Reid, Presidential Historian Question U.S. Presidents Ranked in Top Ten Who Were ‘Racists,’ ‘Slaveholders’

EXCERPT:

BESCHLOSS: "I'd have some differences. It's hard to compare presidents across the generations, you know, they all had different problems, different times, they were living at times that certain ideas were more important than others. I mean, for instance, Theodore Roosevelt, I don't know whether when historians are going to wake up to the fact that the guy used terribly racist rhetoric, very white supremacist, the 1912 Theodore Roosevelt Progressive Party bull moose platform was for segregation of the races in America. So I'm not sure how long that's going to stick."
REID: "Right. I mean, Woodrow Wilson used to always get in the top 10, used to drive me nuts."
BESCHLOSS: "No longer."
REID: "I'm like, this guy was a horribly racist monster, but he would -- and he dropped out, right? So he's gone down. I'm interested in some of the movement. Andrew Jackson used to get ranked highly. He's gone, dropped out of the top 10, which I think is a good thing. He's now at 21. He's down 12 places since 2015. And as I mentioned, Woodrow Wilson, he's down five points since 2015."
BESCHLOSS: "Right."
REID: "Some of those are good. What do you think about the idea of Barack Obama being so high? Because I think he used to be 11 and now he's 7. He's moved up."
BESCHLOSS: "Well, I think he has moved up and I think he will move up further. And as far as Andrew Jackson is concerned, it shows that, you know, historians can do the right thing. It takes us a while. He was president in the early 19th century. But, you know, a liberal like Arthur Schlesinger, the historian, wrote a glowing book about Andrew Jackson. LBJ had Andrew Jackson's portrait in the Oval Office. But we now given what people are justifiably, more sensitive to, this was the guy who did to Native Americans who was responsible --"
REID: "Yes."
BESCHLOSS: "-- for the Trail of Tears and he was a slaveholder.”