Politics
News Analysis: Carter, during and after presidency, changed way world saw the U.S. — often for the better
WASHINGTON — Jimmy Carter ended his one-term presidency in defeat. For years he was derided as a weak leader.
But over time a fundamental shift took place in how Carter was regarded, fueled by his decades of post-presidential good works and the enduring power of his White House achievements.
Perhaps more than any single post-World War II president, Carter changed the way many saw the U.S. by attempting to inject American values of altruism, democracy and human rights into foreign policy.
Sometimes he succeeded; oftentimes not. But his effort left an indelible mark on nearly two generations of diplomats, public officials and global activists.
Carter is to be remembered Thursday at a state funeral inside the cavernous Washington National Cathedral. President Biden will deliver the eulogy and all four living former presidents are expected to attend, including one inspired by him — President Obama — and one who routinely attacks him — President-elect Donald Trump. No major foreign leader is expected — at age 100, he outlived all those he interacted with.
Keith Mines, a 32-year veteran of the departments of State and Defense, working from Mexico to the Middle East, recalled being stationed at Ft. Benning, Ga., with a military officer from Burkina Faso. During downtime, Mines suggested they check out Georgia’s beaches, mountains or the hopping city of Atlanta.
“I want to go to one place,” Mines recalled the African officer saying. “I want to go to Plains, Ga. I want to see the … place that produced this remarkable man, Jimmy Carter.”
Carter’s legacy is mixed. His administration succeeded in building key security platforms that endure to this day, while also promoting a broader global and domestic social agenda. As president, he officially made human rights the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, with particular impact in Latin America.
And he set a precedent for former presidents by continuing his public service, and charitable and human rights work, after leaving office.
Carter attempted to change the way the world viewed America at a particularly fraught time.
The 1950s and ‘60s were characterized by U.S.-sponsored coups that overthrew governments that rulers in Washington didn’t like; then came the torturous Vietnam War and the scandalous tenure of Richard Nixon.
Carter rose from nowhere, and became a president who spoke more about peacemaking than foreign conquest, about humanity over self-interest.
He was willing to wield hard power when necessary but also saw the value of soft power, what he would call after his presidency the combination of “enticement, persuasion and influence,” which he often thought was even more effective in winning hearts and changing minds.
“I’ve seen the foundational nature of Carter’s contributions to U.S. foreign policy … in advancing U.S. interests in the Middle East, China, Russia … but it does not end there,” Thomas Donilon, a former national security advisor under Obama and senior State Department official under President Clinton, said in an essay for Foreign Affairs.
His stewardship led to the first peace treaty between Israel and a warring neighbor, Egypt, which still stands today as the most important such accord. Although tensions on the Middle East have ebbed and flowed, the successful Camp David negotiation won acclaim among Israelis and Arabs alike, who praised it as an evenhanded approach from the U.S.
Carter was a peacemaker but not a pacifist, and saw the need for military strength. In 1980, in response to the Iranian revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he declared the Carter Doctrine, which committed the U.S. to protecting oil production in the Persian Gulf and laid the basis for security infrastructure in that part of the world for Democratic and Republican administrations that followed for decades.
In the waning weeks of his presidency, Carter approved the creation of the Joint Special Operations Force, a group of elite military from all branches that would train and plan top-secret reconnaissance missions and other clandestine deadly attacks.
Carter saw its need after the failed attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. It remained in place, expanded through the years and eventually became involved in numerous controversial operations from Afghanistan to Iraq.
Carter seemed most proud of his work on human rights and democracy building.
His decision in 1977 to return the Panama Canal — long regarded regionally as a symbol of U.S. imperialism — to the government of Panama was widely praised in Latin America. It was a move initiated by Nixon at the urging of the U.S. military, which said operating it and the American military colony around it was expensive and unsustainable.
In the first years of his government, Carter also looked south and saw brutal military dictatorships controlling Argentina, Chile and other nations. He drastically reduced U.S. military aid to those countries and blocked their access to some international loans. Many of these steps, historians believe, were the first dominoes in toppling dictatorships and ushering in democracy to the region.
He “challenged the assumption that security assistance to repressive regimes furthered Cold War aims, and instead adopted the view that … U.S. support for these regimes had damaged its global leadership and made the U.S. complicit in human rights abuses,” Enrique Roig, a deputy assistant secretary of State, said in a recent forum at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
The son of Chilean parents, Roig credited Carter as a “beacon of hope” that showed him the United States could be a champion for democracy and human rights.
In June 1979, when the U.S. still supported the dynastic Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, Carter was horrified to see television footage of Somoza’s troops shooting dead an American reporter, ABC’s Bill Stewart, his hands raised at a military checkpoint. Carter immediately broke with the Somoza regime, which collapsed within weeks and gave rise to the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a revolutionary but eventually anti-American group. They launched social programs and were initially welcomed by a long-abused population — as was Carter’s perceived intervention.
But within two years, Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, worked to undo his reforms and soon launched wars in both Nicaragua, to oust the Sandinistas, and neighboring El Salvador to support its right-wing military government. Neither turned out as Reagan intended.
Fast-forward to 1990. Carter, a decade out of office, was in Nicaragua to monitor what were supposed to be the country’s first democratic elections. Sandinista President Daniel Ortega had agreed to allow the election — but was refusing to accept the results when it appeared he was losing to his matronly opponent, Violeta Chamorro, owner of the country’s leading opposition newspaper.
Carter sat up all of one night with Ortega, trying to persuade him to accept the results. “I know what it’s like to lose,” Carter told Ortega. Eventually, Ortega relented and allowed a peaceful transition to democracy.
Such post-presidency missions to bolster foreign elections, fight disease and build homes for the poor made the increasingly elderly but always engaged and gracious Carter a hero to many abroad. His picture would hang in activists’ homes; crowds would greet him in the streets in cities in Latin America and Africa.
“Luck broke against him in many ways during his time in office,” Carter’s former speechwriter, James Fallows, said this week on CNN. “But he then had the luck to bring out the best in himself, the best in fellow citizens, the best in what he hoped to bring to the world.”
Politics
Rubio sanctions Cuban groups with ties to US nonprofit network funded by communist donor Neville Roy Singham
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio put U.S. organizations on notice: they can no longer do business with a key Cuban organization that has spent over six decades – since the launch of Fidel Castro’s communist revolution in 1959 – cultivating relationships with U.S. activists and groups, many of them now funded by communist American tycoon Neville Roy Singham.
The sanctions target the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, known by its Spanish acronym ICAP, an organization founded by Castro in 1960 to spread Marxist ideology and support for Cuba. Long ago, U.S. officials and intelligence assessments concluded ICAP is a key component of Cuba’s intelligence apparatus.
“For decades, Cuba has been the world capital for radical left-wing terrorism,” Rubio said. “The regime in Havana has recruited, trained and backed violent Marxist and third-worldist movements across our hemisphere and beyond.”
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Marco Rubio moves to put sanctions on a group that Fidel Castro established in 1960 to spread Cuba’s communist influence in the world. (Sven Creutzmann/Mambo Photography/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Earlier this year, ICAP worked with U.S. nonprofits, including the People’s Forum, Progressive International and CodePink, to organize a March “convoy” that included controversial Marxist streamer Hasan Piker landing in Cuba to support Cuba’s communist party.
The trip has since attracted federal scrutiny, with CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin confirming she received questions from federal officials about the trip, investigating whether she violated sanctions.
Late last month, Fox News Digital published a three-part series, reporting that federal investigators are examining Cuba’s alleged malign foreign influence operation in the U.S., investigating a network of 145 groups with collective revenues of about $1 billion, promoting Cuba’s agenda and communist ideology.
“Today, we are targeting the network that enables and funds Cuba’s subversive and radical operations,” Rubio said.
The groups working closely with ICAP include the People’s Forum, CodePink, BreakThrough News and Tricontinental, funded by Singham, a Marxist tech tycoon living in Shanghai. As reported, Singham has pumped $285 million into nonprofits since 2017 that have built very close relationships with ICAP and the communist government of Cuba.
Singham is married to CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans.
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ICAP is today led by Fernando González Llort, one of five former Cuban intelligence officers, known as the “Cuban Five,” convicted in the U.S. years ago on espionage-related charges and released after spending time in jail.
Critics say ICAP acts as a gateway for revolutionaries from around the world to get embedded in the propaganda, organizing tactics and strategic goals of the Communist Party of Cuba. ICAP has denied wrongdoing and says it’s a civil society organization.
ICAP was one of five entities that Rubio designated as off-limits under sanctions authorities established by President Donald Trump’s Cuba executive order. The sanctions also target Cuba’s Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), Minera La Victoria S.A. and the state-run tourism company Amistur Cuba S.A., which has arranged trips to Cuba with U.S. nonprofits in the Singham network.
Experts said the move signals that the Trump administration is focused not only on the Cuban government but also on U.S. institutions that U.S. officials believe help project Cuban influence internationally.
A declassified CIA report from the Cold War era, “Cuba: Castro’s Propaganda Apparatus and Foreign Policy,” described Cuba’s international propaganda and influence activities as a central component of Castro’s foreign policy strategy. The report named ICAP among organizations that act as important instruments for cultivating sympathetic political movements abroad and extending Cuban influence beyond the island.
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One of the most notable examples was the Venceremos Brigade, a Cuba solidarity program established in 1969 that brought generations of American activists to the island through exchanges organized with Cuban authorities and institutions including ICAP.
The program became one of the most visible pipelines connecting American activists to the Cuban revolutionary government.
Today, the Venceremos Brigade operates as a fiscally-sponsored project of the People’s Forum.
Lawmakers and federal authorities are examining whether organizations funded by Singham have acted on behalf of foreign interests without properly registering and have helped amplify messaging favorable to the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of Cuba.
Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel (C) listens to Progressive International’s general coordinator, David Adler, during an event at the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) in Havana, on March 21, 2026. (Ernesto Mastrascusa/AFP via Getty Images)
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During the recent convoy in March, Progressive International co-founder David Adler appeared alongside Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and ICAP President González at an official event hosted by ICAP.
Years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass participated in Venceremos Brigade trips, a connection that her mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt resurfaced during her campaign. Bass has denied any wrongdoing.
Supporters of such exchanges describe them as educational and humanitarian programs intended to foster international understanding. Critics argue they function as political influence operations designed to build support for the Cuban regime and its ideological objectives.
The Cuban government condemned Rubio’s sanctions shortly after the announcement.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel accused the United States of escalating economic pressure against Cuba and attempting to intensify tensions between the two countries.
Hasan Piker, a Democratic Socialists of America member, and CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans meet in Havana, Cuba, as part of a “United Front” supporting the communist regime. (CodePink via Storyful)
“The Treasury Department has added new names of Cuban leaders, organizations and companies to an illegitimate sanctions list,” Díaz-Canel wrote on social media. “They are aimed at reinforcing the blockade measures and the scenario of conflict between Cuba and the United States.”
Rubio’s warning extended beyond the sanctioned entities.
The action signals that the administration is increasingly focused on the networks, partnerships and influence channels that U.S. officials believe have helped advance Cuban interests abroad long after the Cold War officially ended.
“Anyone providing services to these sanctioned actors is at risk of sanctions themselves,” he said. “Foreign banks and other companies that provide services to these entities should freeze those activities.”
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Fox News Digital’s Reagan Schroeder contributed to this report.
Politics
Commentary: No, Mr. Hilton, our elections are not ‘a joke.’ It’s time for you to stand up to Trump
Well, that didn’t take long.
A day after California’s primary election, President Trump took to social media with baseless claims of election fraud — predictable, but also dangerous.
“Look what’s happening in California, the Dumocrats, right before our very eyes, are stealing the Vote,” Trump wrote in one post.
“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” he wrote in another, apparently enamored of his latest juvenile slur.
Never mind that his candidate, Steve Hilton, is in the lead — for now anyway.
California has once again become the main dish on Trump’s buffet of bull-hockey as he continues to undermine democracy and consolidate authoritarian power, using this disingenuous and patently untrue narrative that American elections are rigged by shadowy Democratic forces working in collusion with illegal immigrants.
That last part is called the Great Replacement Theory, the idea that “elites” are replacing white people — and white voters — with Black and brown immigrants in a bid to destroy white culture. It’s at the heart of Trump’s voter fraud allegations.
The twist this time is that Hilton, the man who wants to represent all Californians, seems to be jumping on the election fraud conspiracy train with the president. I get it, there’s the MAGA base to feed, and it’s a base that feasts on outrage and fakery. Serving up resentment glazed with lies and propaganda has been the MAGA playbook for years under Trump, a strategy that no one can deny has been heartbreakingly effective.
But Hilton is a smart man and must certainly know that voter fraud is rare, to the point of being inconsequential to election outcomes. Hilton by his own admission understands voting patterns, and that in this cycle, Republicans have voted early and often by mail, despite Trump’s claims that all vote-by-mail should be suspect. So Hilton understands that early votes have skewed his way, and that later vote tallies will likely favor Democrats.
And Hilton is definitely intelligent enough to expect that in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly three to one, he will not keep the top spot in this primary, and a slim chance remains that he will not make it into the top two. That’s just simple math.
So if Hilton truly seeks to represent this state as its top elected executive, now is the time to renounce election fraud myths and stand up to Trump’s lies. If Hilton can’t say that he believes our recent election was free and fair, then he has no business being our governor.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the path he’s taking, even as it seems increasingly likely that he will advance to the general election.
This week, speaking with far-right podcaster and former Turning Point USA creative director Benny Johnson (who was allegedly duped into working for a Russian influence operation), Hilton said that while “so far we’re not seeing any signs” of cheating, “we’re going to be all over it. We’re not going to let them do that.”
Hilton was responding to a question from Johnson on whether Hilton will sue over “cheating.”
On a post-election appearance with Laura Ingraham, the conservative Fox News host who has repeatedly promoted the Great Replacement Theory, Hilton delved into more conspiracy.
“Just to really underline the point that you made about the corruption,” he told Ingraham an anecdote about supposed fraud in a previous election cycle when a “whistleblower” at the post office told him that they were instructed that a handwritten postmark was acceptable when sorting ballots to deliver to the county registrar.
“It’s just unbelievable, and of course, that’s why so many people don’t believe the results, but it just undermines confidence,” he told Ingraham, certainly knowing that the post office forwarding a ballot on to a county registrar in no way means it will be certified or counted. Would we really want the USPS deciding which ballots to deliver? Disingenuous on Hilton’s part at best.
“The whole thing is a joke,” Hilton went on to say of California elections, which of course, is absurd.
Thursday, when I asked Hilton’s team to speak with him about his views on voter fraud, they sent back a response that focused on the slowness of the California vote count; voter rolls Hilton has described as “wildly inaccurate,” which is a wildly inaccurate claim; and two instances of actual fraud with voter registration — not examples of votes that were counted.
To be sure, all those items are important. Any malfeasance should be punished, and the system should always strive to improve.
But how hard is it to simply be against fraud, while accurately acknowledging that it is rare and our current system provides accurate results?
I am against voter registration fraud. I am against vote fraud. I am absolutely pro-democracy, including policies such as mail-in voting that increase participation.
I do not believe that there is widespread fraud in the California primary, or in American elections in general, because the evidence does not support that conspiracy. I do not believe that Democrats are running a decades-long, nationwide conspiracy to replace white voters with votes from Black and brown undocumented immigrants, because that is both false and racist.
Pretty basic stuff, and statements in line with the values and common sense of the majority of Californians Hilton says he will represent.
If Hilton can’t come out and clearly say that Trump is wrong — about fraud and about the Great Replacement Theory — can he really be trusted to represent the values of the Golden State?
new video loaded: Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
transcript
transcript
Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
Elias Irizarry, who pleaded guilty to climbing through a broken window at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, now works for an office responsible for uncovering and defending against terrorism plots at the Pentagon.
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“Full pardon or commutation?” “Full pardon.”
By Alisa Shodiyev Kaff
June 4, 2026
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