Former President Jimmy Carter may be a liberal Democrat but he seemed to be supportive of President Trump on a number of issues in an interview with The New York Times.
Carter told the Times’s Maureen Dowd that Trump has been treated worse by the media than any other president he can remember.
“I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” Carter said. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.”
The 39th president, who admitted he voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primary, also praised Trump’s diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.
He also said he liked Trump’s initiative reaching out to Saudi Arabia. He doesn’t know Jared Kushner but is not totally dismissive of the idea that the son-in-law could succeed where others have failed.
“I’ve seen in the Arab world, including the Palestinian world,” he said, “the high esteem that they pay to a member of one’s own family.”
Indeed, Carter was harder on Obama during the interview than he was on Trump. (NYT)
He also expressed his interest in helping President Trump work on a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with North Korea.
The closest our two countries had come until now to resuming the Korean War was in 1994. Carter flew into Pyongyang on his own over the objections of President Bill Clinton and struck a deal with Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jung-un, and the man the grandson models himself on — right down to his hairstyle. North Korea secretly cheated on the deal by pursuing another path to a bomb just four years later.
So is it time for another Carter diplomatic mission, and would he do it for Trump, his polar opposite in so many ways?
“I would go, yes,” he said… (NYT)
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Carter, who is good friends with H.R. McMaster, talked to him about the situation but thus far the White House has not accepted his offer to help.
“I told him that I was available if they ever need me,” he said.
And on Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 election? Carter didn’t seem to be buying it.
“I don’t think there’s any evidence that what the Russians did changed enough votes, or any votes,” he told Dowd.
Finally, regarding the NFL controversy over players kneeling in protest during the national anthem, Carter said he much preferred they stand for The Star-Spangled Banner.
“I think they ought to find a different way to object, to demonstrate. I would rather see all the players stand during the American anthem,” he explained.
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