Child

President, Thomas Jefferson said I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves. And if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

Rick Green

This is WallBuilders, the intersection of faith and culture. This is the place where we take on all the hot topics of the day, but we do that looking at them through a biblical lens. In other words, what's the Bible say about how to treat our neighbor? That's all. Politics is how do you treat your neighbor in all these different ways? What can we learn from history about how to treat your neighbor? What works, what doesn't work? And then, of course, how do we do that properly in our country, in a constitutional republic? How does our constitution work, how does our system work as a constitutional republic and how do we live that out as citizens? That's what we're all about here at WallBuilders. We appreciate you being a part of it by listening today. If you're curious about the name WallBuilders, it comes from the scripture in Nehemiah that says arise and rebuild the walls, that we may no longer be a reproach. If you think about it back then, the walls were the strength of the nation. If you let the walls fall down, if you had a weak system, then you were overrun, you couldn't survive. And it's the same way today in terms of the foundational principles. You let those fall apart, you get cracks in the foundation and ultimately it crumbles. That's what happened in America. We're rebuilding the walls, though, just like in the book of Nehemiah, because we're rebuilding the foundations. That's why David Barton started WallBuilders all those years ago and that's why you've seen some significant impact in the culture because of what the Bartons and WallBuilders has done. So I'm honored to be here with him. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, David and Tim. Of course, Tim's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, and then David is our founder. He's America's premier historian, and all three of us appreciate you being a part of the program today, and I hope you check out our website at wallbuilders.com. All right, David and Tim, time for questions from the audience and folks. If you haven't sent them in yet, be sure and send your. You can email your questions in. Just send them into radio at wallbuilders.com. Constitution questions, history questions might be about some of the things that are going on right now in Congress or your state legislature. Whatever you got, send them to us. We would love to hear from you. And Ernest gets the first question today. He said, according to silive.com I'm not sure what that is, guys, but silive.com they rate all the US presidents from best to worst and Ben Shapiro has a list of the five worst presidents. He says Carter number five, Obama number four, Buchanan number three, LBJ  number two and Woodrow Wilson number one. He said I was just wondering what would all of you rate the five best and five worst presidents? You know he didn't say which one Shapiro listed as the five best, he just said the ones that he listed as the five worst. So I'm curious there too. But all right, guys, this is fun time here. You get to pick, go for it, all right.

David Barton

Rick, you get to start it out. You don't ever get to do this. You're starting out, choose them by five and give a sentence or so why you think they're best or worse. 

Rick Green

Oh man, honestly, I've never made my top five worst, so top five best. I have thought about this one a lot and I know it's cliche, but I just always go to GW. Washington was the indispensable man, set the standard. We can go on and on. 

Tim Barton

You would be wrong to not have said that..

Rick Green

Okay good! Good? All right, I have a second. Is there a motion adoption? All right, I put Lincoln second because I just think it was the toughest presidency and, you know, frankly, did a phenomenal job. I think overall we could pick some things. But and then, third, Coolidge, just because he's the unsung hero, that actually was the last guy to be like David Barton in the White House. Here's the things you can do under the Constitution and nothing else. And then and then Trump man, I think Trump did more in this is his first term than even even my man, Ronald Reagan, and, as you guys know, I got a kid named Reagan and another one born on his birthday, and he used to have a dog named Dutch. So Reagan comes sliding in at number five. That's my top five best. How about you guys? How about five worst? I was going to steal the time while y'all were rattling off from top five best to think about my five worst. All right, let's have it, but we'll give you that Tim?

David Barton

Alright, we will give you that. Tim, what's your five? 

Tim Barton

I think I think it's hard to disagree with the five Rick has chosen. I think some of the other contenders would be someone like a Thomas Jefferson, who was an earlier version of a Calvin Coolidge. Becasue Jefferson definitely believed in the limitation of the federal government where, even where George Washington, john Adams did presidential prayer proclamations calling the nation to pray, and Thomas Jefferson said president shouldn't do that because the constitution doesn't tell them they should. Jefferson had done prayer proclamations as governor. He said governors have the right to do that but presidents don't, because the constitution says what presidents can do and it doesn't say you can do that. Therefore you can't do that. Well, that's like the early version of a Calvin Coolidge saying that we are going to limit the president to only explicitly what the constitution says it can do. So I think Jefferson is definitely underrated as president. I think also, maybe like a John Quincy Adams, is underrated as president. Certainly we talk about his role in Congress after being president and the incredible contributions he played there. I think he's another one that's probably underrated. There's some other people I think we could point to like a Dwight Eisenhower..

Rick Green

I was gonna throw Ike out there and just see what y'all thought. So I'm glad you mentioned it first.

Tim Barton

Yeah, well, and again, these are contenders because I think you know I think you Washington has to be at the top of the list. I think Lincoln Really needs to be in the top five. But then I think the other three are debatable and I think Eisenhower falls in that list Because of what he had done, obviously, in the military World War II leading up to his presidency. But then he's the one that works to desegregate the military. He's the one that works to desegregate schools. He's the one that helps bring America's attention back to God, gets under God, put in the Pledge of Allegiance, gets in God we trust as back on our currency, part of the national motto. He does so much to help Americans remember God. As he pointed out, what, what, what makes America different and why we could never be communists is because of our Understanding and acknowledgement of God. He said if we forget God we can become communists, which is kind of a scary foreshadow to where we are. So I would say those three guys would be alternatives, that I think any of those eight are very justifiable and arguing they have to be in the top five. I don't think you can fault anybody for those specific ones. Dad, is there anybody else that you would put on your list of top five.

Rick Green

I'm gonna predict David's. I'm just gonna predict David's top three favorites are Joe Biden, jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.

Tim Barton

I just know no, you left out Woodrow Wilson.

David Barton

That's a love hate relationship.

Rick Green

The say, is David's top favorites to leave office when they finally finished the, the happiest days that they were gone. Not that you were around for Woodrow Wilson, but you know that there was a joy in everyone's home when when Carter was finally leaving and when Obama was finally leaving, and there will be joy when a Biden is fine. Anyway, I'm sorry David, go ahead You're absolutely favorites.

David Barton

It's a love. Hey, I love these guys. I love to hate them. I love to talk about how bad they are. 

So. So for me, the good guys, it's gotta be George Washington. That's a North Star. I think Washington is the one against which you measure every other one. He is the North Star of all presidents. 

Tim Barton

Who's the big dipper?

David Barton

 Oh, who points the North Star? I'm gonna say Jefferson's a big dipper because he's my second choice, because after Washington left office, the nation almost split, almost divided. We tried to have, we had Secession trying up in the north. It was so divided. Jefferson came back in a very divided election and he brought unity back to the country. So I think, had Jefferson not brought us back, we could have ended really quick after Washington, because it went bad in a hurry. So Jefferson is number two on my list. Then, if you go, we have a bunch of bad presidents. After Jefferson, you got Jackson, you got Van Buren, you got Buchanan. Taylor wasn't good. So I think Lincoln is the third one because he swings his back after several bad presidents. After Lincoln you get a bunch of other bad presidents, and so you go through there and Coolidge swings his back, and Coolidge brings his back after several bad presidents, and then we get several more bad presidents and then Reagan swings his back, and so those are the guys I like, because they kept coming back to that George Washington kind of stuff. I think each of those guys did a, hey, let's go back to Washington's principles, and so those are the five I would choose. So when?

Tim Barton

I said do you have anybody different? And you said yes.

David Barton

I said for different reasons.

Tim Barton

You meant was no, I have the same people on the list 

David Barton

For different reasons.

But I have a different explanation of why I chose them and any disagreement? No, we all are unanimous on that. Alright, Rick, lead off with negatives.

Rick Green

We'll go worse now. But I'm kind of stuck on your comment. I think that it really helps put it in perspective One good president out of even four or five can do so much good in bringing us back, like you're saying I hadn't thought about that the multiple bad presidents in a row and how we often say, man, we couldn't handle another four years of yada, yada, yada, whatever it is. But you know, I've heard Bob McEwen say it and actually give some great Canadian examples and other examples in history of just man, the rise and fall of leadership and having good leadership and how quickly it can turn things around. Of course we're watching Argentina do that with Malay, but I really appreciate how you just described that.

David Barton

It's almost like a cycle and yeah, so here we are To really be accurate in that cycle, I have to throw Eisenhower in, because it's too far a span between Coolidge and Reagan, and so Eisenhower brings us back again. After FDR, makes us progressives and big government and everything, Eisenhower comes back. So I think I would have six presidents, but they're all kind of pointing back to the North Star.

Tim Barton

Well, I think you could make a seventh president, because I think Trump helped bring some of that back as well.

David Barton

That’s true

Tim Barton

And that's interesting as we're identifying some of these people. There are people that brought us back, which the only one you did not include bringing back would be John Quincy Adams. But John Quincy Adams was there after James Monroe and there's a United America, so he didn't bring America back per se, but he continued much, much more so than, arguably, Madison or Jefferson or Adams or really Monroe for sure. John Quincy Adams got back to the values, the example of a George Washington, and really I guess you could say he brought us back a little bit, because under  Monroe is where you begin to have things like the Missouri Compromise and Monroe thinks it's okay to have more slaves, say, to enter the Union, and John Quincy Adams was ardently anti-slavery. He said, no, that's not, that is not what the founding was about, right, that's not what our friends and our fathers fought for. Nonetheless, I think it's interesting that when we're identifying all of these individuals that we think are in the top presidents, all of them are people that work to bring America back more toward a centered core of the Judeo-Christian Biblical perspective and a constitutional limitation of jurisdictions. So let me comment on that comment on that comment.

David Barton

So let me comment on that comment on that comment

on that comment, I think John Quincy Adams is one of the absolute best presidents we ever had. But I didn't include him because he's one of the most ineffective presidents we've ever had because the Jackson faction made sure he didn't get anything done as president. So as president he couldn't get any of his agenda through. Jackson campaigned against him from the day he got elected. Democrats fought him every way. He had a very unsuccessful president, but what he promoted was exact. He was George Washington Jr. I mean he was there with Washington, essentially in many ways raised and mentored by Washington, part of his administration from the beginning. But he was a super ineffective president because Jackson and Jackson that's why one of the reasons he's number one on my list of bad presidents because he is the one who institutionalized the bad stuff about the presidency was Jackson. So I include John Quincy Adams, but I just think he was an ineffective president.

Tim Barton

Alright, rick, now the derail sorry.

Rick Green

Let's go with our bad list and, in fact, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and get the bad list. Ernest, you had such a good question. It may be the only one we get to today. We're having too much fun with this. We'll be back. Stay with us folks. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show

Tim Barton

Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to tell you about our new book, the American Story Building the Republic. We start with George Washington as president and we've already become a nation. So really now it's how do we function as a nation? And if we look back in American history, the stability, the prosperity, success we enjoyed as Americans is because of the foundation that our early presidents laid, because of the examples they set. How do we live in America under the Constitution? What is the role of federal government and really what part did each one of these early presidents play? We go to the first seven presidents and a lot of people probably know the names Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison. Very few people know about Monroe or John Quincy Adams or Andrew Jackson. Now, we might know some of their names, we really don't know their stories. We want you to relearn, rediscover American history and see how it applies to today. Go to WallBuilders.com and get your copy of the American Story Building the Republic.

Child

Thomas Jefferson said, the Constitution of most of our states and of the United States assert that all power is inherent in the people, that they may exercise it by themselves, that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed, that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property and freedom of press.

Rick Green

We're back here on WallBuilders taking your questions today on this foundations of freedom Thursday, and so far Ernest has the question that has dominated a half the program. We'll see if we get through it before the second half is gone. He's asked about our best and worst President list and guys were to the bad list, okay. So alright, David, you asked me for mine. First. I'm gonna say and I'm doing this based on, well, kind of like what you were just saying about Jackson, like which presidents had the worst Impact on the, on changing America into a really bad direction. So I hate to almost copy Shapiro's list that that earn his shared with us. But I would put Wilson as the worst because you get during his presidency, you know, the Fed, you get the 17th amendment and we change how we elect senators. It hurts federalism. You get the income tax 16th amendment, all that stuff. It was just a horrible time for where the country went and I don't even know if he campaigned for those things or not. I'm sure he did because he was such a progressive. But I would say Wilson is worst. I think LBJ's got to be in the top five worst, but man Carter and the Department of Education and the impact that ended up having on the country has to be up there somewhere. And then, of course, Obama just completely, radically transformed the nation. So many things there with from marriage that you name it. But, guys, I don't know how you don't put Biden as number one, worst of all of them. I mean it really has been the worst three years of a presidency, and maybe it's just because I'm living through it. I'm probably too biased because I'm living through it. But the influx of the illegal aliens that you know, inflation, I mean all of the things it's hard to it's. I can't decide which one's worse, but those are the names I would throw out it to be in the five.

Tim Barton

I think all of those again are so valid, just like we could add some names to the List of presidents, more than five that could be argued to be in the top five of best presidents. There's definitely other contenders for worse presidents.

Obviously, with FDR, what he did with the new deal and expanding the government,

Rick Green

 Oh that's so true, yeah, especially if we're talking about had a negative impact right term, right Expanding the role of government 

Tim Barton

You know, I think he has to be included somewhere and, and, fairness, I think we've had more bad presidents and good presidents, so that's it's a little harder probably.

And that's interesting narrow this down.

But you know, dad, I'm gonna go back to what you identified with Andrew Jackson. There's actually, for anybody interested, there's this really good book out that actually spends a section on Andrew Jackson really, it's like 

David Barton

tell me about that book. 

Tim Barton

Yeah, so it goes to the first seven presidents and Tells a lot of their story, their contributions, their struggles.

Rick Green

It almost sounds like the American story, like it's the story of America.

Tim Barton

 I mean really it's, it's, it's like building the Republic. So if someone was like hey, how can I find out more. If they were to go to a place like wallbuilders.com, maybe even Amazon, and you looked for the American story building the Republic by David and Tim Barton, you might find this. It might be available where books are sold. With that being said, you know, dad,

Rick Green

 I think this is the most fun. We've had on a show.

David Barton

This is not a shameless plug, because nobody was ashamed of the plug. I mean, we both. We all enjoyed this plug, so this is not shameless. This is we're doing good.

Tim Barton

Well, so and so actually we're talking about some of the best presidents and why we would suggest a guy like a Jefferson or John Quincy Adams, obviously, George Washington. We just spent a lot of time researching and writing on those guys. When you look at someone like a James Monroe and we can talk about what he did, or an Andrew Jackson and Andrew Jackson was someone that I knew much more about his story, honestly, from watching Davy Crockett the Disney show, right? Where they're fighting Red Stick and the Creek War, and that that's how I knew Andrew Jackson is. He was the hero of the war of 1812 and and I knew him from military perspective. I've certainly, in in studying history, learned a lot more about him. I've read stories and biographies and and articles about Andrew Jackson. I really didn't know him that well, dad, when you started doing a deep dive, as you did, by far the vast majority of the research and writing on this book, which partly I'm saying that in full disclosure, but also I would say that it was really your fault, because I was like, hey, I want to write this portion and then you'd come back and you're like I just started going and kept going. So here it is and I was like wait a second, I was supposed to write that part but, with that being said, as we, as we really did a lot of research and you were diving headlong into the stuff on Andrew Jackson, it's so interesting and really as, as we look at so many of these presidents, the things we thought we knew about them, just like when we talk about Jamestown or Plymouth today and the misconceptions people have, or maybe Christopher Columbus, the misconceptions people have, the founding fathers, the arguments that we hear they're all these racist, bigoted, slaveholders and we go well, there's way more to that story, right like that's. That's not really the whole story. It was so interesting to me I going through these presidents and realizing as much as we knew about them, we didn't know their whole story. And Andrew Jackson, to me, was the most surprising when he became president at. Everything we see in modern presidential politics goes back to Jackson. I mean, almost without exception and specifically, all of the negative things we see in modern politics go back and have their roots in Jackson, which is why you say you think he's probably the worst president American history because of what he introduced into American politics that so drastically, dramatically, changed the way American politics was done and the way Americans thought about elections and their leaders.

David Barton

Yeah, so clearly Jackson is my number one worst. He would not have been a year to ago, but after we got into the research and dug down and found what he actually did, it's oh my goodness. He laid the seeds of destruction of the Republic. He was a great general and he should have stayed a general, but when he got over and became president, man, he ran it like he was fighting war against an enemy and that's a bad way to do it. So he's my number one. My number two president is Buchanan, my bad president, because Buchanan absolutely did nothing. He had no backbone.

Tim Barton

Well, and I want to go back to Jackson just for a minute. I know we probably are only into this question on this program, but it's worth going back to Jackson because part of why Jackson was so bad, also Jackson is where the adage comes from that to the winner go the spoils. Jackson was the first president who said I don't care if someone is competent or not, I care if they're on my team or not. And so before Jackson, you had a different president. Come in with a different ideology. They didn't just go and wipe out everybody. There's a leader somewhere. They said are they competent? They get to their job or they love America? They leave the Constitution, then they can stay. Jackson said no, I don't care if you're good at your job, I want people on my team and he started picking people that were on his team that worked for his campaign, whether they were skilled or not, whether they were competent or not. He put them there. He began to work with newspapers to control all of the narrative. He made the postmaster general one of his cabinet positions, took somebody from his campaign, right one of the people that works to get him elected made them postmaster general, made that a cabinet level position and then gave them the authority to not deliver mail that they thought might be problematic. Censorship and this is the era of the abolition movement growing in America and Jackson is giving approval for people in the South to not deliver anti-slavery pieces of mail, to destroy those, tear those up, etc. So you have censorship, you have politic politicization

Rick Green

 Manipulation. Manipulation of the outcome, 

Tim Barton

I mean so much happening and when we look at what we're dealing with in modern culture, where I mean we've seen this, we've seen the government colluding with, with big tech, colluding with the social media outlets right, we have seen this. Jackson's the one that started all that 

David Barton

That's the reincarnation Jackson.

It's Jackson back in this age with different technology. That's it.

Tim Barton

So, and there's way more to that story too, again it there is so much more about Jackson in the book and there's good bad Nugget. There's definitely some good things about Jackson, but when it comes to him being a president that, as you mentioned, he ran it like he would have run a military campaign, trying to destroy and crush his enemies and that became a very damaging thing for America, contrary to what Washington said. Washington says you need to focus on principle more than your party Jackson was like. We're focusing on our team winning and we're throwing principle out the window, totally contrary to what it should have been. So a lot more reasons why we would argue Jackson, you would say for sure, was the worst. I would say if he's not the worst, he's probably second, but definitely he's in the conversation for the worst when you know what he did to fundamentally transform America in a negative way.

David Barton

So he's my number one. You can't ask my number two Because Buchanan did absolutely nothing. Buchanan could have prevented the Civil War and because he showed no spine, no leadership, we lose six hundred and twenty thousand lives now we wouldn't necessarily have ended the slavery debate. Maybe we wouldn't, maybe wouldn't, who knows, we don't know because Buchanan did nothing which allowed the Civil War to start. So no leadership. He's number two on my list. Number three on my list is Andrew Jackson Jr and that is Woodrow Wilson. I think Woodrow Wilson's Andrew Jackson, just like you had, we talked earlier about the cycle of good presidents coming back. It's like a cycle of bad presence. You go a few presidents, get a really, really bad one and then they stick there. They're staking the ground. So, Woodrow Wilson man, what he did was Andrew Jackson and in the early 1900s, and then I would say Obama is number four because he weaponized the swamp in a way that Andrew Jackson wish she could have. Andrew Jackson took the government and made it be colluded for his agenda. Really, Obama did that and that's where the swamp really grew. And I think Biden is number five. But I think what he is, I don't think Biden is that big of a problem, except he took the weaponized swamp that Obama gave him and took it to a new level, which has really hurt America, hurt our freedom. What was that movie out of the 70s? The radio, what was it called? The Thing from the Swamp, it's like radioactivity had an alligator and it was just monster. That's kind of what I see with Biden he's been radiated with all of Obama's stuff and he's just taken it a lot further. So I think those are the ones that have done the most fundamental damage to America for the long term, and the good presidents try to reverse some of that but it's really tough. But it is a conflict of good and evil in many ways, in my opinion, and I'm not saying that the people themselves are evil, but I'm saying they were used to do evil things contrary to the Constitution, contrary to right, contrary to basic morals, and it's hurt the people, it's hurt the nation as a result. And again, I thought this was going to be the short question of the day man, this is a whole problem, but it has been fun. It's been a fun discussion.

Rick Green

I've enjoyed it and I'm glad we did the worst. I don't think we've ever done that. We've been asked about our five favorites and who we thought was the five best, but I don't think we've ever done the five worst. So that was actually very educational. I didn't know a lot of that about Jackson. I certainly didn't. I think it helps people realize sometimes we get a really bad president like Biden. Everybody thinks this has never happened before and how do you ever come back from it? And so it's good to hear those stories from history and go listen nothing new under the sun. Solomon was right, and so you can turn this thing back around, reverse a lot of these things with a good, not just president, we need a lot more than that, but the point is good leadership, citizens getting informed, doing what biblical citizenship is all about doing what the Bible says in terms of how we treat our neighbors and participate in the process. So I really liked it, guys , thank you all for all of that input and earnest man, you might be the first one in a while that dominated the whole foundations of freedom program. Thanks for sending in your question, man and everybody else send them into radio@wallbuilders.com, and we might get to one a week. No, no, no, we'll normally get to three to four. Thanks for joining us. Don't miss Good News Friday tomorrow. We've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.