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Carter Motorcade Arriving At Navy Memorial; Casket Transfer Ceremony At Navy Memorial; Funeral Procession Mirroring Carter's Inaugural Parade. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 07, 2025 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

KAI BIRD, AUTHOR, OUTLIER, THE UNFINISHED PRESIDENCY OF JIMMY CARTER: -- he didn't want to associate the rest of his life with nuclear weapons, these weapons of mass destruction. He was, in fact, from his religious faith, I believe, a man dedicated to peace.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: And -- and the body bearers are getting into position right now outside that U.S. Navy memorial because they are going to be moving the hearse to that horse-drawn caisson that the woman from Pittsburgh that Boris was talking about was already anticipating how moving it would be to see that moving through the streets of Washington, hearing those horse -- those horse hooves echo on this snowy day as they head to the Capitol for that lying in state.

Kate, when you look back at all of the importance of these presidents being together, it is an interesting moment. When Carter passed away, Trump was gracious about it. He is going to be attending this funeral. Of course, he was not invited to John McCain's funeral, right? So, it was a -- it was a moment.

You know, though, from your reporting and work that they actually had spoken, Trump and Carter.

KATE ANDERSEN BROWER, AUTHOR: They did. In 2019, actually, President Trump and President Trump called Carter, and Carter was down in Plains having dinner at his friend Jill Stuckey's house, as the Carters often did. It was a buffet dinner with paper plates. This is how down-to- earth these folks were.

And suddenly he gets a call from the White House, and they say that President Trump is on the phone to speak to you. They spoke for about 10 minutes about China and trade. And, you know, Carter went back to the buffet line and served himself and sat quietly.

I think that Carter, at the beginning of Trump's presidency, was interested in going to North Korea. He was interested in staying diplomatically engaged. You know, this was, I think sometimes we look at Jimmy Carter, and it's almost, you know, it's an impossible story to believe. It's not, you know, the cliche that he was just such a godly person who wanted to serve. It's hard for people to really believe that this was true.

But he was also a politically savvy person. He wanted to stay in politics. He -- when the Bidens went to visit him in 2021, there's that photo of the Bidens flanking them.

BURNETT: Yes. Yes, flanking them when they're in the chairs.

BROWER: Yes.

BURNETT: Yes.

BROWER: You know, he didn't want to come out to the front. Jill, Dr. Biden was the one who came out because he didn't want reporters to be shouting questions, and he didn't want to have to answer questions and be critical of anything that the Biden administration was doing.

So, he said he had a swimming lesson and left.

BURNETT: Can I just, one thing you said, though, when Trump calls him and he's at this buffet dinner with paper plates, and they speak for 10 minutes about China, so is the context on this that Trump, in taking on China, actually reached out to Jimmy Carter?

BROWER: Yes.

BURNETT: Who, of course, was so central in the U.S. relationship with China?

BROWER: Absolutely. And I think the context is also, as Kai's book says, I mean, these are two fellow outliers. And -- and -- and Trump, I think, and when I interviewed President Trump and asked what he thought about Jimmy Carter, and he was actually most sympathetic to Jimmy Carter at that point because he said he wasn't, you know, somebody who played by the rules.

BURNETT: Of all former presidents.

BROWER: Yes.

BURNETT: He highlighted Carter.

BROWER: Yes. Because at the time, there were five living presidents. And, you know, President Trump has always felt outside of that club. And Jimmy Carter, in that famous photo in the Oval Office, is physically standing apart from the other presidents. He did not play by the same rules. He criticized them in office. And Trump does the same thing, except in a much different way.

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: These are fascinating conversations to hear about.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN HOST: It is. It is. And I think it's hard to remember that in this age where we have very elderly presidents, that when Carter left office, he was in his mid-50s. I mean, there was a lot of time to go.

(CROSSTALK)

CORNISH: And so, he really had to reimagine his life in a fundamental way. And if he wasn't going to do it with, you know, going on tour and sitting on corporate boards and all of that stuff, and he was coming back to a massive amount of debt, and I'll leave that to the historians here to talk about, he had to figure out a way to make a way for himself politically in the world when he felt like he had been massively rejected in so many ways. And progressives in general, because Senate candidates up and down. The ticket that year that he lost also lost.

Just like this moment that Democrats are having right now, Democrats at that time and with Carter, they were in the middle of really feeling lost. And he found a way forward.

BURNETT: It is fascinating, though, all of this, hearing that Trump calls Carter, they talk about China, that when Kate interviewed President Trump, he had a connection with Carter more than anybody else. When you think about them perceiving themselves to both be outliers, Tim, and yet their personalities, their styles, everything about them could not be more different.

[15:35:02]

TIMOTHY NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Exactly. Well, part of the answer might be the fact that President Trump understood, or President-elect Trump now understood, that Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama were not close.

And that might have been an opening for Trump, because he was also not close to Barack Obama.

CORNISH: Can I do another theory? Another theory is that when Carter came to Washington, people were calling him a hayseed. You know, they were looking down on him and his southern roots, and we know Trump has always been sensitive to being looked down on by the elites of the Northeast.

BURNETT: Yes, all right. Well, all as we continue to watch this, the first moving through Washington, Carter's casket is about to be placed on that horse-drawn carriage at the Navy Memorial, and then the funeral procession to the Capitol will get underway, and that caisson carriage.

Squeeze in a very quick break, and be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:40:38]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking at live pictures. There's the caisson and the purse from the U.S. Navy Memorial here in Washington, D.C. As the nation's capital comes together to salute President Jimmy Carter, there are a number of members of the Carter family there, in addition to their four adult children, Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy. They had 22 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter among them, 38 total. And it looks like most, if not all of them, are there honoring the President.

You also, at some point, will see, if not hear, the sound of the riderless horse.

Let's bring back our panel. We also have with us James Fallows. You may know him as a journalist. But before that, he was President Carter's Chief White House Speechwriter. Good to have you here, Jim.

And a famous quote of yours is that, trying to underline how much President Carter was not one for the trappings of the office, that teaching him to give a speech was like teaching FDR to tap dance, you said.

JAMES FALLOWS, FMR CHIEF SPEECH WRITER FOR PRESIDENT CARTER: That was, with all the cocksure-ness of being in one's mid-20s, to see the ways in which things that the world has seen as admirable in Jimmy Carter over these decades could be more effectively put to use.

TAPPER: Yes, let's just listen in as they move the casket now. And I'll come back to you in a second.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. March.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Freeze (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reset (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready, set.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mark (INAUDIBLE). Ready, up. Ready, up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forward and --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- march.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready, up. Ready, set (INAUDIBLE).

[15:45:33]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready, up. Ready, down. Ready, step. Set. Ready, pace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mark time. Up about. Forward.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready, set.

TAPPER: So, we are awaiting the procession to begin down Pennsylvania Avenue. It is evocative but not the same direction as when the newly elected President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter came to Washington and were walking the other way, getting out of the presidential limo to greet everyone. And now we have this final journey.

[15:50:02]

We just heard from the U.S. Navy Band not only Hail to the Chief, but the Christian hymn Just As I Am Without One Plea.

Jim Fallows, you were talking about what it was like working for, as chief speechwriter, President Carter, who didn't really like all the pageantry and pomp and circumstance.

FALLOWS: He did not, and as my friend Stu Eizenstat knows very well from having known Carter for the longest time of any of us, part of his appeal, part of what made him so magical in that campaign year of 1976, I think the first year or two of his administration, was the sense of cutting through pomp, being somebody who understood the feelings of a wide range of Americans. He connected black and white people, rock music fans, country music fans, people, he rallied the South behind him.

And so it was, one of the things he did was carrying his own bags and out of the plane. I think that was initially of necessity, it became sort of a shtick, would you agree, Stu?

STUART EIZENSTAT, FMR U.S. AMBASSADOR TO EUROPEAN UNION: Yes.

FALLOWS: But it was something that was sort of his trademark. And so, I think that it is, I'm thinking, as I imagine Stu is too, 48 years ago, you know, with a week or two's difference, this inaugural parade, it was similar to today in being freezing cold.

My memory, which again, maybe Stu, you could check, is they were using blue torches to melt the ice off the sidewalks in D.C. It was that cold. You know, we have a blizzard now. And I think that it is a tribute to Jimmy Carter's respect for the office and his naval heritage and all the ways in which he's put the office to use, that he now is having this official, dignified ceremony with everything involved.

EIZENSTAT: It's really a metaphor that for his inauguration, as Jim said, it was one of the coldest days of the recession. And now, recession is coming out --

TAPPER: It's beginning right now, just to say they're walking. And we should note that the five branches of the military that were in existence when President Carter was president are standing on either side of the caisson where his casket is.

I'm sorry, Stu, go ahead. If you want to keep, I'm sorry.

EIZENSTAT: Yes, I was saying it's a metaphor, which was suggesting that he came to Washington and was inaugurated in one of the coldest days of the year. And here he's leaving us in one of the coldest days of the year. It's a life coming full circle.

FALLOWS: So, there's something else I would like to check my friends Stu. My impression is that through every chapter of his life, Jimmy Carter was exactly the same person. You know, that's what we hear from childhood stories, when his time and when he was running for president in office and after that.

And the traits that made him so effective as a former president for these nearly 44 years, his -- his insistence on doing things his own way, his faith and guidance, his -- his -- his determination that he could meet people of any level in any part of the world. They -- they were a resounding success during his time as a former president.

As Stu has written, he did more things, he accomplished more during his four years in office than most people can credit for. But I think the same traits or a through line that they didn't work so well with Tip O'Neill as they did in battling the guinea worm or winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

TAPPER: Would you agree with that?

EIZENSTAT: Yes, I would. But there was no artifice about him. He was what you saw was not made up and he was really felt himself to be a man of the people. He -- he worked the soil. He was a farmer. He grew up in a in a home, a farm with no insulation, no electricity. And the water came from a well. He took showers in a bucket with holes in it. And that's the background.

But one other thing, it's very, very important. And that is his county was 60 percent black. His playmates were black. He had a second set of parents who were black that he spent many, many nights with. And he understood the black experience more than any white politician I've ever seen.

TAPPER: And Anita McBride, each president, when they plan their own funeral and they know they're going to lie in state and the Capitol decides a different part of the Congress that they want to enter. I'm going to ask you about that in one second.

But let's listen in as the march begins.

[15:55:16]

So, Anita McBride, presidents schedule their funerals, prepare their funerals, sometimes decades in advance, and each one knowing that they will lie in state in the rotunda of the Capitol, they have different options as to how they enter the Capitol. Tell us about that.

ANITA MCBRIDE, FMR CHIEF OF STAFF TO LAURA BUSH: Well, and how they want to be remembered, what is the reflection of their time here in Washington or who they are as individuals. In fact, today, of course, President Carter will arrive at the East Plaza of the Capitol. When Ronald Reagan arrived, he wanted to be brought the West Side because it faced California, his home state. Gerald Ford wanted to be brought through the House Chamber because he served in the House.

So, again, it is, you know, a reflection of who they are, how they want to be remembered. Dwight Eisenhower, interestingly, you know, as a man who served as head of our allied troops in World War II, wanted to be buried in an $80 government-issued casket and that the seal of the president was placed on it. But, again, a nod to an extension of this was a man who led our soldiers.

TAPPER: Let's bring -- let's go back, if we can, because you gentlemen who served in the Carter administration keep talking about that moment in 1977. There it is on the left side of your screen. President Carter, little Amy Carter, who entered public school here in Washington, D.C., Rosalynn Carter, the First Lady. There they are walking down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Is that the first time that it happened in the modern era?

It is the first time. And it's very interesting that about the first day in office, he went to the Justice Department and symbolically opened the doors because it had been such a closed, Nixon-oriented institution.

FALLOWS: So, these were all ways of reinforcing his campaign measures that it was time to have a common man who was going to open the government up, be transparent, be honest, I'll never lie to you. This was all part of the campaign that he tried to carry into the White House.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: And, you know, on that, when you talk about the common man of it all and of his legacy and of who he was constitutionally, the idea that he did meticulously plan this, as do most presidents and their families. And yet we're watching something that clearly, given the fact that he left Washington and most of his legacy post-Washington is what he really reveled in, all of his work that he did. But this is kind of classic for a statesman, for an ex- president. And I just wonder how comfortable he was with this or whether or not he thought, I am a former president, so this has to happen, not necessarily for me, but for the country.

FALLOWS: So, I would agree with the latter. I think the dignity of the office, I think, is what he was recognizing here. I also wanted to mention something that happened about 30 minutes before that famous walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, which was the way he began his inaugural address, which was the famous words that, I would like to, you know, thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.

He was talking about Gerald Ford, whom he just defeated. He was talking about the pardon of Richard Nixon, which was very controversial then and now. It was probably a plus for us on the Carter campaign. It counted against Gerald Ford. But Carter decided that the first words he would say on being sworn in as president were recognizing what his predecessor had done through his life to try to reconcile.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Correct me if I'm wrong, he invited Nixon to the inauguration, but he didn't attend, which was probably for the best.

You know, as I'm watching this, I can't help but just think that this is part of what it means to be the United States of America. There are so many places in this world where there are kings and queens and families that have royal status effectively, and where there is a lot of pomp and circumstance. And in this country, we see this at two major junctures, when a president comes in and when they leave the world.

And the thing that makes this, to me, incredibly poignant and important, and I can only speculate that if Jimmy Carter decided that this is the way that he wanted to go out, it was because the -- this spectacle that we are seeing here is a commemoration of America and its institutions. And the institutions that he was a part of --