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“And if it’s possible, I think he was even a worse ex-president because of his meddling in U.S. foreign policy, because of his saddling up to dictators around the world,” Scott Jennings declared about Jimmy Carter on Monday night.
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A day after Jimmy Carter passed away at the age of 100, CNN political commentator Scott Jennings tore into the 39th president’s legacy, calling him a “terrible president” with a “big ego” while accusing him of “dabbling in antisemitism.”
While world leaders, former presidents, lawmakers, and dignitaries have honored Carter’s record of public service, humanitarian achievements, and diplomacy, conservative pundits and columnists have criticized him for his one term in the White House. Some have even questioned Carter’s “decency” while claiming he was “no saint.”
Jennings, CNN’s resident Trump defender whose nightly hot takes recently earned him a position on the LA Times’ remade editorial board, took the opportunity Monday night to rail against the former president. Specifically, Jennings took issue with Carter’s post-presidency diplomatic efforts and opinions on foreign affairs.
Appearing on CNN NewsNight, Jennings reacted to Carter’s passing by saying he’d first like to offer his condolences to the former president’s family while noting he “was obviously one of the most unique post-presidents we’ve ever had.” At the same time, Jennings asserted that Carter “was a terrible president,” which is why he only served a single term in office.
“And if it’s possible, I think he was even a worse ex-president because of his meddling in U.S. foreign policy, because of his saddling up to dictators around the world, because of his vehement views, anti-Israel views, and more than dabbling in antisemitism over the years,” Jennings exclaimed.
“He often vexed Democrats. Obama didn’t even have him speak at his ‘08 convention,” he continued. “He put Bill Clinton in a terrible foreign policy box on a North Korea nuclear issue. I think he was a guy who had a huge ego and believed that he was uniquely positioned to do all these things, even after the American people had roundly and soundly rejected his leadership.”
Jennings further insisted that while he respected anyone who was elected president, Carter “time and again proved why he was never suited for the office in the first place.”
Saying he agreed with Jennings “to a certain extent,” CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali conceded that Carter was “meddlesome with his successors” but “that alone shouldn‘t mar the record of global humanitarian good that he did.” He further noted that Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, made eradicating the Guinea worm one of his top missions in his later life.
For all the meddlesome behavior as a president, which is well documented, I don‘t think that it outweighs the contribution that he made as a global citizen after he left,” Naftali added.
Jennings, meanwhile, blasted Carter’s attempt to convince the United Nations Security Council to drop their support for America’s proposed military actions during the run-up to the Persian Gulf War in 1990.
“If it‘s not treasonous, it‘s borderline treasonous,” Jennings fumed. “And so I hear what you‘re saying about the humanitarianism. But when you‘re an ex-president, and you have served in that office, I think you have a duty to the United States and only to the United States. And when he did that and other instances, to me, it showed that he cared more about his own legacy than he did about the country. And I think that is wrong.”
As for Jennings’ accusations of antisemitism, it appears he is referencing Carter’s 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which likened Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories to South African apartheid.
At the time, the book was widely denounced by supporters of Israel. Abe Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League at the time, called Carter a “bigot.” Others said he had a “Jewish problem” or just outright called the former president an antisemite. “Jimmy Carter’s sensitivities seem to have a gaping hole when it comes to Jews. There is a term for that,” prominent defense attorney and pro-Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz wrote.
Carter noted at the time that Palestinian voices were largely shut out over the debate of his book. Peter Beinart, described as a “liberal Zionist,” said this month that many of the reviews of Carter’s book in legacy media outlets were written by Jewish Americans. At the same time, he could not find any written by a Palestinian. Additionally, a New York Times article about the reaction to the book only referenced pro-Israel organizations that were highly critical of it.
“I think there would be something profoundly valuable for some of those folks… to apologize to Carter,” Beinart said on his Substack. “The ability to recognize that you are wrong, that certain facts have made it clear I think that what Carter was saying in 2006 was really ahead of its time, and that Carter was not just right but he was showing a very unusual form of political courage.”
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