Trump talking poorly of different presidents is unusual, however not extraordinary, in American presidential historical past

Former presidents don’t criticize their successors in public.

Or do they?

Former Presidents Invoice Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have all criticized President Donald Trump in current months.

In April 2025, Obama, for instance, spoke concerning the significance of preserving the worldwide order, which means the system of guidelines, norms and establishments which have been lively since World Conflict II. He mentioned: “And this is a crucial second, as a result of within the final two months, we’ve got seen a U.S. authorities actively attempt to destroy that order and discredit it. And the considering, I collect, is that someway, since we’re the strongest, we’re going to be higher off if we are able to simply bully individuals into doing no matter we would like.”

Biden additionally provided his personal unfavorable feedback on April 15: “In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has performed a lot harm,” he mentioned in his first public remarks since leaving workplace.

Some commentators have known as these former presidents’ remarks “unprecedented.”

Many People are accustomed to former presidents not talking about – not to mention criticizing – the present president.

As a scholar of the presidency, I do know that the majority presidents keep quiet about their successors, no matter what the present president does or says. They do that to keep away from undermining each their very own reputations in addition to the soundness of the presidency itself.

However I’m additionally struck by the truth that this custom just isn’t as entrenched as former presidents would possibly declare or as many People consider.

Presidents who bucked the norm

President George Washington established the precedent that presidents retire after two phrases and avoid public assertion. John Quincy Adams, the sixth U.S. president, established a special mannequin.

After Adams misplaced his bid for reelection in 1828 to Andrew Jackson, he served within the Home of Representatives from 1831 via 1848. Congress is an uncommon perch for a former president, however it’s a spot the place criticizing sitting presidents and their insurance policies is a part of the job. Adams had loads of criticism there for his successors, together with Jackson and James Ok. Polk.

Practically half a century later, President Teddy Roosevelt was dissatisfied that his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, didn’t dwell as much as Roosevelt’s imaginative and prescient of reform. Roosevelt went from criticizing Taft privately in political circles to campaigning in opposition to him publicly in 1912, aiming to win a nonconsecutive second time period. Democrat Woodrow Wilson ultimately received that election, beating out Taft and Roosevelt.

Richard Nixon, who, in 1974, grew to become the one president to resign from workplace, wrote a sequence of books within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties that sought to redeem his personal sullied picture by casting himself as a visionary statesman. Nixon’s books additionally included loads of unsolicited recommendation – and implicit criticism – for Democratic and Republican presidents alike.

Earlier than turning into the beloved elder statesman of the previous presidents membership in 1980, Jimmy Carter earned the ire of his successors for his outspokenness. He mentioned that President Ronald Reagan’s administration was an “aberration on the political scene” and mentioned that one in all Clinton’s political pardons was “disgraceful.”

Aside from Roosevelt, these former presidents who criticized their successors all felt they’d one thing to show. Anxious to redeem their legacies, they didn’t retire quietly.

A wholesome foray into retirement

So why don’t everyone knows these tales, and as a substitute consider that previous presidents merely maintain their mouths shut?

People have lengthy handled presidential retirement as an emblem of a wholesome democracy. And that story of retirement emphasizes how former presidents usually depart politics behind them.

The trajectory of presidents discovering peace and contentment in retirement, surrounded by family and friends, is an interesting approach for presidential biographers to finish a narrative. These tales have included narratives about Harry Truman taking a cross-country street journey solely months after leaving the White Home in 1953, and George W. Bush taking on portray.

In actuality, former presidents have led advanced lives of happiness and loss, withdrawal and engagement. The power and ambition that introduced them to the White Home usually make retirement tough. And, over the lengthy historical past of the presidency, former presidents have grow to be more and more public figures.

A shifting function

One other necessary issue within the rising prominence of former presidents is how their roles have lately modified.

Starting within the Nineties, former presidents and first girls tried to publicly present friendship and settlement with their counterparts.

George H.W. Bush and Clinton, for instance, teamed as much as increase cash for catastrophe reduction after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in South and Southeast Asia. In 2017, Bush’s son George W. Bush, himself a former president by that point, known as Clinton his “brother with a special mom.”

Former first girl Michelle Obama and Barack Obama have publicly thanked George W. Bush and Laura Bush for serving to their household regulate to life within the White Home. Michelle Obama has additionally grow to be identified for her private friendship with George W. Bush.

And as medical advances enabled former presidents to dwell longer than ever, the relationships inside a rising former presidents membership grew to become the topic of books, motion pictures and tv segments.

All of those tales had the identical message – that each one presidents are dedicated to their nation. Likewise, the amiable relationship between former and sitting presidents exhibits that if social gathering leaders may overcome partisanship within the title of unity and friendship, so too may different People.

In a exceptional second, for instance, three presidents from two totally different events – Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama – got here collectively for a video earlier than Biden’s 2021 inauguration to name for unity in a second of disaster.

Following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault, they used their connection as presidents to inform a nationwide story. As Bush mentioned, “Properly, I believe the truth that the three of us are standing right here speaking a few peaceable switch of energy speaks to the institutional integrity of our nation.”

“America’s a beneficiant nation, individuals of nice hearts. All three of us had been fortunate to be the president of this nation,” Bush continued.

The Republican former president seemed on the Democrats on both aspect of him and smiled.

A brand new type of presidential relations

Whereas friendships between presidents grew to become extra frequent within the Nineties and 2000s, Clinton and particularly Trump had been doing one thing totally different by the 2016 election.

In 2016, Clinton grew to become an lively partisan in assist of his spouse, Hillary Clinton, throughout her unsuccessful bid for president.

Each Clintons remained public critics of Trump lengthy after he assumed workplace in 2017.

For his half, Trump as a politician after which president instantly dismissed the notion of friendship together with his predecessors and former rivals. He was fast to condemn Hillary Clinton – and particularly Obama – within the early years of his first presidency.

No sooner did Trump lose the 2020 election than he was heaping public scorn on Biden with an power that solely elevated after Trump entered the 2024 race.

Trump’s criticism of Biden did not cease after his 2024 victory, with the White Home issuing statements like a pledge “to show again the financial plague unleashed by the Biden Administration.”

Trump has escalated assaults on different presidents. However he was not the primary to criticize his successors or predecessors.