A conservative columnist says President Donald Trump has reached a historic new low: worst president of all time.
“With his catastrophic mishandling of the coronavirus, Trump has established himself as the worst president in U.S. history,” wrote Max Boot of The Washington Post.
Boot, a persistent critic of the president, wrote Sunday that he tried to avoid giving Trump the title, saying history usually required some time to put things into perspective. Instead, he called Trump the worst “modern” president.
“That left open the possibility that James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren Harding or some other nonentity would be judged more harshly,” Boot wrote.
But his opinion changed over the past month.
Boot said Trump’s biggest rival for the title was Buchanan, who helped set the stage for the Civil War.
“But there is good reason to think that the Civil War would have broken out no matter what,” Boot wrote. “By contrast, there is nothing inevitable about the scale of the disaster we now confront.”
Trump was warned about the impending COVID-19 crisis, but he didn’t take action early by ordering the testing equipment and much-needed emergency supplies that cities and states are now struggling to obtain. Instead, Trump held rallies and played golf.
“In the days and weeks after [Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex] Azar alerted him about the virus, Trump spoke at eight rallies and golfed six times, as if he didn’t have a care in the world,” Boot wrote.
Boot also said voters would get to cast the ultimate judgment on Trump.
“But whatever happens in November, Trump cannot escape the pitiless judgment of history,” he wrote. “Somewhere, a relieved James Buchanan must be smiling.”
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