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CNN Live Event/Special

Peter Yarrow of Music Trio Peter, Paul, and Mary Dies at 86; Carter to be Honored at The U.S. Capitol; Presidential Aircraft Arrives at Joint Base Andrews. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 07, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: 10 singles, two number one albums and won five Grammys. Yarrow also co-wrote the group's most enduring song, Puff the Magic Dragon, and he performed on CNN back in 2017.

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PETER YARROW, AMERICAN SINGER-SONGWRITER: Bigotry and hatred still hang heavy in the air. They poison children's hearts and minds and leave them in despair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Peter Yarrow was 86.

Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. I'll be back in the chair for my show tomorrow, 11 a.m. Eastern Time. Our special coverage of the state funeral of Jimmy Carter starts right now.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: The nation's capital is about to begin its final farewell to the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. Right now, we are all looking together at live pictures from Joint Base Andrews where service members are awaiting Special Air Mission 39. That is the plane carrying the late President and his family now from Georgia due to land in any minute. Welcome to CNN's special coverage, The State Funeral of Jimmy Carter. I'm Erin Burnett.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And I'm Jake Tapper. We're standing by for the first official tributes to President James Earl Carter here in Washington, D.C. Some of America's most powerful leaders are set to honor Mr. Carter's 100 years of life and his decades of service to his country and his planet, frankly.

Nearly 44 years to the day after he left the White House. President Carter's journey from Joint Base Andrews will take him across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, he'll travel into D.C. past the Washington Monument and the National Mall and then down Pennsylvania avenue to the U.S. Navy Memorial. There his casket will be carried to a caisson, a horse drawn military carriage for the funeral procession to the U.S. Capitol.

There at the Capitol, dignitaries will be on hand for a service in the Capitol rotunda. Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Mike Johnson and the new Senate Majority Leader John Thune will deliver eulogies. After the service, members of the public are invited to pay their respects as President Carter lies in states at the Capitol this evening and through tomorrow ahead of his state funeral on Thursday.

Let's go live now to CNN's Phil Mattingly who is at Joint Base Andrews just outside D.C. and Jeff (ph), Special Air Mission 39 is due to land any minute.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Special Air Mission 39. Most people will look at the flight and think it's Air Force One. That's obviously only the case when the current president is on board. This will actually be the same plane, though, Jake, that George H.W. Bush took in his final journey from Texas to Joint Base Andrews and then back to Texas.

And while much of this six day state funeral for Jimmy Carter is extraordinarily personal and very symbolic of the life he lived from Plains Georgia to Washington and back. This particular part of that six day state funeral will be very traditional, one that underscores reverence for the office and the man.

When he arrives, lands taxis and settles here at Joint Base Andrews, his casket will be taken off of the airplane. There will be an immediate move towards the honor guard, where they will play several Hail to the Chief, there will be a 21 gun salute, and then there will be a procession. Jimmy Carter chose the music for that procession to the motorcade that will take him into Washington, D.C. Abide with me, a Christian hymnal, obviously a man who's very deep in his faith.

But for the 15 to 20 minutes he's on the ground here, Jake, before taking off to head back into Washington D.C. What will be most striking is for a president who eschewed so many of the trappings of office, at least as it was traditionally known, this part of it will be extraordinarily traditional.

Jake I would note, while he was involved in the planning of his funeral over the course of the last 39 years, it started after five years after he left office. One thing he was explicit, he did not want the idea of taking a train from Washington back to Georgia. When this is over, he'll be flying back on Special Air Mission 39 as well. Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Phil, thanks so much. Let's go to Brianna Keilar now, who's at the U.S. Navy Memorial. And that, if you remember the map I showed you earlier, that's where the Carter motorcade will stop. And then the casket will be brought to a caisson and the funeral procession will begin to the Capitol. Brianna set the scene for us there.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: You know, Jake, we've been talking so much in recent days about the arc of Jimmy Carter's life, and we are going to be seeing that on full display here because President Carter began something that, quite frankly, we have taken for granted in recent decades, which is that Inaugural walk.

Partially, we see presidents take it along part of the route of the inaugural parade.

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He walked all the way from the Capitol to the White House, symbolizing somewhat an accessibility in everyman kind of message that he was sending out. And his family is going to be here finishing that walk for him.

When his casket arrives here, there will be other touchstones from his life. There are going to be two formations. A midshipman from the Naval Academy, which of course was his alma mater, including from the 15th company, which is the one that he was a member of when he attended that service academy. They will be meeting him here at the Navy Memorial, which he authorized. This is here because of him. He signed that into law in 1980, his last year in the presidency.

And that when that casket arrives to be transferred to that caisson that is operated by the old guards caisson detachment, a horse drawn artillery carriage, a ceremonial one, of course. There are going to be so many dignitaries here, including the Joint Chiefs will be here as part of a special honor guard. His family will also be part of this procession as it heads up to the Capitol clergy as well.

And there will also be -- and you'll see this. It's going to be something that I think will interest a lot of people. The riderless horse where the boots are in the stirrups turned backwards, a symbol of a fallen leader looking back toward their troops for the last time. As the casket of President Carter heads up to the Capitol. Jake.

TAPPER: Yeah. And we see Special Mission 39, I believe it's called, about to land there at Joint Base Andrews containing President Carter's remains. And it is about to land there. And then this day will formally kick off.

And let's talk about this all with my panel. Dana Bash, I'm struck by how many of the same issues that were going on at the time of the Carter presidency. And I'm thinking specifically of the Panama Canal, which President Trump talked about again today in his press conference, and also a hostage crisis, which was the end of the Carter presidency.

And President Trump talked about today how the hostages need to be released by Hamas in Gaza or else. I think he said there would be hell to pay or something along those lines. A lot of the same issues going on now.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And just staying on the hostage question. There was so much drama, so much politics and then reporting later about all of the ins and outs, which I know that the ambassador here will be able to talk about because he was there with regard to getting America's hostages who were in Iran and had been in Iran.

And as I speak, I just want to note that that is the airplane carrying the late President Jimmy Carter arriving at Joint Base Andrews to officially start the Washington leg of this very carefully planned state funeral. But and then just to sort of go back to the hostage question. In this particular case, obviously, the issues are quite different. The Biden administration is working with the some of the Trump transition members, along with all of the key players in the Middle East, in order to make sure that hostages come home after they have been there since October 7, 2023, including seven or fewer now believed to be alive, but many Americans who are still there.

TAPPER: So that's Special Air Mission 39 that has landed there. It obviously is the same airplane that is Air Force One, but as Phil Mattingly pointed out earlier, it's only called Air Force One when the president is on it. It's Special Air Mission 39 because Jimmy Carter was the 39th president. And it's a special mission for this aircraft to take his remains from Georgia here to Washington, D.C. for the funeral.

And Anita McBride, you were nodding when we were talking about how some of these issues are very similar, that we're talking about the Panama Canal and American territorial expansion or sovereignty or however it's framed, as well as the hostage crisis.

ANITA MCBRIDE, DIRECTOR, FIRST LADIES INITIATIVE, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: And the economy.

TAPPER: And inflation. Right.

MCBRIDE: That plagued the president when he -- the governor when he was running for president and plagued his presidency so --

TAPPER: Also did it not help him get elected, though? Also because I am old enough to remember the WIN Whip Inflation Now --

MCBRIDE: Whip Inflation Now --

TAPPER: Gerald Ford, but --

MCBRIDE: It pins that everyone had worn and think about that, too. I mean, that -- that was also a time in the country. There was a great celebration going on in the country. It was 1976. It was the bicentennial.

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There was a spirit of patriotism. The Fords got to preside over that. It was about the same time that the nominating conventions were going on And Jimmy Carter won the nomination of his party and of course then beat the president. So that goodwill and that sense of, you know, we feel great about our country still comes down to how people feel what's in their pocket.

TAPPER: Yeah. And here we go with a Special Air Mission 39, which has arrived early, which is not uncharacteristic of Jimmy Carter. He was a rather punctilious man, as I recall, pretty precise on these things.

STUART EIZENSTAT, FORMER CHIEF WHITE HOUSE DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER, CARTER ADMIN: We used to call it Carter jam. When a meeting was scheduled at 4:00, if you came at 4:01, you got a nasty look. It was naval precision that he was used to, and that was part of his discipline.

TAPPER: And you worked with President Carter. What do you make of the fact that there is this kind of contrast between his humble beginnings and the way he lived his life, including his presidency. And also we are going to see some pageantry, which certainly appropriate for the 39th president, but it is kind of discordant with how he lived.

EIZENSTAT: It was difficult for him to make the transition from being Candidate Carter, the everyday man who spent time in people's homes in Iowa and the president. And in fact, it was about a month and a half into his presidency before we could get him to agree to have Hail to the Chief plate.

When he walked into the East Room, he wanted to keep that common touch. But we said to him, look, once you are president, the people don't want you to be just the common touch. They want you to be elevated. They look up to the presidency. But even with that, he ended up selling the presidential yacht, the Sequoia, which would have been a great lobbying device.

But for Rosalynn, he might have sold Camp David. He said, Jimmy, we need a place to go on the weekend. There would have been no Camp David summit for the Israelis. He turned down our limousine service for the senior staff. We had to drive in ourselves.

Initially, he wanted us to pay for taxi rides up to the Hill instead of having a limousine come. And he cut the White House staff by a third. And we had to make up for that, frankly, by secunding people from the agency. So he was, as Jody Powell said, tight as a tick.

TAPPER: That's right. Jimmy Carter, wherever he is, is going to hear Hail to the Chief performed at least five times today. Whether or not he likes it is another matter. I'll come right back to you in Anita.

But I want to check in with Phil Mattingly because Phil, obviously Special Air Mission 39 has touched down just a bit early.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, a little bit early. Should pull up behind me here in a matter of seconds. One thing to point out, when it landed, you saw kind of that burst, that cloud of snow and ice when the wheels touched down.

I can't explain just how herculean an effort we saw on the tarmac before we actually spotted the plane to clear off the ice and the snow. I counted more than two dozen snowplows, trucks. The effort that was underway to ensure that this was clear, not just for the landing, but also for the family and the ceremonies that we're about to see.

I do want to point out, when it comes to the family, obviously, President Carter, extraordinarily close the love story between he and his past wife, Rosalynn, but also the immediate family. There's 33 immediate family members. They were taking annual vacations from the mid-90s into the mid-2000s at the end of every single year, they're very, very close. Also staff, staff from the Carter center, schedulers, planners, organizers of the funeral process. They will be traveling with them as well.

As well, Jake, as his pastor, his pastor spoke down in Georgia, said over the course of the final months of his life, he would visit him at his home or in hospice where he was staying, and he would always find him wrapped in a blanket, a blanket that had Psalm 23 on it. And then they would sit and pray together. We should see him likely come out with the family as well, Jake. And they should be emerging here rather shortly.

TAPPER: And John King, that's so appropriate with the psalm there, because Jimmy Carter, perhaps more than any other U.S. President in modern memory, really was a deeply, deeply held faith, a man of deeply held faith. And while all presidents, I mean, Joe Biden goes to Mass and every president has their relationship with the church, he really took it to a new level.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: But I would say took it to a new level without forcing it into people's faces, just did it in the natural, humble way that he lived his life, made clear that it was important to him. But he wasn't waving it as a flag or waving it as political power or waving it as some way that I'm right, you're wrong. It was, this is who I am. This is who I am.

Look, Jimmy Carter was before my time here in Washington, of course. But I was just thinking watching the plane land and listen to the words we're talking about today, formality, somber, tradition, honor, respect, things that are often missing from our political conversations.

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But 10-year-old John King to about 17-year-old John King, that was when I fell in love with politics.

Listening from Nixon to Carter to Reagan in the King house in Dorchester, Massachusetts was a very interesting time to live. And my mother loved Jimmy Carter because of the point you just made, because he was a humble man who yes, showed his faith but didn't jump up and down about it. You know, living in a household with not a lot of money, living through the tough energy times and you know, how much is home heating oil cost and some of the things that defined the quarter presidency, the end of the Vietnam War.

And you know, I was too young, but the big kids in my neighborhood in the Nixon presidency were worried about being drafted. And Bobby McDonough (ph) up the street came home with one leg, you know. And then so how Nick -- how Vietnam and Watergate gave you this outsider? Stuart mentioned Iowa. We didn't talk about the Iowa caucuses before Jimmy Carter.

It was not a thing. So he was the ultimate outsider who changed our life and changed our politics in so many ways. And interestingly, from covering the White House for 10 years, it was very rare to see Jimmy Carter come back.

And that Doug Mills, I think made the point in this fascinating New York Times photograph that read the other day where he was a little bit more distant when the former presidents were together. He also almost seemed to always want to be a little extra step away from the group, right?

An outsider even in the ultimate insiders club. Which makes him to me just a fascinating person in history. But I do think the trademark of humility and that Washington is not all that important, home is more important than Washington are lessons we could all spend a little time on.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: One of the things that watching this plane land at Joint Base Andrews, as you noted, Jake, this is would otherwise be the President's plane, right? And this particular President goes all the way back with Jimmy Carter, one of the first United States senators to endorse him. And it really emphasizes the life cycle of this man.

I mean, yes, he lived to be 100 years old and has seen decades and decades of this country, but he's seen decades and decades of its leaders and has those kinds of relationships with them. And that the fact that we are in 2024 and talking about actually some of the same conflicts and challenges that Jimmy Carter dealt with in the 1970s, it tells you a story about America and the kind of persistence of this country, but also the persistence of its challenges.

One of the things about Jimmy Carter that we talk about a lot here is the way in which time has helped us better understand him, because so many things began in his tenure but didn't end until later.

And some of them are still not over. When you talk about the conflicts in the Middle East that he cared so much about, in part, as you were just talking about, because he was a man of faith.

TAPPER: And one of the things that's so interesting about today, Anita McBride, is that Jimmy Carter, as we heard, has been planning this for 39 years. And in fact, the kind of planning that presidents and vice presidents, former presidents and former vice presidents do has led to some very interesting moments we're going to see in the next few days.

Including his former vice president, Walter Mondale wrote a eulogy for his former boss, that Walter Mondale passed away in 2021, I believe. His son Ted is going to read it. And I believe that it's possible that Gerald Ford did the same thing. I'm not sure. But in any case --

MCBRIDE: They were friends.

TAPPER: Yeah, they were very good friends. But I think there might have been a -- I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but I'd heard that Gerald Ford might have done the same thing. In any case, talk about the planning, if you would, the intense planning that a President, a former President does, you know, decades before the inevitable.

MCBRIDE: Exactly. And some of this starts the minute they become president as well. You know, the Joint Military district of Washington meets with a new president not too long after they're in the Oval Office to at least begin to lay the groundwork that this is something that has to be done. They don't all like it, but the template is there for them.

And I think with President Carter and Mrs. Carter, who was a very big part of this planning for him, this started in the late 80s, and it's constantly refined. George H.W. Bush said every three months he was reviewing his funeral plans and making changes. Some people that you want to be part of it are no longer alive.

So that has to be changed. You think of others that you want to include. It is a deeply emotive process for the President and the former President and their family, but also for the nation. And it's really important that it's done right.

And I think one of the first times in our history that the country actually saw a fully televised funeral was in 1963 with Jackie Kennedy, who had to plan that funeral with really no playbook.

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And she wanted it to reflect another president who had been slain and that was Abraham Lincoln. And that really started to change the process of how we plan our funerals for our leaders. And in this case, this is a small town man who rose to be the leader of a great nation. And that's how people should feel about honoring in this week.

TAPPER: We're seeing members of the Carter family and friends. Jimmy Carter's personal pastor just got off the plane. Special Air Mission 39. So much changed with the Kennedy assassination. That's also the Kennedy assassination is when they started doing the Designated Survivor tradition of one member of the Cabinet not going to the State of the Union address. Erin Burnett back in New York.

BURNETT: All right, Jake. And as Jake said, here we are watching Special Mission 39 and you just saw family members get off that plane. They will be receiving President Carter's remains and of course met with the U.S. Air Force band. This is all part of the ceremony that we are going to be watching here over these next hours and days unfold.

As Jake was sitting there discussing with his panel. You know, we understand that while Jimmy Carter eschewed all the pomp and circumstance of his office in so many ways, that he and his wife Rosalynn actually started working on planning for this very funeral back in 1986. So this is something that they have their personal fingerprints on every step. So the places that they're going to stop, the people that will be involved are all of intimate importance to former President Carter and his first wife, Rosalynn Carter.

As we are watching on this tarmac on an incredibly cold day after this snowstorm in Washington and Joint Base Andrews, where they will again be receiving those remains. In a moment, we're going to be hearing the U.S. Air Force Band play Abide with me as those remains come up and are greeted by the Carter family as we are watching this.

And I'll bring in a member of the Carter family, late president's niece, Kim Fuller here as family members are preparing for this. She joins us from Plains, Georgia. And of course, Kim, I'll only interrupt you as we are listening to this and watching. Your family receive the remains of former President Carter, a moment that of course, you know, you've known for a long time is coming and have prepared for. But nonetheless, here we are.

You're watching these moments for your uncle, moments that he had planned for and planned this ceremony himself. And for you, I know so much of his life has been him showing up those family vacations, the weddings, the small things in life that he was always there for. And when you look at the context now of the whole nation being part of this moment, what are your feelings?

KIM FULLER, JIMMY CARTER'S NIECE: Well, it's almost surreal. He has always been a very big part of our lives. Like you just said, he shows up for everything. And even though the past two years, I guess, he's not been able to be there in person, we always knew he was down there. And if we needed something, some words of advice, some words of wisdom, we could just get in the car and go and talk to him.

But we're so proud that the world is tuning in to this. Sometimes it makes it hard to grieve. And I guess after it's all over with, we'll kind of break down and grieve by ourselves.

BURNETT: I remember in an interview with him, actually off camera, having a conversation with him in the context of you saying this, Kim. He was talking about taking everybody on vacation. He sort of made a joke about it. He said, as long as I'll pay for it, I remember him saying this, I hope they'll all just keep coming with me. You know, and it was just a normal thing that one could imagine anyone saying. Just a lovely moment in this context.

I know that you -- your faith is deeply important to you, as of course, it was for your uncle. You teach at Sunday school. He did. And I know that faith is going to play an important part of what we are going to watch over these next few days, that it was so personally important to him. And, you know, how do you see his fingerprints on what we are going to watch unfold? The choosing of the psalms and the hymns that were not just wrote, but for him, so deeply personal.

FULLER: Well, like you just said, the hymns that have been chosen, he chose. The verses of scripture, he chose. He wanted to make sure that people, I think, saw the faith that he wants to share with everybody. And it's so meaningful to me because even though he won't be there, that faith is still going to shine through.

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And we all know how much his faith meant to him.

With Sunday school lessons, you know, when he was here, he was always giving me examples and telling me what I need to do here and there and I'm going to miss that. But I think his fingers are everywhere.

BURNETT: I love the perspective you give on that. Right, just sort of his -- but that attention to detail, I guess one might say micromanaging in some sense is extended to so many parts of his life, as I know you say so lovingly. FULLER: Yeah.

BURNETT: We are about to hear the Air Force band perform Abide with Me. As other members of your family, Kim, receive President Carter's remains here at Air Force One, what does that him choice, which of course he chose, say to you?

FULLER: I think it shows to me that he knows that his God's right there beside him, abiding with him, and it's another way that he shows his faith to the Lord.

BURNETT: Kim, thank you so very much. I appreciate your speaking to us. I know that you, you know, it's hard to balance the public nature of this with the personal grief that you are all facing. But thank you very much.

FULLER: Thank you for having me.

BURNETT: And as you see other members of the Carter family all there getting off Special Mission 39, which is Air Force One. Kai Bird, of course, longtime chronicler, autobiographer here joining our panel. What do you see in these moments?

KAI BIRD, AUTHOR, "OUTLIER: THE UNFINISHED PRESIDENCY OF JIMMY CARTER": Well, this is a very close knit family, Carter's, and they represent small town America in a very virtuous way. And Jimmy Carter was just, you know, Plains made him. He grew up a mile away in a little hamlet actually called Archery. And he was literally the only white boy in Archery. And all his playmates were African Americans.

He grew up in a Sears Roebuck house, again, just less than two miles away from Plains that his father had built in the 1920s. They had no running water. He had no electricity. There was an outhouse. The biggest thing in Jimmy Carter's life as a teenager was in the 1930s, late 30s when the house finally got electricity. So he really came from almost a 19th century American experience and lived to be 100 lived into the 21st century. So it's an extraordinary life.

And I argue in my biography of him, the outlier. He was an outlier that he really was probably, I argued he was the most intelligent, the most hard working and certainly the most decent man to have occupied the White House in the 20th century.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN HOST, THE ASSIGNMENT WITH AUDIE CORNISH PODCAST: Erin, to add to that, it's also the legacy of the family itself. You know, his mother, his brother. Many people in his family died of pancreatic cancer. The fact that he lived this long, and long enough to have all of these children and grandchildren and for them all to be here, for a niece to be talking to you, I think it really says a lot about what he was able to create in his personal life.

Not just -- and we'll talk about the politics all day, but looking at this family, I think it's incredible how long he lived and what he created.

BURNETT: Yes. And all of these people that we're seeing, these are all members of his family, those closest to him and that those ties were so -- his entire life, children, grandchildren, those vacations. Kate, when you look at this -- and all created, frankly, you know, in part -- because of his partner in life, Rosalynn Carter, who grew up essentially next door.

KATE ANDERSEN BROWER, "THE RESIDENCE: INSIDE THE PRIVATE WORLD OF THE WHITE HOUSE: They met when she was a newborn. And his mother, who helped deliver her, Ms. Lillian, who was a nurse, a very kind of character in her own right, she brought little Jimmy Carter, who was three, to meet Rosalynn. Rosalynn's sister was even named Lillian after his mother. So this is very small town.

And just a lot of people have spoken about Jimmy Carter's faith. And it makes me think of a story I was told by Paul Costello, who worked for the Carters. And he said, on a white knuckle flight in New Hampshire, a lot of turbulence in 1976. Everyone was panicking, and the only person calmly sitting there was Jimmy Carter, because he so firmly believes in his faith in being reunited with Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years, which is longer than many people live.

I mean, their relationship with each other was so beautiful. And I got to meet them and witness some of their interaction, and it was just a normal, kind of authentic, true love for each other.

BURNETT: And Tim (ph), obviously, and you're looking --

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