>> reporter: well, i think -- i was with him on the plane on air force one when we got the final newscast at 7:00 monday night or right before the election of 1980 which he lost. the number one item came across as the anniversary of the hostage crisis. here you are having a national election for president and everything else in the congress and everything, and the way it hit him, i just don't know what it felt like to know, well, tomorrow we are going to celebrate the hostage crisis and you are going to lose. i mean the way the that was thrown at him. oh, my god, you failed. the big story tomorrow is going to be the hostage crisis and you're going out of office. he did say to the american people that sunday, i wish i

could tell you when the hostages were coming home. i can't. and i don't know, i guess one thing i wonder about with -- i think we all wonder, what could i have done to get the hostages back. i'll tell you one thing he didn't do, he didn't go to war. he did not go to war. a more conservative president, perhaps more right wing president would say damn those people, they have no right to hold our people as hostages, we're coming in. the certainly w did that. >> chris, we are at -- chris matthews, that is a great point to end on. i want to thank you very much for jumping on the phone and giving us your recollections and reminisce senses of the late president jimmy carter. ♪♪ ♪♪

this is an msnbc special presentation. my name is jimmy carter, and i'm running for president. >> a sunday school teacher from the deep south with a beaming smile and a humble manner. >> i don't seem to be better than anyone else. >> running for office after a period of historic upheaval, growing distrust in the american presidency. he would be the antedote. >> i'll never tell a lie. >> i promised to tell the truth. people believed me. i think they were ready for something different. >> so help me god. >> this marks a new beginning, a new dedication within our government and a new spirit among us all. >> the 39th president's term of office was highlighted by remarkable success, ended with a national trauma. >> the difficult part of your

presidency. >> i was to blame for it. >> carter's service to the country and the world continued during a four decade second act. >> he's done more in his post presidency than any president's ever done. >> as a peace maker, fighter of diseases, and global statesman. >> we should be a nation of human rights and a nation of generosity. >> jimmy carter comes the closest that we've seen to a renaissance man of any president since thomas jefferson. >> your life seems to be in peace. have you found peace? >> i have, yes. i have a deep religious faith and i have a good family. i've had a wonderful career. i'm grateful for it. i've had blessings. >> it's an incredible american story. ♪♪ ♪♪

good evening. unemployment in the united states is now at its highest point in 34 years. >> now with mounting inflation and a new and deeper recession, the job drain is growing even worse. >> we want jobs. we want jobs. >> pretty bad right now. >> the gas lines were longer than ever. this one was more than two miles long. >> fears of decline run rampant. street crime is rising. >> every year has set a new high for murder in america. >> you regularly had bombs going off in american cities. >> boston had one of its worst days since court-ordered bussing. >> guardsmen opened fire on the students. >> the final evacuation of americans from say gone has been completed. >> lyndon johnson that lied to us about vietnam. richard nixon had lied to us about pretty much everything. >> i'm not a crook.

>> the country tonight is in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history. >> i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. vice president ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office. >> reporter: this was america in the early 1970s and into this mayhem stepped an unlikely figure, jimmy carter, a sunday school teacher from a small town in georgia making a brazen play for the country's highest office. >> i'm running for president. >> what is it that made you do this thing? because nobody was asking you to do it. >> you're right when you say nobody asked me too do it. i just thought it was the best way for me to be myself and to do the best i could with the life that i had. >> i've known president carter for decades, worked for him as a speech writer, but when i sat down with him in 2017, i was still trying to fully get my head around the man.

>> good to have you back in place. >> i haven't been here in a while. >> i know. >> carter's bond to his hometown and to his faith would play a key role in his unlikely a scent to the white house. it was the touchstone for his identity. as the ultimate outsider and a national reprieve in a turbulent time. >> in 1976 american voters were looking for some candidate who had a moral compass and jimmy carter stood out in the crowd. >> he had an iconic american back story, born on a farm. >> we didn't have any electricity in our house. we didn't have any running water in the house. we had a battery radio we were listening to. i wasn't aware of the outside world. i used to listen to glen miller. and at our alarm clock went off at 8:00, listen to glen miller and go to bed. >> his father a strict task master, mother a free spirit.

hard-working kid, carter excelled at school. at age 18 he left plains to attend the u.s. naval academy, the first in his family to go to college. he married his hometown sweetheart, rosa lind smith. they moved around the country and raised three sons and then later a daughter. always looking to improve himself, he became a nuclear engineer and exsend in his career. rosalind was thrilled with their life but he decided to return to take over the family peanut farm. >> when you were coming back to georgia when your dad was sick, how did rosalind like that decision, the decision to give up the sure shot at a pretty good life. >> that's one of the more serious arguments rosa and i ever had in our lives. so we drove over 700 miles from schenectady, new york, to plains. she never spoke to me on the way down. she would tell one of our sons, jack, tell your father i need to

stop at a restaurant, and so forth. it took her at least a year after we got home before she finally became reconciled to living in this dinghy town place. >> for the carters who had lived in places like new york and hawaii, it would be a rough adjustment coming back to the deep south and to jim crow. back from the military a changed man, carter could no longer accept the old practices of his hometown and for a while paid the price. >> we had boycotts organized against our business and -- >> because you wouldn't join the white citizens council? >> yeah. we lost a lot of business and i thought for a while i would just go back and get a good job in the nuclear submarine building program, but we never decided to do it because georgia changed. >> carter grew his peanut farm into a million dollar business. >> this field -- >> carter's hands were in the soil but his head held loftier

goals. he entered state politics and in 1971 he became governor of georgia. >> the time for racial discrimination is over. >> his first words put him on the cover of "time magazine" and onto the political map. once in office he pushed for change. with engineer like efficiency he stream lined the government by eliminating hundreds of state agencies. it wasn't long before carter had his eye on a bigger prize. >> everybody said i didn't have a chance, but i was going to run for president if i only got my vote and rosa's vote. i would not have backed down. e ? he was actually saying goodbye to his old phone. i'm switching to the amazing new iphone 16 pro at t-mobile! it's the first iphone built for apple intelligence. that's like peanut butter on jelly...on gold. get four iphone 16 pro on us, plus four lines for $25 bucks. and save on every plan versus the other big guys.

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i, jimmy carter, do solemnly swear -- >> jimmy carter's inauguration as governor put him on the radar of all the democrats hoping to run for president in 1972. the many of them made their way

to atlanta seeking his endorsement. >> i was a key player in southern policies amongst all the governors. they would stay with me and i would talk to them sometimes until 2, 3:00 in the morning and got to know them all and i decided -- >> see, that's the smile i know. you basically were like a spider. you brought them in to see them to decide if you could beat them. >> eventually i decided that. eventually after i met most of them -- >> did you have drinks with guys like musky, say, maybe i can beat these guys? >> musky drank the strangest drink. he drank milk and scotch. >> oh, my god. >> we had a good time. >> for each one of them did you get a sense, this guy sees himself as president? >> yeah. >> and i can do it? >> yes. >> preserve and protect and defend the constitution of the united states. >> the democrats lost to nixon in 1972 but carter began plotting his own presidential run for 1976.

behind that signature smile lay a cunning strategist. you did something remarkable. you wrote a letter to everyone who lost the democratic primary in 1974 and you said, i know that you lost but you ran a really good campaign, a form letter. i'd like to keep you active in democratic politics. the reason i know about this is i got one of those letters because i had ran in the democratic primary. >> you have a good memory unfortunately. >> nobody else is writing me a letter. i lost. so he invited the men and women who just had their hearts broken to join his long shot campaign for president. carter was everything a successful national politician was not, a southerner, openly religious -- >> all i do is go and fumble around with a prayer, read a bible verse. >> and little known outside georgia. >> good seeing you, jimmy. >> but carter embraced those shortcomings and turned them to his advantage. he appeared on "what's my line."

sure celebrities had no idea who he was, but his face would be televised nationally. >> i can rule out that you are a government official of any kind, can't i? >> no. >> oh, you -- >> his campaign commercials had fun with the fact that americans were just hearing of him. >> jimmy who? >> jimmy carter? >> jimmy who? >> i don't know who he is. >> he's a baseball player, isn't he. >> jimmy carter's running for what? >> i told my bosses at nbc, you really need to pay attention to this guy. >> jimmy carter. let me get under that with you. >> you're focused on his accent but these people are serious. they mainly, you know, just dismissed it. they said, he's not from washington. >> to the party elite in washington carter was essentially invisible. a nothing. >> did you know that attitude was in georgetown? >> i knew it and i didn't feel all that much at home with the so-called democratic party

elite. >> but carter related to the american voter in a way all his more established opponents did not. they offered policy changes, he offered a more basic change. >> while i'm president, i'll never tell a lie. >> i promised to tell the truth. people believed me. i think they were ready for something different. >> he fashions a campaign that is really a moral campaign in a time when the country is still recovering from the most immoral president in history. >> he fit neither the republican nor conventional democrat of the time. >> the navy officer in the nuclear sub with the technological and technocrat particular training, he would bring this to washington and make government work better. >> carter's outsider status would come back to haunt him. in the 1976 of campaign that political innocence was his appeal. >> i told him to advertise and he wouldn't do it. >> the country got drawn to his

colorful family. >> i never did spank him. >> many glasses. >> especially his young daughter amy. >> you don't have to pay for it. >> be his wife rosalind. >> how can you stand for your husband to be in politics and everybody know everything you do? i just tell them that we were born and raised and still live in plains, georgia. the it has a population of 683 and everybody has always known everything i did. >> i don't tend to be better than anybody else. i've got a lot to learn. >> he is a very sincere person. >> i'm just like you all. >> he loves people. he doesn't love big shots. >> jimmy carter from georgia. i hope to be your next president. >> and our campaign was perfect for him. anybody gets five minutes with jimmy carter, they're going to vote for him. that's why we did five minute spots. >> to special interest groups, i owe nothing. to the people, i owe everything. >> with his grassroots approach and newly expanded primary system, carter would rewrite the

rules of how to run for president. >> in the early 1970s the parties changed the way they select presidential candidates. the democrat's presidential candidate hubert humphrey, he didn't return un in any primari. the party bosses controlled the nominating process. >> good to see you. >> you can see carter as being the first step on the way to what would lead us to the presidency of dplump 2016 making it possible for an outsider to really become president. >> carter entered every primary traveling the country, shaking hundreds of thousands of hands with no real big-name donors, he once again found a way to turn a handicap to his advantage. >> i didn't have enough money to go to hotels so every time we went to some place like new york we would try to find somebody that was supporting me that would let me sleep on their couch. also cemented very closely

people in whose house i stayed, they were pretty much, you know, sure to vote for me. >> i am a barber. >> that's the kind of prejudice i like. >> by the time the election came around they considered him a neighbor and a friend. >> i'm glad you all remember that. >> i went to iowa and followed him for a few days and watched him just make people melt. >> the first race was in iowa. carter led the pack. >> jimmy carter clearly the winner. scored well. came from nowhere. >> he carried that momentum into new hampshire, pennsylvania, and then around the country to beat out the establishment candidates for the nomination. he picked walter mondale as his running mate. >> i remember when we couldn't find a microphone. >> and in november 1976 -- >> nbc news predicts james earl carter of the state of georgia elected the next president of the united states. >> he would defeat incumbent

gerald ford to become the 39th president. >> the first southerner is now back in from the deep south. in. what causes a curve down there? is it peyronie's disease? will it get worse? how common is it? who can i talk to? can this be treated? stop typing. start talking to a specialized urologist. because it could be peyronie's disease, or pd.

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msnbc. hi, my name is richard lui from 30 rockefeller center as we remember and mourn the passing of the 39th president of the united states, jimmy carter. we are now awaiting a statement, a live statement coming from president joe biden who is in the u.s. virgin islands. those are the microphones we expect him to come to in the next several minutes. and we understand that he will be sharing his remarks for a moment, but before we get to that, as we await his motorcade to arrive and then the president to get out and make it to these microphones, i'm going to nbc's alli rafa. alli, as we look at what the president may be saying, he will most probably share their long and storied relationship that goes back to the very beginning of this former president's start at the white house.

>> reporter: yeah, richard. we heard president biden talk a little bit about that in preview what we could hear him say during this speech while he's there in the u.s. virgin island for the holidays. he previewed a little bit of this in a statement he put out a little bit earlier tonight where he talked about this decades long friendship that he shared with the former president, jimmy carter. he talked about how he had the honor of calling him a dear friend. he talked about that ledges -- legendary relationship he had with rosalind carter. he talked about the work he did during the presidency, but especially the standard, the new standard he set in his years after his time in office. the bar he set for former presidents after leaving the oval office. he talked also -- he directed a message specifically to, quote, young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it

means to live a life of purpose and meaning. the good life, he says -- president biden says, study jimmy carter, a man of principle, faith and humility. some of what we could hear. >> the president is taking to the podium. let's listen. >> you know, this is a sad day but it brings back an incredible amount of good memories. today america and the world, in my view, lost a remarkable leader. he was a statesman and a humanitarian and jill and i lost a dear friend. i have been hanging out with jimmy carter for over 50 years it dawned on me. i had countless conversations in those years. i will always be proud to say that he used to kid me about it, that i was the first one to endorse him in 197 p 6 when he

ran for president. there was an overwhelming reason for it, his character. what i find extraordinary about jimmy carter though is that millions of people all around the world, all over the world feel they lost a friend as well even though they never met him. that's because jimmy carter lived a life measured not by words but by his deeds. just look at his life's work. he worked to eradicate at disease, not just at home but around the world. he forged peace, advanced civil rights, human rights. promoted free and fair elections around the world. he built housing for the homeless with his own hands and his compassion and moral clarity lifted people up and changed lives and saved lives all over the globe. jimmy carter was just as courageous in his battle against cancer as he was in everything in his life. cancer was a common bond between our two families, as in many

other families, and our son bo died, when he died, jimmy and rosalind were there to help us heal. jimmy knew the ravages of the disease too well. he lost his father, his brother, his sisters to this terrible disease. so when jimmy was diagnosed, we did our best to comfort him. we met with him down in plains. we talked and shared our beliefs that as a nation we have the talent, we have the talent and the resources to one day end cancer as we know it if we make the investments. he believed that like i do. i'll always cherish having seen jimmy and rosalind carter together. theirs was a love affair of the ages. while we'll miss them both dearly, we do take some solace, they're united once again and remain forever in each other's hearts but they're together

again. the entire carter family, we send our whole heartfelt sympathies and gratitude, our gratitude for sharing president carter for so many years. you know, jimmy carter stands as a model of what it means to live a life of meaning and purpose, life of principle, faith and humility. his life dedicated to others. you know, he was like my dad. he thought that -- joe, your job is about a lot more than a paycheck. it's about dignity. about being able to look your kid in the eye and say everything is going to be okay. he believed as i do and many of you do, it's absolutely possible. it's within our grasp to do that. it's not that hard. in his life he served a nation in the navy. led the state of georgia. he became president and the beloved statesman all over the world, but to know his core you needed to know he never stopped

being a sunday school teacher at that baptist church in plains, georgia. today's world some look at a man and see a man of a bye gone era. i don't believe it's a bygone era. i see a man for all times. someone who embodied the most fundamental human values we can never let slip away, although sometimes it seems like it is. we may never see his like again, we'd all do well to be a little bit more like jimmy carter. you know, my mom, you've heard me say this before, used to say, bravery lives in every heart and some day it will be summoned. every time it was summoned he stepped up. every time. politically, personally, morally, and, you know, everything -- the one thing i admired most about him, he thought and believed -- he really did believe this, and i

do as well, everybody deserves as even shot. no guarantees, just a shot. everybody deserves a shot. and, you know, i -- he gave an awful lot of people a chance so as i said, i was an admirer. i considered myself a friend. kept in touch with him, and i was going to tell you a story his son told me. it will be inappropriate. maybe he'll tell you. about he -- i think he's happy. i think he's happy with rosalind. >> mr. president, as you think about your post presidency, is there anything about jimmy carter's time that inspired you? >> yeah. never give up hope. never give up hope. i mean it from the bottom of my heart. so much negativism out there. i know you're tired of hearing

me say it over the last four years but, folks, there's nothing beyond our capacity. nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together, and i mean it. i mean it. le and he believed it. >> sir, what is your fondest memory of jimmy carter? >> i have a number of them. i guess maybe my fondest memory of jimmy carter was when he -- he grabbed me by the arm and said, can you help me with my campaign. listen, i've only been around a couple of years, governor. he said, no, it'll make a difference. i said, i'm not sure it will. he said, it will. when i endorsed him for president i told him why i was endorsing him, and that was not only his policies but his character. his decency. the honor he communicates to everyone. and -- but he was also very,

very -- he and rosalind were kind to jill and me when we lost our son bo. they were there for us. i don't know, it's -- i think that what jimmy carter is an example of is just simple decency. simple decency. and i think that's what the rest of the world looks to america for. >> so what member of the family have you spoken to? >> i think i've spoken to all of the children. i just got off the phone with -- i think there were -- i don't know how many on the phone, but i think -- and i've spoken to some of the friends of the family. they're helping with the services. and my team is working with his family and others to see to it that he is remembered appropriately here in the united states and around the world.

there is a process going -- we're going through that will take a little time to set up this -- i announced earlier today, we're going to do a major service in washington, d.c., on behalf of him, but that's a formal procedure. that's underway. so i'm sure we will be talking a lot to the family between now and -- my main contact is chip. >> is there anything -- >> decency. decency. decency. everybody deserves a shot. everybody. can you imagine jimmy carter walking by someone who needed something and keep walking? can you imagine jimmy carter referring to someone by the way they look or the way they talk? i can't. i can't.

you know, i think the end of the deal here is that one of the reasons why we are looked to by the rest of the world, the book of our nation, we've laid out what our values are. he said we believe. it's not just in the declarations, we hold these truths to be self-evident, but there's a feeling. the rest of the world looks to us. looks to us. and he was worth looking to. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> speaking on jimmy carter in short words. we will continue our breaking coverage on the passing of jimmy carter at the age of 100 on this december 29th, 2024. stay with us as our continuing coverage continues. verage contis coming into office jimmy

carter knew americans were enduring an ugly period of recession, inflation and gasoline shortages. his white house wanted to show respect for the hard scrabble times. white house events would be modest affairs. the presidential yacht got put up for auction. 9-year-old amy became the first child of a president to enroll in a local public school in over 70 years. and carter would dispense with the imperial flourishes. after his inauguration, there would be no more "hail to the chief." >> hi, everybody. i did away with all of the flourishes and that sort of thing for a little while. it was so unpopular with the american public because i wanted to show reverence to the public that i undid it. >> and carter quickly got to work. he prevented a potential bankruptcy in the social security system, passed an economic stimulus bill and

deregulated major industries like aviation and oil. >> the economic stagnation. the unemployment that had seemed to be problem number one, that improved and with that improvement carter had very strong approval ratings. some of the strongest in his first year in office of any of the modern presidents. >> as a candidate carter promised to take on the nation's chronic energy crisis, and soon after taking office he was announcing the country's first comprehensive energy policy. >> with the exception of forbidding war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face in a lifetime. >> there was a shortage of oil, and we were being manipulated by the oil producing countries. and he felt that the way to do that was to lower the dependence. >> many of these proposals will be unpopular. some will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices. >> but congress balked at many

of his proposals even though his party was in the majority. >> carter did not have allies. he did not have allies within his democratic party. >> you came to washington as a reformer and you confronted the somewhat rotten democratic party. i believe, to be honest about it, it was a party that had people used to just spending the money, running deficits, keeping all the constituency groups happy. everybody was fat and happy. you come in and clean the place up. >> i never did get along with leaders of the democratic party. they were more liberal than i was as far as defense and budgeting and things like to. >> tensions in the capitol across the country increased when the second middle east oil crisis hit in 1979. >> i need gas. >> bringing with it a vicious return of empty gas stations, heating oil shortages and skyrocketing prices. >> here was jimmy carter, who had promised to take on the

energy crisis, and yet here we were again waiting in these mile long gas lines. people ran out of fuel. sometimes they turned violent. there were murders and stabbings and a sense that washington was incompetent. >> and be americans more and more became dissatisfied with its leadership. >> where is our leadership out of washington, d.c.? >> with his poll numbers plummeting to record low numbers and with inflation rising into double digits, carter knew he had to do more than come up with new policy proposals, he had to address the country's increasing sense of doom. >> by july of 1979 carter was feeling, along with many americans, that things were falling apart. a general sense of uncertainty p and dis-ease within the country. >> that is the context in which carter decides to give this speech addressing what his advisers called the malaise.

>> it is a crisis of confidence. it is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. >> he wanted to kind of shake americans and say, listen, we need to get ahold of ourselves. we need to understand who we are and what our collective purpose is. >> first of all, we must face the truth and then we can change our course. >> in a time when, you know, a president won't admit to error about anything, it's almost unimaginable that an american president would level with the american people the way he did and talk about his failures. >> that's why i've worked hard to put my campaign promises into law and i have to admit, with just mixed success. >> carter attempting a reset then fired nearly half his cabinet, a move some believe was the worst mistake of his presidency. >> it made him seem like he was running an unstable

administration and people got the sense that maybe the job was too big for him. >> it looked like things couldn't get worse, but events that had been brewing halfway around the world were about to explode. ge as you, with clearer skin. with tremfya®, most people saw 100% clear skin... ...that stayed clear, even at 5 years. serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections may occur. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms or if you need a vaccine. emerge with clear skin. ask your doctor about tremfya®. ♪♪

1979 events in iran would engulf the carter presidency and reshape the middle east. just two years earlier the shah of iran had gotten a warm welcome on a state visit to the white house. the shah had been friends with many u.s. presidents. in fact, he had been installed as head of iran years earlier with the help of the cia. as a major source of persian gulf oil, his regime grew to be a stronger u.s. interest. during that visit to carter's white house there were ominous

signs that all is not well between him and his people. i remember coming to work and smelling the tear gas because there was some kind of rally or protest thing going on near the white house when the shah came. >> both the shah and i got tear gas and our wives did as well. there was a big demonstration against the shah by iranians who had come to the united states to get away from the shah's domineering dictatorship. >> that was the first time i said, these people are not going to leave that issue to them, they're going to bring it here. >> in just over a year the shah was overthrown in a violent revolution. in his place stepped a militant cleric, the ayatollah khamenei, and many americans were to get a taste for the first time of radical islam. when the shah exiled and sick with cancer begged to enter the u.s. for medical treatment, carter reluctantly agreed, but his compassion would carry a monumental price tag.

the angry iranians breached the walls of the u.s. embassy. >> the american embassy in tehran is in the hands of muslim students tonight. >> an emergency meeting was called at the state department. >> there was a long table set up in the operations center and there were speaker phones set up along the table. each one was connected to a different part of the embassy. those lines were left open and what happened in the course of the morning is that one after another of those lines went dead as the attackers came in, took over different parts of the embassy and dragged these people off into imprisonment. >> tens of thousands of iranians filled the streets of tehran. >> the hostages were taken, obviously, it was a major crisis for me and for every american as well. and i was to blame for it in a way because it was up to the president to keep us away from

having hostages taken. i gave the ayatollah a warning, if you injure a hostage, we will close every access between iran and the outside world. we will have a complete embargo against you and not let any ships or anything go into your ports. and if you kill a hostage, i will attack you militarily. >> no one expected it to drag on, but it did. >> on the 98th day. >> 99th day. >> on the 100th day of the captivity of the american hostages in iran. >> became a national obsession. >> 200th day. >> 300th day. >> all across the country americans tied yellow ribbons in support of the hostages, but the mood of the country was angry. a parody of the song barbara an was called bomb iran. >> did you ever think of declaring war? saying you committed an act of war, you iranians, and we're

going to war? >> almost every one of my advisers suggested we should attack iran militarily, but i didn't want to go to war and i felt that if we did attack iran, the hostages would immediately be killed. >> the pressure on carter intensified during christmas when the soviet army invaded afghanistan. it was another assault on the international order. >> any president would be challenged by that, but it was as if he was sucked into it and was never able to get out of it. >> a series of secret negotiations with the iranian government came to nothing. by april 1980 frustrated and angry, carter agreed to a precarious military mission to rescue the hostages. eight helicopters and multiple c-130 aircraft were sent to a remote spot in iran called desert 1. from there they were to head to tehran and storm the embassy. but the operation was a disaster

almost from the start. >> eight american service men were killed apparently in the crash of a helicopter with a c-130 cargo plane in iran during a secret united states mission to rescue the hostages. >> it was my decision to attempt the rescue operation. the responsibility is fully my own. >> it was the lowest point of jimmy carter's presidency, and it came when he most needed to be gearing up for re-election. news on the domestic front was no better. carter was facing challenges from the republican right and members of his own party, meanwhile, were in open rebellion. >> no more high inflation and no more jimmy carter. >> ted kennedy's decision to challenge carter for the democratic nomination in 1980 was almost unprecedented in american history and was arguably devastating to the carter campaign. >> if i spent more time holding the democratic party together and making it strong, i would

probably have been better off when the campaign came along. >> carter fought off kennedy's challenge but it was a costly battle. i wrote a labor day speech to kick off his campaign against ronald regan who we still hoped was too far to the right to get elected, but when i watched the news that night i was blown away by the sight of ragan delivering his speech at the statue of liberty. >> the carter record is a litany of despair, of broken promises, of sacred trusts abandoned and forgotten. >> with show business flair, ragan had stolen the spotlight and the cherished national symbol from a sitting president. still, hopes were pinned on gaining the release of the hostages before election day. >> mr. president, what about the hostages? they're talking about an imminent release. >> we hope they'll be released but we don't know when it will be. >> but it was not to be. >> the exact anniversary of the hostages being taken was election day so it was impossible for any american voter to forget that jimmy

carter has let our 50 some hostages stay in captivity. >> i was aboard air force one after his final campaign rally in seattle. the crowd had been enthusiastic and we were still hoping that president carter would pull it off until his team back in washington called the plane with the latest poll results. >> we said, not good, mr. president. it's over. and he said, okay. don't tell rosalind. i want to tell her when i see her there. >> nbc news has projected that republican ronald regan will be elected president of the united states over president jimmy carter. >> the sign of a landslide loss came early and carter conceded before the polls closed in the west. >> i promised you four years ago that i would never lie to you, so i can't stand here tonight and say it doesn't hurt. >> it was a humiliating loss. it was devastating for president carter, for his family, for the people around him. he was belittled in the moment.

>> keep it really simple. >> but after his defeat at the polls, carter was still president and more determined than ever to bring the hostages home. in his last day in office an agreement was finally reached. >> right on, man. that's great. that's great. >> the imprisoned americans were set to be released. >> after 444 days the hostages came out alive. the iranians waited until just a couple of minutes after ragan became president before they released them. >> he worked so hard to get them back but clearly the iranians were not going to give him any satisfaction whatsoever in terms of releasing them while he was still president. >> after greeting the freed hostages in a private meeting, the now former president returned to his home in plains, georgia, and as he had throughout his life, jimmy carter still believed in jimmy carter and was already planning his next move. ...with my psoriatic arthritis symptoms. but just ok isn't ok. and i was done settling.

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a few years after his presidency, the press caught up with carter as he was building houses for the poor, and they found it hard to believe he didn't have ulterior motives. >> some people will say that's jimmy carter, he is a politician. he's probably running for something. how would you react? >> all i'm running for is get this apartment finished. i'm not going to get back into politics at all. >> with his political career behind him, carter was only 56 years old and determined to follow his christian ian beli giving back. f. scott fitzgerald said there are no second acts in american lives, he clearly had not come across jimmy carter. >> he said, i'm not going to build some mausoleum to myself. i'm going to build something future, proactive, good for the world. i'm going to cash this check of ex-presidency for mankind. >> the first idea is why don't

we make a miniature camp david at the carter center. i let foreigners come to the carter center, i'll negotiate peace between them. if they want me to, i'll come to their country and negotiate peace. >> that has evolved into the carter center's core mission, to promote human rights and resolve conflicts over the world. in the past several decades they have secured more than 100 open elections in troubled countries. >> we have a very simple but important mission in haiti. >> in 1994 with battleships already on their way, carter prevented a u.s. military invasion of haiti by persuading the military junta there to step aside. >> former president jimmy carter crossed the dmz today. >> that same year carter diffused a nuclear standoff between the united states and north korea. jimmy carter was now seen as someone who could solve

intractable problems. >> a friend of mine told us about a disease called getty worm that nobody wanted to fool with because it was so isolated in little tiny villages that weren't even connected to each other and there was no way to treat it once it started. >> the carter center taught villagers how to protect their water supply from devastating water supplies. >> jimmy's very smart. he was very open minded about how tough it would be to get rid of these diseases and he went and built relationships with the people on the ground to get this work done. >> with the center leading the way, the worldwide cases fell from 3.5 million to just 30, a record setting victory over parasitic disease. >> when we first came to ghana -- >> it was among a half dozen diseases carter's administration was tackling. >> carter's center because of his work is amazing. >> he's been a huge inspiration to us in our philanthropy in

terms of how to live your values out, how could be consistent. that's the standard of what a great post presidency should be. >> for his work carter won the nobel peace prize at age 78. when i sat down with him at the age of 93, the former president and his wife rosalind were still keeping packed schedules, commuting regularly to atlanta for meetings at the. >> carton:er center. >> welcome to all our students and our scholars. >> spending a week every year with habitat for humanity. he was still preaching at his local church, teaching at emory university and had just finished writing his 32nd book. >> jimmy carter becomes the closest that we've seen to a renaissance man of any president since thomas jefferson in terms of the enormous variety of things that he is very good at. >> how good a president was he? people are still debating that. >> his weakness was that he believed others would follow

him, that if he could articulate the firmness of his convictions, he could encourage americans to join him, and that wasn't the case. >> there was some criticism of his management style that he tried to be too hands on, and there's probably some legitimacy to that, but i think he was a very good president. >> but what can't be denied is carter's raw guts in pursuing missions like the panama canal treaty, brokering peace between israel and egypt, awakening americans to the energy challenge and pushing the world on human rights. >> he was able to push through an awful lot of legislation, very little of which is remembered but much of which changed the country from cleaning up toxic waste sites, deregulating airlines and trucking which contributed eventually to lower airfares. >> deregulation of oil and gas. we now have huge amounts of natural gas.

it's changed the whole energy equation. >> during that time we managed to establish relations with china, get a strategic arms limitation treaty through. >> carter appointed more women to judgeships than all of his predecessors combined. >> jimmy carter increased the military, built up the military during that period. he believed in a strong national defense. >> it's kind of unimaginable now, but for four years there wasn't a single shot fired in anger by u.s. forces, and that's partly good fortune that we didn't get into a war and partly a testament to how committed jimmy carter was to peace. >> in 2015 carter was treated for melanoma that had spread to his liver and his brain. >> when i went this week they couldn't find any cancer at all so i have good news. >> your life seems at peace. have you found peace?

>> i have, yes. i have a deep religious faith and i have a good family. i've had a wonderful career. i'm grateful for it. the i've had blessings. they've been quite voluminous and quite extensive and quite consistent. so i'm at peace. i don't have any unfulfilled ambitions that are burning in me. >> would you like another crack at it? >> no, i wouldn't. no thanks. but i enjoyed being president. there was a great experience for me, and i am very satisfied ♪♪ ♪♪