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Remembering Jimmy Carter; Race For Speaker. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 30, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:36]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Today on Inside Politics, a peanut farmer, peacemaker and president, the world is honoring the incredible life and legacy of former President Jimmy Carter who died yesterday at the age of 100. I'll talk to an acclaimed journalist who covered the 39th president for more than five decades.

Plus a, "complete and total endorsement." Donald Trump just offered that belated Christmas gift to Mike Johnson, who's fighting to keep his gavel when Republicans choose their next speaker this week. And Musk versus MAGA, the richest man in the world says he's willing to "go to war" on a critical immigration issue. And Donald Trump says he's siding with his billionaire bestie over his hardline anti- immigration base.

I'm Phil Mattingly in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines Inside Politics.

"The bond over our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices," former President Jimmy Carter delivered those powerful words 22 years ago as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his accomplishments after leaving the White House. You can see the flags flying half staff where Carter held the oval office from 1977 to 1981.

And while he lost reelection, the 39th president left an enduring legacy as a champion for peace and human rights here in the US and across the globe. CNN's Ryan Young is in Carter's hometown of Plains, Georgia, where he died peacefully yesterday surrounded by his adoring family. Ryan, that community was so critical to the former president's life, his role in the White House and afterwards. What are people saying there on the ground?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Phil, this is a tough moment, obviously here in Plains. A lot of people celebrating the former president because they really see him as a son of this entire state. So as we walk through this area, people have so many stories about the Jimmy Carter that they knew.

Across the street at the center over there, the man said Jimmy told him to stay open the day that he died because he wanted to make sure tourists had a place to go. We do know the memorial service is set for January 9th. And through that, there'll be a celebration of plains, and that's what the former president wanted. There are so many people who are expected to come from across the world to pay their respects to a man who did so much with his life, not only as president but obviously after being president.

We talked to the mayor who has talked about how not only was he a good friend to this area, but he was someone that everyone here had some sort of interaction with. So as we move forward, Phil, we will be hearing stories on a day to day basis about how Jimmy Carter was connected to the state of Georgia.

MATTINGLY: Yes, no question about that. Ryan Young for us in Plains.

I want to turn to the former anchor of this program, used to be called "Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics." She's now a special correspondent for PBS NewsHour and has been covering Jimmy Carter since 1970 when he was the governor of Georgia.

This photo we're going to pull up right now, it's from February of 1976 when Judy was questioning then presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. Judy, thanks so much for coming back to "Inside Politics."

I want to start with kind of this moment. I'm always struck by the lead of an obituary, which sounds a little morbid, but it tells you a lot. The length of it, which is Jimmy Carter's isn't just that he was the 39th president or that he was a governor. It is about six, seven, eight clauses in one, which I think underscores the legacy that he left even after the White House.

JUDY WOODRUFF, PBS NEWSHOUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: No question, Phil. And I'm so glad to be with you today, this day after President Carter's passing. Remarkable, the longest living president ever in American history.

And as you say, someone I covered when he first ran, actually his second run for governor in 1970, I covered him in the state of Georgia. He was the unlikely come from behind peanut farmer who had served in the Georgia State Senate, who had this ambition not only as we learned out, to be the governor of Georgia, we learned to be the governor of Georgia, which he served for four years.

There was a one term limit at that time. But who then, while he was governor, decided that the presidency was something that he could achieve and went after it, and frankly surprised everybody.

[12:05:06]

MATTINGLY: It's always funny to listen to the stories, some of which he has told about him telling his advisors that was something he wanted to do when he was in the governor's mansion and none of them believed it. I assumed he was talking about something else. But when you were covering that race, his second race for governor back in 1970, did you ever foresee what would happen over the course of the next decade?

WOODRUFF: Not a chance, not a chance. I knew that he had the drive, he had the ambition. He was very, very smart. We all knew that, nuclear engineer. He had served in the Navy under Admiral Hyman Rickover, nuclear submarine commander. And he brought all that, if you will, engineering background, along with this fierce determination to do what he could to improve the lives of people across the state of Georgia. And he, as I say, he beat a former governor to win that race.

There was always this -- he wasn't a natural politician and he's not somebody who loved going around shaking hands. But when you were with him, he could fixate those blue eyes on you as if you were the only person in the room. And that was a gift that I know served him well as he then went on and as you know, in 1976, to run for president, winning the Iowa caucuses, going practically door to door, spending the night in people's homes in Iowa -- coming in second, I should say, after undeclared in Iowa.

But that was enough to catapult him. And again, defeating all expectations, he was someone who was constantly underestimated.

MATTINGLY: You interviewed him a number of times. I want to play something from your 2021 interview with him. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOODRUFF: As you think back on your presidency and your time as president, what are you most proud of?

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER US PRESIDENT: Well, we are very proud of having been elected and having served as president. That's just the epitome of our lives, I think, in totality. And I would say that we did what we pledged to do in the campaign. We kept the peace, and we obeyed the law and we told the truth, and we honored human rights. Those were things that were important to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Judy, there's so much discussion, and rightfully so, about his post-presidential legacy. But there's also been an evolution in how people view his four years in office. Can you kind of describe that, what you saw and whether your views have evolved on it?

WOODRUFF: I think that's right, Phil. At the time, were consumed with the politics of the moment. The country was dealing with inflation, high price for gasoline, and then, of course, the last year of his presidency was consumed with the Iran hostage crisis. He was never able to get those hostages, American hostages, home until Ronald Reagan had just been, had just taken office. And those were the things that consumed us then.

But in the years since, there has clearly been a reappraisal, a reminder that the Camp David accords, the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt which Jimmy Carter was determined was going to happen. It took him 13 days at Camp David, but he the force behind that peace agreement that lives to this day.

The Panama Canal treaties, another enormous achievement during his presidency. The fact that he put human rights on the map, the appointment of Paul Volcker to be the chairman of the Federal Reserve, someone who by the way went on to raise interest rates to fight inflation, which hurt Jimmy Carter politically. But Carter did what he thought was right for the economy.

So there is a new appreciation today of what he was able to -- excuse me, accomplish as president as well as the enormous achievements of his post presidency.

MATTINGLY: I read that you said once about President Carter, I watched him almost will his way to make a difference in this world. What do you mean by that?

WOODRUFF: Somewhere deep inside Jimmy Carter, who grew up on a peanut farm, his father ran a pretty successful peanut business, but it was very hands on. Jimmy Carter worked in the fields, worked in the plant where they shell the peanuts.

He did hand labor. He grew up in a very, you could say not just rural, but a very simple manual labor-oriented environment. And yet he was always a good student. He went to the Naval Academy. Somewhere inside of him was a fierce drive to make a difference in the world. To look after the people who couldn't look after themselves, to care for the weakest among us.

And that, of course, is what we know his post-presidency for the Carter center based in Atlanta has focused on, I believe, it's 40 or 60 countries, the poorest countries in the world. That's where their efforts have been focused.

[12:10:10]

And that goes right to the heart of what Jimmy Carter believed that it's our responsibility to love others. His faith was incredibly important to him. And his faith told him that it was his obligation to do what he could for others. And that to me is what drove him more than anything.

But it was a will like I don't -- I can't think of anyone else I've covered in American politics with as fierce a drive as Jimmy Carter had.

MATTINGLY: Judy Woodruff, not only did you used to sit in this chair, but you've also been very kind to me personally over the years and so many of us as well. Thank you so much for sharing your insights over decades of covering President Jimmy Carter.

WOODRUFF: I'm very glad to be with you, Phil.

MATTINGLY: Well, a lot has changed since Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976. So how did his election and then failed re election bid reshape American politics? That's next.

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[12:15:37]

MATTINGLY: In the nearly 50 years since Jimmy Carter won the 1976 presidential race, a lot has changed. There have obviously been technological advances of the internet, cellphones, the entire world of streaming. But politically, even more is different.

Take a look at Jimmy Carter's 1976 electoral map. That's right, Texas is blue, California is Red. Now let's fast forward to November of 2024 and Donald Trump's winning map. The red and the blue, they've essentially completely inverted on some level. The question is, how did it happen?

So to get into all of this, I'm joined by some incredible reporters. The New Yorker, Susan Glasser, CNN's Kristen Holmes, and the New York Times, Carl Hulse. Carl, I want to start with you because I think everybody tries to figure out in the wake of an election, particularly one like we just saw, is this a realignment? Is this a one off? What does this all mean going forward?

When you talk to people on Capitol Hill every single day, what's their view in terms of what this signifies going forward, 2024?

CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, New York Times: Well, I mean, our politics is cyclical, right, and you can see that from that map. Things just keep on evolving and changing, and there seems to be a backlash.

You know, when I've been thinking about Jimmy Carter, I thought, well, there's the guy who paved the way for Bill Clinton, right? But Bill Clinton, in some ways, paved the way for Newt Gingrich and those politics. And I think what struck me about the Carter situation is the unity around him right now, right? It shows how polarized our politics have become because it's striking how everyone has come together and finally made the decision, you know what, Jimmy Carter was a good man and we can all agree on that.

We might not agree much more about our politics, but we can agree on that thing. But it's going to be interesting to see how the state funeral sort of interacts with the other quadrennial things that are about to be happening here in new congress, the certification of the election, the inauguration. It's going to be very interesting to me.

MATTINGLY: Yes. If you had anything on your schedule, over the course of the next two weeks, it's about to get very, very complicated. The parties have changed a lot too. Take a listen to Jimmy Carter's Democratic National Convention speech in 1976, just this clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: I have never met a Democratic president, but I've always been a Democrat. We Democrats believe that competition is better than regulation, and we intend to combine strong safeguards for consumers with minimal intrusion of government in our free economic system. I believe -- I believe that anyone who's able to work ought to work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: You know, Kristen, to Carl's point, where he kind of was the leading indicator toward Bill Clinton, who I think followed much of those words, the Democratic Party seems to have moved away from some of those statements, at least to some degree, over the course of the last couple decades.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, and some of them sound a lot like things that the Republican Party has based an entire political cycle on and things that people voted for. But I do think one of the interesting things about comparing when Jimmy Carter got elected to what we're seeing right now is still what was going on with the government and the people of the United States of America, which is kind of similar.

If you actually look at the election process at the time, you had the Vietnam War, you had people who were disenfranchised with what they were seeing in the government, and they saw Jimmy Carter as a potential change, an outsider. And it's not that different than what we saw in this election, which were people who were very unhappy with the current state of the government, in particular, not just the economy, which was also an issue then, but just the government structure.

And then you saw this person who claims to be an outsider, not necessarily an actual outsider, but claims to be an outsider, coming in and saying they want to disrupt the system. And I do think that's one thing that is similar in the two. However, obviously these are two completely different people that we're looking at. It's just interesting to see how, as you said, politics is cyclical and what people are looking for changes.

MATTINGLY: And one of the things that is also the case in the Middle east, once again, a hot button issue, still kind of on fire on some level. I want to play from the Camp David Accords what Jimmy Carter said soon, Susan, and then have you respond to it afterwards. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: We are privileged to witness tonight a significant achievement in the cause of peace. Through 13 long days at Camp David, we have seen them display determination and vision, and flexibility which was needed to make this agreement come to pass. All of us owe them our gratitude and respect.

[12:20:22]

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: I think what's striking in this moment is, you know, if you read Lawrence Wright's book on that period of time, I mean, it's just extraordinary what he was able to almost will across the finish line there. How did that shape kind of negotiations, the state of the Middle East going forward? Does it give any lessons that perhaps the incoming president could follow?

SUSAN GLASSER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, first of all, we should note that is an enduring accomplishment in a region that has not had enduring examples of peace, the peace between Israel and Egypt has held. And I think that in and of itself makes it worth studying.

Now, there were, you know, years that led up to it. And yet you mentioned my colleague, Larry Wright's amazing play, which I recommend to everybody, "Thirteen Days." But what it shows is that Carter's personal determination really was important, that it was not the foreordained conclusion that we might think that it was, given how long Israel and Egypt have managed to keep that peace. So that's number one, I think that's important.

Number two, Carter, he determined to expend his own political credibility, his own time in office on making this peace deal in the Middle East.

He shocked his vice president, Walter Mondale, on his very first day in office by saying that he was personally going to be invested in this seemingly hopeless cause. I think that's really notable how presidents choose to spend their time.

But it also goes to this political dilemma that we're talking about, which is how is it that Carter became a one term president, in part it was by flouting the demands of politics and saying, I'm going to do what I perceived to be right. And that, by the way, is the major difference between Jimmy Carter and the incoming occupant of the Oval Office, which is that people responding not to their concerns about the government per se of the Watergate era, but about the corruption of one man in the presidency, Richard Nixon.

And it was Carter's personal integrity, his morals, his values, and the perception of that, I think that helped him to become the president. Partially why we're going to be celebrating his extraordinary life over the next couple of weeks is for that reason, is because of who he was as a person even if sometimes when that worked against him as a politician.

HOLMES: Well, and I would say you really saw that in his post- presidency as well. I mean, when you look at the fact, you want to compare the two, which I guess I started that so, I will say.

But if you want to compare their post-presidency, I mean the fact that Jimmy Carter spent his entire post-presidency trying to better the world in a way that we actually have not seen from president since then, and obviously the complete opposite that we saw from the man who is going to be the next president, who spent his entire know, four year, ten year griping and complaining, and trying to do whatever he could to further himself versus this man who decided to give his life to public service.

MATTINGLY: Yes, very different on the personal level. And also worth noting, Jimmy Carter is willing to do that. Tensions with income or with the current or sitting administrations repeatedly which was not the norm prior to him, didn't seem to care much and actually seemed to work in his favor in terms of what he was trying to do.

All right, guys, stick with me, a lot more to get to. Coming up, did Donald Trump just save Mike Johnson's job? Let's discuss.

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[12:27:54]

MATTINGLY: Donald Trump just gave his complete and total endorsement to Mike Johnson to be reelected Speaker of the House this week. And a, we'll call it rather lengthy, Truth Social post, the president towards the very end, the president-elect, called Johnson a "good, hardworking religious man who will do the right thing and will continue to win."

So will that be enough? Well, not for the one House Republican who has already said he won't vote for Johnson. Congressman Thomas Massie just posting on X, "I respect and support President Trump, but his endorsement of Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan. We've seen Johnson partner with the Democrats to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans and blow the budget."

My panel is back with me now. We were just talking about how there's a whole lot on this calendar over the course of the next ten days. First issue among them, this Friday, Congress is sworn into session and a new speaker needs to be selected. Will there be a new speaker, Carl Hulse? And who will it be?

HULSE: I think the Trump endorsement was much better than the alternative for Mike Johnson, no endorsement or even anti-endorsement. But it definitely doesn't seal the deal for Mike Johnson. You saw Thomas Massie, there's other people who are already making noise, shall we say, about not supporting Mike Johnson. I think it's going to be tough.

And we don't know yet the exact numbers of the Congress, right? Somebody might be sick, you know, the number can fluctuate. But he can only lose one or two. So if you're in that position, I mean, you could see a repeat of the Kevin McCarthy marathon. I just -- it's hard to -- but I think Trump is recognizing something right now, is that he can't have this instability as he starts out, right?

You know, he's trying to get things done. He's trying to pull Mike Johnson across the finish line. I'm just not sure he's going to be enough. Donald Trump has proven very good at disruption, not so good all the time at getting somebody to the position where he wants them.

MATTINGLY: You know, Kristen, to Carl's point, I want to pull up our great congressional colleague Haley Talbot keeps a running list of people who aren't totally sold on it yet. It has been the gospel for us as we've covered how many of these fights over the course of the last years.