbating tensions between North and South.
02:31 "Conspiracy theories arose suggesting he was actually poisoned,
02:35 making him our first assassinated president."
02:38 8. Herbert Hoover
02:40 "In the annals of American presidential history, President Herbert Hoover hasn't been much loved."
02:45 Herbert Hoover, fairly or unfairly, will always be remembered for his poor response to the Great
02:50 Depression. He focused on trade, passing the second-harshest tariffs in American history.
02:56 This, in turn, forced countries like Canada to retaliate with tariffs of their own.
03:00 The trade war did nothing to alleviate the suffering of average Americans. Neither did
03:05 his tax cuts. The technocratic style of the former Commerce Secretary did nothing to inspire hope in
03:11 the American people. Hoover was a notoriously bad communicator. "When he became president,
03:17 and the depression then happens almost immediately on his watch, the crash, and then
03:20 25% unemployment, and just, you know, this appalling circumstances."
03:25 An adamant conservative, Hoover refused to lean too heavily, if at all, on social welfare. His
03:32 politics made him seem cruel to the American people, who happily ousted him for Franklin Roosevelt.
03:37 "Franklin Roosevelt was a genius of a politician, and he blamed
03:41 the entire depression on Herbert Hoover."
03:45 Number 7. John Tyler
03:47 John Tyler took office when William Henry Harrison died only a month into his term.
03:52 John Tyler was nicknamed "His Accidency" because he was the first vice president to be elevated to
03:57 the office of president. He was the first-ever vice president to be elevated to commander-in-chief.
04:02 Despite being elected as a Whig, he utterly rejected his party's platform. The Whigs despised
04:08 Tyler, calling him "His Accidency." The entirety of Harrison's cabinet resigned in protest of
04:14 Tyler's politics. As a landowning aristocrat from Virginia, Tyler was a state's rights champion
04:19 and rabid supporter of slavery. When he rejected the Whig plan for a central bank, they ejected
04:25 him from the party. When he vetoed a Whig tariff, they tried but failed to impeach him.
04:31 "No such thing. I had my own agenda, and nothing was gonna stop me. Even my own party."
04:37 After his presidency, Tyler became a Confederate representative.
04:40 Number 6. Millard Fillmore
04:43 "Where would you like to see Millard Fillmore ranked among presidents?"
04:46 "He's now seventh or eighth from the bottom,
04:48 and I hope my book puts him back where he belongs in the bottom five."
04:51 Millard Fillmore took office when Zachary Taylor died in office in 1850.
04:56 One of his first acts as president was to support the Compromise of 1850.
05:00 The Compromise was a package bill to foster a detente between slave and free states.
05:05 Unfortunately, that peace was brought by allowing the spread of slavery in new territories.
05:10 Worse, it included the Fugitive Slave Act, which forced the federal government and citizens of free
05:16 states to capture and return escaped slaves. "It punished people who harbored runaways,
05:22 members of the Underground Railroad, with both civil penalties and criminal penalties,
05:26 including up to six months imprisonment if they were caught and prosecuted successfully."
05:30 Fillmore believed that the Compromise would stave off conflict.
05:34 While it may have delayed the Civil War, it only exacerbated tensions.
05:38 He also completely sidestepped the moral question of allowing slavery to fester.
05:43 "During the Civil War, he basically supports the Confederacy by the end of the war."
05:48 Number 5. Warren G. Harding
05:50 And as president, he admitted to friends he really wasn't up to the job and didn't
05:56 understand foreign affairs. "Warren Harding is an odd entry on this list.
06:00 He died in office as one of the most popular presidents ever. His former attorney general
06:05 called him a modern Abraham Lincoln. But in the century since his presidency,
06:10 a great deal of information has come out about him and his administration. Harding was a lazy
06:16 president who spent much of his time golfing, gambling, and carousing. An infamous womanizer,
06:22 historians have recently discovered a cache of lurid love letters to his mistress.
06:27 "The letters were written between 1910 and 1920 and shipped to his mistress in Ohio via
06:33 railway mail service." Worst of all, his administration was
06:36 horrifically corrupt. In the Teapot Dome scandal, members of his administration took bribes from
06:42 oil companies in exchange for favorable leasing rights. "Congress ordered President Harding to
06:48 scrap the oil leases. The Supreme Court ruled the leases fraudulent and said Harding's transfer of
06:54 authority from the Navy to Interior was illegal." Harding died of a stroke halfway through his term.
07:00 Number 4. Franklin Pierce
07:03 "And his solution ultimately was what he called popular sovereignty. Let the people who live…"
07:10 President Franklin Pierce was a ferocious advocate of manifest destiny. Much of his presidency was
07:15 devoted to expanding the territory of the United States. He wanted to annex and invade Cuba,
07:21 but Congress wouldn't allow it. The Mexican war hero was yet another advocate of compromise in
07:27 the years leading up to the Civil War. He fervently supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
07:34 "President Pierce signed the bill into law amidst a storm of protests."
07:37 The law set up popular sovereignty in the newly minted territories of Kansas and Nebraska.
07:43 This allowed the citizens of the territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery.
07:48 Pro- and anti-slavery advocates flooded into the territory, leading to a murderous conflict.
07:55 Bloody Kansas. The disorganized violence was just a precursor to the Civil War.
07:59 "They made the test of their party to support this legislation. The Northern Democratic Party
08:05 was decimated by this. It was broken apart."
08:08 Number 3. Donald Trump. The 2024 presidential candidate led an administration marred by scandal,
08:15 allegations of corruption, and division. Trump was the first president in U.S. history to get
08:20 impeached twice, though he wasn't convicted. "President Trump has just been impeached on
08:25 both Article 1, abuse of power, and on Article 2, obstruction of Congress."
08:30 His controversial leadership boiled over in 2020. He contradicted his own experts during
08:36 the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading confusion and misinformation. He promoted unhelpful
08:41 medications and once intimated that COVID patients should ingest bleach.
08:46 "Can you clarify your comments about injections of disinfectant?"
08:50 "I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen."
08:56 Experts believe that his communications to the public exacerbated the pandemic and its death toll.
09:02 After the 2020 election, his presidency ended with a rally on the Ellipse where he spread
09:07 misinformation about the election. He encouraged his followers to march on the Capitol, where they
09:12 engaged in a violent insurrection. Today, he is under indictment in four jurisdictions for various
09:19 alleged crimes. "I can tell you now officially that former president Donald J. Trump has been
09:25 criminally indicted in the state of Georgia." 2. Andrew Johnson
09:30 "The House had no choice, it felt, and voted overwhelmingly to impeach Andrew Johnson."
09:37 Despite their wildly different politics, Abraham Lincoln chose the Southern Democrat as a running
09:42 mate to help unite the country. After Lincoln's death, Johnson fought against the Radical
09:47 Republicans at almost every turn after the war. While they were able to pass reconstruction
09:52 amendments to the Constitution, their egalitarian agenda was stymied by Johnson. As a result,
09:58 he became the first president in American history to be impeached.
10:02 On May 16, 1868, after two months of arguments and weeks of deliberation,
10:07 the Senate voted 35-19 to convict Johnson on the first charge.
10:12 Thanks to his efforts, Reconstruction's efforts to build a more equal South failed. He did nothing
10:18 to stop revanchist white Southerners from violence towards free black citizens, curtailing their
10:23 civil rights. Thanks to the Johnson administration, the South entered another century of oppression,
10:29 violence, and Jim Crow. "So basically, Johnson implements a plan of reconstruction which puts
10:35 control of the Southern states back into the hands of the white population."
10:39 Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few dishonorable mentions.
10:44 William Henry Harrison. A more than 8,000-word inaugural speech led to a fatal case of pneumonia
10:50 and the shortest presidency. "Harrison's time in office may have been a trifling 31 days,
10:55 but his road to the White House is legendary." Benjamin Harrison. His high tariffs and higher
11:01 spending led to the economic panic of 1893. "Unfortunately for Benji, all that mucking
11:06 around helped tank the economy." Chester A. Arthur. Arthur was never really elected president
11:12 and enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act. "And he didn't exercise the veto pen again. And May 6,
11:19 1882, the legislation becomes law." Calvin Coolidge. His tax cuts increased wealth inequality
11:25 and he refused to help struggling workers. "He favored small government and laissez-faire
11:30 economics, and he is known for cutting taxes and ending regulations across various industries."
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11:48 Number 1. James Buchanan. "But it's in the proverbial toilet where historians rank
11:56 our 15th president." James Buchanan bears the ignominious honor of being the president who
12:02 allowed America to devolve into civil war. A Northern Democrat, Buchanan believed slavery
12:08 was an unspeakable evil. Despite his personal beliefs, however, he refused to oppose the growth
12:14 of slavery in new territories. Even before he became president, he backed every compromise
12:19 that allowed slavery to flourish. During the Buchanan administration, the discontent over
12:24 slavery led to growing calls for Southern secession. "In 1861, when James Buchanan returned
12:30 to his quiet home of Wheatland, he reflected upon his stormy and turbulent administration."
12:37 Buchanan did nothing to stem the secessionist tide. When Lincoln was elected, the South made
12:42 their intentions crystal clear. Buchanan decided that the mess would be Lincoln's problem,
12:47 doing the bare minimum as a lame duck, even as the country descended into civil war.
12:53 "Well, what he gets right is... not much, to tell you the truth."
12:59 Politics is contentious nowadays, so we know many of you may have rankings of your own.
13:05 If you have different picks for America's worst presidents,
13:08 please let us know, respectfully, in the comments.
13:11 Well, you've seen Donald Trump's top 99 scandals.
13:25 [outro]