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PBS News Hour’s first weekly recap featuring Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart and New York Times columnist David Brooks of the new year concluded with the duo taking turns singing the praises of former President Jimmy Carter and “the glow around him.” While one might have expected the liberal Capehart to say such things, the supposedly conservative Brooks failed to even mention one area where Carter was not the model former president some want to paint him as.

Host Amna Nawaz began with Capehart, “Our politics, our nation, obviously very different right now to the times that he was living and leading in. But I just want to ask each of you—Jonathan, you first—what are you in this moment taking away from the legacy of President Carter?”

Capehart began by recalling that when “I was a little kid when Jimmy Carter was in the White House, and I actually wrote him a letter during the Iranian hostage crisis, because I couldn’t understand why everyone was so mean to the president. He was doing everything he could to get them out.”

After recalling someone in the White House wrote him back, Capehart moved on to Carter’s post-presidency:

But in looking at his life, he spent, if my math is right, 10 times longer out of the White House than he did inside. And I remember, as a kid, I knew people were yelling at him. People didn’t like him. People hated him when he was in the White House. And yet, 40 years after the fact, the glow around him, because of all the work he did in the post-presidency, is something to see, where you have Democrats and Republicans praising him for what he did, especially outside of the White House. I can’t imagine we would—we will see that again.

As for Brooks, after joking about writing Carter a letter about the need to deregulate the trucking industry, he claimed, “The stuff on Habitat for Humanity, he brought faith into politics in a very admirable way, I thought. I think it influenced the way he thought about human rights. It certainly influenced his post-presidency but he was not overbearing with it.”

He added, “But he was from a time when you go back and read those essays. I would read a bunch of columns at the time of his presidency. It was just so long ago. It was such a different culture, where people were really—it was a much better time. I hate to think of decline, but we have had such a political decline.”

When Republicans die, the media will frequently portray them as controversial or complicated, so it should not be considered speaking ill of the dead to point out that while Carter’s post-presidency was more than just Habitat for Humanity. He also tried to legitimize Hamas, flirted with anti-Semitism, and tried to undermine President George H.W. Bush as he sought to work with a global coalition to eject Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from Kuwait by trying to convince America’s coalition allies to abandon the effort.

Here is a transcript for the January 3 show:

PBS News Hour

1/3/2025

7:51 PM ET

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, next week, meanwhile, I need to ask you both about this moment we will be marking as a nation, which is the passing of former President Jimmy Carter.

Our politics, our nation, obviously very different right now to the times that he was living and leading in. But I just want to ask each of you — Jonathan, you first — what are you in this moment taking away from the legacy of President Carter?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, I was a little kid when Jimmy Carter was in the White House, and I actually wrote him a letter during the Iranian hostage crisis, because I couldn’t understand why everyone was so mean to the president. He was doing everything he could to get them out.

I wrote this in the letter, and I got a response, not from the president, but from someone in the White House. I do have it somewhere, in a box somewhere. But I tell that story only to say this is the first time I wrote — I have ever written to a president.

But in looking at his life, he spent, if my math is right, 10 times longer out of the White House than he did inside. And I remember, as a kid, I knew people were yelling at him. People didn’t like him. People hated him when he was in the White House. And yet, 40 years after the fact, the glow around him, because of all the work he did in the post-presidency, is something to see, where you have Democrats and Republicans praising him for what he did, especially outside of the White House.

I can’t imagine we would — we will see that again.

NAWAZ: David?

DAVID BROOKS: Jonathan is such a nicer person than I am. I wrote him a letter saying, why can’t you deregulate the trucking industry, you weakling?

NAWAZ: Different letter. Different kind of letter.

BROOKS: No, I didn’t write that. No, I mean, he — the stuff on Habitat for Humanity, he brought faith into politics in a very admirable way, I thought. I think it influenced the way he thought about human rights. It certainly influenced his post-presidency but, he was not overbearing with it.

But he was from a time when you go back and read those essays. I would read a bunch of columns at the time of his presidency. It was just so long ago. It was such a different culture, where people were really — it was a much better time. I hate to think of decline, but we have had such a political decline.

I also read from a sports columnist that Babe Ruth hit more home runs in Jimmy Carter’s lifetime than any active player today. So that’s a long time ago, when Jimmy Carter was born and lived.