With President Trump, you need to give a compliment to get a compliment, as Jimmy Carter learned this weekend after President 39 sent 45 a glowing letter on his handling of the U.S.-China relationship. According to the White House, Carter wrote Trump “a beautiful letter about the current negotiations with China,” after which the two spoke over the phone on Saturday. By Monday, the White House was ready to share the good news: “The President has always liked President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter and extended his best wishes to them on behalf of the American people.”
This is a new tune for President Trump, who has previously called Carter “the worst President in the history of the United States.” Carter, for his part, told the Washington Post in 2017 that the Trump presidency was “a disaster” in terms of “human rights and taking care of people and treating people equal.”
As the Post notes, Trump has sent his fair share of insults toward the oldest living president — most often some repetition of the claim that Carter was the worst U.S. executive until Obama came along. There’s also this odd tweet from 2014:
Of course, when one slings as much trash talk as President Trump does, eventually one must recant some of it. Consider the progress in his relationship with former 2016 rival Ted Cruz, growing in just two short years, from “lyin’ Ted” to “beautiful Ted.”
