Trump posts his own presidential rankings on Truth Social, placing himself above Lincoln and Washington

President Trump shared a graphic ranking every U.S. president by tier on Truth Social, slotting himself into the top spot labeled "The Greatest", above Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson.

The post arrived Thursday as CNN aired a segment reporting that 53 percent of Republicans now say they admire Trump more than any other political leader, past or present. Only 18 percent of those surveyed chose Ronald Reagan, and just 8 percent picked Abraham Lincoln. Trump appeared to treat the CNN segment as a prompt, posting the graphic with himself perched in a tier all his own.

Below Trump's solo tier, the graphic placed Lincoln, Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Andrew Jackson in a second grouping labeled "Great." Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, John Adams, and James K. Polk landed in "Near Great." Bill Clinton drew an "Average" designation.

The bottom of the chart was less diplomatic. Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Ulysses S. Grant, and Warren G. Harding were all filed under "Failures."

A 1948 ranking with a 2026 addition

Sharp-eyed observers noticed something familiar about the graphic's structure. X user Tyler Boliver pointed out that Trump's chart closely resembles a presidential ranking published in Life Magazine on November 1, 1948, compiled by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and based on the assessments of 55 historians, journalists, and political scientists.

Boliver posted his finding on X:

"Either Trump or his intern copied Arthur M Schlesinger Sr's 1948 Life Magazine Presidential Ratings article from November 1st 1948. Based on 55 historians, journalists, and political scientist averages. So you're looking at mid century modern liberalism ranking. Plus Carter,..."

The resemblance would explain a notable gap. The graphic omits every president from the second half of the twentieth century, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes, none of whom held office before the 1948 survey was conducted. The chart appears to be that vintage list, updated with a handful of modern names and one very conspicuous addition at the top.

Whether Trump created the graphic himself, borrowed it from a staffer, or simply shared something he found online remains unclear. His Truth Social post did not credit the 1948 source. Boliver's claim has not been independently corroborated beyond his side-by-side comparison, but the structural overlap is hard to miss.

Republican admiration runs high, but broader approval does not

The CNN poll numbers that apparently inspired the post tell a straightforward story within the Republican base: a majority of the party's voters now place Trump ahead of Reagan, the figure who defined modern conservatism for a generation. That is a remarkable shift in a party that spent decades treating Reagan's legacy as its north star. It also tracks with the broader realignment inside both parties, where old loyalties are giving way to new ones.

But the wider electorate tells a different story. A recent YouGov survey found that only 33 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of Trump's job performance, while 62 percent disapprove, a net approval rating of negative 29. At the same point in his first term, Trump's net approval sat at negative 10. Biden's stood at negative 17 at the equivalent moment in his presidency.

YouGov's data also showed Trump's approval hitting a record low in August. The gap between how the Republican base views Trump and how the country at large rates his performance has rarely been wider.

Biden and Obama land in the basement

The placement of Biden and Obama in the "Failures" tier is vintage Trump, direct, personal, and designed to provoke. Biden left office with approval numbers that cratered under the weight of inflation, border chaos, and questions about his fitness. Obama remains a hero to the Democratic base but a figure many conservatives hold responsible for a decade of institutional drift to the left. Grouping both alongside Harding, whose administration was synonymous with scandal, and Grant, whose presidency was plagued by corruption despite his battlefield heroism, sends an unmistakable message about how Trump views the modern Democratic legacy.

Carter's inclusion in the "Failures" tier will surprise few on the right. His single term became shorthand for economic malaise, energy crises, and a foreign policy that projected weakness, a record Democrats themselves largely moved past when they elevated Clinton and then Obama. Trump has never been shy about drawing that comparison, and his broader political argument has long been that Democratic presidents produce failure while the media covers for them.

That argument gains traction at a moment when Democrats continue to struggle with how to respond to Trump's provocations. Some, like California Governor Gavin Newsom, have called for invoking the 25th Amendment against Trump, a move conservatives quickly noted was never seriously pursued during Biden's visible decline.

Reagan's absence from the top tier says something

One detail worth noting: Reagan does not appear anywhere on Trump's graphic. If the chart is indeed a modified version of the 1948 Schlesinger ranking, Reagan's omission is explained by chronology, he had not yet held office. But Trump made no effort to add Reagan to the updated version, even as he added Biden, Obama, Carter, and himself. For a party that once measured every candidate against the Gipper, the silence is pointed.

Trump has been reshaping the Republican Party in his own image for nearly a decade now. The CNN poll confirms what rally crowds and primary results already demonstrated: for a majority of the GOP base, the Reagan era is history. Trump is the standard. Whether that standard extends beyond the base is the question the YouGov numbers raise, and one the president's graphic does not attempt to answer.

The broader political landscape continues to reflect the intensity of the partisan divide Trump both feeds and thrives on. His administration has moved aggressively on voting rules, with Trump leaving the door open to a national emergency declaration on voting integrity. He has also cleared out the Election Assistance Commission, citing a Supreme Court ruling on presidential firing authority. Each move draws fierce opposition from Democrats and cheers from the base, the same dynamic that makes a self-congratulatory presidential ranking graphic land as red meat rather than self-parody.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have pursued their own offensive, pushing to impeach an Obama-appointed federal judge in Atlanta over misconduct allegations, another front in the long-running institutional conflict between the two parties.

The poll numbers and the post tell two different stories

Trump's graphic is part boast, part troll, and part political statement. Placing himself above Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson is not a claim most historians would endorse, and Trump almost certainly knows that. The point is not scholarly accuracy. The point is dominance, over the news cycle, over the Republican brand, and over the Democratic predecessors he filed under "Failures."

The CNN poll gives the post its factual spine. A majority of Republicans do, in fact, admire Trump above all others. That is not spin. It is survey data. And it reflects a political reality that Trump's critics have spent years failing to reverse.

But the YouGov numbers sit right alongside it, and they are harder to dismiss. A net approval of negative 29 is not the mark of a president the country at large considers "The Greatest." It is the mark of a president whose base is locked in and whose opposition is locked in harder. The gap between those two realities, beloved inside the party, deeply unpopular outside it, is the defining tension of Trump's second term.

A president confident enough to rank himself above Lincoln and Washington does not lack for self-belief. Whether the country agrees is a question no social media graphic can settle.