Top 10 Worst Mistakes Made by Presidents

Donald Trump & Joe Biden


Trump's 2020 deal with the Taliban, which promised a full U.S. withdrawal, was an abject failure in diplomacy. Not only did Trump initially invite the Taliban to Camp David on 9/11, but the deal itself was a mess. It set a hard deadline for U.S. withdrawal without securing long-term peace, effectively sidelining the Afghan government and weakening its position. Trump also agreed to release thousands of imprisoned Taliban fighters, setting the stage for chaos. Biden's administration compounded these issues by mismanaging the 2021 withdrawal. Intelligence failures underestimated the Taliban’s rapid resurgence. The withdrawal quickly evolved into an evacuation. The Afghan government collapsed, causing a humanitarian crisis that left Americans, allies, and Afghan civilians in peril amidst the Taliban's swift takeover.

James Madison
James Madison’s decision to declare war on Britain was an utter disaster. He was driven by a desire to defend American maritime rights and his greedy ambition to annex Canada. Madison grossly overestimated the capabilities of America's military while underestimating British strength. America was not prepared for war thanks to poor infrastructure in the West and internal divisions between Federalists and Republicans. The U.S. invasion of Canada swiftly failed. British forces eventually marched on Washington, D.C., setting it ablaze in 1814. The war disrupted trade, hurt the economy, and created political turmoil. Though the Treaty of Ghent ended the conflict in 1815, it resolved none of Madison's grievances. As a result, the War of 1812 was both a failure and utterly pointless.

Franklin Pierce


America’s early history is forever tarnished by the moral stain of slavery. It is marked by one ridiculous compromise after another. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 maintained a balance between free and slave states. The Compromise of 1850 temporarily quelled tensions by admitting California as a free state and strengthening the Fugitive Slave Act. It was Franklin Pierce’s support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, however, that highlighted the futility of compromise. Pierce and Congress reignited conflict by allowing these territories to choose whether to allow slavery via popular sovereignty. This decision dismantled the Missouri Compromise and sparked "Bleeding Kansas" - a series of skirmishes instigated by pro-slavery guerillas from Missouri.

William McKinley


Fresh off a victory in the Spanish-American War, President William McKinley was looking to extend America's sphere of influence into the South Pacific. In 1898, he decided to annex the Philippines, believing it was America's duty to "civilize" and Christianize the islands. He also pitched the invasion as a means of expanding America's strategic military and economic interests in Asia. Unfortunately, the resultant Philippine-American War turned out to be a bloody, miserable quagmire. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties, the overwhelming majority of which were Filipino civilians. The fierce Filipino insurgency quickly eroded American support for the war. Worse, it created long-term resentment towards America in the Philippines that still reverberates today.

Calvin Coolidge & Herbert Hoover


In the 1920s, President Calvin Coolidge leaned into a laissez-faire philosophy, eschewing government intervention and espousing deregulation. He failed to support the agricultural sector, leading to widespread rural bank failures and farm foreclosures. His tax cuts worsened wealth inequality, and easy credit left many Americans in deep debt, laying the groundwork for the Great Depression. Enter Herbert Hoover, who clung to the belief that market forces alone could correct the crisis. Refusing to provide direct relief or intervene aggressively, Hoover underestimated the scale of the collapse. The Depression quickly worsened as unemployment soared and banks failed. Hoover's inaction deepened the economic catastrophe, amounting to widespread suffering. Despite having won in a landslide in 1928, he was swiftly kicked to the curb four years later.

Ulysses S. Grant & Rutherford B. Hayes


The 1876 presidential election was one of the worst political disasters in American history, leading to more than a century of discrimination and violence. Much of it lies at the feet of President Ulysses Grant. He failed to effectively use American troops to protect Black voters from violent white supremacist groups like the KKK. These groups used murder and violence as tools of stochastic white nationalist terror, severely corrupting the election process. Amid this chaos, Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, but contested results in several states led to an electoral dispute. Ultimately, Rutherford B. Hayes struck a corrupt bargain to secure the presidency. He agreed to completely withdraw federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction and abandoning Black people in the South for generations.

Donald Trump


The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc all over the planet, resulting in massive death tolls and widespread, long-term economic devastation. In America, President Donald Trump's willful mismanagement made it worse than it needed to be. He began with consistent and repeated misinformation about the virus’s severity. He spent weeks throwing up roadblocks to testing, wanting to downplay official numbers while the virus spread. He dismissed expert recommendations like mask-wearing and social distancing, and promoted unproven treatments like ivermectin. He even suggested ingesting bleach. Trump refused to implement a coordinated federal response and slowed aid to democratic-leaning states, leading to overwhelmed hospitals, economic collapse, and widespread job losses. Over 1 million Americans died. The Lancet has since estimated that 40% of U.S. COVID deaths were preventable.

Lyndon B. Johnson


In July 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson made the critical decision to double U.S. troops in Vietnam, making it a full-fledged American war. While he expressed grave doubts in private, he championed the war in public. Johnson believed that withdrawal would signal weakness to the world, damaging U.S. credibility. He rejected full mobilization, providing troops incrementally to protect his domestic agenda. His choice failed at controlling events on the ground. The war would prove to be a costly mistake, with more than 58,000 American soldiers, sailors, and airmen killed or missing. Americans' trust in their government was irrevocably damaged. Vietnam suffered tremendous casualties and destruction. It would take an entire generation for the nation to recover.

Richard Nixon & Gerald Ford
The decision to break into the DNC offices at Watergate was, in retrospect, utterly insane and completely unnecessary. Richard Nixon was a relatively popular incumbent who would go on to win reelection in an overwhelming landslide. Nixon surrounded himself with sycophants who followed his paranoid lead born of Nixon's deep-seated insecurities. He saw enemies everywhere, even when he had all the power. The subsequent scandal exposed a culture of corruption that annihilated his legacy. Gerald Ford's controversial choice to pardon Nixon proved to be an equally disastrous mistake. It solidified a dangerous precedent: a tacit acceptance of misconduct in the White House. A generation later, this precedent helped Donald Trump avoid accountability for his alleged crimes committed while president.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few dishonorable mentions.


Alien & Sedition Acts (1798), John Adams
Adams Attacked His Critics with a Pair of Dangerous, Undemocratic, & Unpopular Laws

The Iran-Contra Affair (1985-87), Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan Illegally Sold Arms to Iran to Fund Right-Wing Nationalist Nicaraguan Rebels


Clinton–Lewinsky Scandal (1998), Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton Was Impeached for Lying Under Oath About an Affair with a White House Intern


The Bay of Pigs (1961), John F. Kennedy
Kennedy Greenlit a Failed CIA-Funded Invasion of Cuba by Cuban Expat Rebels


Internment of Japanese Americans (1943-46), Franklin Roosevelt
FDR Gave in to Racist Fears by Interning Innocent Japanese-American Families During WWII.

George W. Bush


George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 is arguably the worst decision ever made by an American president. Two decades later, his own party has overwhelmingly rejected the choice as foolish in retrospect. Driven by a mix of neoconservative ideology and personal motivations, Bush plunged head-first into a decade-long quagmire. Bush was convinced by his warmongering advisors that America would be greeted as liberators. They also believed the war would trigger a wave of democratic revolutions across the Middle East. They toppled the government quickly, leading to Bush's infamous 'mission accomplished' speech. That's when the disaster began, with years of bloody insurgency. The war cost more than $1 trillion, claiming thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives.


American presidents are just people, which means history is replete with blunders, goofs, and stupid choices. Let us know which presidential mistake shocked you the most in the comments below!