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From policy blunders to personal gaffes, presidential embarrassments have shaped American history. Join us as we count down the most cringe-worthy presidential moments that left lasting impacts on legacies and the nation. From shoe-throwing incidents to major scandals, these moments reveal the human side of the highest office.
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00:00If the First Lady wasn't in great shape, she would have fallen, but she's in great shape.
00:05We're both in good shape. We both stood.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most questionable decisions
00:13and politically fraught moments that left permanent smears on the legacies of U.S. presidents.
00:19An unraveling of a presidency begins here?
00:21It begins right in this space.
00:25Number 30, George W. Bush, the shoe-throwing incident.
00:28On December 14, 2008, during a press conference in Baghdad, President Bush faced a moment that
00:45defined the tail end of his time as commander-in-chief. As he stood beside Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
00:51al-Maliki, journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi hurled his shoes, one after another, at the president,
00:57shouting in Arabic,
00:59this is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog.
01:02In Arab culture, throwing a shoe is an extreme insult, symbolizing contempt.
01:08Al-Zaidi was tackled, arrested, and later sentenced to prison, but the symbolism had already landed.
01:13For many across the Middle East, the act expressed rage at U.S. occupation.
01:18For Americans, it became an almost absurd metaphor for a presidency dodging backlash.
01:23It's one way to gain attention.
01:28It's like going to a political rally and having people yell at you.
01:33It's like driving down the street and have people not gesturing with all five fingers.
01:38Number 29, Gerald Ford, falling downstairs.
01:42In Salzburg on June 1st, 1975, rain slicked the steps of Air Force One, and President Gerald Ford
01:49slipped, skidding to his knees in front of cameras and foreign dignitaries.
01:54The Associated Press newsreel and wire photos captured not just a stumble, but a narrative seed,
02:00a physically awkward president at a delicate diplomatic moment.
02:03SNL's Chevy Chase built a recurring clumsy Ford persona, and subsequent missteps, real or exaggerated,
02:10were folded into that frame.
02:12I do have two major announcements to make.
02:16Whoop! Uh-oh!
02:17No problem, no problem.
02:19No problem.
02:20Okay.
02:21With hindsight, the Salzburg spill is minor next to policy choices,
02:25but as an embarrassing presidential moment, it's archetypal.
02:29A meme before memes existed.
02:31And now for my second announcement.
02:38Number 28, Barack Obama, the disastrous launch of healthcare.gov.
02:43We're going to turn now to the latest on Obamacare and the debacle.
02:46The White House promising the new federal health insurance website will be fully fixed,
02:50but it will take weeks.
02:52The problems, and there are dozens of them at healthcare.gov, are much worse than we've been told.
02:57October 1st, 2013 was meant to showcase a signature reform, the federal marketplace going live for 36 states.
03:05Instead, healthcare.gov buckled immediately.
03:08Error screens, frozen forms, and a first-day tally of just six successful enrollments,
03:13according to internal notes released by House Oversight.
03:16President Obama publicly acknowledged the failure and promised fixes,
03:20while traffic jammed a site that had been under-tested and poorly integrated.
03:24Of course, you've probably heard that healthcare.gov,
03:27the new website where people can apply for health insurance
03:30and browse and buy affordable plans in most states,
03:34hasn't worked as smoothly as it was supposed to work.
03:37And the number of people who visited the site has been overwhelming,
03:41which has aggravated some of these underlying problems.
03:44Investigators later detailed why it imploded,
03:47diffuse ownership at CMS, weak systems engineering,
03:50shifting requirements, and contractor mismanagement.
03:53The Government Accountability Office concluded that ineffective planning and oversight
03:58drove cost overruns and undercut launch readiness.
04:01By mid-2014, GAO and Congressional Testimony laid out a case study
04:06in how not to ship critical public software.
04:09Media sites across the board are calling last year's debut a roll-out disaster.
04:14Number 27, Jimmy Carter, a translation mishap in Poland.
04:18The first time I made a foreign trip as president, it was to Poland.
04:22And then I went to other places.
04:24But when I got off a plane in Poland, I had an interpreter there.
04:27And I didn't write my speech out ahead of time.
04:29It was just a greeting.
04:30In Warsaw, December 1977, President Jimmy Carter's warm greetings
04:35were interpreted into Polish by freelance translator Stephen Seymour
04:38as something else entirely.
04:41Lines that made it sound as if the president, quote,
04:43desired the polls and might never return to the United States.
04:47It was a very welcoming group and mostly heavily Catholic.
04:55And I got out and I told them that I understood that their heritage
04:58was one of commitment and love of freedom.
05:06Love of freedom.
05:07And the interpreter said that I knew about their commitment to free love.
05:11Polish listeners laughed and winced.
05:13The next day, Washington prepared an apology,
05:15and the episode instantly eclipsed the intended message of human rights and detente.
05:20President Carter replaced the interpreter and soldiered on with the trip.
05:24The gaffe didn't derail U.S.-Polish relations.
05:27But as presidential optics go, it offered a brutal lesson.
05:30In foreign capitals, a single botched sentence can swallow an entire agenda.
05:35Well, it didn't go well with the audience.
05:38And this is, you can look it up in the record, it's a true story.
05:44And all over the world, you know, I was accused of saying that Polish Catholic people
05:50were committed to free love.
05:52Number 26.
05:53James A. Garfield.
05:54Star Route Scandal.
05:55When James A. Garfield took office in 1881,
05:59a long-simmering graft scheme in the post office burst into view.
06:03Star routes, remote mail contracts, farmed out to private carriers,
06:08had been inflated and rigged for years by a ring,
06:11centered on second assistant Postmaster General Thomas J. Brady
06:14and political fixer Senator Stephen W. Dorsey.
06:18Despite the drama, convictions were scarce.
06:20Brady and Dorsey were ultimately acquitted,
06:22thanks in part to high-powered defense counsel.
06:25The scandal crystallized the case for civil service reform,
06:28helping propel the Pendleton Act through Congress in 1883
06:32and beginning the long retreat from patronage.
06:34As embarrassing presidential moments go,
06:37Star Route is institutional rather than personal,
06:39a presidency forced to grapple with rot in its own machinery.
06:43Number 25.
06:44William Henry Harrison.
06:46His death.
06:47William Henry Harrison may not be first to the hearts of his countrymen,
06:50but he's a favorite in presidential trivia contests.
06:54He was the only president whose wife, after the White House was born,
06:57never made it into the White House.
06:59Poor Mrs. Harrison was still packing back in Ohio when he died.
07:03In March of 1841, former Ohio Senator Harrison stepped into the presidency with much fanfare.
07:09A war hero campaign slogan and a grand inaugural address delivered outdoors.
07:15What followed was a whiplash reversal.
07:17Harrison gave the longest inaugural speech in U.S. history,
07:20in cold, damp weather, without a hat or overcoat.
07:23Within three weeks, his health spiraled.
07:25He developed a cold that turned into pneumonia,
07:28or possibly enteric fever, according to later analysis,
07:31and died on April 4th, barely a month after taking office.
07:35I think it's a good thing that they finally learned from Harrison's inaugural,
07:39that when it was freezing weather during Ronald Reagan's second inaugural,
07:43they finally moved it inside.
07:45So help me God.
07:46He became the first U.S. president to die in office,
07:50creating a constitutional crisis over succession.
07:53To this day, his 31-day tenure remains the shortest in U.S. presidential history.
07:58It's a great lesson in bringing an umbrella.
08:01An umbrella and wearing a hat.
08:03And not making a two-hour speech.
08:04In general, I think we could rally around the idea of not making a two-hour speech anywhere,
08:09under any circumstances.
08:11Number 24. Woodrow Wilson. Screening The Birth of a Nation at the White House.
08:25When Woodrow Wilson invited guests to the White House for a private screening of The Birth of a Nation in 1915,
08:31the act seemed benign.
08:33An early presidential embrace of film as cultural diplomacy.
08:36But the movie glorified the Ku Klux Klan and promoted racist narratives.
08:49President Wilson's decision to host it gave direct presidential imprimatur to a work now widely condemned for reinforcing white supremacist ideology.
08:58His broader racial segregation policies, such as the re-segregation of the federal workplace, added fuel to the controversy.
09:05While Wilson issued a press release denouncing D.W. Griffith's film and its content,
09:10he was reported to have enjoyed it, sending Griffith a congratulatory message on its success.
09:16Woodrow Wilson segregated the federal government and segregated the military,
09:21which had been integrated from Reconstruction up to the era of Woodrow Wilson.
09:26Number 23. Donald Trump. The U.N. Escalator Debacle.
09:30All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle.
09:37If the First Lady wasn't in great shape, she would have fallen.
09:39And then a teleprompter.
09:41At the U.N. General Assembly in September 2025,
09:45President Trump took to the dais after what should have been a routine arrival,
09:49and instead delivered one of the more surreal presidential visuals in recent history.
09:53As he ascended an escalator inside the U.N. headquarters,
09:57the escalator suddenly stopped, forcing them to walk the remainder aboard.
10:01Then, during his speech, Trump remarked on a malfunctioning teleprompter,
10:05whoever's operating this teleprompter is in big trouble.
10:08A subsequent investigation indicated that the escalator had stopped
10:12after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator.
10:18The White House then accused the U.N. of sabotage.
10:20The organization responded by explaining the escalator stop was likely triggered
10:24by a U.S. videographer walking backward, activating the safety mechanism,
10:29and that the teleprompter was run by the U.S. team.
10:32So, just another day in the Trump administration.
10:35President Trump, however, called it sabotage, saying in part,
10:38quote,
10:39It is amazing that Melania and I didn't fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps face first.
10:45He also cited a British newspaper report claiming U.N. staffers joked about turning off the escalators
10:51because the U.N. ran out of money due to Trump's funding cuts.
10:55Number 22, George H.W. Bush, vomiting on Keiichi Miyazawa.
11:00Four hours after his sudden collapse, President Bush looked reasonably fit and well.
11:06Guest of honor at another banquet hosted by Japan's Emperor Akihito.
11:11He was showing little outward sign of last night's sudden attack of flu.
11:14Diplomatic dinners are meant to project poise and stability.
11:18On January 8, 1992, President George H.W. Bush did the opposite.
11:23During a state banquet in Tokyo hosted by Prime Minister Keiichi Miyazawa,
11:28Bush suddenly turned pale, leaned forward, and vomited into his host's lap before collapsing.
11:33Cameras rolled as Secret Service agents rushed to his side,
11:37and within hours, the footage was circulating worldwide.
11:39Mr. President, what can you say to reassure people that you're all right, sir?
11:43I feel pretty good.
11:44I've come back strong and had a 24-hour flu.
11:49But I just think I had a fair state.
11:53Stuff this morning.
11:55Still mainly on flu.
11:56The president's sudden health scare was chalked up to acute gastroenteritis, not a serious condition, but the damage was already done.
12:03The incident developed a cult following in Japan, and the spectacle as a whole became an enduring pop culture shorthand for presidential embarrassment.
12:12President Bush flies home tomorrow straight onto the campaign trail, is tasked now to persuade the American public that his health should not become an issue in this election year.
12:22Number 21, Joe Biden, the first presidential debate.
12:26We make sure we had a situation where we now, we brought down the price of prescription drugs, which is a major issue for many people.
12:33It's still $15 for an insulin shot as opposed to $400.
12:38No senior has to pay more than $200 for any drug, all the drugs they can include beginning next year.
12:46The June 27, 2024 debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump was billed as a defining rematch until it became a meltdown.
12:55Biden appeared frail and uncertain from the outset, struggling with hoarseness, losing his train of thought, and at times freezing mid-sentence.
13:03What I'm going to do is fix the tax system. For example, we have 1,000 trillionaires in America, I mean billionaires in America, and what's happening?
13:11They're in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes.
13:16If they just paid 24 percent, 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they'd raise $500 million, billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period.
13:25Within hours, even friendly outlets called it painful and disorienting.
13:29Polls showed a sharp swing in confidence among Democrats, with internal donors and strategists quietly questioning whether Biden should remain the nominee.
13:37Child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system,
13:43making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID,
13:52excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare.
14:03After weeks of calls to step down, Biden did so, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place.
14:10Harris and her vice presidential pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, would ultimately lose the election to Trump and incumbent Ohio Senator J.D. Vance.
14:18In May 2003, six weeks after invading Iraq, President George W. Bush gave a speech in front of a Mission Accomplished banner,
14:30declaring the end of major combat operations in the country.
14:33Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.
14:37In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
14:42However, the conflict was far from over.
14:45In many ways, it had only just begun.
14:47The war went on for another eight years, with the majority of deaths occurring after this speech.
14:52When the criticism began pouring in, the Bush administration claimed the banner was requested by the Navy.
14:57They then stated that Mission Accomplished only referred to the initial invasion, not the war.
15:03This incident echoed earlier misinformation by the Bush administration regarding Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction,
15:10despite hardly any intelligence supporting such claims.
15:13What justifies everything is the removal of a threat.
15:17I mean, Saddam was saying weapons are no weapons, which would have been a threat had he remained in power.
15:22Number 19, George Washington, the Whiskey Rebellion.
15:25In 1791, just two years into his presidency, George Washington's administration enacted what became known as the Whiskey Tax.
15:33Not anticipating the hostilities to follow, Congress passed the Excise Whiskey Tax of 1791.
15:40Its ripple effects would be far-reaching and incite violent division.
15:44Proposed by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, its aim was to generate revenue to tackle the national debt encouraged during the Revolutionary War.
15:52This tax faced staunch opposition from small farmers, who deemed it unfair since they had to distill their grain into whiskey for easier transport and sale.
16:01The backlash quickly turned violent, with farmers refusing to pay and even attacking tax collectors.
16:07Pennsylvania farmers lashed out against collectors, tarring and feathering them in certain instances.
16:12In response, Washington personally led an army to quash the protests, but the rebels all fled, and no conflict ensued.
16:20While Washington managed to suppress resistance to federal laws, the tax failed to achieve its goal, and was repealed in 1802.
16:28Number 18, Grover Cleveland, Sex Scandal.
16:31During the presidential elections of 1884, Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland was seen as a formidable option, earning voter support for his anti-corruption stance.
16:42Grover Cleveland, known as Grover the Good to his supporters, easily won his party's nomination for president in July of 1884.
16:51However, in the lead-up to the election, allegations surfaced that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child with a widow named Maria Halpin.
16:59Halpin claimed that Cleveland sexually assaulted her, then had her committed to an insane asylum, and put their child up for adoption.
17:07When the scandal became public, Cleveland admitted to paying Halpin child support.
17:11This time, his staff didn't even bother to deny that he and Halpin had previously been what they described as...
17:19...illicitly acquainted.
17:21His opponents seized upon the controversy, creating the chant,
17:25Ma, ma, ma, where's my pa, which dogged Cleveland's campaign.
17:29Despite the shocking sex scandal, Cleveland's supporters remained loyal, helping him secure a narrow victory at the polls.
17:36Number 17, George H.W. Bush, No New Taxes.
17:41By now, voters have grown accustomed to politicians failing to fulfill their campaign promises.
17:46But when a candidate centers their campaign around a key issue, they should probably expect to be held accountable.
17:51My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort or a third resort.
17:57But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into.
18:02That was precisely the case with President George H.W. Bush.
18:06Throughout his 1988 campaign, Bush consistently pledged not to introduce any new taxes if elected.
18:13He emphasized this commitment at the Republican National Convention, stating...
18:16Well, guess what?
18:25There were, in fact, several new taxes.
18:28Bush's backtrack on this promise lost him the support of many within his party,
18:32and became a focal point of the 1992 election,
18:35where Bill Clinton successfully portrayed him as untrustworthy.
18:39This ultimately contributed to his re-election defeat.
18:42Number 16, Thomas Jefferson, The Embargo Act.
18:46During the Napoleonic Wars, America sought to remain neutral,
18:50resisting pressure from Britain and France to join the conflict.
18:54Another European war threatened to spill across the Atlantic,
18:57as France and Britain once again battled it out.
19:00When the British began forcing U.S. sailors to join their navy,
19:04President Thomas Jefferson decided to sign the Embargo Act of 1807,
19:08which halted all American exports abroad.
19:11Jefferson hoped this would pressure Britain and France to respect American neutrality.
19:16Instead, this strategy backfired, as the act negatively affected the U.S. economy,
19:21leading to widespread smuggling and protests, especially in the New England region.
19:26All the embargo manages to do is to cause an economic depression.
19:30This was particularly damaging for America, which was a relatively new nation at the time.
19:34Faced with growing opposition, Jefferson quietly repealed the act in the last days of his presidency.
19:40Number 15, Woodrow Wilson, The Espionage Act and Sedition Act.
19:46America's entry into World War I in April 1917, after nearly three years of neutrality,
19:52was met with significant domestic dissent.
19:54To suppress this opposition, President Woodrow Wilson signed two laws,
19:59The Espionage Act of 1917 and The Sedition Act of 1918.
20:03The most memorable provisions of the Espionage Act regulated anti-war speech
20:09and made it a federal offense to say or do or publish things that would interfere with the war effort.
20:16The Espionage Act originally aimed to crack down on actual espionage
20:20by penalizing interference in foreign policy and military operations.
20:25However, the Sedition Act greatly expanded its scope,
20:28prohibiting disloyal speech against the U.S. government,
20:32which seemed to violate the Constitution's free speech protections.
20:36These acts resulted in widespread prosecutions targeting socialists and pacifists,
20:41including notable figures like Eugene V. Debs.
20:43Eugene V. Debs was arrested.
20:46He was tried under the Espionage and Sedition Act.
20:49He was sentenced to ten years in prison.
20:53The Sedition Act was ultimately repealed in 1920,
20:56but the Espionage Act remains in effect today.
20:59Number 14. John Adams, The Alien and Sedition Acts.
21:04Woodrow Wilson wasn't the only president to suppress dissent against the government.
21:08Back in 1798, President John Adams enacted four laws called the Alien and Sedition Acts,
21:14amid concerns of an imminent war with France.
21:16The Alien Bill made it difficult for people to become U.S. citizens
21:20and allowed the president to throw any foreigners he wanted out of the country.
21:26The Sedition Bill went even further.
21:29It made it a crime for Americans to criticize their government.
21:33These acts targeted immigrants and political dissidents,
21:36who Adams feared would side with France in the event of war.
21:39Among the four laws, three were Alien Acts,
21:43which toughened the citizenship process for immigrants
21:45and allowed their deportation, if deemed dangerous.
21:48The fourth, a Sedition Act,
21:50punished anyone spreading false and malicious statements about the government.
21:54They were repressive acts.
21:57And Adams supported this legislation,
21:59which then just created this enormous debate within American society
22:02about what freedom of press, freedom of speech really meant.
22:06Naturally, these acts faced strong public opposition,
22:09sparking protests nationwide.
22:10This backlash provided leverage for Adams' opponent, Thomas Jefferson,
22:15who successfully capitalized on it and won the presidential election in 1800.
22:19Number 13, Andrew Johnson, Reconstruction and Impeachment.
22:24Abraham Lincoln's assassination left Andrew Johnson
22:27with the task of reintegrating former Confederate states
22:30and previously enslaved people into the United States.
22:33Johnson wanted the post-war South treated leniently.
22:37As for the fate of freed slaves, he wanted that left up to the states.
22:42Johnson's Reconstruction policies favored leniency towards the rebels,
22:47allowing them to easily rejoin the Union
22:49and uphold a system that was essentially still slavery.
22:52These policies enraged Congress,
22:55which passed laws to counter them,
22:56kicking off a bitter struggle with the president.
22:59In August 1867, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edward Stanton
23:04in violation of the Tenure of Office Act.
23:06The following year, Congress impeached Johnson,
23:09making him the first president to face such a resolution.
23:12Finally, the bad blood spilled over.
23:15The president was impeached
23:17and escaped removal from office by just one vote.
23:20Although he was narrowly acquitted by the Senate,
23:23Johnson's presidency was severely weakened,
23:26and he failed to win the Democratic nomination in 1868.
23:30Number 12, James Buchanan, His Entire Presidency.
23:33James Buchanan's single term as president occurred in the mid-19th century.
23:38Since then, many successors have come and gone,
23:41yet several historians still consider him the worst president in U.S. history.
23:45He was elected president in 1856,
23:48but this Northern Democrat's sympathies with the slave-holding South
23:53exacerbated long-simmering tensions.
23:55This is due to his apparent indifference to the impending Civil War.
24:00After his inauguration, Buchanan viewed slavery as an issue of little importance.
24:05Instead of trying to lessen the rift between the North and the South,
24:08Buchanan believed he shouldn't interfere in states' issues.
24:12He feared that if you handled the issue of slavery too robustly,
24:20that it would create what he believed would be the end of the Union, secession.
24:26He had pledged not to run for a second term,
24:29and during the lame-duck period between his successors' election and inauguration,
24:34Southern states began to secede.
24:36Buchanan essentially crossed his arms and watched them leave.
24:39His incompetence inevitably resulting in the Civil War.
24:43Number 11.
24:44Warren G. Harding.
24:46The Teapot Dome Scandal.
24:47President Warren G. Harding was in office for only two years before his untimely death.
24:52But in that little time,
24:54he was involved in one of the most shocking political scandals ever.
24:57The Teapot Dome Scandal was probably the most significant presidential scandal
25:02in American history in the 20th century up until Watergate.
25:08Following his inauguration in 1921,
25:11Harding placed his close friends in high-ranking positions,
25:14including Albert B. Fall, whom he appointed as Interior Secretary.
25:19Harding gave Fall control over three naval oil fields,
25:22whose drilling rights the Secretary then leased to private oil companies in exchange for bribes.
25:28This shady deal was first reported in April 1922, resulting in a Senate investigation.
25:33Congress ordered President Harding to scrap the oil leases.
25:38The Supreme Court ruled the leases fraudulent and said Harding's transfer of authority
25:42from the Navy to Interior was illegal.
25:46At the time of his death in August 1923,
25:49Harding was beloved among the American public.
25:51But as the details of this investigation surfaced,
25:54his reputation was effectively tarnished.
25:56Number 10, Donald Trump, convicted of felony crimes.
26:01Before Donald Trump's election in 2016,
26:0344 individuals had served as President of the United States.
26:07Yet in 2024, he made history as the first one to be convicted of a crime.
26:12The stunning verdict was delivered by a Manhattan jury of seven men and five women
26:17who deliberated for two days, making Mr. Trump the first former American president
26:22to be convicted of a crime.
26:24The landmark case stemmed from hush money payments Trump made to adult film star Stormy Daniels
26:29to keep their alleged sexual encounter under wraps.
26:32The prosecution argued that Trump falsified business records to conceal these payments,
26:38a felony under New York law.
26:39The trial became a media spectacle, and concluded with the jury finding Trump guilty on all 34 counts.
26:45This case was one of several criminal charges Trump faced,
26:48including his alleged involvement in the January 6th insurrection,
26:52aimed at overturning the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
26:57After this, we're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you.
27:01We're going to walk down.
27:03We're going to walk down.
27:06Anyone you want, but I think right here, we're going to walk down to the Capitol.
27:11Number 9, Bill Clinton.
27:13The Lewinsky scandal and impeachment.
27:15More than a century after Andrew Johnson's impeachment in 1868,
27:19Bill Clinton became the second U.S. president to be impeached by Congress in 1998.
27:24When the dust had cleared, the House voting almost strictly along party lines
27:27sent two articles of impeachment on for trial in the Senate.
27:30Clinton's impeachment was related to an extramarital affair he had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
27:36Lewinsky confided in her colleague Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded their conversations
27:41and handed the tapes to an independent counsel, which was already investigating Clinton on other matters.
27:47The ensuing scandal eventually led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives
27:51on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, as he had lied under oath about the affair.
27:57I want the American people to know today that I am still committed
28:00to working with people of good faith and goodwill of both parties to do what's best for our country.
28:07Though Clinton was ultimately acquitted by the Senate, the scandal left a lasting stain on his legacy.
28:13Number 8, John F. Kennedy.
28:15The Bay of Pigs Invasion.
28:17In early 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA plan to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
28:24That plan was not executed until the following year, after John F. Kennedy took office.
28:29On April 16th, Kennedy reluctantly agreed to the plan, with one major exception.
28:36If the operation foundered for the Cuban exiles, the U.S. military would not intervene.
28:42On April 17th, 1961, over 1,400 Cuban exiles, who had been trained by the U.S.,
28:49landed at the Bay of Pigs to launch a full-scale invasion.
28:52However, their attempt was dead on arrival.
28:54The insurgents on the ground were met with unexpected resistance by Castro's forces,
28:59and were easily overpowered, especially after Kennedy withheld further air support.
29:04Within three days, they had all surrendered.
29:06These are 1,400 men. Castro's army is 25,000.
29:11The real story here is these desperate men on the beach, watching their chances go away.
29:17And back in the White House, Kennedy suffering mightily with what to do about this.
29:21The fiasco became a significant embarrassment for Kennedy.
29:24Undermining his credibility in the international community, and escalating Cold War tensions.
29:30Number 7. Herbert Hoover, Mexican Repatriation
29:33Shortly after Herbert Hoover took office in 1929, the U.S. stock market crashed, which sparked the Great Depression.
29:41Hoover's strategy to tackle this economic disaster was to blame Mexicans in the U.S.,
29:45accusing them of taking American jobs.
29:47As a result, his administration oversaw the deportation of up to 1.8 million people to Mexico, many of whom were actually U.S. citizens.
29:57Increasingly important is the 60 percent or more of American citizens of Mexican descent.
30:04In other words, what occurred here was unconstitutional deportation.
30:10Known as the Mexican Repatriation, this scheme was carried out through raids, roundups, and pressure tactics that forced many individuals to leave voluntarily.
30:19Unsurprisingly, this did nothing to ease the Great Depression, which ended up contributing to Hubert's defeat in the next election.
30:25In 2005, the state of California formally apologized for its role in the repatriation.
30:31The state of California went on to issue a formal apology for its role in the expulsions and built a memorial in downtown Los Angeles to commemorate the victims.
30:40Number 6. Lyndon B. Johnson, Escalating the Vietnam War
30:44When Lyndon B. Johnson became president in 1963 following JFK's assassination, the Vietnam War had already been raging for nearly a decade.
30:53At first, American involvement was fairly limited, but this changed dramatically under Johnson.
30:59The turning point was the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, where North Vietnamese forces supposedly attacked U.S. Navy ships.
31:07Although this attack was later disproven, it led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson authority to escalate U.S. military actions in Vietnam.
31:16By 1967, there were over 500,000 American troops in Vietnam, many of whom lost their lives.
31:22Johnson's escalation of the war became highly unpopular in the U.S., sparking nationwide protests and resulting in his decision not to seek re-election.
31:31I shall not cease, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.
31:42Number 5. Ronald Reagan, Iran-Contra Affair
31:45In 1986, Ronald Reagan and several of his administration officials became embroiled in a notorious political scandal.
31:52They had secretly orchestrated the sale of weapons to Iran, which was under an arms embargo, to secure the release of seven American hostages.
32:01The profits from this sale were then illegally diverted to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua, who were fighting the leftist Sandinista government.
32:09American President Ronald Reagan funnels money to right-wing Contra rebels, fighting an insurgency against the Sandinista government.
32:19This was in direct violation of a congressional amendment that banned American aid to the group.
32:24When the affair was exposed, it became a major embarrassment for Reagan, raising concerns about his administration's integrity and oversight.
32:32Around the same time, Reagan also faced criticism for his delayed response to the AIDS epidemic, which had already been a significant crisis for years.
32:41At the time, many leaders were accused of ignoring the crisis because it was deemed a gay disease.
32:47President Reagan didn't give his first major speech on AIDS until 1987.
32:52Number 4. Franklin Pierce, the Kansas-Nebraska Act
32:56Franklin Pierce, a one-term president, is often ranked among the worst and most forgettable leaders in U.S. history.
33:03Pierce's administration is largely remembered for passing the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.
33:09This act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allowed settlers to decide on the legality of slavery through voting.
33:17Pierce signed into law the Kansas-Nebraska Act, allowing voters in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide whether to allow slavery within their borders, negating the earlier Missouri compromise.
33:30Though it was intended to reduce tensions over slavery, the bill backfired, instead reigniting fierce debates around it.
33:38Pro- and anti-slavery settlers rushed to Kansas, hoping to outnumber each other and sway the vote.
33:43This led to violent clashes between the two sides, known as Bleeding Kansas.
33:48Instead of uniting the country, the Kansas-Nebraska Act only deepened divisions, stoking the fires that culminated in the Civil War.
33:56He thought making concessions to Southerners was what was necessary to preserve the Union.
34:03Number 3. Richard Nixon, the Watergate scandal and resignation.
34:08Few things are as humiliating for a U.S. president as resigning from office.
34:12Richard Nixon was the first to experience this, due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
34:17We have a mystery story out of Washington.
34:20Five people have been arrested and charged with breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the middle of the night.
34:26Nixon was largely popular during his first term, but to ensure his re-election in 1972,
34:31his administration and campaign orchestrated the wiretapping of the Democratic Party headquarters.
34:37However, the men sent to do the job were caught red-handed, and eventually linked to Nixon's campaign.
34:43Desperate to hide his administration's involvement, Nixon tried to obstruct the investigation.
34:48This was revealed by his own taped recordings, leading him to resign rather than face impeachment.
34:53Therefore, I shall resign the presidency, effective at noon tomorrow.
34:59Ironically, Nixon had already secured re-election in one of the largest landslides in history, which made the whole fiasco pointless.
35:07Number 2. Franklin D. Roosevelt, internment of Japanese Americans.
35:11Following Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, public opinion in the U.S. slowly began to turn against Japanese Americans.
35:19To address fears of further Japanese attacks or sabotage, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066.
35:27Motivated by vocal outcries from politicians and military officials, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, empowering the U.S. Army to designate areas from which any or all persons may be excluded.
35:41This order allowed the U.S. government to forcibly remove and relocate people of Japanese descent to internment camps.
35:49As a result, about 120,000 Japanese Americans, many of them U.S. citizens, were uprooted from their homes and forced to live under harsh conditions, simply due to baseless fears of espionage.
36:01Years later, the Ronald Reagan administration officially apologized to the former detainees for this grave injustice and paid $20,000 in reparations to each survivor.
36:12It would take over 40 years before President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, paying reparations to each victim of internment.
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36:38Number 1. Andrew Jackson – The Trail of Tears
36:42In the early 1800s, tensions ran high between Native Americans and white settlers over the ownership of indigenous lands in the South, which were ideal for cotton farming.
36:53The U.S. government signed a treaty that guaranteed that Cherokee land would be off-limits to white settlers forever.
37:00These settlers found a powerful ally in President Andrew Jackson.
37:04In 1830, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the forceful displacement of indigenous tribes from their ancestral lands.
37:13Between 1830 and 1850, about 60,000 Native Americans were removed from their homes and marched over 1,000 miles to designated Indian territory across the Mississippi River.
37:25Thousands of Native Americans were pulled from their homes in Georgia and other states across the South.
37:31Many were shackled in chains and forced to walk, at gunpoint, more than 1,000 miles west.
37:38Referred to as the Trail of Tears, this journey was brutal and left thousands dead from disease, exposure, and starvation.
37:46Today, many scholars view it as an act of genocide and ethnic cleansing against Native Americans.
37:52Which of these appalling moments left you shaking your head in disbelief?
37:56Let us know in the comments below.
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