history at rice university. richard norton smith, presidential biographer, and the chair of the calvin coolidge presidential foundation. watch washington journal life sunday, july 4. before the program, go to c-span.org/president survey 20 want to see the full results of the 2021 survey. >> we want to take time, however, to tell you about our survey. since the year 2000, every time there has been a change in administration we have asked historians and professional observers of the president to participate in a survey of presidential leadership. this morning, we are releasing the results of our fourth survey. here to tell us more is c-span's project coordinator, rachel katz. let's start with what exactly is this survey.

>> the historian's surveys started from a series we did in 1999 called the american president where we did an in-depth program for a year on each of the presidents and their lives and in ministration. it had a lot of great reviews. we wanted to have a capper to that program. there was a lot of interest. we decided to come up with this survey where we reached out to historians and professional observers of the presidency from around the country. and, we asked them to rate presidents on 10 different leadership characteristics. characteristics are public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with congress, vision and setting an agenda, pursued equal justice for all, and performance within the context of the time. then we have a ranking of all of

the presidents within each of those 10 characteristics, and also in overall ranking. i think it is important to note this is not a scientific survey. while the characteristics have remained the same over the years, the participants have changed. host: tell us about how often c-span conducts the survey. guest: we conduct the survey each time there has been a change in administration. our first one was in 2000, and we did one again in 2009, 2017, and this is our fourth survey. each time we have had increased participation from the historians, both in terms of sheer number and diverse viewpoints. she we had 142 different historians and observers of the presidency participate. host: what is the goal of the survey? why do we conducted? guest: we understand it takes time once a president has left office to get a full assessment of the presidency, but we do

conduct the survey soon after an administration so we have a benchmark, a window into what historians are thinking soon after an administration ends. as we continue to conduct the surveys we can see what change happens. we understand there is a high interest in presidential history. this is a way to start a conversation, get people talking about it, get them thinking about what makes for a good president, about those individual leadership characteristics, and think about the presidents you like, that you think did a good job and see how you would rank them in those specific characteristics. it is to start a conversation. host: where did the former president, donald trump, rank in this survey? guest: this is donald trump's first time in the survey and historians ranked him at number 41 overall. you can see where he ranks in all of the 10 different leadership characteristics here. his highest one is coming in public persuasion and economic management.

host: if that is the case for donald trump, what about other recent presidents? guest: the presidents that have made their debut soon after their administrations were president clinton, and in his first year he came in at number 21. he has moved up to number 19 here in the fourth survey. then george bush in 2009 he came in at number 36. he has moved up seven points, 10 number 29 this year. president obama has come into the top 10 for the first time, finding right at number 10. that is up two spots from his debut. nec donald trump, again, coming in at 41. host: this survey has a lot of content. if people want more, where can i go? guest: we have a website. it is

c-span.org/presidentssurvey2021. there they will be able to select each president. you can also look at each of the individual characteristics and see how the rankings came out with those. you will see a list of the 100 42 historians who participated. all of the resort -- all of the results are anonymous, we are sharing who participated. we have a gallery of insights. more graphics, similar to the two we just showed you. host: again, you can find it on the site, and rachel katz served as the project coordinator. thank you for your time. guest: thanks, pedro. we also have four of our survey advisors coming onto the journal sunday morning. they are going to be live for two hours sunday morning on the fourth of july. they are going to go more in depth into the survey and results, and taking fewer calls

relations with ukraine, the european union, and the u.s. commenting on his recent meeting with president biden. ♪