How historians view Trump ? and how Trump sees himself - CBS ...

Braver spoke with four of the historians on the panel, who all agree that history's judgement of President Trump is likely to focus on two major events: his response to the coronavirus pandemic (one he said was "going to disappear … one day, it's like a miracle it will disappear"), and his role in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol (at which he told the assembled crowd, "We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not gonna have a country anymore"). Jeffrey Engel said, "Trump, I think, helped most Americans recognize that China needed to be stood up to."And then there were Mr. Trump's three Supreme Court appointees, likely to tilt the Court to the right for decades.But when it comes to the full assessment of the Trump Presidency, historians point out that his accomplishments were often eclipsed by behavior never before seen in a U.S. president.He frequently commended himself ("I'm, like, a really smart guy"). Mr. Trump responding by saying there were "very fine people, on both sides."Julian Zelizer said, "It was a march fueled by this White rage and White backlash, and the president was unable to firmly just announce it."Still, many voters were willing to overlook Mr. Trump's provocative behavior. It's one person coming from China."In his talk with the historians, the former president acknowledged no mistakes – instead lauding his own handling of the crisis: "And so, we got to work and we did an incredible job," Mr. Trump said. That's when he started down the path that historians say ultimately led to the other defining moment of his presidency:  insurrection and assault on the U.S. Capitol, as his followers responded to his repeated false claims of fraud, believing what's come to be known as the "Big Lie." "That was a rigged election," Mr. Trump said last January, "but we're still fighting it."Engel said, "This was a president who did not like the results of an election, did not like the fact that he was being voted out, and decided that his personal interests were more important than the constitutional process."Hemmer said it was part of a pattern that began with lying about those inaugural crowds: "I think that when historians look back over the course of the Trump Presidency, they'll say that 'Little Lie' at the beginning was buy-in for the 'Big Lie' at the end, because that insurrection seemed to be the culmination of so many of the things that we saw as unique, bizarre, bad about his presidency."Mr. Trump told the assembled insurrectionists before their march on the Capitol, "We will never give up. He's not the first president with a troubled term in office, but still, asked Braver, "In the listing of American presidents, is Donald Trump going to be at the bottom, the middle, the top?""Yeah, many people believe he's closer certainly to Herbert Hoover or James Buchannan," said Zelizer, "presidents who left the country in a bad moment.