"Infuriating": Kayleigh McEnany fumes after historians rank Trump "dead last" in president survey

Former Trump press secretary erupted on Fox News over ex-boss' "highly questionable ranking"

By Gabriella Ferrigine

Staff Writer

Published February 20, 2024 12:03PM (EST)

Kayleigh McEnany, Former White House Press Secretary, visits "Hannity" with host Sean Hannity at Fox News Channel Studios on March 15, 2023 in New York City. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
Kayleigh McEnany, Former White House Press Secretary, visits "Hannity" with host Sean Hannity at Fox News Channel Studios on March 15, 2023 in New York City. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

Former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany condemned a new "Presidential Greatness" survey conducted by American presidency experts that ranked former President Donald Trump in last place. 

“A new ranking — and I’m going to add, in my view a highly questionable ranking — of presidents is turning heads after Biden came in higher than both Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan,” McEnany told Fox News viewers on Monday. 

“The survey was done by the Presidential Greatness Project, who claim to be the foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics. They may be the foremost example of the disconnect between ivory tower academia and real people,” McEnany said. “That aside, Abe Lincoln ranked first, okay, fair, then comes Obama at seventh and Biden came in fourteenth, actually beating Ronald Reagan who came in sixteenth, and Trump, dead last."

“This is infuriating in so many ways. 154 respondents, they are the ivory tower elites, who in no way represent the view of the American people,” McEnany added.

As noted by The Hill, the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey was conducted from November 15 to December 31 and also factored partisan and ideological discrepancies among respondents — who included current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association — into their results. The experts claimed that these differences did not “tend to make a major difference overall" in how presidents ranked.