President Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday that he would like to be remembered as a “great president” after his time in the White House ends.
Tuesday marked the first anniversary of this return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, making him the first president to serve nonconsecutive terms in over a century, and only the second one in all U.S. history.
Trump told NewsNation host Katie Pavlich, “I would love my legacy to be that I was a great president, and a great president covers a lot of territory. We were safe, we were prosperous, we were doing well, we were happy as a country. I’d like to be known as a great president.”
“Great president takes it all in,” he added.
.@POTUS: “I would love my legacy to be that I was a great president, and a great president covers a lot of territory. We were safe, we were prosperous, we were doing well, we were happy as a country. I’d like to be known as a great president.” pic.twitter.com/SuY3SeuMjt
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 21, 2026
Ronald Reagan offered a similar sentiment in his farewell address from the Oval Office in January 1989.
He closed his remarks, noting that often throughout his political career, he referred to the United States as a “shining city upon a hill.” He pointed out that the phrase came from the Puritan John Winthrop, who served as the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Winthrop actually borrowed the imagery from Jesus Christ, who exhorted people to let their light shine, adding that “a city on a hill cannot be hidden.”
Reagan said what he meant by it in reference to America was it being “a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity.”
“And how stands the city on this winter night?” the 40th president asked. “More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm.”
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Reagan concluded, “We’ve done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for 8 years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren’t just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.”
Reagan and Trump essentially ran on the same campaign slogan: Make America Great Again.
To be precise, Reagan’s 1980 slogan was, “Let’s Make America Great Again,” which Trump shortened to “Make America Great Again” or MAGA, for all of his campaigns.
Let’s Make America Great Again
Ronald Reagan (1980)
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸#July4th pic.twitter.com/sQmJYHXN3e
— Dr. Malachi – (Dr. Run) (@malachiobrien) July 4, 2022
No doubt Trump would like his MAGA followers to be able to give the same assessment in January 2029 that Reagan gave in 1989: “We did it. We weren’t just marking time. We made a difference.”
365 DAYS OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. A Golden Age just getting started. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Nz3mHNGZW0
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 20, 2026
Some of the accomplishments of the first year of Trump’s second term included reigniting the economy with an estimated 5.3 percent growth in the Gross Domestic Product last quarter, lowering gas prices and inflation overall, reducing the federal deficit by 20 percent during the last calendar year, securing the border, and successiful military operations to decimate Iran’s nuclear program and to capture Venezuelan narco-terrorist dicatator Nicolás Maduro.
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