Biden, days from leaving office, remembers fondly another one-term president

As President Joe Biden listened to the eulogies of former President Jimmy Carter Thursday, he may have heard a version of himself. Both men were elected to the White House to clean up scandal and restore normalcy to Washington, only to see voters cast them aside after a single term amid low popularity ratings.

Biden, who has grown increasingly nostalgic and obsessed with how his own legacy will fare with time, has tried to make the case that Carter is underrated — making the implicit argument that history will repair his damaged reputation as it did Carter’s. Biden’s personal stake in reviving Carter’s legacy was hard to separate from his five decades of political friendship with the Georgian as he eulogized the 39th president on Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral. During his remarks, Biden recounted his early support for Carter’s outsider bid for the White House, his last visit with the Carters in 2021 and the lessons he took away from their decade-spanning friendship.

“We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor. And to stand up to what my dad used to say is the greatest sin of all, the abuse of power. That’s not about being perfect, because none of us are perfect. We’re all fallible. But it’s about asking ourselves, are we striving to do things — the right things? What are the values that animate our spirit? Do we operate from fear or hope? Ego or generosity? Do we show grace? Do we keep the faith when it’s most tested?” Biden said.

“Keeping the faith with the best of humankind and the best of America is the story, in my view, from my perspective, of Jimmy Carter’s life,” he continued.

Republicans over the last four years cast Biden as a modern-day Carter, drawing parallels with Carter’s exit from the White House in 1981 as a one-term president isolated from members of his party, many of whom viewed him as a political failure whose presidency would be remembered by a hostage crisis and record-high inflation. And now Biden is preparing to leave Washington, succumbing to similar downfalls that led to his exit from the 2024 race and Democrats’ defeat: high inflation, foreign policy crises and difficulty selling major legislative accomplishments to gloomy voters.

But Biden’s tenure came with unique political challenges that didn’t plague Carter’s presidency — or haunt his legacy in the more than four decades since he left the White House. Biden will conclude his political career on Jan. 20 as the oldest president in history, following years of concerns about his age and ability to serve a second term. And at 82, he has little time left to shape his reputation in the way that a younger Carter did post-presidency, during which the Georgian partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build houses around the world, established the Carter Center to expand human rights, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 and taught Sunday school at a church in Plains, Georgia.

In the months since President-elect Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, some Democrats have blamed Biden for the party’s downfall — for pursuing reelection and then stepping aside only reluctantly, leaving the party with a nominee who could not escape the negative perceptions of his presidency. And unlike Carter — whose presidency at least marked a transition from the scandal surrounding President Richard Nixon — Biden was unable to fulfill his promise to end Trumpism.

Biden had little say over how history will judge this period as he paid tribute to Carter’s legacy on Thursday, using one final opportunity to underscore his deep-rooted respect for the late president.

“He showed us how character and faith start with ourselves and then flows to others. At our best, we share the better parts of ourselves: Joy, solidarity, love, commitment. Not for reward, but in reverence for an incredible gift of life we’ve all been granted,” Biden said. “To make every minute of our time here on Earth count. That’s the definition of a good life, the life Jimmy Carter lived during his 100 years.”

Biden’s connection to Carter stems from a decadeslong friendship and political allyship, the two men tethered by their moderate ideologies and underdog political beginnings. Biden has long looked up to Carter amid his downfalls, much less wary of embracing him than his Democratic predecessors.

“Nixon had his enemies list, and President Carter has his friends list,” Biden said in September 1977. “I guess I’m on his friends list, and I don’t know which is worse.”

Biden still talks with pride about how he was the first among his Senate colleagues to endorse Carter’s White House run in 1976, a former senior administration official said. Once Carter was president, their relationship developed organically, recalled Frank Moore, Carter’s assistant for congressional relations.

As a senator, Biden frequently asked for meetings with the president, and he never had trouble securing one. Biden would often come to the White House without an agenda, keeping Carter up to date on what was happening in the Senate. Moore, who usually sat in when lawmakers visited Carter, felt comfortable leaving him alone with Biden.

“They didn’t need me,” Moore said.

Their meetings weren’t always friendly. Biden, who was strongly opposed to court-ordered busing in Wilmington, sponsored legislation to deprive federal judges the ability to order busing to integrate public schools. Though Carter had also opposed busing as governor of Georgia, he told Biden he thought his bill was unconstitutional.

By 1979, it was clear Carter was at risk of losing to Ronald Reagan. While Biden was split between Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts — who launched a primary bid against the incumbent president — and Carter, Biden ultimately decided to back the sitting president. He would relay to Carter intel about Kennedy’s bid, such as identifying backers and dissenters in the Senate.

“Biden was always very, very loyal,” Moore said. “When you were counting votes, and times were tough and you didn’t know who you could count on — you could always count on him.”

The Carters were unable to attend Biden’s inauguration in 2021, the first they missed since Carter left office. They watched from their living room in Plains, Georgia, according to Jill Stuckey, a close friend of the Carters and the superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. She brought over a bottle of champagne, and they poured the bubbly for a toast.

That April, the president and first lady Jill Biden visited the Carter residence on Biden’s 100th day in office, to say goodbye as Carter’s health declined. The Bidens rode through downtown Plains, past the “Plains, Georgia — Home of Jimmy Carter our 39th President” banner draped over a prominent storefront. Biden and Carter “talked about the good old days,” the president told reporters. Biden gave him a kiss when he went to leave, and that’s when Carter asked him to deliver his eulogy.

But back then, it would have been difficult to imagine the scene on Thursday at the National Cathedral: The president eulogizing Carter as Trump watched from the pews, just days before the Republican returns to power — bookending Biden’s one-term presidency.