WASHINGTON — President Trump once used Jimmy Carter as a go-to political punching bag, regularly invoking the late 39th president as a symbol of Democratic weakness to make himself appear stronger and more decisive by contrast.
But that tone has changed. Trump has grown noticeably more reflective when discussing Carter, and observers say it may be because he is now wrestling with some of the very same problems that defined — and ultimately doomed — Carter’s presidency.
Chief among those parallels: an ongoing conflict with Iran that shows no signs of ending, and in fact is intensifying as the United States moves to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz. Add to that a stubborn inflation problem that Trump promised his business background would eliminate, and the similarities are hard to overlook.
Trump himself appears aware of the comparison. When asked last month why he hadn’t sent U.S. Special Forces into Iran to seize its enriched uranium by force, he replied, “I didn’t feel like being Jimmy Carter.” The remark was a clear reference to the disastrous 1980 rescue mission that attempted to free American hostages held in Iran — a mission that failed and claimed the lives of eight U.S. servicemen.
In March, Trump also noted that the failed raid “cost them the election” against Ronald Reagan in 1980 — a comment that suggested a more politically aware understanding of Carter’s downfall than his earlier mockery implied.
The change in how Trump speaks about Carter lines up with a broader pattern of the president focusing more on his personal legacy. Asked about Trump’s evolving tone and the overlapping challenges the two presidents have faced, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said, “Trump will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon” and “remains laser-focused on implementing his proven economic agenda to lower costs.”
“The president is a one-of-a-kind leader who will always unapologetically advance America’s interests,” Wales said in a statement. “The only legacy he is concerned with is making America greater than ever before.”
Not everyone sees a deeper rethinking at play. Kori Schake, a former member of George W. Bush’s National Security Council, was skeptical that Trump is genuinely reassessing Carter. “He doesn’t stitch facts together and create theories,” she said.
Still, the shift is notable. During Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign, he routinely described Joe Biden as “the worst” president in history, adding that Biden made Carter look “brilliant” by comparison. Trump still brings up Carter, who passed away two years ago at the age of 100, but now it’s usually to make the inaccurate claim that Carter was opposed to mail-in voting.
The differences between the two men remain vast. Carter was married to his wife, Rosalynn, for 77 years, was deeply religious, and pledged to “never knowingly lie to the American people.” Trump has been divorced twice, openly enjoys using profanity in public, and has a well-documented history of making false statements.
As president, Carter placed his family’s peanut farming business into a blind trust. While control of the Trump Organization has been handed off to Trump’s sons, the president pulled in nearly $1.2 billion from his cryptocurrency ventures last year and has made no secret of using his presidency to generate personal financial benefit in various other ways.
In a 1977 speech, Carter declared, “We are now free of that inordinate fear of communism.” Trump, by contrast, has seized on primary victories by progressive Democrats as an opportunity to repeatedly stir up fears about communism.
Carter was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Trump has not received the honor, despite claiming he deserves it more than any previous recipient.
While both presidents dealt with inflation, Carter’s situation was far more severe — consumer prices peaked at a 14.7% annual rate in April 1980. Under Trump, consumer prices rose 4.2% in May compared to a year earlier, a three-year high. Prices did drop from May to June, partly because a ceasefire with Iran brought gas prices down, but that truce has since collapsed, sending oil prices back up.
Trump has suggested he doesn’t factor Americans’ financial hardships into his decision-making on Iran — a war he initiated alongside Israel in February. He has also recently brushed off concerns about inflation. Meanwhile, U.S. military strikes have ramped up again after Iran launched attacks on commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Carter faced his own version of that crisis. In his 1980 State of the Union address, he said the situation in the strait “demands the participation of all those who rely on oil from the Middle East and who are concerned with global peace and stability.”
Another shared thread: Carter once weighed military action to seize Kharg Island but held back to protect the American hostages. Trump, by contrast, ordered strikes on the island early in the conflict to cut off Iranian oil exports and has threatened further action there.
Schake, who is a senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, pointed out a critical distinction: “While the Carter administration gave serious consideration to attacking Kharg Island, the reason they didn’t do it was they didn’t want to be at war with Iran. And we’re already at war with Iran,” she said.
Johnathan Adler, author of “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life,” said Iran worked to undermine Carter’s reelection and suggested they could try the same playbook against Trump’s Republican Party heading into the November midterm elections. “These people are master diplomats, and they proved that during the Carter administration,” Adler said. “They’re proving that again. They’re really good at rope-a-dope.”
Adler also offered a blunt assessment of Trump’s situation: “I think it is dawning on him — it’s getting through even his thick skull — that he’s kicked over a hornet’s nest and his presidency might be remembered for some of the same things Jimmy Carter’s presidency is.”
Trump has been invoking many past presidents lately. He has praised William McKinley’s backing of tariffs, called Teddy Roosevelt a “great he-man,” and said he pushed for the now-collapsed June ceasefire with Iran partly to avoid the “economic catastrophe” that he associated with Herbert Hoover. “I’m a student of a lot of history,” Trump said this week.
During his first term, Trump frequently compared himself to Andrew Jackson. He still praises Jackson but has recently broadened his admiration to include other presidents, including Democrats like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He even included some of Carter’s accomplishments on a “Walk of Fame” he created along the White House Colonnade — though displays for other Democrats, such as Barack Obama and Biden, were sharply critical.
James P. Pfiffner, a professor emeritus at George Mason University and author of several books including “The Character Factor: How We Judge Our Presidents,” offered a sobering take via email: “Trump is thinking of his legacy, and he might have thought that attacking Iran would have enhanced it. But, in fact, it will seriously hurt.”
Adler also recounted that after his presidency, Carter reached out to Trump asking for a donation toward his presidential library. Trump later wrote that Carter had requested $5 million — and that he never responded. During Trump’s first term, Carter sent the president a letter, and Trump called to thank him. The conversation left Carter with the impression he might be named a special envoy to China — a role that never came to pass.
“If he had learned anything from Carter’s experience — and listened to predictions about the Strait of Hormuz — he would have hesitated,” Pfiffner said of the decision to go to war with Iran. “But he ignored lessons of history and geography.”
