President Jimmy Carter Is Still Praying For Donald Trump

Well, sir, thanks for being here. It's nice to see you again. Good to be with you again. How have you been? Been fine, thank you. You're an extraordinary man. You're 93 years old. Am I correct at 93? Going on 94, yeah. Going on 94, okay. You have beaten cancer and you are still working to make the world a better place through the Carter Center and through your books. You've got a new one called Faith. And a lot of people will release a book as a trial balloon before they run for president. I've heard about that, yeah. Is there any chance you're running in 2020? Because we could use a nice guy in the Oval Office. I think there's an age limit. Oh, is there? I think there's an age limit. Oh, is there? Because I know it's 35 to get in, but I think you can go anywhere you want. I think 93 is the age limit. Well, you are known to be a nice guy. You've certainly proven it. You were sort of the first president of the 20th century to have a career after the White House with the Carter Center and your work with Habitat for Humanity and certainly eradicating diseases around the world. As president of the United States, you were the president after Nixon and Ford and America felt like they wanted a nice guy in there because those guys, Nixon didn't seem, he seemed like, pardon the expression, a son of a bitch. Were you too nice to be president because people criticized you for your demeanor and you might say the energy that was brought to the job? Does America want kind of a jerk as president? Apparently from its recent elections, yes. I never knew it before. What do you think it takes to be president? What's the one quality that it requires to be a good president? I used to think it was to tell the truth, but I've changed my mind lately. Do you think that you were criticized for telling truth to the American people? Well, I think I told the truth almost all the time. Almost all the time? I think I just got a broke news there. When did you not tell the truth to the American people? Well, my mother said I used to tell little white lies. That's what Hope Hicks says too. And one time she had an interview and a woman came in to interview mama and she said, oh, little white lies. So Jimmy does tell little white lies. What is that? She said, well, you know, when you came in the door and I said, I'm glad to see you and you look very nice. So a little white lie every now and then. That's the level. Now, as an ex-president, do you speak to the other ex-presidents? Sure. In fact, I'll be with two of them tomorrow. Who? With George W. Bush and with Bill Clinton. Okay. Now, do all the ex-presidents feel kind of good that since Trump's in office, all of you have gone up the ranks? You've all just been pushed up one level there? I don't know about the rest of them. But you feel pretty good about it? You pray a lot. Do you pray for Donald Trump? I pray that he'll be a good president and that he'll keep our country at peace and that he'll refrain from using nuclear weapons and that he will promote human rights. So yeah, I pray for him. Thank you for your prayers, first of all. Thank you for your prayers. We do need them. But do you think your prayers are being answered so far? Well, we used to have a pastor who would say, when you pray, God has three answers. One is yes. The other one is no. And the third one is you've got to be kidding. So I'm not sure which one it is yet. Donald Trump's gotten in some trouble for some of the rough language that he's used. And people have criticized him for that. And I've certainly made some jokes about it. I've heard about that. You've heard about that. You got in a little bit of trouble back in 1980. In that campaign, when it looked like Ted Kennedy might run, you famously said to a reporter, I will kick his ass. And at the time, that was unimaginable. For me. That a president, any president, that he would say that to a reporter. It seems pretty tame. I didn't say that to a reporter. I said it to a congressman. And he reported it to a reporter. So he threw you under the bus. He did, yes. Who was the congressman? I won't say his name. He's out of office now. Okay. But still living? Yes, he's still living. We'll find him. No. But it was true. And I did. So you're not as nice as people think. My wife can tell you that. You've been critical of sanctions against North Korea. Why is that? Why is the isolation, you think, a wrong thing to do? Well, because when we impose sanctions like for 70 years against North Korea and not that long against Cuba, we get blamed for all the things that go wrong in the country. And it exalts the dictators. Dictators are already punishing people. They're already under duress and under punishment. Not enough food, not enough freedom, that sort of thing. And when we put some additional stress on them, like not any food aid and destroy their economy, it hurts the average person who's already suffering under the dictator. And the dictators control the news media completely. So they blame all of their problems that they impose on the people on us. So we get blamed in Cuba and in North Korea for everything bad that goes on in the country. So it exalts the dictators and it hurts the people. So do you think, are you against sanctions for all countries, like Iran, Cuba, Russia? I'm against any kind of sanctions that hurt the people who already suffer under a dictator, yes. Okay. Well, the book is called Faith, A Journey for All. I often wonder what the most important of the cardinal virtues is. And do you think any of them are achievable, faith or hope or love, without courage? Do you think courage is the most important? Because it always seems to me that all of them take courage to achieve. It does. I think love takes more courage perhaps than faith because we can't avoid having faith. When we are babies, all of us have faith in our mothers, we'll say. And we have some degree of faith in ourselves, right? And we have to have faith in our close friends or things that we cherish, like the truth or faith in education or faith in America or faith in whatever country we live in, or faith in freedom. So we have faith in different things that we can't avoid, but it doesn't take any courage to have those kinds of faith. But it takes courage to have love for people who are different from you. It takes courage rather to have faith in people that we consider to be inferior to us or enemies of ours. Of course, Jesus says we should love our enemies as well as our friends and have so-called agape love or self-sacrificial love, love for people that are not lovable, love for people that don't love us back. That takes a lot of courage, I think. Have you been able to have that for your... That is the most difficult form of love, to love your enemies or to love the people who don't agree with you. How have you been able to find that for, say, your political enemies? I've tried to get rid of all my political enemies by forgetting about them or ignoring them. For a minute there, I thought you had a hit squad. No, I can... I got rid of them, see? I love them where they are. You know, since I've been out of politics, I've tried to get rid of those animosities that I used to cherish. Sure, and you've outlived most of them, I'm guessing. That's another secret to my success. Well, just in case, sir, just in case you change your mind, we have a present for you. It's Carter 2020. This is for you, young man. Thank you very much. The book is Faith, A Journey for All. It's available now. President Jimmy Carter, everybody. We'll be right back. Thanks, sir.