Trump’s praise of Carter in death after mocking him in life deepens a contradictory relationship

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Housing for 100 tenants Jimmy Carter fulfill his desire to vote for the Democratic vice president Kamala Harris against the Republican Donald Trump in November. His death means flags at the White House will be at half-mast when Trump regains the presidency on January 20.

Deeply different in their political beliefs and personal lives, in their actions as president and after leaving office, Carter and Trump will once again be intertwined as the memory and legacy of one lingers as the other is inaugurated a second time. It will be another example of how the two have continued to overlap in often contradictory ways, even though their terms were separated by almost 40 years.

Trump singled out Carter for intense criticism during the 2024 campaign and repeatedly mocked him for firing up supporters. He called the president Joe Biden “the worst”, but said he made Carter look “brilliant” in comparison. He even delivered the line at Carter’s 100th birthday in October.

The president-elect also vowed to use his second term to undo some of Carter’s signature accomplishments. He will roll back environmental protectionpotentially reneging on a 1977 treaty relinquish control of the Panama Canal back to his homeland and liquidate the Federal Department of Education which Carter helped create in 1979.

On Tuesday, Trump spoke to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, and he again blasted Carter’s role in transferring control of the canal to Panama, saying it’s “a disgrace what took place ” and “Jimmy Carter gave it to them for one dollar.” He added of Panama, which runs the canal, “They laugh at us because they think we’re stupid. Well, we’re not stupid anymore.”

The comments came on the day Carter’s remains were flown to Washington, where he will lie in state at the US Capitol. Pressed on whether criticism of Carter was appropriate when it happened, Trump replied: “I liked him as a man. I disagreed with his policies. He thought giving away the Panama Canal was a good thing.

“I didn’t want to bring up the Panama Canal because of Jimmy Carter’s death,” he added, though he had first brought it up unprompted.

Still, Trump plans to attend Carter’s funeraland his statement marking the former president’s passing was gracious. He wrote: “The challenges Jimmy faced as president came at a crucial time for our country, and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.”

Trump also called Carter “a good man” who was “very consequential, far more than most presidents, after he left the Oval Office.”

“While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our country and all that it stands for,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media. “He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect.”

Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and media historian, said that for candidate Trump, “Carter became the perfect metaphor to criticize the Biden administration” given the parallel struggles facing Democrats. inflation and disturbances in Middle East. But she said Carter and Trump share a similar political ethos as outsiders who fueled populism and challenged and irritated the political establishment.

Roessner, who sat down with Carter for an extended interview in 2014, said that both he and Trump successfully presented themselves as authentic in an often otherwise flighty and transactional world of politics.

“Carters was certainly a message of love and moral reform, while Trump has offered a more divisive kind of politics of hate,” she said. “Both fit the political moment.”

Carter, the 39th president, was an outspoken and devout Baptist who was married to the same woman for 77 years and taught Sunday school while he was president and beyond. He offered this advice for Trump in 2019: “Keep the peace, promote human rights and tell the truth.”

Trump, the 45th and soon to be 47th president, has been married three times and was convicted of quiet money payments to cover up an extramarital affair with a porn actor.

But as candidates and as presidents, Carter and Trump both knew how best to maximize media coverage, and they were both critical of the media, Roessner said, especially political reporters they considered out of touch.

She pointed to a 1976 interview with Playboy magazine in which Carter found fault with the reporters who covered his campaign, saying, “The traveling press has no interest in any subject unless it’s a matter of making a mistake. . . . .. There’s nobody in the back of this plane who would ask a question unless he thought he could trick me into making a crazy statement.”

However, Carter never went nearly as far as Trump has felt the press “enemy of the people,” dismisses factual reporting he doesn’t like as “fake news” and criticizes reporters at his rallies harshly enough to prompt loud boos from the audience.

During the 2016 election, Carter warned his party against underestimating Trump’s appeal. Both men also defy ideological labels and stand out for their willingness to talk to dictators and isolated nations.

In 2018, Carter offered to travel to North Korea on behalf of the Trump administration. The following year, Trump called Carter to talk about China. He later described what was said as a “very good telephone conversation” and added that he had “always liked President Carter.”

However, things were not always cordial.

In 2014, Trump mistakenly referred to the former president at a conservative conference as “the late, great Jimmy Carter.” While Trump was president, Carter suggested that a investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election could “show that Trump did not actually win,” although the study never came close to substantiating the baseless claim.

Carter also criticized Trump for withholding US funding for the World Health Organization during coronavirus pandemic. Trump said during a 2019 G20 summit that Carter was nice but “a terrible president.”

Lindsay Chervinksy, a presidential historian and executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon in Virginia, said Trump’s remarks after Carter’s death were “what you do when a president dies and is considered the best form,” but that the president – elect’s more disparaging campaign comments about Carter were probably closer to his real thoughts.

In fact, Trump has already expressed annoyance at Biden’s conducting flag flying at half-staff in honor of Carter for his inauguration, posting that “Democrats are all ‘giddy'” about it.

“No one wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it,” he wrote.

Despite what transpired after the presidency, Carter’s deflated reputation when he left the White House in 1981 seemed frozen in place for Trump, who often uses that decade of his own rise to fame as a touchstone.

In 2020, Trump wrote on social media that he had “targeted 52 Iranian sites” if Iran retaliated for the targeted killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani. He said that figure represented the 52 American hostages taken by Iran when Carter was in office.

“A lot of what Trump says is shaped by the 1980s,” Chervinksy said. “In that era, Carter was synonymous with what it meant to be a failed, one-term president.”

Carter significantly rehabilitated his political image after his presidency. After his landslide reelection defeat, Carter returned to Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, established the Carter Center in 1982. He then spent decades advocating for democracy, mediating international conflict, and promoting public health globally. The couple also built houses with Habitat for Humanity.

The former president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Trump never accepted his defeat to Biden in 2020 and eschewed the typical post-presidency endeavors to become an elder statesman and burnish his legacy with new endeavors. Instead, he vowed retaliation against political enemies and set up political comeback it made him the first president since Grover Cleveland in 1893 to recapture the White House without consecutive terms.

Carter entered hospice care in February 2023. He said his goal was “just trying to get around to voting for Kamala Harris,” his grandson, Jason Carter, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August.

The former president cast his vote for Harris on mail on October 16. He died two months and two weeks later.