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hearing, party breathing meetings. a pelosi the health issues are the latest and decided your unfiltered view of government. ♪♪ president carter have conversation running for president. what was that like? what was that conversation? it was very interesting. we had a friend that wrote and told jimmy that he thought he ought to run for president. well, we couldn't even say the word. that's like my husband is running for. well, i didn't tell anybody because we kept it very quiet. um, and. but then once he decided that he would do it, um, that was when i

couldn't. i mean, he could hardly say i'm going to be president. it was just something that was, you know, we'd never, ever dreamed would happen. and, um, but it was exciting. i was excited about it. i had campaigned the whole last year before the governor's race for him and it was hard and amy was a baby, and i didn't like to leave her all the time. um, but i enjoyed it. i mean, i learned so much about our state. we have 159 candidates. i knew the capital of every, uh, county. i knew, i mean, and, and issues. in fact, that's how i got involved in mental health issues. running, campaigning for jimmy. they had our big, um, mental health facility hospital and they'd been a big exposé and the, and the mental health

systems act had been passed in 19. this was, yeah, 63 and this was 1966 when jimmy first ran for governor, got beat that time. but we got in late because i live in democratic candidate had a heart attack. but um. they were moving people out of the hospital because like 12,000 people where they had room for 3000. it was awful. it was happening all over the country and they're moving them out before they had any facilities for no services in the communities. and everybody started talking to me about what would your husband do if he's elected governor of georgia? um, i just learned so much about what was going on, and i after we lost the election, i worked for years to learn a little bit about mental health. and then the first month in office, they appointed the governor's commission to improve services to the mentally and emotionally handicapped. so and so when he told me about that, i thought, this is give me

a chance to go look across the whole country. and it was so much fun to me. i just i love to go in in people's homes. when we first started campaigning for president, i would i went out a lot. i went to florida. iowa, in the beginning, those are two primaries. we had two and i had been working in the our farm supply business at home. when we got home from the navy. jim had me i didn't work the first year, but i, um, i started helping him and he only had seasonal labor. i started working for me and said, why don't you come and keep the office while i go out and visit the farmers and so i would go into our 30. that might be six people in somebody's house. i knew the price of fertilizer. i knew how much they could get for their corn without a corn meal. i mean, i loved it. and i met, so it was hard, but i

was so excited. i had been able to learn all about georgia and that was able to learn about the country. and i thought i knew would be a good president. mrs. carter, when did you know during that campaign that your husband would be elected president? i never that he never we never i don't think anybody in our in our whole campaign thought we would lose. i mean, i maybe you have to have that set of mind to win, but you because we we campaigned all the time, just like we we got to win. what was the peanut brigade? the peanut brigade with a lot of our friends started up from georgia. but being just people from georgia. but then it just grew and grew and grew. who would campaign over the country for us and it was really wonderful. they paid their own way. in fact, we had no money and everybody who worked in our campaign had to find a house to

stay at, like somebody that was a supporter that that would have them spend the let them spend the night with them. either they had to pay they had to pay for a hotel. um, that couldn't happen now, but it was really close. no, not with money. not with the money that you have to have even win the nomination. rosalynn carter january 20th, 1977. what do you remember about that day? it was inauguration day and we walked down pennsylvania avenue in the cold, cold weather. it was exciting. whose idea was it to walk? it was jimmy's idea. he didn't tell me to the night before. point man didn't tell anybody else except the secret service agents, because we didn't. well, the secret service agents didn't want him to for security, but they didn't want him to talk walk at all. but i guess he just thought it

was better. nobody was anticipating him walking down pennsylvania avenue. i think he thought everything would be different if if they believed him, maybe, uh, if we, maybe we shouldn't do it. if everybody knew it, you know? anyway, it was, it was. it was really wonderful. so, january 20th, 1977, you're the first lady of the united states. how do you prepare to become first lady? well, becoming first, the hard part for me was going from the farm supply business to the governor's mansion, a beautiful governor's mansion. it was new, but the outgoing governor had only lived in it for two years. columnist don't know for that federal period, authentic federal period, furniture all the way through. and i went to see the outgoing governor's wife after we won and ask who did the cooking? and she said, i do. i said, who serves the table?

she said, i do everything i ask, as she did it. and i said, i'd like to see your office. where is your. she said, i don't have one of is in my staff is in the which is that i have an office in the um governor's and the capital with the governor's and they handle my and my correspondence. i said, do you make speeches? and she said, no, i let the governor's mother do that. i went home and said, what have we done? and the all the help in the house were trust is from the prison and the first thing i do is hire. there was her a housekeeper. and then we we taught the prisoners to cook and to serve tables and and i developed a fairly competent staff. we had her in the music club of atlanta, had invited me to

entertain benton harbor, and he was coming to play to perform in atlanta on january 30th. we we actually moved in the governor's mansion on january the 12th. so jimmy had an aunt in this area, and i called her because she was really wonderful person. and she came to and helped me. and we did a beautiful dinner for him. we we put tuxedos on and the prisoners, which was new and different for them. and, uh, anyway, we, we had a really wonderful meeting and then, as i said, we called it, um, oh, i got her to organize docents who could take people through the governor's mansion, because when i went the first time, a state patrolman were in the hallway guarding the tool and i thought that didn't seem very homey. so i got the says it had a list of people that came in who came every day to everybody that come

at the mansion was open. that was. anyway, i had to learn everything i had to develop the staff. we learned by trial and error. i had my assistant that helped me. and we, for instance, when we entertained we the one of the first entertainers we had was a man who had sat. we read his biography and his talent and what he did, and it sounded perfect. we had a lot of racecar drivers. atlanta speedway and and they were coming to eat dinner with us. so we got him. he stood up. when he stood up to sing, he sang light opera, if you can believe. oh, i'll slid under the table. after that, we learned we had to audition everybody. we just learned by. when i got to the white house, everything was already done at a social secretary. i didn't have to worry about the, you know, about what we were going to serve or any of those things. she would make out plans for me and bring them to me and i would

decide what i wanted to do. it was really quite wonderful and it was three years old when we moved to the governor's mansion. she'd never known anything else and she would. and you couldn't. and the governor's right. and the only thing i would change is that you couldn't get from upstairs where we lived, to the kitchen, without going through the tourist and amy learned that three years of age to walk through the tourists like this because everybody has the baby that is the baby. and she got to where she would just walk right straight through without even seeing them. and i remember when we got to e white house and she went to school the firstay, it was amy going in like this, which she had been doing all her life, going through the dirt. and everybody felt so sorry for. but that was just part of her life. and and actually after that happened, on the first day, the press got together and decided not to bother amy anymore. and so and that was really

wonderful to in the white house, we didn't have to worry about that very much. where did you first meet? jimmy carter. well, in plains, georgia has a population of 634. i think i knew everybody in town and there were no girls my age in town. and of course, i knew who he was. i drank some. i knew him, but he was three years older than i am. and but his little sister, who was three years younger than i would stay in town for if we had a basketball game or some event at the school, she would stay with her grandmother, who lived in town, and we became really close friends. she was my best friend growing up. this is ruth. this is ruth and, um.

but he graduated from high school at 16. we only went 11 grades back then and i was 13. well, there was no way i ever thought i would go with jimmy carter, and i didn't go with him until he came home. the lad before he was the first class, when he came home from the, um, naval academy and i went out with him the night before he was going to leave. but ruth and i plotted to get me out there with him because i wanted to. i had fallen in love with his photograph on the wall, in her room at home. and so she would call me and say he's here, and i would go. he had a month leave and i would go out there and he'd be gone. and one day we we we had a farmhouse and jimmy's parents had a farmhouse not close to but i mean, fairly close to the house and and and everybody in town used it for events, church events and school events and

things like that. so when they she called and said that somebody had used the phone as the night before and that they were going out there and clean up jimmy, she and jimmy and want me to come home. so i spent the day with it and that night i was a church meeting standing at the door. at the door that was a youth meeting. one night during the week. and ruth, with her boyfriend and jimmy drove up and he got out of the car and asked me to go to the movie with him. so i went to the movie with him and then i went to the railroad station to see him over the next night. and then we started riding in, led us to each other. and at christmas time he asked me to marry and i turned him down. i was young and i had promised my father on his deathbed that i would go to college and i had not finished college well out of i went to annapolis the weekend

of the ring dance, but i don't remember what they call the weekend. but yes, again. and i accepted. i was still young and it was july seventh, 1946. that's all right. you said your father died when you were quite young. 30? mm hmm. i was the oldest of four children in my look at two brothers, and then my little sister, who was four years old and, um, my father, uh, developed leukemia. um, i didn't know he was sick. and i'd been wanting to go to a church camp in the summer and they told me we didn't have enough money for it. and. and then one day i came home and asked me if i would still like to go to the camp as a group, but i didn't know was that he was going up. i was going to the hospital to see what was wrong, and he died. just maybe that was in maybe may

and he died in november. how did that affect your role as the oldest child. well, everything changed for, um. i was the oldest one. my mother had never written a check. she went she had a she went to college for two years and had a teacher certificate, but she had never taught and back then in plains, you ordered your groceries and i plains mercantile company bought your clothes and things and they were all the groceries. they would send the groceries to the house. my daddy paid for it all. and, um, when when when he was on his deathbed, he called us all in and the children and told my mother that she wanted him to sell the farm if she had to, because she wanted to still go to school and i think we. so i don't know. i'm well, i'm sure she sold the farm, but the next year her mother died. she was an only child and.

mama died not even we had no idea she was sick and my grandfather was not living on the farm at a time when to the cows and when he came back in, she was leaning over. she was tying a shoe in, in the chair, and somebody called my mother, 11 months after my daddy died. and we've been depending on them so much. and said, your mother died this morning. i mean, it just and imagine anybody doing that, too. i was getting ready to go to school and i heard a screaming in the hall where the telephone were. yeah. and it was tough. my mother went to school. she worked in a grocery store, and then she worked in the school lunchroom. and then when i was still in high school, she got a job in the post office and worked there the rest until she had retired and she had to retire at age 70. it was the low and i came, i was campaigning. this was 1975 and christmas

because her birthday's christmas eve and our birthday she had to retire. and so i was campaigning. i went campaigning after christmas. i came back home and my brother said, call me as soon as i got home and said, go to see mother. she cried all week long. so i went to see and and i said, mother, she had had to get up and be at work every morning at 7:00 and then she had to come back late in the afternoon. but my grandfather that came to live with us when my grandmother died. and so my mother had flexible hours because the postmaster didn't want to get up early and he didn't want to stay late. but anyway and i said, mother, don't you enjoy just being able to sleep in the morning? she says, it's not that, it's just that nobody thinks i can do good work anymore. so that that made an impression on me. and then so when jimmy was president, i did work with

aging. i became interested in them in working with mental illnesses too, because there were no doctors to care for people with mental illness. and actually the no director doctors, we pay he passed an age discrimination law and with people in the federal government could work as long as they wanted to and people outside could work until they were 75. so i worked a lot on well, it rosalynn carter you of always been a political partner to your husband. is that is that a fair statement? i've been a partner. i would call it a part it when we he was in the navy for seven years after we got married, we had three boys and the first two years of the first year had one baby. and he was gone for two years. he was on battleships back then. you had to serve two years before you could go to the air force, a submarine and he was going from monday to thursday every week. and a duty on one night. i had to take care of

everything. and and then when we got home and i began working in the farm supply business anymore and books very soon than he did and i think that's when we really developed this really good partnership. i could say, don't buy corn anymore. we make losing money on it. i could devise him and it just developed into a really wonderful partnership. and so when he was when i didn't campaign, when he ran for the senate, i kept the business while the campaign. but then when he i campaigned. when he ran for governor was the first time that campaign. and but then when he got in the governor's race that, you know, i learned all the issues and campaign and got it and did the same thing when he was running for president. i think we were it was the first time i know lady bird had come through planes on a train. but i think that the first time

people that the women had campaign and well, i know i, i got in the car with a friend when jimmy started to run for president and we just i wanted to know if i could campaign in other states like i did in georgia. so with the florida, we went to florida and stayed ten or 12 days and we would just stop along the way in the towns and pass out brochures and look up the radio stations. and in fact, we started work and we started go into it and tell antennas because they were radio stations and you would go in. this might be just a music, you know, station where they played music and they would have no idea what i would say. my husband driving for president. i would like for you to interview me and vice president of work. president the united states. you got to be kidding. i said, no, i'm not kidding. and i've have no idea what to ask me. so before the first day was over, i had the i had a five or six questions that i was the things that i wanted people to

know about you, you know, about those things. and i came home and said, i can do it. everybody is the side. what i learned was everybody is the same. they want good families. the good places, the homes. they want good things for their families. they want a church. usually they wanted a place to worship. they want to make a living and have a good life. i mean, everybody wants the same thing. but look, regions have different other things, but we're just in general, people ought to be happy and have a good home and a good family. in your book, first lady from plains, you write that you are more political than your husband. what do you mean by that? i look, he says what he thinks out of what it is, and sometimes i would get after it because i think you have to be political in a certain way. you have to be honest and you have to say the same things. but still you have to cater to

people. sometimes i think and know what they want and need to be able to influence them to vote for you and it's not being dishonest. it's just finding out what they want and letting them know how you're going to help them with those problems that things that they want, the things they want in the government, just being political. and he but jimmy thinks if something needs to be done, it needs to be done. now. and when he was in office and and world when he was president, n't think he ever did hing that was not ntroversial. that bothered me sometimes. but in life i didn't like the war controversy all the time. rosalynn carter in the white house, you held press conferences, traveled solo, acted as the president's emissary. how did you develop the issues that you wanted to talk about or became expert in?

well, i, i worked on mental health. i had the president's commission on mental health, toured the country, moved i worked on problems of the elderly. and a lot of that came from seeing what happened. you know, what happened to my mother, because that was in the campaign. and but but also in traveling and campaigning. they took me where there were a lot of democrats. and so i went to a lot of nursing homes and facilities for older people and so what great needs that were in that area. so that influenced my work. work. i had worked on immunization in georgia, had a good immunization program and there were bumpers who was a late later a senator while he was senator when jerry

was elected. but he was governor the same time jimmy was. and it governors can't resist the wives would get together and betty bumpers worked with the centers for disease control and and develop a really good immunization program. she talked me into doing it at home. and so two weeks after we got the white house, she called me. and of course, i was ready to work on immunization in the white house. that was one of my great victories. immunization was required, but school age and only 15 states. there was a little bit of an idea about whether it's 50 to 70. and the first year we got it and beat it working with betty and the secretary of hhs, we got it in all 50 states. that was exciting. and we had this big meeting in washington. i go from when subject to another, but we had this big meeting in washington to celebrate, had people from all over the country. the next day there was not one word in the paper about it. i was so upset. so i called joe califano, who

was a i know there was a camera there. he said it was ours, but nobody was interested in immunization. nobody was the press. i got upset with the press, too, because they covered my mental health where the first few meetings i had and then they never showed up anymore. and one of the things i wanted to do is bring attention to the issue and how terrible it was and what. few services they were. and but i think it just getting it out in the public, that's what i did in georgia, developed, developed a good program in georgia, by the way. but it just didn't come. and so one day i was walking in down for a dance. i was following the white house and met this woman who was one of the press people. and i said, you know, i would cover mine. nobody ever covers my meetings. and she said, mrs. carter,

mental health is just not a sexy issue. and with that i didn't like but i never did get very much coverage for it. but we toured the country, found out what was needed, developed legislation and passed the mental health systems act of 1980. it passed through congress. one before jim, as he says, was involuntary. he retired from the white house and incoming president put it on a show never implemented during the greatest support of my life. and now we had a mental health symposium here at the carter center. i have a great mental health program here. last week and and one of the people who worked with me in the white house, the program the subject was the affordable care act. and he did a comparison of what we did in 1980 with what we what

the affordable care act. it almost identical. we just passed parity and it was announced here the final regulations. i had parity in the 1980 system of mental health systems that i mean, this is really things don't move very fast in the mental health for you. and i'm so thrilled now that we have paired and we have the affordable care act covers parity and we also had integration in the 1980 legislation that combining mental health and substance use, behavioral health and you and betty ford worked on that toth. that's right. and after we left the white house bid, and i would go to washington, she would get to republicans and democrats and we we mme pro your husbands were known as become best friends are ver good friends. did you and betty ford have the same relationship? yes, we a really good relationship. it started the jimmy and gerald

ford were on the we went to sadat's funeral in september after we left the white house and that's when jimmy and gerald ford began talking. had a lot of time and and so how much each one. well, they they thought similarly and and then betty i started working with betty and we developed a really wonderful relationship. mrs. carter, there are several first ladies still living. are is there a sorority of first ladies in a sense. well, i had a good relationship with betty ford and with lady bird. as long as she was alive. but that's about it. i don't think there's never been a real we see each other at the event and at the library

dedication. so in the new what new first ladies. but there's never been that, uh, closeness that, that i had with betty ford and lady bird when you were first lady, you had a weekly luncheon with your husband and would attend cabinet meetings. what was the purpose of that? well, i had a luhe with jimmy. there were always things i wanted to ask and some of it was about the family and the finances and things that going on back home. um, but also talked about issues. it was, i would say it was more family and personal things that were going on. um, but it gave us time to do that. but almost every after we were there until about august, um, jimmy stayed at the, um, oval office a good bit in the daytime. he didn't go, didn't go back

much at night. but in august they started calling me about 430 in the afternoon. my office was in the east wing. it had always been in the white house too, i think. but i put it over the east wing. um, but he started calling me and let's go or let's do something. and also i wanted to be home when amy got home from school, so i stopped scheduling anything in that part of the afternoon and but we would jog and exercise. um, swim and sit on the truman balcony, then and talk about what he had done. and, but during the day and what i had done during the day, and we just had that good relationship. but what i learned in the white house was that there is no way to know what's happening because of the press. i mean, you can't learn from newspapers. you can't learn from 2 minutes on tv and see tv. tv was computers were new. we didn't have computers and the

big mainframe still in the white house, nobody ever used them. but jimmy got those. i don't know where he got those. like the way they got moved. but this was a long ago, 30 something years ago. but i couldn't tell. and he said every day i he stepped off of the elevator upstairs. i would ask him, what did you do that's a lot to do because i had to know. i going i mean, i was touring the country, i was having press conferences and i needed to know. and so it in february after a year when they when you step off of the elevator, he said, why don't you come to cabinet meetings and tn you know why we do things and that's when i started going to cabet meetings. i sat around the well, a lot o people don't know is that cabinet meets and they have staff around the room, but i sat by max cleland. he was in a wheelchair and he did not cabinet member anyway. he was head of veterans affairs when i sat by him next to the door and i went every time i

could that the cabinet met because it was i thought it was necessary for me to know what was going on and why the decisions made and so forth and so that i could explain to people in the country if, as i toured around rosalynn and carter, did you receive criticism for attending those meetings and for being the president's emissary? i don't think i ever received criticisms from the west wing. they knew how close we were and and how interested i was. but there was all kind of criticism. but but, you know, i learned while jim was in it, state senate, that's the hardest because, you know, everybody that criticizes you, then you expect that when you get to be governor. and i had been governor for years. so when i got to the white house, i knew it was coming. i didn't like it. but you have to you have to accept the attitude that what i did rather but i think i think

you almost have to believe in public life but that you have to know that what your husband does is what he thinks is the best possible for our country. and what i'm doing, i think, is the best possible thing for my country. when jimmy was state in the states and i would get so upset, he sat me down. one day he said, if you don't think i'm doing the best job i can do, then worry about it. and you have to just accept that. but also my feeling was if they didn't, if they reported things in a way we didn't it because i didn't know they would ignorant about what was going and lots of times it's true if they have good reason, if they know why you're doing it and so forth. i mean that's why you can't end today with the days that duration. there's no way to know it's happening because it's talked about all day, every day. and you get like with a photo book or so confused by the time we had our meeting, um, last

week that we had people here who really knew what was in the law, which was so good for us. and then to have the parity regulations that was, we found out the day before kathleen sebelius came that she was going to announce the final regulation, which i'd been talking to pass the law in 2008. and i had been talking to her about it. she's a good friend. her father was governor when jimmy was governor. her mother's a good friend. and i've been talking with regulations that and i sure her hands were tied by the white because i think they voted in the affordable care. but then for her to come here and that sort of as soon as i heard it, i started shaking. oh, i mean, those are 33 years after i got after i wanted it was excited. it was emotional.

was it possible to have a private life in the white house and? did the white house feel like home. it felt like home to us almost immediately because we had all been campaigning. all our boys had been campaigning and i'd been campaigning anere together. i not all two of my sons and amy, there and we had together we had to make a little room that if you were not going to be there for a meal, you had to check off a little thing so that we could know who would be there. but and. amy, i was almost everyd sometimes i was not, but both the time i was there when she came home from school and i helped her with the lessons and took it to suzuki's violin classes and um. oh, and then as, as i said

earlier, jimmy and i would jog and as well if it was raining, we'd go to the bowling alley and i'd be like that. and so we, we had a fairly good family life. it was, i think it was so precious to us as girls were being gone, traveling for two years. does the white house affect a. i said, i think it could i don't i don't think it didn't affect ours. um because we just been partners working together for so long. um, but because, and, and i could see if, if, if the first lady was not particular interested in the different issues, i think it would be very difficult. but jimmy could talk to me about all of it and i think it happens that way more and more with first ladies because it's some

of the early first ladies were very active, but then the others that were not. and when you look back at previous first ladies before you served, who did you admire? who did you emulate? who did you learn from. well, the closest person i had the closest and the only first lady that had knowledge of was lady bird. when jim was governor, she came to go to georgia and help me with the highway beautification program and i just knew her. and she, uh, but the main thing she told me was, if i would ask us on this, it's a enjoy. enjoy, because it's not going to last. you know, you'll be there. i was just enjoy it. but she did help me a lot. and of course, everybody, i think, looks back at eleanor roosevelt, who was quite wonderful and one person that had a big impact on my life was margaret mead.

when i decided that i was going to run for that, i was going to work on mental health issues. she came to georgia to see me and just we had to we developed this really wonderful relationship and she would give me advice and went to several went to canada for a little help me anyway. i mean, she just she was just to me this to meet her was just emotional for me. so i would like to eleanor roosevelt and rosalynn carter, your husband in 2010, published his white house diaries. did you keep a diary or a journal during the white house years? i kept them at different times. i didn't do very much in the beginning, but then i started having my secretary put spaces between events, and i had a desk in our bedroom and i left it then and i would go to the event had what was happening and who was going to be there now. and i would start writing notes about what happened at that event. and i did that pretty regularly for a while. i wrote really good, um, a diary

about can't believe it. like i kept those notes all the time from the first day or those public no, when, if, if and when will they be public? i don't know. i don't know how long it took em. i just went through them and edited them. but i didn't edit anything. i struck out a few passages. why? well, why that were you? to know what i called some of them who were not who were not corporate with jimmy out of it. do you know? it was just just my personal thoughts. um, along with what was happening and i didn't sit in any of the meetings, but i was there the whole time. and as soon as that would come out of a meeting, i was there. let's see what it was. what's going on? it was it was incredible. it was from the heights of excitement that it was going to happen to the depths of despair

that it was. now, i came home one day, for instance. we didn't know we're going to be there 13 days. and so the last few days i had to go into town to do some events for jimmy. and so for me and i, something that i had planned and i got back one day and, and this toward the end and jimmy and hamilton jordan, who was and jody powell, who were staff people, were in the swimming pool at camp david and they said, it's over. and they thought it was and it was a bad evening. but and when jimmy left, when i left on sunday, that the day they came back, um, jimmy said it's either today or not. i'm just, we're just going to have to end it. it not. and that and we had. we opened the white house, i mean, we had pbs, did our events

for a while and. i can't remember who was that day. i had to come in. i had to come in and introduce the artist and and i got a call about about halfway through it, i said, no, no. about half through the concert, think and told me he thought they had it. but don't tell anybody, not even mrs. beck. and she was with me. but they didn't know for sure. but that was that was interesting. and anyway, when they came in that night, that was helicopter landed. it was thought does go dark. i'm sure it was dark and they came in and mrs. big and i was standing by the door of the blue room and they came in, prime minister back and went straight to her who was my mama? we going to go down in history for this? it was it was really thrilling. do you think maybe we'll see a rosalynn carter camp david

accords diary book sometime. we might. there's actually i guess it's all right for me to tell. this is actually our party, man. that's going to be in washington opening a theater in washington on camp david. early next year, i think. will you be there for it? i'll be there for. it another issue during your husband's presidency that i want to ask you about, mrs. carter, the iranian hostage crisis. did you keep notes. did you what were your feelings throughout that whole crisis and how did that affect you as a person? it was awful. i look back now i have memories of, um, just waiting for the press conference in iran to say what happened that day. because we had no idea what was going on. and the only way we knew what was going on was when they would come out and announce it.

and so and it was just, you know, thinking about and thinking we met with the families all along and thinking about the people who's whose family members were there and and what it was doing to jimmy's presidency. and it was awful. it was awful. but and i would go out. i would go out and campaign. and i had found out earlier that that i could when a president goes out, he's so surrounded that people he speaks to them. he says, hello and so forth. but they didn't get close enough to people to have conversations. you just normally like you would otherwise about what the hopes and dreams of what they thought about what i was doing or what jimmy was doing, anything that could help them. i had learned that earlier when jim was during his presidency, and but i would go out and everybody would say, tell the

president to do something and tell him to he's got to do something. i would come home and i would say, why don't you do so? and he said, what do you want me to do? you want me to mind the horribles which that a lot of people were talking about, he said, and then have them bring out one prisoner every day and hang him in public. well, maybe that the best thing to do and a but you know i wanted it over and of course he did to everybody did i mean the people in the country every night on new tv program started and and nobody got over it at all i mean could get over it i just think about it because it that every day every night it was awful. i kept up with my what i was doing. i never i never stopped doing the things i was doing. but by the time four years were over, how tired were but you know, you lose the election in

november and that's depressing. it was depressing. but then you therefore until january the 20th, you live on november, december, january. i just wanted to go home. and then when i got home, i don't know that i was tired. i never i guess i was tired, but i just remember coming home boxes to the ceiling. we lived right in the edge of the woods and. we'd been gone ten years because jim was governor for the campaign, and then it was for the woods had come up around our house. the vines and things, and we both had agreed to write books and and with overwhelming it actually didn't have time to really worry about it. i mean, the really more in it i think i'm more and it before i left the white house i know i used to walk around that i, i think, um, there's my mental

health legislation and there's so much i think i realized how important it is for a president to have a second term although jimmy carter would not have changed anyway. he would not have changed anything in your book, first lady from plains, it written in 1984. you close by saying i would be out on the campaign trail today if jimmy carter would run again? i kept all the time right after he lost the election. i kept just knowing he was going to run again, you know, i would have been there. so you have a grandson who's just announced for governor of georgia. i know. i'm thrilled that you're going to be out on the campaign trail. i'll do whatever you ask me to do. he's he's a great young man. he graduated from duke university, went to the peace corps for two years, came home and went to law school with a and a law firm that has two terms as a state senator and rosalynn carter you've had 33

years post president and see the longest in history now and and president carter have been very active in what do you think your legacy first of all as first lady is or what would you like it to be. well, i hope my legacy continues. i'm more than just first lady because the carter center has been an integral part of our lives, i would think. and our motto is waging peace, fighting disease and building hope. and i hope that i have contributed something to mental health issues and help improve a little bit. people, the lives of people living with mental illnesses. but i also hope i mean, i have had great opportunities for so long now and to go to africa. i'm one of those going to have programs and services that the countries we go to africa and

two or three times a year and to go to those villages and now things are coming to fruition. we've been working on all these years like we've almost eradicated guinea worm. i mean, to go to a village where there's no longer guinea worm, it is a celebration. i mean, one of the good things about the carter center is we don't give money to the government. we send people to teach the the health people in that country how to do something. and we work with the people in the villages with and the health department does, too. and we work with them and they do the work. i mean, just to go to a village and explain to them about guinea worm, if you can get the chief to approve, that's what you have to do. but if they see that or hear about it from another country, the so happy you're there. but just to see to go back when

it's gone from a village almost gone and the hope it gives to them that most of the time it's the first thing they have ever seen that was successful. and it's just so wonderful just to see the hope of something good is happening now. we made together what was so rosalynn carter, we're here in atlanta at the carter center for this interview. how much time do you spend in in how much time in planes? well, we schedule one week a month, a year ahead of time to be here. most of the time, we have to come back more than that. like my mental health conference, i was here three days last week. and yet this is my week here. this week is my week here. and we have to come back than that. but we scheduled that. so we can plan our travels around it and we travel almost to it. and this year i'll be interested

to see how much we've been going this year with this is maybe not half, but most of the time i guess most of times it's i do not half the time, most of the times, but to getting pretty close it the only thing i mean like go to africa something so wonderful happens if you go there and from the carter center and it goes everybody and as. one funny story we put global 2000 when i worked in code in africa because we found out that if the heads of state get credit for what they do i mean if somebody has a gets rid of guinea worm for their village or has a that we feel we crop has grown by three what they produce is going but grown three times as much as they used to. so they get so excited.

but the head of state does my my agriculture program. so anyway we put but the word gets around that was carter and one time we went this village there was a farmer who had been named the farmer of the year. and we went to this village and this have been a bit north anyway. we' village and wonderful. village came there was a little girl and she held up a sign, jimmy carter has this. and what we get. and just work the magic.

gives hope to people. >> rosalynn carter, what is your advice. >> in the firstst place i think anything you want to. ... paid, then i have to do what first lady are supposed to do. but you can do anything you want to and it's such a great. soapbox. i mean, it's just such a great opportunity. so i would i would advise any first lady to do what she wanted so i would advise any first lady to do what she wanted to do. if she doesn't -- another thing, he will be criticized no matter what to do.

i could've stayed at the white house, pour tea, held receptions and i would've been criticized. as much as us criticize outside fort i did. i got a lot of criticism. you are expected and you live with it. never let it influenced me. but i would just tell her also just to enjoy it and do what you wanted to do, and in the process i know she will, another first lady will have things that she wants to do because women have changed, what women do now changed out from when i grew up. i could be a secretary, school teacher, librarian things. but now women, most women are active here soto just do what yu want to do and don't worry about the criticism.

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