Final approval rating: 24%

While Richard Nixon won the 1972 election in a historic landslide, the end of his presidency was tainted by the Watergate scandal that led him to resign on August 9, 1974, when facing the threat of impeachment and removal.

Surveyed between August 2 and 5, 1974, after the House Judiciary Committee had passed articles of impeachment against the president, but before Nixon resigned, 66% of respondents to the Gallup poll said they disapproved of Nixon's presidency — the highest disapproval rate of any president on the list.

Final approval rating: 32%

Assuming the presidency after Franklin D. Roosevelt's death, Harry Truman served two terms that covered the aftermath of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, including the Korean War, which was widely unpopular and contributed to his low approval rating by the end of his second term in 1953.

When asked December 11 to 16, 1952, 56% of poll respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency during his term.

Final approval rating: 34%

Jimmy Carter had high approval ratings — and a disapproval rating in the single digits — during the early days of his term, but his handling of international affairs, such as the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, along with a struggling economy, ultimately made him widely unpopular by the end of his term.

He lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan and faced a disapproval rating of 55% in polling conducted December 5 to 8, when he was readying to leave the White House.

Final approval rating: 34%

Despite uniting the nation in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush saw his public approval fade during his second term. His approval rating spiked after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, and the capture of Saddam Hussein.

After his reelection, his popularity began to decline as the Iraq War extended. His handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the onset of the 2008 financial crisis also contributed to his low approval ratings.

From January 9 to 11, 2009, as Bush prepared to hand over the presidency to Barack Obama, 61% of poll respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency during his second term.

Final approval rating: 34%

Donald Trump's first presidency was divisive from the start, as he entered the White House with an approval rating below 50%. He's the first president in modern history to never exceed 50% approval on the Gallup polls during his entire presidency.

While his approval ratings dwindled over the course of his four years in office, his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in particular came under scrutiny ahead of his loss in the 2020 election.

His lowest approval rating in office came during his final Gallup poll, conducted January 4 to 15, 2021.

Most of that polling period took place immediately after the Capitol insurrection on January 6, and Trump faced a disapproval rating of 62%, the second-worst only after Richard Nixon's at the time he left office.

Final approval rating: 40%

While Joe Biden saw approval ratings above 50% during his first six months in office, rising inflation, illegal immigration, and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza contributed to a decline in his approval ratings.

His lowest-ranking Gallup poll, in which 36% of respondents said they approved of his handling of the role, came in July 2024, a month after his debate performance against Trump shifted focus toward his age and fitness for office.

As he left office, in polls collected January 2 to 16, 2025, Biden received a disapproval rating of 54%.

Final approval rating: 49%

After assuming the presidency because of John F. Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson won the 1964 election in a historic landslide, but he faced decreasing approval ratings over his handling of the Vietnam War.

Low approval ratings, along with a divided party, led Johnson to withdraw from the 1968 presidential race.

At the time of his withdrawal, only 36% of poll respondents said they approved of his handling of the presidency.

By the time he left the office, however, his approval rating had risen to 49%. In polling conducted January 1 to 6, 1969, 37% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the role, and 14% said they had no opinion, one of the higher percentages among the listed presidents.

Final approval rating: 53%

Assuming the presidency upon Nixon's resignation, Gerald Ford served as US president from August 1974 until January 1977, after losing the election to Jimmy Carter.

During his presidency, Ford faced mixed reviews, with his approval dropping after he pardoned Nixon and introduced conditional amnesty for draft dodgers in September 1974.

Polled December 10 to 13, 1976, after he had lost the reelection to Jimmy Carter, 32% of respondents said they disapproved of Ford's handling of the presidency, and 15% said they had no opinion on it, the highest percentage of the listed presidents.

Final approval rating: 56%

Though the elder Bush lost his reelection bid in the 1992 presidential election against Bill Clinton, the public opinion of him was generally positive by the end of his term.

In the weeks before his 1992 nomination as the Republican presidential candidate, however, George H. W. Bush had only a 29% approval rating, the lowest of his presidency. A recession and a reversal of his tax policy contributed to his drop in popularity.

In polling conducted January 8 to 11, 1993, 37% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency, while 56% said they approved.

Final approval rating: 59%

Since the beginning of his presidency in 2009, Barack Obama had a high approval rating for a modern-day president; he averaged nearly 47% approval over eight years.

At his lowest point, in polling conducted September 8 to 11, 2011, 37% of poll respondents said they approved of his presidency, a decline most likely influenced by the president's healthcare policies and his handling of the 2008 economic crisis and the subsequent rise in unemployment rates.

In polls conducted January 17 to 19, 2017, when Obama was leaving office, 37% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the role, with 59% saying they approved.

Final approval rating: 59%

After winning the 1952 election in a landslide, Dwight D. Eisenhower saw high approval ratings throughout his presidency, never dropping below the disapproval rating.

Holding office during the critical Cold War years, Eisenhower saw his approval remain positive through the end of his second term, with only 28% of respondents polled December 8 to 13, 1960, saying they disapproved of his handling of the presidency, the lowest among the presidents listed.

Final approval rating: 63%

Ronald Reagan's strong leadership toward ending the Cold War and implementing his economic policies contributed to consistently positive ratings during his presidency and the subsequent election of his vice president, George H. W. Bush, as his successor to the presidency.

By the time he left office, 29% of respondents in a Gallup poll conducted December 27 to 29, 1988, said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency.

Final approval rating: 66%

After winning the 1992 elections against the incumbent George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton saw high approval ratings throughout his presidency, though he faced mixed opinions at times during his first term because of his domestic agenda, including tax policy and social issues.

Despite being impeached in 1998 by the House of Representatives over his testimony describing the nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton continued to see positive approval ratings throughout his second term.

By the time he left the White House, he had an approval rating of 66%, the highest of all the presidents on this list.

In the poll conducted January 10 to 14, 2001, only 29% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency.

Inspired by the White House's oval-shaped Blue Room, the president's formal workspace was designed by architect Nathan C. Wyeth.

Taft's Oval Office featured an olive-green color scheme.

The Oval Office was moved to the southeast corner of the White House.

Roosevelt kept a variety of items on his desk, including photos of his sons, ceramic animal figurines, and an appointments easel with his daily schedule, according to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

Truman decorated the Oval Office with the turquoise rug and matching curtains. The walls were painted a lighter seafoam green.

The Resolute Desk, made of wood from the British ship H.M.S. Resolute, was gifted to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880. Previous presidents kept the desk in the second-floor office of the White House Residence and the Broadcast Room, according to the White House Historical Association.

He also redecorated the Oval Office with white drapes with red trim, evoking the American flag.

Nixon's Oval Office rug, in the same blue color as the American flag, was designed by first lady Pat Nixon.

Ford's decor included the wheel from the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship that was seized by Cambodian forces in 1975 and rescued at Ford's direction.

The clock, built between 1795 and 1805, has remained in the Oval Office under every subsequent president since 1975.

Otherwise, he left most of Ford's decor.

The rug featured the presidential seal in the center with sunbeams emerging from the middle, surrounded by a border of olive branches.

The Resolute Desk was moved to the Residence Office.

Hockersmith designed the yellow curtains and the blue rug with the presidential seal. Clinton also chose to bring the Resolute Desk back to the Oval Office.

The rug featured a sunbeam design with the presidential seal at its center, reminiscent of Reagan's rug, and a lone star in a nod to Bush's home state of Texas.

The quote on the border of the rug read, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.''

He also brought back Clinton's gold curtains and chose a new off-white wallpaper.

Biden hung portraits of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton.

Many of the gold decor pieces in Trump's Oval Office came from the White House collection, but Trump also imported some statuettes from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump also added flags representing different branches of the US military and additional presidential portraits, with President George Washington in the prominent center spot above the fireplace mantle.

Other additions include the same rug from his first term, originally designed for Reagan, numerous pieces of artwork, and a button on his desk that summons a staffer with a Diet Coke.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, a temporary bomb shelter was built in the Treasury Department in 1941.

When Roosevelt expanded the East Wing and added a second story in 1942, a new presidential bomb shelter was built beneath it. It featured a bedroom and bathroom, as well as ventilation masks, food, and communications equipment, all fortified behind concrete walls.

"The best time to construct something underground is when you're building something above ground, especially when it comes to the White House," Costello said.

During these White House renovations, Roosevelt also converted a cloakroom in the East Wing into a movie theater.

The four-year, $5.7 million renovation was required to reinforce the entire White House structure, which had begun to sag into the ground. The Trumans temporarily moved to Blair House as workers hollowed out the White House.

"When they do the Truman renovation, where they essentially gut the inside of the house and then rebuild it from the inside out with concrete and steel, they really are fortifying the White House to serve as a bomb shelter," Costello said.

As the world entered the age of nuclear weapons, the PEOC was also expanded and updated during this renovation.

"As there are these wider changes around the world, they impact how presidential security is revisited, reassessed, and then adapted as needed," Costello said.

When the first plane hit, Cheney turned on the news in his office at the White House. After the second plane hit, his lead Secret Service agent burst in to escort him to the PEOC, Cheney said in an interview with the American Enterprise Institute in 2011.

Cheney said the Secret Service agent "put one hand on the back of my belt, one hand on my shoulder," and "literally propelled me out of my office."

Cheney was joined in the PEOC by staff members, including National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, and Presidential Counselor Karen Hughes. He advised President George W. Bush, who was in Florida at the time, not to return to Washington, DC, marking the first time in US history that the continuity of government operations plan was implemented.

Rare photos of the PEOC on September 11 were released by the National Archives in 2014 as part of a Freedom of Information Act request, offering a glimpse inside the top-secret space.

"As far as I'm aware of, I think those are the only publicly released ones, and they were publicly released because they were forced to be released," Costello said of the images.

The photos showed a conference room with phones, video call capabilities, television screens playing news reports, world clocks, and a map of the United States.

"I was hustled inside and downstairs through a pair of big steel doors that closed behind me with a loud hiss, forming an airtight seal," she wrote in "Spoken from the Heart" of her experience on September 11.

"I was now in one of the unfinished subterranean hallways underneath the White House, heading for the PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, built for President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. We walked along old tile floors with pipes hanging from the ceiling and all kinds of mechanical equipment."

Laura Bush wrote in her memoir that George W. Bush arrived at the PEOC at 7:10 p.m. on September 11.

When the Secret Service suggested that she and her husband spend the night in the secure bunker, Laura Bush wrote that they declined because the foldout bed "looked like it had been installed when FDR was president."

It was widely reported that Trump was taken to the PEOC as a precaution when protesters breached temporary fences outside the White House. Trump told Fox News Radio that he had visited the bunker to inspect it, not to take shelter there.

"I was there for a tiny, short little period of time," Trump said. "They said it would be a good time to go down and take a look because maybe sometime you're going to need it."

The White House announced that the new ballroom would measure 90,000 square feet, seat around 1,000 people, and serve as a "much-needed and exquisite addition." Trump and other "patriot donors" will fund the $400 million project, the White House said.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation's lawsuit alleged that Trump had no legal authority to demolish the East Wing and replace it with a ballroom.

In March, a federal judge's ruling halted above-ground construction until Congress approves the project, but allowed work related to "the safety and security of the White House" to continue.

Trump then confirmed what the lawsuit had alluded to: a new and improved PEOC was in the works.

"The military is building a big complex under the ballroom, which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed," he told reporters on board Air Force One on March 29.

He added that the ballroom would essentially function as a "shed" for the secure facility below.

"We have bio defense all over," he told reporters on March 31. "We have secure telecommunications and communications all over. We have bomb shelters that we're building. We have a hospital and very major medical facilities that we're building. We have all of these things, so that's called: I'm allowed to continue building as necessary."

A federal appeals court allowed construction to continue temporarily while it reviews the case more closely, with a formal hearing scheduled for June 5.