Donald Trump drops insults against Jimmy Carter after ex-president's death

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump had only kind words to say about Jimmy Carter after his death Sunday, calling the former president “a really good man” who will be missed.

At Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida, flags flew at half-staff in Carter’s honor on Monday.

During Carter’s lifetime, Trump offered a far less sympathetic view.

For years, Trump, a Republican, has derided the one-term Democratic commander-in-chief as the nation’s worst president. Just two months ago, on Carter’s 100th birthday, Trump suggested that the terminally ill centenarian was happy because Joe Biden had finally replaced him as the worst president of all time.

Carter often gave as much as he got. Carter was a peanut farmer in Georgia before entering politics, and when it came to his assessment of Trump, he was no Georgia peach.

When late-night TV host Stephen Colbert asked him in 2018 whether Americans wanted “some kind of idiot” as their leader, Carter didn’t miss a beat. “Apparently yes, based on this recent election,” he replied.

Earlier this year, Carter suggested that his son, Chip Carter, live long enough to vote for Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, in November. Two weeks before the election, Carter’s office confirmed that he had voted by mail. For Harris.

Amid the barrage of insults and headlines, there were fleeting moments of rapprochement between the 39^Th and the 45^Th Presidents.

During Trump’s first term, Carter occasionally came to his defense.

Not only did Carter attend Trump’s first inauguration, he was also the first former president to attend. Later that year, in 2017, Carter suggested that the media had been tougher on Trump than on any other president. Trump responded by thanking Carter on Twitter for “the nice comments.”

Jimmy Carter on Long Life, Philanthropy:“I have had an exciting, adventurous and enjoyable life”

In 2019, Trump’s White House announced that Carter had written a “beautiful” letter to Trump about trade talks with China and that the two men had a “very good telephone conversation” about China and other issues.

“The President has always liked President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter and extended his best wishes to them on behalf of the American people,” the White House statement said.

If Trump liked Carter, he rarely showed it.

In 2014, Trump joked that Carter was dead, even though the former president was still very much alive. During his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump referred to the “late, great Jimmy Carter.”

“Of course I don’t believe Jimmy Carter is dead,” he later tweeted amid criticism for the gaffe. “Just being sarcastic,” he said, adding, “but I never thought he’d still be alive as president, stiff!”

Trump repeatedly called Carter the worst president in history – at least until Barack Obama came along.

“I never thought I would say this, but President Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Sotoro, is a far worse president than Jimmy Carter!” Trump said in 2014.

Trump, who tends to tailor his stories to suit his audience, expressed a slightly different view after Biden defeated him in 2020. He suggested several times that Biden, not Obama, had replaced Carter as the worst president of all time.

Jimmy Carter’s state funeral:The president is honored in Washington before his funeral in Georgia

Carter, for his part, called Trump “a disaster” of a president in a 2018 interview with The Washington Post and said the Republican had “an attitude of ignorance toward the truth.”

The next year, Carter told his church congregation in Plains, Georgia, that Trump had called him to discuss the letter he had sent Trump about China. Carter suggested that China was likely to surpass the United States as an economic superpower because it had been able to avoid the military entanglements that would have diverted money that would otherwise have been spent on infrastructure.

“I’m not really afraid of this point in time, but it bothers President Trump, and I don’t know why,” Carter said. “I’m not criticizing him – this morning,” he added. After Trump was elected for a second time in November of his term, Carter, who had been in hospice for nearly two years, announced that he would not attend Trump’s inauguration but would be there if his health had not worsened.

In two statements following Carter’s death, Trump noted his differences with the former president.

This time, however, he not only refrained from the insults, he even suggested that Carter had earned his respect.

“Although I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our country and everything it stands for,” he wrote. “He worked hard to make America a better place and for that I give him my highest respect.”

Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on X @mcollinsNEWS.

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Donald Trump drops insults against Jimmy Carter after ex-president’s death

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