Trump, Who Mocked Carter’s Legacy, Risks Repeating His Fate

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Many elements of Donald Trump’s perspective took shape during the 1970s, when Middle East unrest triggered a global energy crisis and domestic economic stagnation sparked a political shift that penalized incumbents.

Trump, at the time an up-and-coming property tycoon, never forgot the poor reputation of Jimmy Carter, the ex-peanut farmer who suffered a decisive defeat in his presidential re-election campaign against Ronald Reagan.

“He’s a decent person. But he was an awful President,” Trump remarked about Carter in 2019. “His own party has vilified him. He’s been attacked relentlessly.”

Now, almost fifty years later, it feels like we’ve entered a time warp. America is stuck in what appears to be a perpetual confrontation with Iran. Crude prices are skyrocketing. Inflation and sluggish employment growth are raising recession alarms. Even the long queues have returned—Carter saw them at gas pumps, Trump sees them at airports.

This is hardly a flattering parallel for Trump. After all, he kept denouncing Carter’s tenure as a failed presidency even several months after Carter passed away.

“Jimmy Carter passed away content,” Trump stated in April 2025. “Want to know why? Because he wasn’t the worst president. That distinction belongs to Joe Biden.”

For his part, Carter wasn’t a Trump supporter, yet he still showed magnanimity toward his successor, commending Trump during his first term for canceling a planned retaliatory attack on Iran in 2019.

“I support President Trump’s choice to avoid military action against Iran,” Carter said shortly after Trump’s show of restraint. “Iran caused me numerous headaches during my presidency.”

Similar to how the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars weigh on the public consciousness today, America’s inability to secure victory in Vietnam was still vivid in people’s memories during Carter’s era. The idea of launching another Asian war against Iran—a country five times larger than Vietnam—was unthinkable, even during the 444 excruciating days when Iran detained 52 American hostages. “The issue with every military option is that we might execute it and feel satisfied for a few hours—until we discover they’ve executed our citizens,” Carter told his national security advisors, as documented in Jonathan Adler’s comprehensive biography of the 39th president. “And once we begin killing Iranians, when does it stop?”

Today, Trump has answered that question in a starkly different manner. The Pentagon has deployed 2,000 troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the area, as Trump has indicated his desire for complete subjugation of that country.

“Our negotiations are conducted with explosives,” declared Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday.

Carter consistently saw that exact strategy as catastrophic, even if it could have benefited him politically. “I might have won re-election if I’d ordered military strikes against Iran, demonstrating strength, determination, and toughness,” Carter said in 2014, thirty years after leaving office. But the price—especially the loss of countless civilian lives—wasn’t worth paying, he concluded.

Perhaps no location on a detailed map better illustrates the Carter-Trump divergence than the Strait of Hormuz, a dangerous waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean. About twenty percent of global oil flows through that passage nowadays, at least when American adversaries haven’t disabled it with threats of attacks on tankers.

During Carter’s presidency, the Soviets were the villains controlling that oil chokepoint. Moscow supported Tehran, where Americans were held captive and global energy markets faced comparable attacks.

Though some members of Carter’s team—most notably national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski—advocated for military intervention and capturing Kharg Island, caution ultimately prevailed. “We’d gain Kharg Island but they’d still hold the hostages,” Carter’s press secretary contended.

In his last State of the Union speech, the president specifically mentioned the Strait of Hormuz while unveiling what became known as the Carter Doctrine: American military force would serve to safeguard national interests in the Middle East. But not as an automatic trigger.

“This crisis requires deliberate consideration, unwavering composure, and firm resolve,” Carter stated. “It requires involvement from every nation dependent on Middle Eastern oil and concerned about worldwide peace and stability. And it requires dialogue and tight collaboration with regional countries facing potential threats.”

Enter Trump. His wartime ally Israel eliminated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ naval chief this week. Trump’s lead negotiator, Steve Witkoff, stated during Thursday’s Cabinet session that he’s been informing Iran “this represents a turning point where their only options are further death and devastation.” In a post on his social media network, Trump suggested his Friday deadline for reaching an agreement was approaching: “They need to get serious quickly, before time runs out, because once that moment passes, there’s NO GOING BACK, and the consequences will be ugly!”

Carter championed careful diplomacy whereas Trump presented weapons as incentive.

Iran and the economy specifically haunted Carter’s legacy throughout his post-presidential years and afterward. Yet his single term also featured numerous remarkable achievements. He brokered a groundbreaking peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, regarded as a significant move toward reducing threats to Israel.

Trump can showcase his own Middle Eastern diplomatic agreements, like the Abraham Accords and a temporary halt to the broader Gaza conflict. His administration has also incessantly claimed he’s terminated several other wars during his second term, assertions that have been thoroughly debunked. He publicly lobbied for a Nobel Peace Prize. It appears Trump fears that, similar to Carter, his peace-making successes will be eclipsed by his inability to contain Iran.

In addition to ruthlessly ridiculing Carter, Trump is fulfilling campaign pledges that seem tailor-made to dismantle Carter’s legacy—dissolving the federal Department of Education, eliminating environmental safeguards Carter implemented, and abandoning the treaty Carter signed surrendering control of the Panama Canal.

But by objective standards, Carter still outperforms Trump on several key metrics. Nobel Peace Prize? Achieved. Superior peak approval ratings? Absolutely. Higher average Gallup rating? Yes, at least until Gallup ceased polling on Trump’s job performance last year.

Carter enjoyed decades after his presidency to rehabilitate his reputation and establish a legacy extending far beyond his four White House years. It’s improbable that Trump, at age 79, will have comparable opportunity for lengthy post-presidential contemplation about this war that echoes the 1970s yet is playing out in a dramatically transformed world.

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