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President emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass had an interesting take on Tuesday’s installment of Morning Joe on MSNBC. Ahead of former President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral, he claimed that Carter was actually the “forerunner” to Ronald Reagan.

Haass declared that “I actually think Jimmy Carter was a really interesting foreign policy person, who at one and the same time was both an idealist and a realist. In some ways, if you think about him, he was the forerunner of Ronald Reagan. He put human rights front and center on the foreign policy agenda, but he was still willing to deal with regimes like China and the Soviet Union, which to me, you know, was impressive, and he—by the end, he was increasing American defense spending significantly.”

The defense spending increases came after the failures of the first half of his term. Part of Carter’s human rights crusade included pulling the rug out from under the Shah of Iran, the consequences of which American presidents are still having to deal with. Reagan’s focus helped bring down the Soviet Union and its grip on Eastern Europe.

As for Haass, he continued, “He understood that yes, he was a man of peace, but he understood the world wasn’t there. So, he went through the Camp David thing, but he jacked up American defense spending significantly. All of our military capabilities in the Middle East, what we now call Central Command, guess what? They had their origins in late ’79, early ’80 under Jimmy Carter and his Pentagon. So, I actually think there’s much more continuity between Carter and Reagan than anybody understands, and so I would give him a lot of credit for what he did.”

It is hard to imagine the day when the state funeral for Donald Trump happens, an MSNBC foreign policy bigwig claiming that the conversion of Pacific Command to Indo-Pacific Command represents some grand success or that he was some combination of an idealist and realist who was ready to talk to North Korea, got the Abraham Accords signed, and upheld the red line on Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons usage. And yet, Haass isn’t even correct when he says “all of” the military capabilities that came to define the 1980s started under Carter. The B-1 Bomber was cancelled by Carter and revived by Reagan while the 600 naval ship buildup that helped bankrupt the Soviet Union was an exclusively Reagan strategy.

Here is a transcript for the January 7 show:

MSNBC Morning Joe

1/7/2024

6:39 PM ET

RICHARD HAASS: So, I actually think Jimmy Carter was a really interesting foreign policy person, who at one and the same time was both an idealist and a realist. In some ways, if you think about him, he was the forerunner of Ronald Reagan. He put human rights front and center on the foreign policy agenda, but he was still willing to deal with regimes like China and the Soviet Union, which to me, you know, was impressive, and he—by the end, he was increasing American defense spending significantly. 

He understood that yes, he was a man of peace, but he understood the world wasn’t there. So, he went through the Camp David thing, but he jacked up American defense spending significantly. All of our military capabilities in the Middle East, what we now call Central Command, guess what? They had their origins in late ’79, early ’80 under Jimmy Carter and his Pentagon. So, I actually think there’s much more continuity between Carter and Reagan than anybody understands, and so I would give him a lot of credit for what he did.