Jimmy Carter may have been a longtime Sunday school teacher but he also knew how to dish it out to a political rival – with a smile on his face.
Nearly seven years ago, at the age of 93, Carter launched some memorable shots at Donald Trump in an interview on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
It came at a time when Democrats were in an uproar during Trump’s first term.
Trump hit back against Carter, repeatedly trashing him in campaign speeches until as recently as this fall – including on his 100th birthday.
Now, Carter’s death on Sunday is set to cut into some of the build-up to Trump’s inauguration on January 20th.
Trump has been rolling out cabinet announcements and firing out policy ideas as he prepares to take the oath for the second time after his historic comeback. Democrats have been on the back foot.
But Carter is set to be memorialized in Washington, D.C. and Georgia just days before the inauguration.
Following Carter’s death Trump issued a statement saying the nation owed the 39th president a ‘debt of gratitude’ for his service.
It was very different to the swipes and counter-swipes the two had previously taken at each other during a long feud.
‘Does America want kind of a jerk as president?,’ Colbert asked Carter during the 2018 interview, wondering if the Georgian was ‘too nice.’
‘Apparently, from this recent election, yes. I never knew it before,’ Carter quipped with a smile, earning a big laugh from the crowd.
The host also asked him what it took to be president.
‘I used to think it was to tell the truth,’ Carter said, building in a dramatic pause. ‘But I’ve changed my mind lately.’
In the interview Carter also said that he prays for Trump.
Trump regularly went after Carter, whose Gallup approval rating was at 34 percent when he left office.
Carter came in 26th place when historians were asked to rank U.S. presidents in 2021.
Trump mocked Carter’s administration during an October 1 campaign event in Waunakee, Wisconsin, comparing him to President Joe Biden, who Trump regularly casts as feckless and unaware.
‘Jimmy Carter is the happiest man because Jimmy Carter is considered a brilliant president by comparison, (to Joe Biden),’ Trump said.
Carter made other comments on Trump, which included telling told CBS that Trump was ‘very careless with the truth,
‘I think he’s a disaster…In human rights and in treating people equal,’ Carter said.
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died in 2023, added at the time: ‘The worst is that he is not telling the truth, and that just hurts everything.’
Trump did not attend Rosalynn Carter’s memorial service in Carter’s hometown of Plains, Georgia, although neither did Barack Obama or George W. Bush.
In 2019, speaking at the Carter Center, the 39th president indicated that he believed Trump was an illegitimate president.
He pointed to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
when asked about Russia’s role, Carter said: ‘Well, the president himself should condemn it, admit that it happened, which I think 16 [of the] intelligence agencies have already agreed to say.
‘And there’s no doubt that the Russians did interfere in the election. And I think the interference although not yet quantified, if fully investigated would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016.
‘He lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf.’
When presidential biographer Jon Meacham, a favorite of Biden’s, asked if he believed Trump was an illegitimate president, Carter quipped: ‘Based on what I said, which I can’t retract…’, then cast a wide grin.
