CHRIS: Hi. This is Chris (ph).
(SOUNDBITE OF WIND BLOWING)
CHRIS: I’m here in the foothills of the Chiliean Andes, at the site of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory – first observatory to be run by the United States named after a female astronomer. I’m looking up at a beautiful Milky Way right now. And for those of us who normally live in the Northern Hemisphere, Mr. Orion is…
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Wow.
CHRIS: …Upside down, and I can see the Large Magellanic and Small Magellanic Clouds above me. It’s an amazing view.
(SOUNDBITE OF WIND BLOWING)
CHRIS: Well, it’s about 3:30 in the morning here in Chile, but this podcast was recorded at…
ASMA KHALID, HOST:
…12:49 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, January 9 of 2025.
CHRIS: Things may have changed since the time you hear it. OK, let’s all enjoy the skies and enjoy the show.
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DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: It’s amazing. We have the most well-traveled listeners.
KHALID: Hey, there. It’s the NPR POLITICS PODCAST. I’m Asma Khalid. I cover the White House.
MONTANARO: I’m Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
LIASSON: And I’m Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.
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PHYLLIS ADAMS: (Singing) Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
KHALID: Earlier today, here in Washington, the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, was honored at the National Cathedral. His funeral service brought together all living American presidents – past, current and incoming – to pay their respects. And Carter’s longtime friend, President Biden, delivered a eulogy.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Jimmy Carter’s friendship taught me – and through his life taught me – that strength of character is more than title or the power we hold. It’s the strength to understand that everyone should be treated with dignity, respect – that everyone, and I mean everyone, deserves an even shot.
KHALID: In listening to Biden’s remarks, I was struck by the similarities between these two one-term presidents – their focus on faith, on character. Mara, what did you hear in Biden’s eulogy?
LIASSON: Well, I heard that he does, in a way, identify with Jimmy Carter. They both were undone by inflation – in terms of Biden’s presidency; stagflation in terms of Carter’s – and also foreign events – the hostage crisis for Jimmy Carter. You could argue that the chaos in Ukraine and the Middle East contributed to Biden’s low popularity. But he also seemed to be giving a message, without mentioning Donald Trump’s name, talking about character, character, character. He also said that Carter lived a life that made real the ideals of his faith and the principles of the nation. And that’s clearly how Joe Biden sees himself.
MONTANARO: You know, Joe Biden has obviously a long pre-presidency – you know, being a senator for as long as he was, being vice president to Barack Obama. And now his presidency is sort of the capstone of his career. But he’s going to be judged on a legacy based on all of it, right? And I’m sure he would have liked to have been reelected. Obviously, presidents who are seen as being reelected have more political power and legacy. Of course, he didn’t wind up even getting to the ballot in November.
But Jimmy Carter had a tremendous post-presidency – sort of an inversion of the two, where he was really able to take what was seen as then a failed presidency because of the politics of the moment and rewrite the legacy that he had after that. Joe Biden doesn’t have that luxury, right? – doesn’t have that time, doesn’t have that luxury to be able to do that. And frankly, no president – even the younger ones, like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama – none of them have done quite what Jimmy Carter did in his post-presidency.
I was struck by Joe Biden, who is a very religious person himself. He wanted to make sure that he made clear to young people to study the power of Jimmy Carter’s example. And I was struck by that because you’ll often hear – very religious Christians will say that, you know, there’s no perfect person. The only perfect person was Jesus Christ and that you should follow the model of Jesus Christ to the best of your ability. And Joe Biden, instead, is also saying, look at Jimmy Carter. Emulate that life. That – there’s probably no higher praise that a religious person could give someone else.
KHALID: Domenico, I am curious how you would describe the personal relationship between Biden and Carter. They knew each other for decades. Biden was a young senator in Congress when Carter was elected. How did the two men get along?
MONTANARO: Well, they had a friendly relationship, obviously. I mean, Joe Biden went into some detail about his 2021 visit to Plains, Georgia, where it was just he and Jill Biden, Rosalynn and Jimmy sitting – the four of them – in Jimmy Carter’s very humble home and that they talked and that they’d known each other for decades. I mean, he said that he was first to endorse his candidacy in 1974, and he said he did so because of character. And then he underlined that three times to say, character, OK? get it? Character – understand what I’m saying. If you haven’t heard me, character is important. Because I know Joe Biden thinks that the country is at an inflection point when it comes to what kind of leaders that the country is electing, who they think should be in charge. And people like Biden want to say that character still matters.
KHALID: One thing that stood out to me today was that two of the eulogies given were not delivered by the people who wrote them. Instead, they were delivered by their sons. And that is that we heard from former President Gerald Ford’s son. We also heard from Walter Mondale’s son. And Walter Mondale was, of course, Carter’s vice president. These eulogies were written by their fathers, but they are no longer alive. And, you know, this obviously speaks to Carter’s age. He lived to be 100 years old. He had the longest post-presidency life we’ve seen. I want to hear from you, Mara. Was there something you heard from these eulogies that really stood out to you?
LIASSON: Yes. Steven Ford read his father, Gerald Ford’s eulogy. And what was so interesting about it is we have seen ex-presidents become friends. We saw Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush do a whole lot of humanitarian trips to Haiti and other places. But what Steven Ford talked about was how his father became good friends with the man who defeated him. These aren’t just two random ex-presidents. Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford. And he talked about how they flew to the Middle East, and on the way back, they really became friends. He talked about a friendship that transcends politics. And that is something that I think you could never imagine in the modern era – where partisanship is put aside, and the two presidents can actually become friends.
MONTANARO: Certainly in the last, you know, 10 years, I would say that’s true because Barack Obama and George W. Bush seem to get along fairly well – you know, have a fairly warm relationship despite the fact that Barack Obama ran literally against George W. Bush and everything that he stands for. We’ve seen this kind of funny pictures of Michelle Obama and George W. Bush kind of getting along at some of these kinds of events. I was struck, though, by Steven Ford telling the children of Jimmy Carter, God did a good thing when he made your dad. I mean, can you imagine, like, your rival’s son saying that about you after you were dead to your family? Like, that is – like, there’s just so much heart and emotion in that. And I don’t know how many other things could be, you know, more telling of a life well lived.
KHALID: I also want to talk about the eulogy that was delivered by Jimmy Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter, because, so often, former presidents are remembered by their public personas. And, you know, Jimmy Carter was a man, as many people have noted, who lived in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, taught Sunday school well into his 90s. And when Jason Carter spoke today, we got a glimpse into what his private life was like.
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JASON CARTER: Maybe this is unbelievable to you, but in my 49 years, I never perceived a difference between his public face and his private one. He was the same person no matter who he was with or where he was. And for me, that’s the definition of integrity.
MONTANARO: That’s, I mean, just so touching to hear someone say. Like, that is the definition of integrity, right? Humility, decency, respect for the power of regular people – Jason Carter talked about his grandfather. He made some funny stories, too, which I think is a really important thing in a eulogy when you’re remembering somebody – to sort of lighten up the crowd a little bit, to say that he remembers when his grandfather got a phone for the first time.
KHALID: A cellphone.
MONTANARO: And…
LIASSON: A cellphone.
MONTANARO: A cellphone, not – they have a phone with a cord on the wall, which – you know, I had a phone…
LIASSON: Yeah.
MONTANARO: …On the wall.
LIASSON: Yeah.
MONTANARO: You know, everyone did, right…
KHALID: Once upon a time.
MONTANARO: …If you’re a a certain age once upon time. But he said, his grandfather got a cellphone. He called him, and he said, hey. What’s happening? And he’s like, oh, who’s this? He’s like, it’s your grandson, Jason. He’s like, you called me. He’s like, I didn’t call you. I’m trying to take a picture.
(LAUGHTER)
MONTANARO: But I also thought it was interesting talking about integrity and saying that Jimmy Carter served four years in the governor’s mansion, four years in the White House. And the other 92 were in Plains, Georgia, with Rosalynn.
LIASSON: Yeah, that was amazing.
MONTANARO: And I thought that that just summed up the simplicity, humility and decency that so many people talked about with Jimmy Carter.
LIASSON: In the same house that they built in 1961, in the same ranch house. And then he talked about seeing Ziploc bags hung up to dry in their kitchen. They were reusing Ziploc bags. That speaks not just to the frugality and the modesty of the way they lived, but it’s something that I think is extremely rare, except for among certain people’s grandparents.
KHALID: Well – lots more to talk about. But let’s take a quick break and we’ll be back in a moment.
And we’re back. And, Domenico, in addition to President Biden, there were two former presidents there who are Democratic also in attendance. And I want to get a sense from you of how the Democratic Party broadly has changed since Carter was in office.
MONTANARO: Yeah. And I would even, you know, go back a little further to somebody like LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson, being able to win election, also help John F. Kennedy win election in 1960 because he was a Southern, white Democrat. And then you have Jimmy Carter come along, and a Southern, white Democrat’s able to win. Bill Clinton then kind of follows suit, and a Southern, white Democrat wins. And I think there was a theory for a long time in that period that, for Democrats to win, they needed to have that kind of person to represent a part of the country that they’re not traditionally very strong in.
But that changed with Barack Obama’s election. And Joe Biden is also not of that culture, either. And, you know, for as much as Joe Biden – people can look to the past about his life and legacy. He does represent something different in where the Democratic Party has come from and where it’s heading because it certainly – the politics of the Democratic Party look more like what Jimmy Carter wanted in 1976 to 1980 than it did today. But where those candidates are coming from and what their background, beliefs, values, religion are certainly has changed quite a bit.
KHALID: And, Mara, I want to go back to something you touched on earlier. And that is this idea that Carter’s presidency was widely considered a failure at the time. Today we heard from Stuart Eizenstat, who worked in the Carter administration, and he vocally, strongly defended Carter’s legacy and his presidency.
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STUART EIZENSTAT: As we lay our 39th president to rest, it’s time to redeem his presidency and also lay to rest the myth that his greatest achievements came only as a former president. The test of American presidents is not the number of years they serve but the duration of their accomplishments.
LIASSON: Stu Eizenstat came to this service with a very specific mission, which is to rehabilitate Carter’s record and legacy when he was in office. Everybody knows he was a fabulous post-president. But Stu Eizenstat talked about what he did as president. And most presidents that aren’t reelected are considered less than successes. But he went through all the things that Carter did.
He started the Energy Department and the Education Department. He made peace between Egypt and Israel. He said he was the greatest environmental president since Teddy Roosevelt. He put 80 million acres in Alaska into the National Park System. He said that it was underappreciated at the time, but he was the great deregulator of government. He also tamed inflation, stagflation, by appointing Paul Volcker to the Federal Reserve at great political detriment to himself and his political future. So I think that there is an effort to change the historic evaluation of the Carter legacy.
MONTANARO: You know, he didn’t handle the politics of the time very well. I think that’s been a big part of why so many people have said that he had a failed presidency – because inflation was as high as it was. He had this crisis with the Iran hostage crisis, where he didn’t get them out until his last day in office. And, you know, that really, obviously, painted a darker picture of his presidency than maybe is – the light now is casting on it currently. And I will say that part of that is because we were then at a time of great volatility – in a way that we are sort of now, as well – because he was really at this hinge of cultural change.
I mean, we were moving away from this 1950s-style values, you know, and had moved into the sort of rock ‘n’ roll, 1960s and ’70s culture, which Jimmy Carter had great affinity for and wanted to move the country in a direction that was more progressive, that cared more about the poor, that cared about income inequality, that cared about climate change – a thing that was not on the tips of people’s tongues when they’re standing in gas lines because they can’t get gas for their cars. And the politics of the moment often take over and supersede what winds up happening long term. But as the aperture has widened on the Carter presidency, it certainly has been cast in a different light.
LIASSON: And don’t forget that he won his election in a reaction against the cynicism and corruption and violence of the years before. We’d had the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, Nixon and Watergate, and then we had Vietnam. So he was going to be the antidote to that. He ran saying, I’ll never tell you a lie. And most historians who’ve looked at his record haven’t really found any big lies that he told. So he was a populist outsider who was running as the antidote to a very dispiriting period in American history.
KHALID: Before we wrap up today’s show, I just want to ask you both for your final thoughts.
LIASSON: What really struck me was the last speaker in the eulogies, Andrew Young, who’s 92 years old, former civil rights leader, U.N. ambassador, mayor of Atlanta – incredible voice, speaking without notes. But he said that Jimmy Carter was something of a miracle. And then he went on to tell this incredible story about the Civil Rights Movement in the South, which was dangerous and violent. And he talked about – he was nervous driving through Plains, Georgia. Sumter County was one of the most dangerous places for a Black person to be, and he talked about the sheriff there and how, when he met Jimmy Carter, he mentioned the sheriff’s name, Fred Chappell, and Martin Luther King had called him the meanest man in the world. And Carter said, famously, oh, yes, he’s one of my good friends, and Young said, that’s not really what I wanted to hear.
But then he told the story about Jimmy Carter was a minority – that’s what he said -because Sumter County was 75% Black. And he said that he identified with minorities. He made friends with the majority in his hometown. And then, when he went to the Naval Academy, he asked for his roommate to be the first Black midshipman because he felt that his experience as a minority in Sumter County could help this young Black midshipman make the adjustments that were necessary.
MONTANARO: You know, it was, I thought, a heartfelt ceremony overall. Clearly, the Carters – Jimmy Carter himself, Rosalynn Carter – picked out all of the details of what we saw and heard during this ceremony. It certainly was very personal. And I was struck by Walter Mondale’s son talking about how Jimmy Carter – and he’s – Jimmy Carter has said this before – that he felt that his presidency was that he told the truth, he upheld the law and he kept the peace. And when Stu Eizenstat talked, I thought it was notable – and probably fair – where he said, he may not be a candidate for Mount Rushmore, but he belongs in the foothills.
LIASSON: Yeah, that was really great.
KHALID: Well, on that note, let’s leave it there for today. I really appreciate this conversation. I’m Asma Khalid. I cover the White House.
MONTANARO: I’m Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
LIASSON: And I’m Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.
KHALID: And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR POLITICS PODCAST.
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