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CNN Live Event/Special

The State Funeral of President Jimmy Carter. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired January 09, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

(SINGING)

STUART EIZENSTAT, FORMER CARTER WHITE HOUSE DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER: Jimmy Carter was as close to being a renaissance man as any president entering the Oval Office in modern times.

He was skilled in an astonishing array of activities, farmer, businessman, nuclear engineer, Naval submarine officer, woodworker, painter, fly fisherman, music lover, poet, author, Sunday schoolteacher, creator of the Carter Center, and, yes, loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Behind that toothy smile was a man of steel determination, discipline, and self-confidence. In 1974, when he was governor of Georgia, I suggested that, if he ran for president and won a few Southern primaries, he might get lucky and be the vice presidential nominee for regional balance.

With his broadest grin, he said: "Stu, I have already decided to run, but I will be the Democratic nominee for president, not vice president."

For one of our nation's most religious presidents, it's appropriate to celebrate Jimmy Carter's remarkable life in this magnificent cathedral. His religious values gave him an unshakable sense of right and wrong, animating his support for civil rights at home and human rights abroad, and propelling him to major achievements as the only Democratic president-elected between 1968 and 1992.

His faith brought integrity to the presidency after the Watergate and Vietnam eras. "I will never lie to you," he promised. It was a vow he fulfilled. But his faith respected other religions as well. He was the first president to light a Hanukkah menorah. He created the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which I have the honor of chairing.

He had a kosher Shabbat dinner at Camp David for the Israeli delegation and came to our house for a Passover seder only weeks after he negotiated the treaty between Israel and Egypt.

[11:05:06]

As we lay our 39th president to rest, it's time to redeem his presidency and also lay to rest the myth that his greatest achievements came only as a former president. The test of American presidents is not the number of years they serve, but the duration of their accomplishments.

By this measure, Jimmy Carter was among the most consequential one- term presidents in American history. His intellect, prodigious work habits, discipline, and mastery of details were crucial to his success at home and abroad.

President Carter parked politics at the Oval Office door to do what he believed was the right thing, taking controversial challenges on, regardless of the political consequences. And, frankly, there were many.

Much of his agenda passed with bipartisan support, a quaint notion in today's hyperpolarized politics. Independent surveys indicated he had one of the highest success rates in passing his major legislation of any American president. And he was remarkable -- remarkably accessible to the press and to the American people.

This president from the deepest part of the Deep South championed civil rights, appointing more people of color and women to senior executive positions and judgeships than all previous 38 presidents before him. He created the Department of Education and dramatically increased funding for low- and moderate-income students.

And we can thank him for all the ethics in government laws, comprehensive civil service reform, the creation of FEMA to coordinate natural disaster relief and rebuilding that remain crucially important today, and we see it in Los Angeles.

Jimmy Carter was also the greatest environmental president since Theodore Roosevelt, adding 80 million acres in Alaska to the national park system. And his Global 2000 Report forecast climate change.

His energy bills were critical to move our country from dependence on foreign oil to energy security. We are now, as a result, the largest oil and gas producer in the world. He provided the first incentives for conservation and inaugurated the era of clean energy and symbolized it with solar panels he installed on the White House roof.

Underappreciated at the time, but now widely recognized by Republicans and Democrats alike, President Carter was the great deregulator, winning legislative battles to loosen the regulatory bonds and shackles on airlines, thereby democratizing air travel, on trucking and rails, therefore helping our supply chains be more efficient, telecommunications, leading to the cable TV era, and even the beer industry, which encouraged local craft beers.

And he did so without compromising health and safety. These laid the foundations for today's innovative economy. Nothing better embodies President Carter than how he dealt with the inflation that beleaguered the nation under three presidents, two Republicans, Nixon and Ford, and himself, during the 1970s.

Over the objection of all of his advisers, he chose Paul Volcker to lead the Federal Reserve, knowing in advance that Volcker's tough monetary policy would raise interest rates and unemployment, because Paul told him that, and would do so in a presidential election year.

"You take care of the economy, Paul. I will take care of the politics."

Inflation indeed dropped like a rock after he left office and remained low for decades.

Abroad, Jimmy Carter laid the building blocks for a better world. He was the first president to make human rights a priority for U.S. foreign policy. And this led directly to the release of thousands of political prisoners in Latin America and stimulated them to a lasting democratic transition.

[11:10:16]

He ushered in a new era of hemispheric relations with the Panama Canal treaties, the toughest legislative battle of his presidency. He uniquely combined the soft power of human rights, championing freedom for the communist East Bloc countries, and tripling the emigration of Soviet Jews.

He combined that with hard power, rebuilding America's military strength after its post-Watergate decline. He negotiated a major nuclear arms treaty with the Soviets, while at the same time initiated every single weapons system that came online in the 1980s.

Those new weapons helped end the Cold War. He normalized relations with China, and even his critics applauded his tough measures after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Jimmy Carter's most lasting achievement, and the one I think he was most proud of, was to bring the first peace to the Middle East through the greatest act of personal diplomacy in American history, the Camp David Accords.

For 13 days and nights, he negotiated with Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat, personally drafting more than 20 peace proposals and shuttling them between the Israeli and Egyptian delegations. And he saved the agreement at the 11th hour, and it was the 11th hour, by appealing to Begin's love of his grandchildren.

For the past 45 years, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty has never been violated and laid the foundation for the Abraham Accords.

On the other side of the ledger was Iran. Jimmy Carter did not lose Iran. The shah did. But the hostage crisis was a major factor in denying him a second term, despite his support for the shah, because he placed the safe return of the hostages above his own political fortunes.

He took full responsibility for the failure of the bold hostage rescue mission and worked tirelessly, even after his bitter reelection defeat to Ronald Reagan, securing their release on the last day of his presidency.

In the end, Jimmy Carter taught all of us how to live a life fulfilled with faith and service. He said: "I have one life to live. I feel like God wants me to do the best I can do with it, so let me live my life so that it will be meaningful."

Well, Mr. President, you have more than achieved that goal. He may not be a candidate for Mount Rushmore, but he belongs in the foothills, making the U.S. stronger and the world safer.

Jimmy Carter has earned his place in heaven. But just as he was free with sometimes unsolicited advice for his presidential successors, the lord of all creation should be ready for Jimmy's recommendations on how to make God's realm a more peaceful place.

(LAUGHTER)

[11:15:27]

JASON CARTER, GRANDSON OF JIMMY CARTER: In my church, we sing a song that says, from the moment that I wake up until I lay my head, I will sing of the goodness of God.

I don't know how many people in here can say that. I know I can't. But my grandfather certainly can. From the moment that he woke up until he laid his head, his life was a testament to the goodness of God.

And I thank all of you for being here to celebrate this life. To the presidents and first ladies, it is a great honor to have you here. You know the human side of the American presidency like no others, and we appreciate you.

To the vice presidents, other distinguished guests and friends of all kinds, thank you for being here. To those of you who came from all across the world, thank you for being here to celebrate and pay tribute to my grandfather.

I say grandfather, but we call him Paw-Paw, as many of you know. We called my grandmother Mom Carter. So we spend our time talking about mom and Paw-Paw and, mostly, speaking of the human side of the presidency, just letting people know that they were regular folks.

Yes, they spent four years in the governor's mansion and four years at the White House, but the other 92 years...

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: ... they spent at home in Plains, Georgia.

And one of the best ways to demonstrate that they were regular folks is to take them by that home. First of all, it looks like they might have built it themselves.

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: Second of all, my grandfather was likely to show up at the door in some '70s short shorts and Crocs.

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: And then you would walk in the House, and it was like thousands of other grandparents' house all across the south, fishing trophies on the walls. The refrigerator, of course, was papered with pictures of grandchildren and then great-grandchildren.

Their main phone, of course, had a cord and was stuck to the wall in the kitchen, like a museum piece. And demonstrating their Depression era roots, they had a little rack next to the sink where they would hang Ziploc bags to dry.

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: And demonstrating that they changed with the times, eventually, he did get a cell phone.

And one time he called me sort of early on in that process. And on my phone it said "Paw-Paw Mobile." So I answered it, of course. "I said: "Hey, Paw-Paw."

He said: "Who's this?"

I said: "This is Jason."

He said: "What are you doing?"

I said: "I'm not doing anything. You called me."

He said: "I didn't call you. I'm taking a picture."

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: He was a nuclear engineer, right?

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: I mean, they were small-town people who never forgot who they were and where they were from no matter what happened in their lives.

But I recognize that we are not here because he was just a regular guy. As you have heard from the other speakers, his political life and his presidency for me was not just ahead of its time. It was prophetic. He had the courage and strength to stick to his principles even when they were politically unpopular.

As governor of Georgia half-a-century ago, he preached an end to racial discrimination and an end to mass incarceration. As president in the 1970s, as you have heard, he protected more land than any other president in history. Fifty years ago, he was a climate warrior who pushed for a world where we conserved energy, limited emissions, and traded our reliance on fossil fuels for expanded renewable sources.

And, by the way, he cut the deficit, wanted to decriminalize marijuana, deregulated so many industries that he gave us cheap flights and, as you heard, craft beer.

(LAUGHTER)

[11:20:00]

CARTER: Basically, all of those years ago, he was the first millennial.

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: And he could make great playlists, as we have heard as well.

Maybe this is unbelievable to you, but, in my 49 years I never perceived a difference between his public face and his private one. He was the same person no matter who he was with or where he was. And, for me, that's the definition of integrity.

That honesty was matched by love, it was matched by faith, and, in both public and private, my grandparents did fundamentally live their lives in an effort, as the Bible says, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.

Sometimes, I feel and felt like I shared my grandfather with the world. Today is one of those days. But, really, he shared the world with me,the power of an atom, the beauty and complexity of a South Georgia forest. When we fished, he celebrated the majesty of everything from the smallest minnow to that grand circulation of waters.

And he shared this love with my boys, taking these Atlanta public school kids out into the fields to show them about row crops and wild plums.

In the end, his life is a love story. And, of course, it's a love story about Jimmy and Rosalynn, their 77 years of marriage and service. As the song says, they were the flagship of the fleet. And rest assured that, in these last weeks, he told us that he was ready to see her again.

But his life was also a broader love story about love for his fellow humans and about living out the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. I believe that that love is what taught him and told him to preach the power of human rights, not just for some people, but for all people.

It focused him on the power and the promise of democracy, its love for freedom, its requirement and founding belief in the wisdom of regular people raising their voices and the requirement that you respect all of those voices, not just some.

That conviction made him a Naval officer who believed and demonstrated, as you have heard, that the greatest power of America was not the military, but its values. And those values were personal to him, and he lived them both publicly and privately.

As you heard Stu say, as president, he gave voice to dissidents, stood up to dictators, brought countries together in peace. His heart broke for the people of Israel. It broke for the people of Palestine. And he spent his life trying to bring peace to that holy land. And he talked about it at the dinner table. It was the same in public as it was in private.

And for the last 40 years, as you have heard, he spent his time living out that love and that faith alongside the poorest and most marginalized people in the world. And that work, again, has been based fundamentally on love and respect.

The Carter Center has 3,500 employees, but only a couple hundred in the United States. The rest are spread throughout the countries where we work, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Chad, Bangladesh. And all of the Carter Center's programs are based on a respect, that same respect for the power of regular people, even if they are in tiny villages miles from anywhere else.

To give one example we have all heard a lot lately about Guinea worm disease, it's an ancient and debilitating disease of poverty, and that disease will have existed from the dawn of humanity until Jimmy Carter. When he started working on this disease, there were 3.5 million cases in humans every year. Last year, there were 14.

And the thing that's remarkable is that this disease is not eliminated with medicine. It's eliminated essentially by neighbors talking to neighbors about how to collect water in the poorest and most marginalized villages in the world.

And those neighbors truly were my grandfather's partners for the last 40 years. And as this disease has been eliminated in every village in Nigeria, every village in Sudan or Uganda, what's left behind in those tiny 600 person villages is an army of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carters, who have demonstrated their own power to change their world.

[11:25:13]

And that is a fundamental truth about my grandfather. It begins where it ends. When he saw a tiny 600-person village that everybody else thinks of as poor, he recognized it. That's where he was from. That's who he was. And he never saw it as a place to send pity. It was always a place to find partnership and power and a place to carry out that commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.

Essentially, he eradicated a disease with love and respect. He waged peace with love and respect. He led this nation with love and respect.

To me, this life was a love story from the moment that he woke up until he laid his head.

I will conclude with this. As Andy Young told me, he may be gone, but he's not gone far. The outpouring of love and support that we have felt from you and from around the world has shown how many lives he has touched and how his spirit will live on in many ways for us.

He will be in the kitchen making pancakes, or in his woodshop finishing a cradle for a great grandchild, standing in a trout stream with Mom Carter, or, for me, just walking those Georgia fields and forests where he's from. Thank you.

(MUSIC)