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State Funeral For Former President Jimmy Carter Set For January 9 in D.C.; NTSB to Assist With Investigation Into Deadly South Korea Plane Crash; Trump Endorses Mike Johnson in House Speaker Race; Just Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired December 30, 2024 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[14:01:23]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Final preparations are underway this hour to honor and pay tribute to former President Jimmy Carter who died on Sunday at the age of 100.

We now know that he will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol. And President Biden will deliver a eulogy at Carter's state funeral in Washington, D.C. on January 9th, a day that Biden has declared a national day of mourning.

Today, the world is remembering Carter's extraordinary life. The humble peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, who became the nation's 39th president. The Southern Statesman only served a single term as president, but then led one of the most significant post-presidencies in history. The former President and his wife, Rosalynn, founding the Carter Center in 1982, a nonprofit that works to promote peace and freedom around the world. Rosalynn passed away last year. And the two had been married for 77 years.

We have a team of correspondents covering these developments. We have Ryan Young in Carter's hometown of Plains, Georgia. But let's begin with Rafael Romo, who is at the Carter center in Atlanta.

Rafael, what more can you tell us about these new details on Carter's funeral?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brianna. Well, in addition to line and state of -- as a U.S. Capital, as you mentioned previously, we have also learned that there will be public observances both in Washington and here in Atlanta, perhaps here where we are at the Carter Center. We have also learned that there will be a private burial in his beloved Plains, Georgia for family and close friends, of course, his native town.

And on top of all that, Brianna, we have seen this tremendous outpouring of love here at the Carter Center with many people stopping by to bring flowers to light candles. There was someone who stopped by to leave a jar of peanuts for the -- to honor the memory of the former peanut farmer who rose to become the 39th President of the United States. And much has been said about the fact that Jimmy Carter and his presidency didn't really reach its full potential. But people here in Georgia say that -- and they insist, as a matter of fact, that you have to look at his entire life and legacy, and also remember the causes that he promoted, including democracy, fighting disease, seeking international peace.

I had an opportunity to talk to a former adviser here at the Carter Center earlier. And this is what he had to say about the late president. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK RICHARDS, RETIRED SENIOR ADVISER FOR HEALTH, CARTER CENTER: President Carter and Mrs. Carter were very, very passionate about human rights, human dignity, freedom and democracy, and the alleviation of suffering, and especially that healthcare is a human right. And they're concerned with diseases that especially afflicted people who were destitute in poverty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: And Brianna, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has ordered flags around the state to be flown at half-staff. There's also been numerous statements of condolences and praise from the political leadership here in Georgia, including Senator Raphael Warnock, who said that Jimmy Carter was one of his heroes. Brianna, back to you.

KEILAR: Rafael, thank you for that report.

Let's go now to Ryan Young, who is there in Plains, Georgia, in Carter's hometown. What are people there saying? And how is the town preparing, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it seems like a world of difference between here and Atlanta because as I drove here last night, you can see -- it's almost like a time capsule.

[14:05:02]

The downtown is pretty much just a block. They've been preparing for this for quite some time. And every time you start talking to someone, the outpouring of emotion about the former President just gleams through them. It's mostly joy. They talk about a man with a giant heart, someone who is still doing Sunday school -- teaching Sunday school in his late ages.

And you think about the fact that he worked all around the world to make this a better place. But let's not forget this man who went to the Naval Academy. He then went on to be governor before becoming president.

There is so much pride in this area. But just like Rafael did, we talk to someone from the Carter Center. There's a lot of love and appreciation. I want you to take a listen to one of his former coworkers in a sense. Listen to the outpouring of emotion and love for this man they know as the former President.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARIN RYAN, SENIOR POLICY ADVISER ON HUMAN RIGHTS, THE CARTER CENTER: Sorry. You know, President Carter was like a -- was a mentor for me. He was like a father. I didn't have a present father. And he would scold me. Je would teach me. He would guide me. He would lift me up. He would say, "Keep going." He would say, "Thank you."

I worked with him for more than 30 years. And he never let me think that our work was futile, as hard as it became, or that it was pointless. He would say, "Okay, what's next?"

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: So as you can see from above, this really looks like a different place. This town, I look at the census said about (inaudible) live here. Everything (inaudible). Someone has a story about the former President. One of the things you don't notice here, there's no stoplights. And we've seen so much industrial movement (inaudible) flower trucks, people talking about buying sweet potatoes. And as you can see the gathering of the media down there, you understand how many people's emotions are wrapped around this man who they didn't consider just a former President. He was a native son, a native son for this entire state that people will remember for quite some time, a man who gave his entire life to helping others. Brianna?

KEILAR: Ryan Young, thank you so much for that and for that view of Plains, Georgia.

Let's talk more about the life and legacy of Jimmy Carter. We have Kate Andersen Brower with us. She's the author of the books "Team of Five" and "The Residents."

And I just wonder what you are thinking and what you're reflecting on, Kate, as Jimmy Carter has passed after such a long and fruitful life in the White House and of course after.

KATE ANDERSEN BROWER, AUTHOR, "THE RESIDENCE": Yeah. You know, I had the opportunity to interview him in his home with Rosalynn Carter. And the video you showed of Plains, it's just brings back memories of just sweat (ph). They were normal. They were as normal as you can get having occupied the White House. They had a very traditional home, couple bedrooms. They offered to get me a drink of water themselves. I mean, anybody who's been near the presidency, and, you know, Brianna, it's not normal to have a president and first lady that accessible.

And I went and heard him speak at the Sunday school. And he was somebody who just really deeply believed in the power of prayer. And, you know, he practiced what he preached, as we see with the work that he did in the Carter Center. He and Rosalynn Carter, they got emotional, actually, when we talked about the eradication of guinea worm disease, which is a very painful disease that they almost completely wiped out with their work with the Carter Center. And that was something that meant so much to them. It wasn't the amount of money that they could make with paid speeches and sitting on boards. It was about really helping people. It sounds like a cliche, but I mean, it's absolutely true about the Carters. KEILAR: And that's what he did. He redefined the post-presidency and

kind of set an expectation, I think, for other presidents that you don't just leave the White House, and that's it. You better still keep delivering.

BROWER: Yeah. I mean, you know, he loves Harry Truman. And on his desk in the Oval Office, he had the buck stops here, you know, and paying homage to Harry Truman.

And I think that you see in the post-presidency of maybe President Obama, he's somebody who's also taking a more global view of what it means to be a former President and the influence you have around the world, having occupied, you know, the White House and led the most powerful country in the world.

So I think that Jimmy Carter's post-presidency is unique because he left when he was in his mid-50s. And I asked him about, you know, being a former President and whether there is a president's club. And he said, "We're all very different men, but we do share that commonality of having faced the hardest decisions you could possibly face."

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KEILAR: I thought that was really interesting. The woman who worked with him at the Carter Center for 30 years said that he was like a father to her. And she said, "He would scold me." And to that point where you said, "We're all very different," that's what he said about the former presidents. How would you describe his relationships with other presidents and past presidents?

BROWER: You know, he was such an outlier. And I think in that photo of him, you kind of see him standing off to the side with the other presidents. And that is the attitude he had, he was about serving the American people and not necessarily a political party. I do think that he criticized sitting presidents and their policies in a way that went against the kind of unwritten code of the president's club at the time. You were not to criticize a sitting president.

And you had, you know, Jimmy Carter writing about Middle East policy during the Bush administration as being too pro-Israel. He was somebody who would go out on a limb for something he believed in. And I think that's what he'd want to be remembered for is being an, you know, authentic person who stood up for his beliefs, even if they were unpopular at the time.

KEILAR: Yeah. It is a critical few inches distance between him and the other presidents, but it really speaks volumes. And you also, Kate, profiled Rosalynn Carter. How did she reinvent the role of first lady?

BROWER: Well, she was the first First Lady to have an office in the East Wing. She was the first First Lady to have a major policy initiative. She took on mental health, which is ahead of her time. I mean, in many ways, they were both ahead of their time. They were, you know, born between World War I and the Great Depression, but yet, they were installing solar panels on the White House, you know? It was -- it's fascinating, and taking on mental health.

I mean, energy efficiency, the mental health crisis, these are all things that we face toady in 2024. And these were things that they were taking on. Even though they were born so very long ago, they had a very modern view of the world. And they were just both so true to each other, 77 years. They got married when she was 18 and he was 21. And I think that they were just a beautiful dedicated couple. And she worked side by side with him, The Carter Center. That was a complete joint dual project. She went around the world with him, just tirelessly advocating for clean water, free and fair elections. I mean, the list goes on.

KEILAR: Yeah, quite a partnership. And you said he was ahead of his time. She was as well. I think it's interesting how many people are reflecting on what has always been Carter's complicated political legacy. Yeah, he lost after one term. Record inflation, hostage crisis, but people are looking and increasingly have here in recent years at it with a fresh set of eyes and also in the wake of his passing. What do you think about that?

BROWER: I think it's important that we give him credit for all that he did in the years since the presidency. He did have a complicated presidency. But I think that, you know, in retrospect, he did -- he followed what he believed was right at the time. He was faced with some very difficult circumstances. And what he did to really reinvent and reimagine the post-presidency, I mean, he just came up with the Carter Center.

He had -- you know, Camp David was historic. And he thought, what am I going to do as a former President that will match that both in terms of international relevance and, you know, in terms of helping people at home with Habitat for Humanity? I mean, they just devoted their lives to helping people and not making money, which I think is the key thing. I mean, he made money off of his books. He wrote more than 30 books. But this was not somebody making $1 million a speaker, right? And I think that people admire that about him. It really wasn't about the bottom line for him.

KEILAR: Yeah, it wasn't. He leaves quite a legacy. Kate Andersen Brower, thank you so much for speaking with us.

BROWER: Thank you.

KEILAR: And ahead, are Democrats learning their lessons from the 2024 election or are they repeating the same mistakes? We'll be asking a top member of their party.

Plus the key pieces of evidence investigators are now searching for after Sunday's deadly plane crash in South Korea. We'll have those details coming up.

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KEILAR: Right now, investigators in South Korea are sifting through debris as they are looking for clues into what might have caused a Boeing 737 to crash land at an airport and burst into flames.

Officials now confirm the pilot of the Jeju Air flight reported a bird strike and declared mayday just minutes before the plane careened down the runway. South Korea's Acting President has ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country's entire airline operations system. And the NTSB is sending a team to help with the investigation.

In the meantime, there is anguish, there is anger, as South Korea is beginning to mourn the victims. 179 people died here, but two crew members sitting near the tail of the aircraft did survive the crash.

CNN's Mike Valerio is on scene in Muan, Norith -- pardon me, South Korea, with more.

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MIKE VALERIO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're getting a better sense of how expansive the debris field is. And right now, we're only a couple yards away from the epicenter of the debris field.

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That is the tail section of the Boeing 737-800, which managed to survive relatively, and I stress, relatively intact, 15 yards high. And this is the section of the plane where the two survivors were pulled from, rescued by first responders minutes after this plane was engulfed in flames. So we're going to pan to the left. That's where you can see this massive yellow crane that will be charged with moving pieces of the wreckage. Then we're going to pan down, and you can see parts of the aircraft that were hurled, jettisoned beyond the cinder block perimeter of the airport. And this is what investigators from South Korea, the NTSB from the United States, will be poring over, scouring over, as they investigate certainly what went wrong and were there any mechanical issues that contributed to the landing gear not deploying.

But, you know, I think we got a better sense during the day as we pan further to my right, just showing you that some of this debris was hurled from the aircraft a distance longer than a football field just to give you the sense of the force of this crash. During the daylight hours, we saw tray tables, yellow inflatable vests, seats that were mangled, and members of the military that were combing this area that we're looking at after sunset looking for potential human remains, looking for passengers' belongings, and cataloging certain elements of the aircraft, certain pieces of the aircraft.

We are waiting for the NTSB team to get on the scene to begin their work. That is the next part of this equation when it comes to the investigation, figuring out what went wrong. And we do know that one of the black box components has been damaged and it's questionable, an open question rather, whether or not it will have to be sent to the United States for examination. Mike Valerio, CNN, Muan, South Korea.

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KEILAR: All right. Thanks to Mike for that report. And coming up, President-Elect Trump looking to calm any challenges to House Speaker Mike Johnson ahead of a critical vote this week on whether the Louisiana Republican will hold on to his gavel.

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KEILAR: Just days before a critical vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson's bid to -- hold on to his gavel in the next Congress just got a major boost.

This morning, President-Elect Trump posted on social media that Johnson has his complete and total endorsement. This is coming as some House conservatives have warned they're not committed to backing Johnson. They've been upset over the way that he handled a chaotic government funding fight earlier this month.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is with us now on this. So, Kristen, what more do we know about this endorsement from Trump?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, this is somewhat of a relief for Speaker Johnson just given the fact of what we have seen over the past several days. One, as you noted, these various House members who have said that they probably will not support Speaker Johnson, or at least their votes are in question. But also what we saw with that chaotic funding bill, which was Donald Trump and Elon Musk together tanking that CR that Johnson had worked behind the scenes almost tirelessly on to try to get through in the 11th hour. So there are a lot of questions as to whether or not Trump would actually stand up and back Johnson for speaker.

Again, I will note, that Elon Musk, shortly after this actually passed, the proposal actually passed, he said that Speaker Johnson did a very good job. So reading the tea leaves there, given Musk and Trump's relationship right now, did seem likely. Trump was also on board with Speaker Johnson, but he didn't say anything publicly until today when he posted this very, very long post and at the very end of it said this about Speaker Johnson.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hardworking religious man. He will do the right thing, and he will continue to win. Mike has my complete and total endorsement. MAGA. So clearly, a helpful boost for Donald Trump. But we've also already started to see House members again saying that they aren't going to vote for him.

And by the way, I think I said boost for Donald Trump, but I meant boost for Mike Johnson. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, we certainly realized who was being boosted there for sure. And for the first time, Kristen, Trump is wading into this issue that's been dividing his supporters here in recent days, defending the H-1B Visa Program, which allows thousands of highly skilled foreign workers to immigrate to the U.S. each year to work. Tell us about this. HOLMES: Yeah. So this fight has been going on for the last week. And

you have seen Donald Trump's traditional base being the Steve Bannon's, the Laura Loomer's, people who have been with him for the last several years fighting against this idea of the H-1B visas. These are legal visas that encourage legal immigration to bring over, as you said, these skilled workers. They were saying that this is not what Donald Trump stood for. Elon Musk, on the other hand, it's not just Elon Musk, but several of the Silicon Valley tech moguls all support this program, which they say has helped them brought one. Elon Musk was using one of these visas, but also have brought over a ton of skilled workers for their companies. And this is what they say.

You start to see this kind of unfold on Twitter, these two factions of the party, the new and the old. This is what Trump had to say when he talked to the New York Post. He said, "I've always liked the visas. I have always been in favor of the visas that's why we have them. I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times."

So just a couple of things to note here. One, this is not true, just in the sense of, "I've always liked the visas." "I've always been in favor of the visas." His personal opinion, perhaps that is true. But if you look at what he did his actual first term --

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