charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference. if you are looking at those stars, decide what kind of government you want to have. >> you have to come back before opening day and we will have that hour-long conversation about baseball, the greatest game ever played. >> ever played. >> ever, ever. i love you so much and having all our to marinate. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> you can navigate all of ken's films on digital platform. we are so grateful to all of you for letting us and your homes for this special edition. >> this is msnbc special presentation.

>> my name is jimmy carter and i'm running for president. >> sunday school teacher from the deep south with a beaming smile and a humble manner. >> i don't claim to be better than anyone else. >> running for office after period of historical people in growing distrust in the american presidency. he would be the antidote offering peace. >> while i'm president, i will never take a life. >> i promise to tell the truth, people believed me. >> so help me god. >> this marks a new beginning, a new dedication within our government, and a new spirit. >> the 39th president's term of office highlighted by remarkable success. impeded in the end by national trauma. the difficult part of your presidency. >> i was to blame for it . >> carter served in the trenches and the world continue during four decades second act

. >> he did more in his post- presidency than any president has ever done. >> as a peacemaker, fighter diseases, and global statesman. >> mission of human rights and nation of generosity. >> jim comes the closest to the renaissance man of any president since thomas jefferson. >> your life seems at peace, have you found peace? >> i have, yes. i have a deep religious faith, i have a good family, wonderful career, blessings. >> incredible american story. >> good evening, unemployment in the united states is at its highest point in 34 years. with mounting inflation and new and deeper recession, the job

drain is growing worse. >> it is pretty bad right now. >> the gas lines were longer than ever, this one is more than two miles long. >> crime running rampant, street crime is rising. >> every year set a new high for murder in america. >> you regularly had bombs going off in american cities. >> new york's laguardia airport and the authorities have no clue who blew up a big heart of it. boston had one of its worst days with court ordered busing. penn state university opened fire on the students. final evacuation of americans from saigon has been completed. >> lyndon johnson lied to us about vietnam. richard nixon lied to us about pretty much everything. >> the country tonight 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 will be sworn in as president. >> this is america in the early 1970s, into this mayhem stepped an unlikely figure, jimmy carter, sunday school teacher from a small town in georgia, making a brazen play for the country's highest office. what is it that made you do this thing because nobody was asking you to do it? >> you are right that nobody asked me to do it. i thought it was the best way for me to be myself and do the best i could with the life that i had. >> i have known president carter for decades, worked for him as a speechwriter. when i sat down with him in 2017, i was trying to fully get my head around the man. i have not been here in a while. carter at his home town and his faith would play a key role in

his unlikely ascent to the white house. it was the touchstone for his identity, the outsider and national at a turbulent time . >> in 1976, american voters were looking for some candidate that had a moral compass and jimmy carter stood out in the crowd. >> he had iconic american back story, born on a farm. >> we did not have electricity or running water in her house, we had a radio to listen to. the radio was the outside world. i used to listen to glenn miller every night, my folks would let me stay up in front of the fireplace and take a nap. 8:00 i would listen to glenn miller and go to bed. >> his father was a strict task master, his mother a free spirit, a hard-working kid, carter excelled at school. at age 18, he left planes to attend the u.s. naval academy,

the first of his family to go to college. he married his hometown sweetheart, roslyn smith. they moved around the country with his navy deployments and raised three sons, then later, a daughter. always looking to improve himself, he became a nuclear engineer and excelled at his career, roslyn was thrilled with their lives but her husband, feeling the pull of his hometown, decided to return to take over the family peanut farm. you were coming back to georgia when your dad was sick, how did roslyn like that decision? the decision to give up the sure shot at a pretty good life? >> that was one of the serious arguments we ever had in our lives. we drove over 700 miles from new york to plains, she never spoke to me on the way down. she would tell one of our sons, tell your father i need to stop at a rest stop and so forth. it took her at least a year after we got home before she became reconciled to live it

plains. >> for the carders, who lived in places like new york and hawaii, it would be a rough adjustment coming back from the deep south into 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. we lost a lot of business. i thought for a while i would go back and get a good job. building program, never decided to do it because georgia changed. >> carter grew his peanut farm into a million-dollar business. carter's hands in the soil but his head held loftier goals. enter local and state politics, in 1971, he became governor georgia. >> the time for racial discrimination is over. >> his first words put him on

the cover of time magazine and onto the national political map . once in office, he quickly pushed for change with engineer like efficiency, streamlined the government by eliminating hundreds of state agencies and it was not long before carter had his eye on a bigger prize. >> everybody said that i did not have a chance but i was going to run for president if i got my vote and rosa's vote, i would not back down.

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would talk to them sometimes until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, i got to know them all. >> that is the smile that i know, you were like a spider, you brought them in. >> eventually i decided that. basically, i met most of them. >> have a few drinks, maybe i could with this guy -- >> the strangest drink, milk and scotch. >> oh, my gosh. >> we had a good time. >> after each one, did you get a sense that this guy sees himself as president and i can do it? >> preserve, protect, defend the constitution of the united states. >> the democrats lost to nixon in 1972 anne carter began allotting his own president to run four 1976, behind that signature smile leah cunning strategist. you did something remarkable, you wrote a letter to everyone that lost democratic primary in

1974 and you said, i know that you lost but you ran a really good campaign, i would like to keep you active in democratic politics. the reason i know that this is that i got one of those letters because i ran in the democratic primary for congress. >> you have a good memory. >> nobody else was writing me a letter, i lost. >> invited the men and women who have their hearts broken to join his long shot campaign for president. carter was everything a successful national politician was not, southerner, openly religious. >> all i do is fumble around with a prayer , a bible verse. >> little known outside georgia but carter embraced those shortcomings and turned them to his advantage. he appeared on, what's my line. 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. >> his campaign commercials made fun of the fact americans were just hearing of him. >> jimmy who? >> jimmy carter? >> i don't know who he is. >> jimmy carter is a baseball player. >> jimmy carter is running for what? >> i told my boss as a mbc, you really need to pay attention to this guy. you are focused on his accent but these people are serious. they may have dismissed it, he is not from washington. >> the party elite in washington, carter was invisible . did you know that attitude was in georgetown? >> i knew it, i did not feel all that at home with the so- called democratic party elite. >> carter related to the american voter in a way while his established opponents did not. they offered policy changes, he offered more basic change.

>> when i'm president, i will never tell a lie. >> i promised to tell the truth, people believed me and i think they were ready for something different. >> he fashioned a campaign that is really a moral campaign at a time the country is still recovering from the most immoral president in history. >> neither the conventional nor conventional republican or democrat at that time. >> naval officer in the nuclear sub, technical training and bring it to washington and make government work better. >> carter's outsider status would eventually come back to haunt him. in the 1976 campaign, that political innocence with his appeal. >> i told him, he wouldn't do it. >> drawn to his colorful family. especially his young daughter

and his wife rosalynn. >> asked me every day, how can you stand for your husband to be in politics and everybody know everything you do? i tell them we are born and raised and live in plains, georgia with population of 683 and everybody has always known everything i did. >> i don't pretend to be better than anyone else, i have a lot to learn. >> he is a very sincere person. he really loves people, he does not look good shots, he does not love phonies. our campaign was perfect for him and anyone that got five minutes with jimmy carter would vote for him. that is why we did five minute spots. >> special interest groups, i owe nothing, to the people, i owe everything. >> grassroots approach and primary system, carter would rewrite the rules of how to run for president. >> in the early 1970 the parties changed the way elected presidential candidates. democrat presidential candidate

in 1968, hubert humphrey did not run in any primaries, he won not yet the party bosses the nominating process. you can see carter as being the first step on the way to what would lead us to the presidency of donald trump in 2016, making it possible for an outsider. >> carter entered every primary traveling the country, shaking hundreds of thousands of hands with no real big name donors, once again found a way to turn a handicap to his advantage. >> i did not have enough money to go to hotel so every time we went to someplace like new york, we would try to find somebody that supported me that would let me sleep on their couch and submitted very closely, peoples whose house i stayed pretty much sure to vote for me. >> i'm a farmer .

>> that is the kind of prejudice i like. >> by the time election came around, considered him a neighbor or friend. >> i went to iowa and followed him a few days and watched him make people melt. >> the first race was in iowa. carter led the pack. >> jimmy carter clearly the winner. >> carried that momentum into new hampshire, pennsylvania, 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 could not find a microphone. >> in november 1976 -- >> nbc news projects 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 back in from the deep south.

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temperature in washington dropped below freezing but the thousands who crowded the streets that day did not seem to care. >> that is the -- peanut . >> celebration of folks, regular people in the peanut brigade, peoples houses they slept in for the folks that came to washington. it was not a donor event, it was a democracy event. >> so help me god. this inauguration ceremony marks a new beginning. a new dedication within our government and a new spirit among us all. >> he wanted very much to give the country a fresh start. he wore a suit he bought off the rack in plains, georgia signifying he was a simple man of virtue that would leave the country through difficult times. >> carter's first jester would seem unthinkable in today's polarized climate.

>> for myself and for our nation, i want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land. >> a lot of people were very impressed the first thing he said when you got on the stand to give your inaugural address was to pay tribute to the guy you just beat. tell me about that. >> gerald ford and i had treated each other fairly we never said a negative word about each other and i respected gerald ford very much. >> with a nation still image from two recent presidential assassination attempts, jimmy and rosalynn carter stunned the crowd. >> he is out of the car. this is a change of schedule, he is walking. never been like that. >> rosa and i showed that we trusted the american people. from the animosity and hatred

of our country's politicians to be over. >> his walk down pennsylvania avenue was his first step to what he saw as a very non- imperial presidency. >> everything i got into office, went to town, vietnam, time to get that in america's history out of the way. >> it was a controversial move and the first of many, soon he was charting a radical new course for american foreign policy making human rights the centerpiece of american doctrine. >> no member of the united nations can claim the mistreatment of its citizens is solely its own business. >> the idea of human rights and democracy has been at the center of the american ideal. until jimmy carter, really no american president gave with the emphasis that he gave it. >> one of his first acts as president was to reach out rightly to dissidents and civil rights activists in the soviet

union you really shut things up in russia. you sent a message to the russian people, you have a right to be free and ended the soviet empire. >> so much impact on it. we contacted human rights activists and i would write a letter to them saying, i understand you have a friend in washington that will yield to pressures for human rights, i think it had an effect on what happened in the soviet union. >> in the midst of the cold war, it was a risky strategy, holding friends and foes accountable for human rights. carter would take a bigger political gamble with his next mission. >> nobody asked me to bring peace between israel and egypt, it was an idea i had because i taught sunday school, the new testament, when i became more

aware of the differences, i decided to take on the task of bringing peace between israel and egypt. >> carter invited two of the world's most bitter enemies, presidency don of egypt and prime minister -- of israel to come to camp david for unprecedented series of peace talks. >> his adviser says it does not work, the odds are overwhelming it will work, you will get blamed, why get your hands dirty doing that? >> the issues dividing the two sides included the fate of the palestinians and israeli settlements on the sinai peninsula on the west bank, areas israel had seized in the 1967 war. the meetings were held in seclusion and expected to last a few days by the end of the first day, jimmy carter began to worry. >> on every occasion it was very difficult. he made specific promises to the israeli people he would not do certain things. the most difficult of them was,

he had taken an oath before god that he would never give up an israeli settlement. >> day four, the two middle east leaders had stopped talking to each other, they would talk to carter. he began riding his bicycle between the cabins of the egyptian and israeli delegations trying to craft an agreement detail by detail. by day six, they were still stalemated . >> american officials denied a report that talks almost fell apart last night. >> it was then that carter suggested they go for a sunday drive. let me ask you about taking us two amazing men to gettysburg. >> that is one of the most emotional things ever did. the first three days together, they did not get along, did not agree on anything, they would resurrect ancient between israel and egypt back 2000 years.

when we got to gettysburg, very interesting thing, all of the egyptian officers, and israelis knew about gettysburg, they studied it in school. we got to where lincoln made his gettysburg address, everybody stopped and began to speak in a loud voice and recited completely the gettysburg address. >> wow, what a moment. >> i still get choked up thinking about it. it was a traumatic, unforgettable moment . >> the talks were supposed to last three or four days had reached day 11. it was only carter's perseverance that kept the leaders from packing up and leaving. >> almost never in our history has a president devoted so much time on a single problem, it is in its ordinary effort. >> day 13, sudan threatened to leave more than once and now -- walking on carter's latest proposal, abandoned talks and return to tel aviv. carter would not give up as a parting gift, he gathered photos taken during the peace talks.

>> he gets into his golf cart and goes up to see the prime minister and he goes, sorry it didn't work. , it was not fated to be. carter said, i have these pictures that you wanted for your grandchildren. he says, thank you, thank you. i wanted to say on here, this is when your grandfather and i make-peace in the middle east but i guess i can't do that now. and begin burst into tears. he said, i will sign it. that was it. >> most of the major issues are resolved already in this document and we will sign this document as well. >> the camp david accords did not resolve all the issues carter had hoped it did lead to the end of hostilities between

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coming into office, jimmy carter knew that americans were enduring ugly period of recession and inflation and gasoline shortages. his white

house wanted to show respect for the hard times. >> i cannot -- >> white house events would be moderate affairs, presidential yacht was put up for auction, 9- year-old amy became the first child for president to enroll in a local public school in over 70 years. carter would dispense with the imperial flourishes. after his inauguration, there would be no more hail to the chief. >> i did away with all of the -- for little while. it was so unpopular with the american public because i wanted to show that i undid it. >> carter quickly got to work, prevented potential bankruptcy in the social security system, he passed 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 of office in any of the modern presidents. >> as a candidate, carter promised to take on the nations chronic energy crisis. soon after taking office, nothing the country's first comprehensive energy policy. >> this is the greatest challenge our country is faced in our lifetime. >> there was a shortage of oil and we were being manipulative by the oil-producing countries. he felt 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 make sacrifices. >> his own proposals, even

though his own party in the majority. >> carter did not have allies, he did not even have allies with owner his own democratic party. >> let's talk about the democratic party of your presidency, he came to washington as a reformer, confronted this democratic party, to be honest, people used to spend the money, run the deficits, keeping the constituency groups happy and labor. everyone was fat and happy and you come to clean the place up. >> the democratic party, they were more liberal than i was, as far as defense and budgeting and things like that. >> tensions in the capital and across the country increase, the second middle east oil crisis hit in 1979. bringing with it a vicious return of empty gas stations, heating oil shortages, and skyrocketing prices. >> it was jimmy carter who 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. >> americans more and more became dissatisfied. >> where is our leadership out of washington, d.c.? >> with poll numbers plummeting with record low levels and 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 1979, carter was feeling, along with many americans, things were falling apart. a general sense of uncertainty and this-ease within the country. >> it seemed like the american dream was over, where carter decides to give this speech addressing what his advisers called -- >> it is a crisis of confidence.

it is a crisis that strikes at the heart and soul and spirit of our national will. >> he wanted to shake americans, we need to get a hold of ourselves, 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. >> the time the president won't admit to error about anything, it is almost in a manageable american president would level with the american people the way he did and talk about his failures. >> i worked hard to put my campaign promises into law and i have to admit -- >> carter, attempting a reset, fired nearly half of his cabinet, a move some believed was his worst mistake of his presidency. >> it made it seem like he was running an unstable administration and people got the sense maybe the job was too big for him.

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can your pad do that? see what foam can do for you. in 1979, events in iran would engulf the carter presidency and reshape the middle east. two years earlier, the shaw of iran had gotten a warm welcome on a state visit to the white house. he had been friends with many u.s. presidents, he had been installed as head of iran years earlier with the help of the cia, is a major source of persian gulf oil, his regime grew to be of strong u.s.

interests. during the visit to cardiff's white house, there were signs all was not well between him and his people. i remember coming to work and smelling the teargas because there was a rally in protesting going on at the white house when shah came. >> there was a big demonstration against the shah by iranians that came to the united states to get away from his dictatorship. >> is the first time i said that these people will not leave the issues there, they will bring it here. >> in just over a year, the velshi seven overthrown in violent revolution. replace by ayatollah khamenei, many americans would get a taste for the first time of radical islam. when the shah, exiled and with -- sick with cancer, begged to

enter the u.s. for medical treatment, carter reluctantly agreed but his compassion would carry monumental price tag. angry iranians breached the walls of the u.s. embassy. >> the u.s. embassy in tehran in the hands of muslim students. >> emergency meeting called at the state department. >> long meeting at the operation center, speakerphone set up along the table, each one connected to a different part of the embassy. the 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 and took over different parts of the embassy and dragged these people off to prison. >> tens of thousands of iranians filled the streets of tehran. >> the hostages were taken, obviously, it was a major crisis for me and every american as well.

i was to blame for it, in a way, 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. complete embargo against you and not let any ships or anything go to your ports. if you kill a hostage, i will attack you militarily. >> and expected it to drag on but it did . >> 98th day, nighty night bay, 100 day captivity of american hostages in iran. >> it became national obsession . >> 300s day. >> all across the country americans tied yellow ribbons in support of the hostages. the mood of the country was angry, parity of the beach boys barber and became an anthem for bomb iran. did you think of declaring war, we are going to

work? >> almost every one of my advisers suggested we should attack iran militarily but i did not want to go to war and i felt if we did attack iran, the hostages would be killed. >> the pressure carter intensified during christmas when the soviet army invaded afghanistan, another assault on the international border. >> any president would be challenged by that, he was sucked into it and 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 pick aquarius -- precarious military mission to rescue the hostages. eight helicopters and multiple c-130 aircraft sent to a remote spot in iran called desert one, there they were to head to tehran and storm the embassy.

the operation was a disaster almost from the start. >> eight american servicemen were killed apparently in a crash with a helicopter c-130 cargo plane in iran during secret united states mission to rescue the hostages. >> it was my decision to attempt the rescue operation, the responsibility is fully my own. >> was the lowest point of jimmy carter's presidency. 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 party, members of his own party, meanwhile, were in open rebellion. >> no more high inflation and no more jimmy carter! >> ted kenny g's decision to challenge carter for the democratic nomination was almost unprecedented in american history and was arguably devastating to the campaign. >> if i spent more time holding

the democratic party together and making a strong, i would have been better off when the campaign came along. >> carter fought of kennedy's challenge but it was a costly battle. i wrote a labor day speech to kick off his campaign against ronald reagan, who he still hoped was too far to the right to get elected. when i watched the news that night, i was blown away by the sight of reagan delivering his speech at the statue of liberty. >> the carter record is a litany of despair of work and promises of sacred trusts abandoned and forgotten. >> will show business flare, reagan had stolen the spotlight , cherished national symbol of a sitting president. still, hopes on getting the release of the hostages for election day. >> mr. president, will what about the hostages? talking about imminent release. >> it was not to be. >> on the exact anniversary of the hostages being taken was

election day. it was impossible for the american voter, jimmy carter haslett some 50 odd passengers -- hostages stay in captivity. >> was aboard air force one on the final campaign rally in seattle, the crowd had been enthusiastic and still hoping president carter would pull it off until his team in washington called the plane with the latest poll results. >> it is not good, mr. president, it is over. he said, okay, don't tell rosalynn, i want to tell her when i see her. >> nbc news projected republican ronald reagan has been elected president of the united states over jimmy carter. >> signs of a landslide loss came early, carter could see before the polls closed at 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 humiliating loss,

devastating, president carter, his family, the people around him. he was belittled in the moment. >> after his defeat at the polls, carter was still present and more determined than ever to bring the hostages home. his last day in office, an agreement was finally reached. >> that is great. >> the imprisoned americans were set to be released. >> after 444 days, the hostages came out alive and the iranians waited until a couple minutes after reagan became president before they release them. >> he works so hard to get them back, clearly the iranians would not give him any satisfaction whatsoever in terms of releasing them while he was still president. >> after greeting different hostages in a private meeting, the now former president returned to his home in plains, georgia. as he had throughout his life, jimmy carter still believed jimmy carter was already planning his next move.

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a few years after his presidency, the press caught up with carter as was building houses for the poor. they found it hard to believe he did not have ulterior motives. >> some people will say that is jimmy carter, he is a politician, probably running for something. how would you react? >> i'm running for is to get this apartment finished. i'm not running politics at all. >> his political career behind him, carter only 56 years old and determined to follow his christian beliefs by giving back both at home and around the globe. escott fitzgerald said, there are no second acts in american lives, he clearly had not come across jimmy carter. i will not build a mausoleum to myself, i will build something future oriented, proactive, good for the world, i will cash this check of my ex presidency.

>> the first idea i had was, why don't we take a minute to camp david at the carter center, i let them come to the carter center and negotiate, they want me to, i will go to their country to negotiate. >> that idea involved what has become the carter center core mission to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world. over the past several decades, carter and his team 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 u.s. military invasion of 80 five persuading the military there to step aside . >> in africa head off war, former president jimmy carter crossed the dmz to date. >> that same year, carter diffuse nuclear standoff between united states and north korea. jimmy carter was now seen

as someone that could solve intractable problems. >> a friend of mine told us about a disease called -- that nobody wanted to fool with because it was isolated in tiny villages and no way to treat once it started. >> the carter center taught villagers how to protect water supply from devastating parasites. >> jimmy is very smart, he was very open-minded about how tough it would be to get one of the diseases and build relationships with people on the ground to get this off. >> with the center leading the way, the worldwide number of cases fell from millions to 30, record-setting victory for parasitic disease. among a half-dozen neglected diseases carter's organization was tackling. >> carter center, because of

his work, it is amazing. >> he has been a huge inspiration to us in terms of philanthropy, how to get your values out, be consistent, think about people in faraway places. that is what the standard of the great post-presidency should be to >> for his work, carter won the nobel peace prize at age 78. i sat down with him at age 93, the former president and his wife, rosa, still keeping packed schedules, commuting regularly to atlanta for meetings at the carter center >> welcome to students and scholars. >> spending weeks every year with habitat for humanity. carter was still preaching at his local church. teaching at emory university and had just finished writing his 30-second book. >> jimmy carter comes the closest that we have seen to a renaissance man of any president since thomas jefferson in terms of the enormous variety of things he is very good at. >> how good of a president was he? people are still debating

that. >> his weakness was he believed others would follow him, if he could articulate the firmness of his convictions, he could encourage americans to join him and that wasn't the case. >> there was criticism of his management style he tried to be too hands-on. there is probably some legitimacy to that. i think he was a very good president. >> what cannot be denied is carter's raw guts 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 have huge amounts of natural gas that change the whole energy equation. >> during that time, managed to establish relations with china, strategic arms limitations treaty. >> carter appointed more women to judgeships than all of his predecessors combined. >> jimmy carter increased, built up the military during that period. he believed in a strong national defense. >> it is unimaginable now, for four years there is not a single shot fired in anger by u.s. forces. that is partly good fortune that we did not get into a war and partly a testament to how committed jimmy carter was to peace. >> in 2015, carter was treated for melanoma that spread to his liver and brain. >> when i went this week, they

did not find any cancer at all so i have good news. >> your life seems at peace, have you found peace? >> i have peace. i have deep religious faith and i have a good family, i had a wonderful career, i'm grateful for many blessings, quite voluminous and extensive and consistent. i'm at peace, i don't have unfulfilled ambitions that are burning in me. >> would you like another crack at it? >> no, i wouldn't. no thanks. i enjoyed being president. it was a great experience for me and i'm very satisfied with what we did. . good evening once again. i am stephae