President Donald Trump’s remarks Wednesday to the Women’s Empowerment Panel showcased his freewheeling approach to history. | Getty Trump’s loose grip on history is biting him ‘It’s sort of frightening,’ one presidential historian says about the president’s shallow interest in his predecessors.

Riffing during a fundraising dinner before the National Republican Congressional Committee, President Donald Trump asked if anyone knew Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.

“Great president. Most people don't even know he was a Republican," Trump said earlier this month. "Does anyone know? Lot of people don't know that.”


The president’s statement was met with ridicule — and this wasn’t the first time. From implying famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass was still alive to praising both Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, two bitter rivals, within a week, presidential historians say Trump is showing he lacks a solid grasp on history.

Most recent presidents have entered the Oval Office with a fierce curiosity about their predecessors, but Trump acknowledged not reading any presidential biographies before he clinched the Republican nomination — and he hasn’t indicated he intends to read one soon.

Trump’s remarks Wednesday to the Women’s Empowerment Panel showcased his freewheeling approach to history. Although he was factually correct about the history of Abigail Adams, Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony, his delivery raised eyebrows. After describing Harriet Tubman as “very, very courageous, believe me,” he asked the audience a strange question about Anthony.

“Have you heard of Susan B. Anthony?” he asked.

Trump particularly stands out from former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, who all took an intense interest in history.

“They were all people who had read about the past, they were very invested in thinking of themselves in the trajectory of other presidents,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. “That’s not who [Trump] is. … He’s not someone who reads deeply, he’s not someone who even identifies, necessarily, with the long trajectory of presidents.”

Obama’s interest in history was reflected clearly in his speeches, especially his second inaugural address. That speech was full of allusions, including to the Revolutionary War, Lincoln, the Civil War and John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural. Obama also used that speech to reference Dr. Martin Luther King and the struggle for civil rights at Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall.

This stood in contrast to Trump’s “American carnage” inaugural address which did not touch on much history.

Although comedy about George W. Bush often centered on perceiving him as illiterate, Bush was a constant reader. A history major at Yale, Bush often cited history and met with historians to discuss his predecessors. In speeches, he expressed a belief that history would vindicate him, particularly as he faced low favorability ratings near the end of his presidency, as the nation tired of foreign entanglements.

Trump, on the other hand, has said he reads “passages” but didn’t “have the time” to read books when asked to identify the book he read most recently during the campaign.

“It’s sort of frightening,” Harold Holzer, a historian focused on Lincoln whom Clinton appointed to lead a commission celebrating Lincoln’s bicentennial, said about Trump. “We’ve just come through 20 years where presidents of both parties really expressed a very strong interest, not only in Lincoln in their own reading, but in perpetuating the idea of learning about and from Lincoln.”

A lack of detailed knowledge about history, however, does not mean Trump is cavalier about his new job. He described walking into the White House as president as a “surreal” experience and has said he was struck by the magnitude of the office at the start of his term.

And Trump’s allies — and critics — have not been shy about making historical comparisons about his presidency.

While Trump and chief strategist Steve Bannon see the president as a “man of the people” in the style of Andrew Jackson, Vice President Mike Pence has compared Trump to Ronald Reagan on a number of occasions. Trump critics compare him to Richard Nixon, often mentioning Trump’s adversarial relationship with the news media and the FBI investigation into collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 election.

Jackson remains the predecessor Trump has most embraced, and the president visited Jackson’s grave site to honor the 250th anniversary of his birth. Trump also hung a portrait of Jackson in the Oval office.

Since Jackson’s historical stock has fallen greatly in recent years, some saw this as an odd choice. Although he has been consistently ranked in the top 10 of presidents historically, more focus has been placed on his inhumane removal of Native Americans from the southeastern United States. State Democratic Parties are increasingly renaming “Jefferson-Jackson” dinners, distancing themselves from Jackson.

At the 250th birthday event, Trump criticized Jackson’s old rival Clay as part of the privileged elite that was terrified at Jackson’s election, a fair assessment. However, speaking in Kentucky later that week, Trump took a more favorable view of Clay, praising his trade policy. Historians say most presidents selectively choose bits and pieces of historical figure’s policies to centralize.

“It’s not overly surprising that he would say nice things about Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage and say nice things about Henry Clay in Louisville,” Daniel Feller, a professor at the University of Tennessee and an expert on Jackson, said. “In fact, you might say that it's par for the course.”

Lincoln himself is a prime example of a president admiring one aspect of a former president he largely disagreed with, Feller said.

As a Whig, Lincoln built his political career opposing Jackson. However, as president, Lincoln admired Jackson’s approach to the nullification crisis with South Carolina during his presidency and likened it to his own showdown with the Southern states during the start of secession. Lincoln even hung a painting of Jackson in his office.

“Jackson’s anti-nullification posture and his strength in the face of secession becomes a rallying point for a president who despised him for his whole political career,” Holzer said. “And if that’s not a moment when someone utilizes history in a very targeted and specific way, then nothing is. So if Lincoln can do it, I guess Donald Trump can do it.”

Since speeches and public comments are almost always prepared by the president’s aides, they are more likely than the president to be picking and choosing the historical references the president uses.

“By allowing themselves to be put in a place where it’s being used incorrectly or reflecting a lack of knowledge about someone like Frederick Douglass … it makes them look like they’re not as well prepared in engaging with the public as they should be,” Laura Belmonte, a professor of history at Oklahoma State University said.

At the Jackson event, Trump mistakenly said Jackson imposed tariffs on foreign countries to protect workers, which Feller said is “the exact opposite of correct.” However, Feller guessed that a member of Trump’s staff had spoken with him, as Trump had corrected himself by the time he got to Kentucky, identifying Clay as the protectionist. Despite that mistake, Feller said Trump’s overall statements on Jackson were “pretty good.”

Trump’s comments on Frederick Douglass, however, were widely criticized. Trump said Douglass, the famous abolitionist and former slave who died in 1895 “has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.”

Zelizer said the Trump administration’s exclusion of Jews from the Holocaust Remembrance statement and the comment on Douglass may have deeper implications, although it’s possible Trump simply didn’t know who Douglass was.

“There’s others who would read i t... into the underside of the Trump campaign and presidency, that this is him being flippant about a very important African-American as a way to dismiss who it is,” Zelizer said. “That it’s not simply ignorance, it's actually being dismissive and sending dog whistles, or whatever signal to others who feel that way.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has called criticism of the Holocaust statement “pathetic,” because, he said, the statement acknowledged all those affected by the Holocaust. As for Douglass, Spicer was more unclear, saying through Trump’s recognition, “the contributions of Douglass will become more and more.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Trump’s supporters were very forgiving of his gaffes during the campaign, and the start of Trump’s presidency suggests that’s not going to change.

Although some of his supporters probably wish Trump knew a little more about history, as long as he accomplishes what he sets out to do, they won’t mind, Lori Cox Han, a presidency scholar and professor of political science at Chapman University, said.

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“I think this is such an issue-intensive political environment right now, he can get almost everything wrong in terms of history or basic knowledge, but if he gets stuff done, the people who elected him won’t care,” she said.

Those who would be fazed by Trump’s gaffes with history, Feller said, likely would have been already turned off by many other aspects of Trump’s administration.

But Trump’s loose command of history may be detrimental to his decision-making as president, Holzer said.

“The presidents that I’ve spoken to about history and about the people who occupied the White House in the past had a real curiosity about the presidency and about presidents,” he said. “Anybody who faces a crisis should read about how other presidents face crises, because they do learn from each other.”

