Politics
Opinion: Jimmy Carter had a second term. It just wasn't in the White House
At a campaign event in Winston-Salem on the eve of the 1976 North Carolina Democratic primary, a voter asked then-candidate Jimmy Carter whether he was a “born again” Christian. Carter, a Southern Baptist Sunday-school teacher, replied that, yes, he was “born again,” thereby sending a legion of journalists from outside the Bible belt to their Rolodexes to figure out what in the world he was talking about.
Carter sought throughout his life to act on the principles of his faith, which was defined in part by the extraordinary activism of 19th century evangelical Christians who worked assiduously on behalf of those Jesus called “the least of these.” They were involved in peace crusades and helped to organize public schools so that the children of those less affluent could become upwardly mobile. Northern evangelicals worked for the abolition of slavery. They supported prison reform and women’s suffrage.
Carter’s progressive evangelicalism was very much in that tradition. He was sensitive to racial inequalities from a young age and tried to address them — as school board member, as governor and as president. He supported women’s equality, including the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.
As president, Carter tried to nudge American foreign policy away from its reflexive Cold War dualism toward an emphasis on human rights. He recognized that if the United States were to have any meaningful relationship with Latin America, we needed to attenuate our colonialism, so he pushed through the ratification of the Panama Canal treaties. He advanced peace in the Middle East farther than any of his predecessors (or successors), and he appointed more women and people of color to federal office than any previous president. Many environmentalists consider him the best president ever for their cause.
Carter’s failure to win reelection in 1980 devastated him. He departed Washington for Plains, Ga., at 56, the youngest president to leave office since William Howard Taft.
Rosalynn was especially embittered by the election loss. In one of our interviews decades after the 1980 election, Carter told me that in the course of his frequent reassurances to his wife that they still had productive years ahead of them, he began to believe his own rhetoric. He also conceded that if he had been president for four more years, that second term would not have been nearly so fruitful as the alternative turned out to be.
Carter’s post-presidency began with a middle-of-the-night idea. In addition to a presidential library, Jimmy told Rosalynn, “We can start an adjacent institution, something like Camp David, where people can come who are involved in a war. I can offer to serve as a mediator, in Atlanta or perhaps in their countries. We might also teach how to resolve or prevent conflict.”
This would be an entirely new model for out-of-office presidents — a privately funded nonprofit center to advance his goals and allow him to address issues he would have pursued if he’d stayed in the White House.
In a list of basic principles for the center, Carter stipulated that it would be nonpartisan and that it would not duplicate the programs of other institutions, such as the United Nations. Most important, Carter wanted an “action agency,” an institution devoted to change rather than simply “theoretical or academic analysis.”
The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, along with the Carter Center, was dedicated in Atlanta on Oct. 1, 1986, Carter’s 62nd birthday. His faith undeniably informed every effort at the center. Carter told an interviewer in 1988 that the life of Jesus had always been his guide. “I don’t see any disharmony in this life between evangelistic effort on the one hand and benevolent care of people who suffer or who are in need on the other,” he said. “I think they are intimately tied together.”
Carter understood problems afflicting the world as spiritual challenges in part, noting that industrialized Western society had failed to adopt Christian principles of concern and caring. He believed that people of privilege, and especially people of faith, bore a special responsibility for those less fortunate, for those who suffer and are deprived. “That’s where Jesus spent all his ministry,” Carter said. Piety alone wasn’t sufficient; followers of Jesus must live out their convictions with acts of charity.
Early on, Carter identified access to healthcare, including mental healthcare (one of Rosalynn’s concerns), as a fundamental human right, noting at one point that 40,000 children die every day from preventable diseases. Using education and simple, low-cost methods, the Carter Center’s health initiatives addressed “neglected tropical diseases”: lymphatic filariasis, trachoma, schistosomiasis and malaria. Other programs targeted guinea worm and river blindness (onchocerciasis), extraordinary initiatives that have achieved near eradication of those diseases in regions where the Carter Center has been active.
Peace and conflict resolution, the second focus of the Carter Center, built on Carter’s success in negotiating the Camp David accords. “We need to deal with other people with mutual respect,” Carter told an audience at Messiah College in 1988, “and through that kind of approach there can be peaceful resolution of differences through the use of diplomacy and negotiation, not through the use of military power.”
The center conducted programs on democracy and human rights and monitored elections in dozens of countries. Carter leveraged his relationships with world leaders to mediate various disputes, including those in Guyana, Ethiopia and Serbia. In 1994, Carter convinced Kim Il Sung to open North Korea’s nuclear reactors to inspectors. In Haiti the following year, U.S. military planes were headed toward the island when Carter, together with Colin Powell and Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, persuaded the military junta to abandon power.
Carter’s persistent efforts at conflict resolution, dating back to the Camp David accords of 1978, were recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Jimmy and Rosalynn, who died in November 2023, extended their public service beyond the Carter Center, too — most notably with Habitat for Humanity, which Carter once described as “the most practical, tangible way I’ve ever seen to put Christian principles into action.” During one of our conversations, Carter choked up when he told of completing a house for a woman and her family who had been living in an abandoned septic tank.
Carter’s alternative “second term” lasted for more than four decades. Out of the ashes of political annihilation, he became not just an elder statesman and world-renowned humanitarian but arguably the most consequential of modern former presidents.
James Laney, former president of Emory University, partner of the Carter Center, offered the best and most succinct characterization of the man from Plains. Carter, Laney remarked, was “the first president to use the White House as a stepping stone.”
Randall Balmer, the John Phillips Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College, is the author of “Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter.”
Politics
Nearly 20 states sue HHS over declaration to restrict gender transition treatment for minors
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A group of 19 Democrat-led states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over a declaration that aims to restrict gender transition treatment for minors.
The lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; and its inspector general comes after the declaration issued last week described treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and gender surgeries as unsafe and ineffective for children experiencing gender dysphoria.
The declaration also warned doctors they could be excluded from federal health programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, if they provide these treatments to minors.
The move seeks to build on President Donald Trump’s executive order in January calling on HHS to protect children from “chemical and surgical mutilation.”
HHS UNLEASHES SWEEPING CRACKDOWN ON CHILD ‘SEX-REJECTING PROCEDURES,’ THREATENS HOSPITAL, MEDICAID FUNDING
The lawsuit was filed against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; and its inspector general. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
“We are taking six decisive actions guided by gold standard science and the week one executive order from President Trump to protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation,” Kennedy said during a press conference last week.
HHS has also proposed new rules designed to further block gender transition treatment for minors, although the lawsuit does not address the rules, which have yet to be finalized.
The states’ lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Eugene, Oregon, argues that the declaration is inaccurate and unlawful and urges the court to prevent it from being enforced.
“Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the lawsuit, said in a statement.
The lawsuit claims the declaration attempts to pressure providers into ending gender transition treatment for young people and circumvent legal requirements for policy changes. The complaint said federal law requires the public be given notice and an opportunity to comment before substantively amending health policy and that neither of these were done before the declaration was released.
HHS’ move seeks to build on President Donald Trump’s executive order in January calling on HHS to protect children from “chemical and surgical mutilation.” (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The declaration based its conclusions on a peer-reviewed report that the department conducted earlier this year that called for more reliance on behavioral therapy rather than broad gender transition treatment for minors with gender dysphoria.
The report raised questions about standards for the treatment of transgender children issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and brought concerns that youths may be too young to give consent to life-changing treatments that could result in future infertility.
Major medical groups and physicians who treat transgender children have criticized the report as inaccurate.
HHS also announced last week two proposed federal rules — one to cut off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that offer gender transition treatment to children and another to block federal Medicaid money from being used for these procedures.
HOUSE APPROVES MTG-SPONSORED BILL TO CRIMINALIZE GENDER TRANSITION TREATMENT FOR MINORS
New York Attorney General Letitia James led the lawsuit against the Trump administration. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The proposals have not yet been made final and are not legally binding because they must go through a lengthy rulemaking process and public comment before they can be enforced.
Several major medical providers have already pulled back on gender transition treatment for youths since Trump returned to office, even those in Democrat-led states where the procedures are legal under state law.
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Medicaid programs in just under half of states currently cover gender transition treatment. At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the treatment, and the Supreme Court’s decision this year upholding Tennessee’s ban likely means other state laws will remain in place.
Democrat attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington state and Washington, D.C., as well as Pennsylvania’s Democrat governor, joined James in the lawsuit.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Tips provided to federal investigators about Donald Trump’s alleged involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s schemes with young women and girls are “sensationalist” and “untrue,” the Justice Department said on Tuesday, after a new tranche of files released from the probe featured multiple references to the president.
The documents include a limousine driver reportedly overhearing Trump discussing a man named Jeffrey “abusing” a girl, and an alleged victim accusing Trump and Epstein of rape. It is unclear whether the FBI followed up on the tips. The alleged rape victim died from a gunshot wound to the head after reporting the incident.
Nowhere in the newly released files do federal law enforcement agents or prosecutors indicate that Trump was suspected of wrongdoing, or that Trump — whose friendship with Epstein lasted through the mid-2000s — was investigated himself.
But one unidentified federal prosecutor noted in a 2020 email that Trump had flown on Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously has been reported,” including over a time period when Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s top confidante who would ultimately be convicted on five federal counts of sex trafficking and abuse, was being investigated for criminal activity.
The Justice Department released an unusual statement unequivocally defending the president.
“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the Justice Department statement read. “To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
“Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims,” the department added.
The Justice Department files were released with heavy redactions after bipartisan lawmakers in Congress passed a new law compelling it to do so, despite Trump lobbying Republicans aggressively over the summer and fall to oppose the bill. The president ultimately signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law after the legislation passed with veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
One newly released file containing a letter purportedly from Epstein — a notorious child sex offender who died in jail while awaiting federal trial on sex-trafficking charges — drew widespread attention online, but was held up by the Justice Department as an example of faulty or misleading information contained in the files.
The letter appeared to be sent by Epstein to Larry Nassar, another convicted sex offender, shortly before Epstein’s death. The letter’s author suggested that Nassar would learn after receiving the note that Epstein had “taken the ‘short route’ home,” possibly referring to his suicide. It was postmarked from Virginia on Aug. 13, 2019, despite Epstein’s death in a Manhattan jail three days prior.
“Our president shares our love of young, nubile girls,” the letter reads. “When a young beauty walked by he loved to ‘grab snatch,’ whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system. Life is unfair.”
The Justice Department said that the FBI had confirmed that the letter is “FAKE” after it made the rounds on Tuesday.
“This fake letter serves as a reminder that just because a document is released by the Department of Justice does not make the allegations or claims within the document factual,” the department posted on social media. “Nevertheless, the DOJ will continue to release all material required by law.”
The department has faced bipartisan scrutiny since failing to release all of the Epstein files in its possession by Dec. 19, the legal deadline for it to do so, and for redacting material on the vast majority of the documents.
Justice Department officials said they were following the law by protecting victims with the redactions. The Epstein Files Transparency Act also directs the department not to redact images or references to prominent or political figures, and to provide an explanation for each and every redaction in writing.
The latest release, just days before the Christmas holiday, includes roughly 30,000 documents, the department said. Hundreds of thousands more are expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a statement in response to the Tuesday release accusing the Justice Department of a “cover-up,” writing on social media, “the new DOJ documents raise serious questions about the relationship between Epstein and Donald Trump.”
Documents from Epstein’s private estate released by the oversight committee earlier this fall had already cast a spotlight on that relationship, revealing Epstein had written in emails to associates that Trump “knew about the girls.”
The latest documents release also includes an email from an individual identified as “A,” claiming to stay at Balmoral Castle, a royal residence in Scotland, asking Maxwell if she had found him “some new inappropriate friends.” Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, has come under intense scrutiny over his ties to Epstein in recent years.
Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday, Trump said the continuing Epstein scandal amounts to a “distraction” from Republican successes, and expressed disapproval over the release of images in the files that reveal associates of Epstein.
“I believe they gave over 100,000 pages of documents, and there’s tremendous backlash,” Trump told reporters. “It’s an interesting question, because a lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein. But they’re in a picture with him because he was at a party, and you ruin a reputation of somebody. So a lot of people are very angry that this continues.”
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White nationalist Nick Fuentes vowed to campaign against Vivek Ramaswamy in a slur-laced rant denouncing the Republican’s Ohio governor bid.
The declaration came just days after Ramaswamy called out Fuentes during a speech at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference in which he criticized Fuentes over some of his inflammatory remarks.
“I think I’m going to go to Ohio and the word that we are looking for is denial. We have to deny Vivek Ramaswamy the governorship. This is the only race I care about in ‘26. It’s the only one I care about,” Fuentes said during a Tuesday livestream. He also used a slur to describe Ramaswamy and said he does not care if a Democrat defeats him in the governor’s race.
When asked by Fox News Digital for a response, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy’s campaign said on Wednesday, “We’re focused on the issues that matter most to Ohioans, not fringe voices that prefer a far-left Democrat to the Trump-endorsed conservative.”
VIVEK RAMASWAMY TURNS TO CONSERVATIVE YOUTH TO SHAPE THE MOVEMENT’S NEXT PHASE, ANALYZES 2026 RACES
Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. At right is White nationalist Nick Fuentes outside a Turning Point event on June 15, 2024, in Detroit. (Cheney Orr/Reuters; Dominic Gwinn/Getty Images)
Ramaswamy laid out his vision for what it means to be an American during remarks Friday at AmericaFest.
“What does it mean to be an American in the year 2026? It means we believe in those ideals of 1776,” he said at the Turning Point USA event. “It means we believe in merit, that the best person gets the job regardless of their skin color.”
“It means we believe in free speech and open debate,” he added. “Even for those who disagree with us, from Nick Fuentes to Jimmy Kimmel, you get to speak your mind in the open without the government censoring you.”
RAMASWAMY REVEALS MAIN LESSON LEARNED BY REPUBLICANS AFTER DEMOCRATS’ BIG WINS ON ELECTION DAY
Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2025, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, in Phoenix. (Jon Cherry/AP)
Ramaswamy then said, “If you believe in normalizing hatred toward any ethnic group, toward Whites, toward Blacks, toward Hispanics, toward Jews, toward Indians, you have no place in the future of the conservative movement, period.”
“And I will not apologize for that. I will not hedge when I say it,” Ramaswamy continued. “If you believe, and you will forgive me for giving you an exact quote from our online commentator, Nick Fuentes. If you believe that Hitler was pretty f—— cool, you have no place in the future of the conservative movement. You can debate foreign aid, Israel all you want. That’s fine. That’s fair. But you have no place with that level of hatred.”
Ramaswamy declared his candidacy for the Ohio governorship in late February.
Ramaswamy is running to replace Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, shown here in the Old Senate Chamber in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 21, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Current Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who is also a Republican, is term-limited and will be departing office in January 2027.
Fox News Digital’s David Rutz contributed to this report.
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