There are many qualities by which you can measure a president: age, socio-economic impact, frequency of gaffes; but little has been written of the one true testament of character for a leader of the free world. Since this country’s inception, we’ve had some truly inspiring leaders. Some. Like, maybe three or four. However, we chose to focus on factors that might be more familiar to the modern American people. This is every single US President ranked by their lifetime ratio of Kills to Deaths.
46. Millard Fillmore – 0.0
Millard Fillmore never killed anyone, and frankly didn’t do much at all. He served as Vice President under Zachary Taylor, and then rose to the Presidency when Taylor died of a stomach bug in office. I tried to find one interesting thing about him, but even his biography on the White House’s official website describes him as an “uninspiring man”, which, honestly, is kind of inspiring. It just goes to show that with a little luck and some lethal diarrhea even the most unremarkable, unassertive person imaginable can accidentally become president.
45. Franklin Pierce – 0.0
Franklin Pierce was a career politician, infamous alcoholic, and supporter of slavery often described by his contemporaries as a “hero of many a well-fought bottle.” He did serve as a volunteer general in the Mexican-American War, but was never confirmed to have killed anyone and, in fact, fainted during one battle due to a leg injury, earning him the nickname “Fainting Frank.”
44. Jimmy Carter – 0.0
Jimmy Carter has never killed and will never die. Before you try to correct me, just know he’s already reincarnated. Long live President Jimmy.
43. Calvin Coolidge – 0.0
Calvin Coolidge was a bona-fide yankee doodle dandy, born on the Fourth of July, 1872. He never killed anyone, but he was a vocal supporter of the Civil Rights Movement, and a collector of wildlife. On January 5th, 1933, President Coolidge died, and forty-five days later was reincarnated as musician, filmmaker, and activist Yoko Ono. Welcome back, Mr. President!
42. Martin Van Buren – 0.0
Martin Van Buren was a boring, old career politician who had no confirmed kills throughout his lifetime. However, a medium at Hard Drive was able to speak with Van Buren’s ghost, who claims to have posthumously killed 36 angels and counting.
41. Abraham Lincoln – 0.0
During his lifetime, Abraham Lincoln killed neither man nor vampire, unfortunately. However, Hard Drive’s medium was able to speak with Lincoln as well, who admitted “If I’d known that play was going to be my last, I would’ve sprung for Hadestown.”
40. William Henry Harrison – 0.0
Although William Henry Harrison fought in several battles and ordered the killing of scores of Native Americans, he was never confirmed to have killed anyone himself. He served as a great President for several years, before dying valiantly to save our country. No, wait, wrong notes. He actually served as President for 31 days before drinking some especially dirty water and dying miserably.
39. Chester A. Arthur – 0.0
These non-killers are becoming a bit tedious so we’re going to go ahead and rapid fire the next few. For Arthur: BORING. NO KILLS. GOOFY FACIAL HAIR.
38. Herbert Hoover – 0.0
BORING. Couldn’t fulfill one single campaign promise, much less kill anyone.
37. Dwight D. Eisenhower – 0.0
BORING. Looks like a skinwalker posing as an accountant.
36. William Howard Taft – 0.0
William Howard Taft killed nobody, but served as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court after his Presidency. Taft resigned from the Supreme Court in 1930 in order to pursue his true passion of succumbing to heart disease.
35. James Garfield – 0.0
BORING. Shot first year in office, seemed okay for a bit, died two-and-a-half months later.
34. John Quincy Adams – 0.0
John Quincy Adams never killed anyone, and would be considered boring if not for the fact that he owned an alligator.
33. John Adams – 0.0
John Adams killed no one, and had neither alligator nor cool middle name (like many of our founding fathers, Adams had no middle name at all). In addition to his real-life death due to a heart attack, Adams was posthumously lampooned and humiliated by Lin Manuel Miranda with the conception of Hamilton.
32. John F. Kennedy – 0.0
John F. Kennedy killed nobody in his lifetime, and is widely believed to have been assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. However, several eyewitnesses swear to have seen President Kennedy die heroically no less than 382 times while fighting Thunderblight Ganon at the Battle of Vah Naboris.
31. Woodrow Wilson – 0.0
BORING. Really, really, really, really did not want the United States to get involved in World War I.
30. Rutherford B. Hayes – 0.0
Although Rutherford B. Hayes was wounded several times fighting for the Union during the Civil War, he was never confirmed to have killed anyone. Sometimes the best revenge is living well in a slavery-free country.
29. John Tyler – 0.0
BORING. HUGE Confederacy supporter who fathered 15 children throughout his life, the last of whom was born when Tyler was 63 years old.
28. Benjamin Harrison – 0.0
Benjamin Harrison never killed anyone, but he, unlike a lot of the other posers on this list, actually did some damn good during his Presidency, establishing three whole National Parks throughout his time in office.
27. Warren G. Harding – 0.0
With no kills to his name, Warren G. Harding’s primary accomplishments as President include presiding over one of the most corrupt administrations in U.S. history, and writing weird-ass love letters to several mistresses. To each their own, I guess.
26. Thomas Jefferson – 0.0008
President Thomas Jefferson, the first president on this list with a non-zero K/D never actually killed anyone himself, but he did have a Shetland Sheep that killed a young boy on the White House lawn. We’re going to go ahead and count that as an assist in his favor. Unfortunately, President Jefferson was also a prolific slave owner, and most of the ~600 slaves he owned over the course of his life never saw freedom, so we’re going to count those 600 deaths against him. Fuck you, Mr. President, enjoy shoveling sulfur.
25. James Buchanan – 1.0
James Buchanan was a lame old Federalist lawyer who never saw much need for violence to get his way. However, in 1859, American abolitionist John Brown carried out his raid on the US military arsenal at Harpers Ferry in an attempt to arm and incite a slave revolt. President Buchanan, in his immense lack of wisdom, simply couldn’t allow the American people to stand up for what was right. Thus, President Buchanan sent troops to Harpers Ferry to capture John Brown, who was then tried and executed, as is the American way.
24. James K. Polk – 1.7
Upon his election to the Presidency in 1844, James K. Polk was eager to use his Presidential powers to rack up a historic kill count, and thus dove straight into war with Mexico. This certainly did garner quite a few kills for the President, causing about 25,000 Mexican casualties throughout the course of the war. However, the war had a heavy cost for us here in the States as well, as we lost about 15,000 Americans in the Mexican-American War.
22/23. Grover Cleveland – 2.0
Almost two decades before President Cleveland came to call 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home, he served as Sheriff of Erie County, New York. During his time as Sheriff, Grover Cleveland was tasked with overseeing the execution of two murderers, Patrick Morrissey and John Gaffney. Rather than delegate the executions to his deputy, Grover Cleveland elected instead to carry out the sentences himself, holding aloft his familial greatsword of Valyrian steel, and cleaving the men’s heads clean off their shoulders.
21. Bill Clinton – 3.0
While former President Clinton never necessarily served in combat or murdered anyone directly, a spokesperson for the Writers Guild of America reports that no less than three writers for The Tonight Show were worked to death in 1998 while churning out Monica Lewinsky jokes for an insatiable Leno.
20. George W. Bush – 10.0
In an interview with Hard Drive, former President George W. Bush described the one kill that still eludes him, “I’ve been hunting a man by the name of Jack Harrison since ‘79. I’ve come close a few times, but the bastard’s too damn quick. Rest assured, though, I’ll get ‘im.”
19. Ulysses S. Grant – 20.0
President Ulysses S. Grant saw a good deal of combat during the Mexican-American War, operating a Howitzer and serving in the army that took California from Mexico, so thanks for that, I guess.
18. William McKinley – 20.0
Former President William McKinley served in the Civil War, where he was promoted from a Private to a Major for his actions on the battlefield. His presidency was very quickly ended by an anarchist, because anarchists know how to get a job done.
17. Gerald Ford – 20.0
President Gerald Ford was no stranger to combat, as he served aboard an aircraft carrier in World War II, which is all well and good, but what really makes ol’ Jerry stand out among the other Presidents on this list is that he took home 2 Natties for University of Michigan’s football team in 1932 and 1933. William McKinley wouldn’t fucking dare.
16. James Monroe – 21.0
James Monroe collected quite the respectable body count as a low-level soldier during the Revolutionary War, with many even describing him as a “terrific shot.” Additionally, we threw one more kill on the pile due to the fact that Monroe absolutely slaughtered Rufus King in the 1816 election.
15. Zachary Taylor – 50.0
Former President Zachary Taylor commanded several battles in both the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War, with some historians theorizing that Taylor was actually killed some time around the end of the War of 1812, only to return shortly after as the newly-ordained White Wizard of the Istari
14. George Washington – 51.0
In addition to George Washington’s combat kills during both the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War, Washington also ordered the execution of at least 1 British spy.
UNCONFIRMED: While Washington is officially documented to only have died once, several written accounts from the period report that the President had ordered the installation of hundreds of Hyperion New-U Stations across the thirteen colonies.
13. Teddy Roosevelt – 66.0
Aside from having at least one confirmed kill recorded in his Congressional Medal of Honor Citation, Teddy Roosevelt also boasted about killing many men during the Battle of San Juan Hill, and served as Commissioner of the NYPD which, at the time, was known for being extremely corrupt. Some things never change.
12. James Madison – 148.5
At press time, James Madison has been spotted alive and well in Argentina, chilling with Tupac and that guy from Tiger King.
11. Andrew Jackson – 801.0
Andrew Jackson, one of the pettiest little genocidal fuckers to ever serve as Commander-in-Chief, was known for dueling and killing one man for accusing him of cheating on a horse bet, and then killing several hundred more men for being Native American, really setting the bar for how much of a giant twat the leader of the free world has the power to be.
10. Barack Obama – 2,000.0
Barack Obama ordered around 2,000 deaths via drone strike over the course of his time in the Oval Office. However, President Obama maintains to this day that it wasn’t until after the strikes had been carried out that Harrison Ford revealed to him that the “simulated enemies” were real Pakistani citizens all along.
9. Andrew Johnson – 2,004.0
During his presidency, Andrew Johnson ordered the execution of 4 conspirators involved in the Lincoln assassination, and then seemingly forgot Lincoln entirely when he did not one damn thing to stop over 2,000 lynchings and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
8. Franklin D Roosevelt – 30,004.0
It’s estimated that during World War II, Americans killed around 200,000 Nazis in total. Although, FDR personally only slew only about 30,000. He also annihilated his political opponents in a bunch of Presidential elections.
7. Joe Biden – 40,000.0
President Joe Biden, the soft-spoken everyman of Scranton, Pennsylvania, proved his commitment to the little guy by spending four years unabashedly funding the ongoing genocide in the West Bank, effectively footing the bill for the murder of 40,000 Palestinian men, women, and children during his term as President. Biden refused to learn his lesson, though, as he went on to ignore his constituents’ calls for ceasefire, notoriously fumbling what should have been an easy re-election.
6. Ronald Reagan – 90,000.0
Though Ronald Reagan may have been a decent public speaker, he was absolutely god-awful at listening, as The Gipper routinely ignored film critics, constituents, political advisors, and over 90,000 Americans dying from the AIDS virus.
5. George H.W. Bush – 160,050
On the campaign trail in 1988, Bush Senior famously claimed that he wanted to transform the United States into a “kinder, gentler nation,” and if the Gulf War represents the actions of that kinder, gentler nation, I would hate to see what the United States was like in 1988.
4. Lyndon B. Johnson – 340,001.0
Lyndon B. Johnson was relentless in his pursuit of victory in Vietnam, sending more US troops there than any other President. His efforts were successful, and the United States won the war in Vietnam, successfully preventing the domino effect from coming to fruition and eradicating Communism forever.*
*CITATION NEEDED.
3. Donald Trump – 350,000.0
Among Trump’s most notable achievements was horribly mismanaging the COVID-19 Pandemic during the last year of his presidency, which caused the deaths of about 350,000 US citizens before he left office. Now, obviously it would be a little bit unfair to accredit every single one of those deaths to former President Trump, so we’re going to be lenient and say five of them were not his fault. Unfortunately, Trump’s glorified terror attack on the Capitol during his final month in office cost exactly five American lives.
2. Richard Nixon – 500,000.0
Say what you want about Tricky Dick, but he was committed to winning the war in Vietnam, no matter how many innocent Cambodian lives he had to end to do it. His senseless killing paid off in the final years of his campaign, when he triumphantly lost the Vietnam War and then got his goofy ass ousted from public office. Nice going, Mr. President.
1. Harry S. Truman – 700,000.0
After causing so, so many innocent deaths in the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman decided his civilian-killing numbers weren’t quite up to snuff for a Commander-in-Chief, so he went on to order the dropping of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cementing himself as the only person to ever use nuclear weapons in an armed conflict as well as the most bloodthirsty sack of shit to ever grace the Oval Office. Hail to the Chief(s), and may God save us all from the next one.
