WASHINGTON – It’s a club that Donald Trump was never really interested in joining, and certainly not anytime soon: the cadre of ex-commanders in chief who revere the presidency enough to put aside often bitter political differences and even join a cause common.
Former presidents’ club members pose together for photos. They smile and pat each other on the back, while circling historical events, or sitting gloomily side by side at VIP funerals. They take on special projects together. They rarely criticize each other and tend to offer even less harsh words about their successors in the White House.
Like so many other presidential traditions, however, this is one that Trump is likely to despise. Now that he’s stepped down, it’s hard to see him embracing the imposing and exclusive club of living ex-presidents.
“He kind of laughed at the very idea that he would be accepted into the presidents ‘club,” said Kate Andersen Brower, who interviewed Trump in 2019 for his book “Team of Five: The Presidents’ Club in the Age of Trump.” “He was like, ‘I don’t think I’ll be accepted.'”
It is also clear that the other members of the club do not want it very much – at least for now.
Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton recorded a three-minute video at Arlington National Cemetery after President Joe Biden took office this week, praising peaceful presidential succession as a core of American democracy. The segment did not include any mention of Trump’s name, but it has been a severe criticism of his behavior since his defeat in the November election.
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“I think the fact that the three of us are here, talking about a peaceful transfer of power, speaks about the institutional integrity of our country,” said Bush. Obama called the inaugurations “a reminder that we can have ferocious disagreements and still recognize each other’s common humanity and that, as Americans, we have more in common than what separates us.”
Trump spent months making baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him through fraud and eventually helped incite a deadly insurrection in the United States Capitol. He left the White House without attending the inauguration of Biden, the first president to skip the inauguration of his successor in 152 years.
Obama, Bush and Clinton recorded their video after accompanying Biden to deposit a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier after the inauguration. They also recorded a video asking Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. Only 96-year-old Jimmy Carter, who limited his public events because of the pandemic, and Trump, who had previously flown into Florida’s post-presidential life, were not there.
Jeffrey Engel, founding director of the Presidential History Center at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said Trump is not a good fit for the club of former presidents “because he is temperamentally different”.
“People within the club have historically been respected by subsequent presidents. Even Richard Nixon was respected by Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, and so on, for his foreign policy, ”said Engel. “I’m not sure if I see many people calling Trump for his strategic advice.”
Former presidents are occasionally called on to great tasks.
George HW Bush and Clinton teamed up in 2005 to launch a campaign asking Americans to help victims of the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia. When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush, the father of then-President George W. Bush, asked Clinton to step up aid efforts to raise funds for Katrina.
When Bush’s elder died in 2018, Clinton wrote, “His friendship was one of the greatest gifts of my life,” a great compliment, considering that this was the man he drove out of the White House after a hard-hitting 1992 campaign – making Bush the sole – president of the mandate of the last three decades, except Trump.
Obama invited Clinton and young President Bush to boost fundraising efforts for Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake. George W. Bush also became friends with former First Lady Michelle Obama, and the cameras caught him taking a look. cough drops for her while they sat together at Arizona Senator John McCain’s funeral.
Usually, presidents extend the same respect to their predecessors while they are still in office, regardless of the party. In 1971, three years before he resigned in disgrace, Richard Nixon went to Texas to participate in the dedication of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s presidential library. When Nixon’s library was completed in 1990, then President George HW Bush attended with former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.
Trump’s break with tradition began even before his presidency. After his electoral victory in November 2016, Obama received Trump at the White House promising “to do everything we can to help him succeed”. Trump replied, “I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future” – but it never happened.
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Instead, Trump falsely accused Obama of bugging him and spent four years attacking his predecessor’s track record.
Current presidents and former presidents sometimes hated each other, and criticizing their successors is not unheard of. Carter criticized the policies of the Republican governments that followed his, Obama scolded Trump while campaigning for Biden and also criticized George W. Bush’s policies – although Obama is generally careful not to name his predecessor. Theodore Roosevelt tried to remove his successor, fellow Republican William Howard Taft, by founding his own “Bull Moose” party and running for president against him.
Still, presidential reverence for former presidents dates back even further. The nation’s second president, John Adams, was concerned enough to tarnish the legacy of his predecessor, who kept the nominations for George Washington’s cabinet.
Trump may have time to build his relationship with his predecessors. He told Brower that “he could see himself becoming friends with Bill Clinton again”, noting that the two used to play golf together.
But the chances of becoming the traditional president in retirement that he never was during his term remain long.
“I think Trump went too far,” said Brower. “I don’t think these ex-presidents will be welcoming you at any time.”