Los Angeles Fires Destroy Homes, Force Evacuations; What Will You Remember about Jimmy Carter?
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Scott Schaefer in for Mina Kim. Coming up on Forum, three major wildfires fueled by winds of up to 100 miles an hour are tearing through the Los Angeles region of Southern California this morning. The fires are destroying property and forcing evacuations in Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, Malibu and more. Many homes have been lost. Many are injured.

and officials are warning that the worst is yet to come. We'll have the latest on the fires, evacuations, and the prospect for getting the fires under control. And later, as the nation remembers former President Jimmy Carter ahead of tomorrow's state funeral, we'll look back on the 39th president's four years in office and his 40-plus years of public service. That's next after this news.

This is Forum. I'm Scott Schaefer. In this hour, Fermina Kim. And we begin the hour with the devastating wildfires in Southern California. Winds gusting up to 100 miles an hour in some places are fueling destructive infernos in and around Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, Altadena, Sylmar, and Malibu, triggering widespread evacuations and school closures. Cars abandoned as panicked drivers found their vehicles engulfed in smoke, unable to see. A

Officials say the worst is yet to come. A little while ago, we heard a press conference from LA County Fire Chief Anthony Maroney talking about the Eaton Fire. Let's hear a little bit of what he had to say. We have over 2,000 acres burning at this time, and the fire continues to grow with 0% containment. We have over 500 personnel assigned.

And unfortunately we have two reported fatalities to civilians unknown cause at this time and we do have a number of significant injuries.

We have over 100 structures destroyed, and the cause of the fire is unknown and under investigation. Obviously a very quickly changing story, but that was Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Maroney. Let's go now to Saul Gonzalez. He's co-host of the California Report produced here at KQED. And Saul, I understand you're at the Pasadena Evacuation Center. Tell us what's happening there.

Yes, Scott, I am. Well, the evacuation center is just packed full of people inside. I just walked in, and there are, I would say, a few hundred people who've arrived for assistance. They're trying to get themselves oriented. A lot of them are getting food and water right now. And right now I've stepped outside, and you just see a stream of people walking in from the affected communities. And I've got to say, at this particular evacuation center, over

a good number of elderly people who've been evacuated from senior centers and so on, and just a large number of people in that age group represented here. What are you hearing from some of the folks there you've talked to?

Well, you know, Scott, I mean, two days ago, a day ago, they were living in a different world, right? None of these people thought they'd be in an evacuation center or they'd have to evacuate from blazes. This came out of nowhere for a lot of people, although we did have warnings about high winds from the National Weather Service.

A lot of them left last night or early this morning, grabbed what they could. And as people arrive here, basically they're coming with what they're dressed in. Some of them have bags and a lot of them are just are looking for immediate help and assistance. I talked to one woman. She lost her apartment and she said she's just trying to wrap her head around her emotions right now. And her emotions are a lot of sadness, of course, and some anger at everything that she's lost in the last few hours.

Well, I left my apartment about eight something last night, went to my mom's house, and then we got evacuated from there. Went to my church, and now we're here. With all of your stuff gone back at home. Well, yeah, I don't want to think about that. I understand. I'm already upset. I understand, ma'am. I won't take up any more of your time, but just immediate first steps for you will be what? Like in the next 30 minutes, hour?

I don't know, I'm dealing with anger right now. So try to control my anger.

Again, that was Deborah Johnson, who you spoke to, Saul, at the evacuation center. I saw some video this morning of the sunrise in Los Angeles. It was just surreal. It reminded me of the fires here in the Bay Area and up north and the orange sky that I woke up to one September morning a few years ago. What are things like now? We've heard so much about the wind, for example, driving these fires. What is the weather? What is the wind situation? And what is the prospect of

for bringing these things under control? Well, I got to say, the wind changes by the second. Sometimes you're standing here and there's no wind at all, and then the winds will come out of nowhere and really pick up. And I think that's just what it's going to be a lot like for much of Southern California today. But yes, strong winds, particularly strong winds, are in the forecast for the next several hours. This is, the meteorologists say, the strongest windstorm to hit California in about 10 years. And those winds play a

You know, they affect firefighting efforts in a practical way. Number one, of course, they spread the blaze. But number two, you just can't get air assets. You can't get firefighting helicopters and aircraft into the air to fight these blazes. So that's a challenge for firefighters. Tell us a little bit, Saul, you live down in Southern California. For those who aren't as familiar with the areas that are being affected by these fires, tell us a bit about these communities.

Well, for both of the big fires, the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Canyon Fire, and there's another big fire, the Silmar Fire, this is your classic, I think the experts call it the wilderness urban interface. And it's basically where city comes up against wilderness areas, right? Or it comes up against mountains and hillsides with a lot of fuel, rugged terrain, a lot of grasses that can burn, a lot of sagebrush that can burn. And that's what we've seen happen with this blaze. I mean,

Some of these communities are down, you know, some homes, a lot of homes are down really narrow, windy roads that are kind of beautiful during a normal day. But they make, but they're very hard when you need to evacuate very quickly. It makes it very hard for fire crews to get access to particular neighborhoods. And that's what we're seeing here, particularly in the Palisades.

neighborhood and i should say we're talking about it epic evacuation there from thirty thousand people uh... have been evacuated uh... there's been evacuation warning for santa monica a little bit further to the south and they're talking about you know what the ten thousand homes at risk there's god and i think i'd out structures according to press conference today have been lost given the kind of neighborhood gotta think a lot of those structures are people's hopes

You know, L.A., of course, is notorious for its traffic. Saul, how are the roads, the freeways, how are they handling this, you know, what could easily be, you know, sort of panicked evacuation?

Well, you know, you have terrible L.A. traffic on a normal day, and you add multiple fires, and that does not help the situation. So last night, people, what were already kind of really painful commutes became even more painful as regular commuters were joined by evacuees hitting the streets, hitting the roads. I've got to say, though, this morning, at least where I am, and again, I'm closer to the Eaton's

Eaton Fire, very light traffic. I think a lot of people this morning compared to yesterday are just sheltering in place, staying home, which is what they should do if they can. If you don't have to go anywhere, you don't want to go anywhere today in the greater L.A. area. And you don't want to expose yourself to what you brought up earlier, these terrible air conditions.

atmospheric conditions where you have a lot of soot in the air, you have a lot of particulate matter in the air, and as I speak to you, Scott, I can taste it. It's on my tongue. It's an acrid taste, and there's some flying ash in the air, and that's what the skies look like right now in Pasadena and LA and so many other communities. Well, Saul, don't go away. We want to bring in another voice right now, somebody who has evacuated from their home. Nicholas Tuttle is...

a South Pasadena resident. He is now apparently near Palm Springs. Nicholas, how are you doing? Hey, yeah, I'm hanging in there. I have a two-year-old, or sorry, a three-year-old and a 20-month-old, so we didn't get much sleep last night. Tell us how you found out you had to evacuate and what did you do?

So, uh, our, my address actually didn't get a mandatory evacuation until five this morning. So last night what had happened is we saw the evacuation area was a few blocks away, but then we had like a 40 foot Texas umbrella tree fall on our house and it was kind of being suspended by a power line. So we kind of thought we have to go now if we're going to be able to get out. So my wife, my kids, we loaded up the dog and, uh,

and two cats. And luckily, my mom had a condo out in Palm Desert, so we just drove at two in the morning. And I think, at least I saw yesterday, that the president was going to be in the Coachella Valley today. I know that he's doing a press conference with the governor, although I don't know where. But what is the situation there? I mean, what is the air quality like, for example, in the Coachella Valley?

Here, it's pretty normal. I mean, it's windy, but it's not, you know, we haven't seen, like, I think because of the direction of the winds, it's not all blowing out here yet. But, you know, just driving through the freeway, you know, as soon as you're directly south of where the Eaton Fire was on the 210, it's just walking, or sorry, it's driving into just pure smoke and haze. And then, you know, a few miles out, you know, it's still so windy that it was just, there were probably 15 to 20 people

that had just tipped over due to the winds because the winds were so strong. So that's what's kind of been super alarming and like extra traumatic about this. What about the fire? But then it's the speed. It's like the power of the winds too is its own problem. Yeah. And do you feel those winds there where you are in your Palm Desert? It's

It's windy. Like, it's a little windier than normal, but it's nothing like what we were having. You know, I'm just south of Altadena, kind of on the border of Altadena and Pasadena. And Altadena is right below the, it's like, you know, it's called a foothill town. So it was just, I think they had 99 mile per hour gusts left. I've never, you know, I've lived in LA for 20 years. I've never seen anything like that.

Wow. And forgive me if you've already said this, Nicholas, but how is your own home doing, your own neighborhood? I know you had to evacuate. Are you keeping tabs in some way on what's going on there? Yeah, I have my in-laws. They've

They've been kind of keeping track with video cameras and stuff like that. And neighbors have them, too, to kind of keep an eye to see. Because I think the distance we are from the fire, the danger is debris that will go miles past where the fire is and just will land in these residential neighborhoods. So that's kind of the main worry are these, like, spot fires and making sure that, you know, hoping the house is still going to be okay. Yeah.

You know, Nicholas, I have to say you sound very calm. And I don't know, how are you dealing with this? How are you just staying focused on the moment and not thinking too far? Maybe you're not calm. One thing at a time. I mean, we kind of learned how poor our disaster preparedness plan was. That's the biggest takeaway from this, you know. I consider myself very lucky that my children are safe. I was able to get all my animals out of the house, like,

My family's all fine. So, you know, those are those are, you know, it just kind of recontextualizes everything. So as long as they're OK and, you know, I don't want to I don't want to freak my kids out too much. Yeah. What are they asking you? I mean, it sounds like one's pretty young to be asking questions. You know, the.

The baby, 20 months old, she definitely doesn't know what's going on. The three-year-old just kind of keeps asking questions. She's saying like, you know, she was a little alarmed that she saw some palm trees blowing in the wind out here in the desert. But I was like, no, no, no, we're okay. It's fine. You know, it's been just a lot of reassuring. But, you know, when they're that little, any interruption in the day-to-day is kind of like a, you know, we try to make it fun. Yeah.

So I think that's just what we're doing. All right. Well, Nicholas, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck to you and your family and everyone you know back home there in your neighborhood. Hope it goes as well as it possibly can. Thank you.

We want to continue our conversation. We're also going to be checking in in a little while about Jimmy Carter's legacy. Give us a call if you'd like at 866-733-6786. Again, 866-733-6786. Or you can send your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org. We're on Blue Sky X, Facebook and Instagram.

Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF and Some Like It Hot, a new musical direct from Broadway from Tony Award-winning director Casey Nicholaw. Set in Chicago during Prohibition, Some Like It Hot tells the story of two musicians forced to flee the Windy City after witnessing a mob hit. Featuring Tony-winning choreography and an electrifying score, Some Like It Hot plays the Orpheum Theatre for three weeks only, January 7th through 26th.

Tickets on sale now at broadwaysf.com. Support for Forum comes from Earthjustice. As a national legal nonprofit, Earthjustice has more than 200 full-time lawyers who fight for a healthy environment. From wielding the power of the law to protect people's health, preserving magnificent places and wildlife, and advancing clean energy to combat climate change, Earthjustice fights in court because the Earth needs a good lawyer.

Learn more about how you can get involved and become a supporter at earthjustice.org.

And welcome back to Forum. I'm Scott Schaefer here this hour for Mina Kim. We are talking about the devastating wildfires sweeping through Southern California this morning. We're talking with Saul Gonzalez, host of the California Report, produced here at KQED. He's joining us from the Pasadena Evacuation Center. If you would like to comment on this or our next segment, which comes up soon on Jimmy Carter, give us a call at 866-733-6786.

Here's a comment from Steve on Discord who writes, I'll insert my usual wildfire awareness recommendation in case anyone's unaware of it. The WatchDuty app and website, it is absolutely invaluable.

Saul, this is not a time people like to think much about politics, but we are about to have a transition in Washington to President Trump, who has in the past threatened to withhold FEMA and other kinds of disaster funding to California if Governor Newsom doesn't do certain things. Are you hearing anything at all from officials with CAL FIRE or elsewhere expressing concerns about that?

At this moment, no, I haven't, Scott. I've just, again, been talking mostly to evacuees and people who have been affected in a very personal way by the fires. Excuse the siren in the background as emergency vehicles come in. But I should say that will be a conversation, right, in California in the coming days once Donald Trump returns to office and

when we have inevitably more natural catastrophes, what kind of assistance can we expect to get from this administration? I think that will be very much in play in the coming months and years as the next fires come or the next earthquakes come. You know, and I do think, Scott, there is plenty of

Beyond Trump, there's just other public policy challenges that face California when it comes to natural disasters, like our zoning laws, like the insurance market. I mean, you have the fire in West L.A. That's a part of the state. That's a part of greater L.A. that the insurance companies were starting to pull away from. People were getting notices that, you know, companies weren't going to re-up their insurance. I got to think this is only going to make that bad situation even worse in the future.

All right. Well, hopefully firefighters will begin to get their hands around this in terms of containment and maybe the winds will let down and maybe things will cooperate weather-wise. But Saul Gonzalez, thank you so much for that update. Stay safe yourself, of course. And for all of our listeners, we will continue covering this, of course, throughout the day through NPR here and now and our own newscasts, the California Report in the morning. But again, Saul, thank you so much.

All right. We are going to spend the rest of the hour now remembering the life and times of Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, died last month. His body lies in state at the U.S. Capitol today. A public funeral service will be held tomorrow at the National Cathedral in Washington. Carter's presidency had its triumphs and more than its share of turbulence, ending with Carter losing his reelection bid to former California Governor Ronald Reagan. But

But Carter's work after leaving the White House has earned him a great deal of praise and appreciation. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his decades of conflict mediation and work to promote democracy and human rights around the world. And we're joined by three people who know him well, have worked with him or have written about him or both. Jonathan Alter is an analyst with MSNBC. He's the author of The Very Best, Jimmy Carter, A Life of a

Jonathan Alter, welcome. He'll be joining us shortly, I'm told. Also with us, Stuart Eisenstadt, Jimmy Carter's chief White House domestic policy advisor. He's also the author of President Carter, The White House Years. Stuart Eisenstadt, good to have you with us. Thank you for having me. Also here, Mary Frances Berry.

Professor of History and American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania. She served as Assistant Secretary for Education in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Carter administration. Mary Frances Berry, welcome to you as well. Thank you for having me.

Well, Stuart Eisenstadt, what a life Jimmy Carter has had going all the way back to his birth in a small town in Georgia that no one had ever heard of probably until he ran for president in 1976. As you listen to the accolades and hear people talk about his legacy, his life, what stands out for you? What's going through your mind as somebody who worked so closely with him?

Well, I worked with him for 55 years. I was his policy director when he ran for governor, for president, and then his chief domestic advisor. And what stands out to me is a person who had enormous drive, discipline, and faith, and who became a fantastic public servant. And importantly, while all the focus has been on his post-presidency, which indeed is exemplary and unique—

It's time that we redeemed what was really a very successful presidency. And that has been obscured. And I say that because

We did a number of things that were really important and lasting. And by the way, one is the creation of FEMA itself, which is so critical now to Los Angeles. We're the one that created it. But we have energy security today because of Carter's energy policies. All the ethics laws in place today, he wrote.

He created the Department of Education. He was a great environmental president, doubling the size of our national park system through the Alaska Lands Bill. He deregulated all the transportation modes, airlines, trucks, railroad, and telecom, making the cable era possible, and even beer. In fact, he brought air travel to the middle class. And Mary certainly can talk about this, but

His civil rights record for a Southern governor is remarkable. Yeah. Mary, let's bring you in and talk about that. How did you first meet Jimmy Carter, and what were your impressions of him? Well, I actually got a campaign visit when he was in Pittsburgh. I had a chance to do this.

Oh, my first speech chair. You know what, Mary, I'm sorry to interrupt you. We have a not a great connection with you. I think we're going to maybe try to reconnect. And while we're doing that, let me bring in our other guest, Jonathan Alter, who is an MSNBC analyst, also author of his very best Jimmy Carter, A Life. Jonathan, thanks for joining us.

Great to be here. You know, I was watching a bit of the service yesterday, the ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, listening to the vice president, Kamala Harris, who I know Jimmy Carter very much looked forward to voting for and did. And I was struck by—and I know this is a national moment where, you know, people set aside politics—

oftentimes. But I was struck by, you know, the comments and the, you know, the praise from Republican leaders, the Speaker Mike Johnson, for example, the new Senate leader, John Thune from the Republican Party. What do you think, what do you make of this reappraisal, this appreciation that is now being felt for Jimmy Carter, who was, you know, when he left office, very much deemed a failure by many people?

Yeah, because he was a political failure. He was shellacked by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. But I think there are two things going on that appeal to Republicans and really all Americans, but on the Republican part of it. So they respect his deep faith and the fact that he acted on his faith. And that's very important to us.

the evangelical Christians who are a very key part of the Republican constituency. But I also think Mike Johnson, the speaker, is a man of deep faith. And I think he expressed and meant that Carter's faith was meaningful to him and also his good works. And John Thune talked about him being

you know, a global humanitarian, as well as a farmer like many in South Dakota. But I think something else that's going on is that there's a reappraisal of the Carter presidency, which I'm very much a part of in his very best. So most people think Carter was a

mediocre president and an inspiring former president. And the latter is true, but the former is not. So he doesn't belong on Mount Rushmore, but he got a lot more accomplished in

than most people realize. And not just the Camp David Accords and the Panama Canal Treaties, which are now relevant, the human rights policy, normalization with China, but on the domestic side, there were a number of things that appealed to both sides

conservatives and liberals. And Carter's political problem was he wasn't conservative enough for conservatives and he wasn't liberal enough for liberals. So Ted Kennedy challenged him in the 1980 primaries. But he had this

deregulatory agenda. It's not the kind of deregulation that we think of now. He imposed new environmental regulations and he would never deregulate anything that would affect the health and safety of the American people. But he did deregulate the airline and trucking industries and these were hugely impactful. We wouldn't have FedEx or Amazon without

the trucking and airline deregulation, and even deregulated the brewery industry. And the only reason we have craft beer is because of Jimmy Carter. I remember his brother, Billy, also had a beer. Billy Beer, remember? Billy Beer, yeah. Unfortunately, Billy became an alcoholic, would pour the beer into the

toilet and fill up his Billy beer cans with vodka, but that's another story. But my larger point is that Carter was, people think he was this super liberal president. He wasn't.

He was a moderate president who did certain things that conservatives liked and other things that liberals liked. And this made it harder for him because he wasn't easy to pigeonhole ideologically. Yeah. Well, Stuart Eisenstein, you were his domestic policy advisor and

You know, politically, yes, he was not the most successful, although he did pull off a huge upset to become president in 1976. But he was there were a lot of contradictory qualities that he had. He was, of course, very religious and he had great ethics, but he was also kind of aloof. He was arrogant. He could be stubborn. And, you know, he resisted.

really did not get along with Tip O'Neill, who was the longtime Speaker of the House, who I think much preferred Ronald Reagan later. Why do you think he failed to schmooze people in Washington, especially when it would have helped him get things done? His great strength is also his significant weakness. His great strength is that he was willing to take on issues that other presidents shied away from.

Panama Canal Treaty, which created a whole new relationship with Latin America. Human rights, the Middle East, which is always viewed as a quagmire. Our energy problem, we had 50% dependence on foreign oil when he came into the presidency. We now have, because of his policies, energy security. We are the biggest producers in the world of oil and gas. But

But even though he was a great retail politician getting to the Oval Office, once he was in the Oval Office, he parked politics at the Oval Office door. He often said to us, I'll take care of the politics. They'll take care of themselves. And he didn't nurture, and he later admitted that he made a mistake. He didn't nurture his base. He didn't nurture the, felt that if he did the right thing,

and took on the right challenges and met them directly and successfully, which he did, that he would be rewarded politically. And he might have been, had it not been for three things. I call it the three I's. Interparty warfare with Ted Kennedy attacking him on the left and never reconciling. Inflation, which in many respects was actually in the long run his greatest achievement and

pointing Paul Volcker to the Fed to kill it, knowing it would hurt his re-election, and Iran. And so those sort of overwhelmed his successes, along with the fact that, again, he simply didn't nurture his political base. And again, it's because he felt if he did the right thing, if he came up with the right policies, then he would be rewarded. And by the way, independent surveys have shown, this is the University of Virginia, National Journal's,

that he got almost 70% of his major legislation passed. He met every week with the Democratic leadership in a breakfast in the morning and regularly with the Republican leadership. So a lot of his legislation, like deregulation, like the regulation of natural gas and oil, passed with bipartisan support. But again, it was just his style, both as governor and president,

to feel that if he did the right thing, met the right challenges and succeeded, like at Camp David, like China normalization, like human rights, that he would be politically rewarded. And that is just not the case. President has to be commander-in-chief and also politician-in-chief. Yeah, exactly. Well, we've reconnected now with Mary Frances Berry. She served as assistant secretary for education in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the Carter administration.

And Mary, tell us a little bit about your relationship with him and his emphasis on civil rights and how important that was to him, not for political reasons, but really because it was really, I think, very much rooted in his faith and his sense of justice.

Well, the first thing I want to say is that it's true that the president would not have been able to get the Department of Education. Had I, who was running education for him and was crammed between health and welfare programs and the big...

Department of HEW knew that the leadership of that department was doing everything they could to keep him from taking education out. And I knew it needed to be taken out. It wasn't just the president promised it, but that it needed to be done if you were going to have effective

policy. So I was happy to do that. The second thing is that on race questions, we are at a point in our country now where we wonder whether the civil rights movement of the 60s and after Martin Luther King was assassinated and so on up to today has any vibrancy left in it. Is it dead? Are we through

with this whole cause especially as it concerns african-americans president uh uh carter was what i call a reconstructed racist i used to tease about that because he told his stories about when he ran the peanut farm what he would do if they had sent him some black workers and paid him money from the government to hire him and how he might have him go get cokes uh

until he changed the way he behaved. But he was, he appointed the first time many, many more black folk and women to judicial appointments. What I really liked about him, and to the departments, and stood on principle with that,

that people could do these jobs and they should get these jobs. And they were also part of the backbone of the Democratic Party. But he was honest. He was honest to a fault, if I may put it that way, as Stu Adjibet was talking. But I liked his honesty and I liked his intelligence and even the abrasiveness that he could have sometimes. And I was thinking with

the fires out there making the connection as I do as a historian. I think Jimmy Carter would find it ironic that he, who believes so much in human rights, is taking up space today with those people suffering out there in California with all that going on, that it's sort of an irony that this is the day of all days. So he was honest.

I worked for five presidents or an administration of five different presidents running civil rights after that, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and so on. He was the best civil rights president. Bill Clinton used to try to get me to say he was the best, that he was the best since Lyndon Johnson. No, McCarver was the best.

He just didn't have two terms. So that's my view. Yeah, yeah. And just quickly, Mary, before we go to a break, the great work he did after he left office, how thought out was that? How spontaneous was it? I mean, was he figuring whenever he left the White House, he would have a life like that of service?

Well, he had the courage and the sense of trying to take care of problems that would help people before he went in the White House. Yeah. Well, let me stop you there. We'll come back. I apologize. I apologize. We have to take a break. We'll come back to you with that. But I want to remind everybody you're listening to Forum and you can.

continue this conversation with us. You can give us a call at 866-733-6786. Again, 866-733-6786. Or you can reach out via email or comment in some way on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. We're at KQED Forum. We're going to continue with our guests, Mary Frances Berry, Ambassador Stuart Eisenstadt, and Jonathan Alter. I'm Scott Schaefer. Hear this hour from Mina Kim.

Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF and Some Like It Hot, a new musical direct from Broadway from Tony Award-winning director Casey Nicholaw. Set in Chicago during Prohibition, Some Like It Hot tells the story of two musicians forced to flee the Windy City after witnessing a mob hit. Featuring Tony-winning choreography and an electrifying score, Some Like It Hot plays the Orpheum Theatre for three weeks only, January 7th through 26th.

Tickets on sale now at broadwaysf.com. Support for Forum comes from Earthjustice. As a national legal nonprofit, Earthjustice has more than 200 full-time lawyers who fight for a healthy environment.

From wielding the power of the law to protect people's health, preserving magnificent places and wildlife, and advancing clean energy to combat climate change, Earthjustice fights in court because the Earth needs a good lawyer. Learn more about how you can get involved and become a supporter at earthjustice.org. You know, I've had a wonderful life. I've had thousands of friends and

And I've had an exciting and adventurous and gratifying existence. So I was surprisingly at ease, much more so than my wife was. But now I feel, you know, it's in the hands of God whom I worship. And I'll be prepared for anything that comes. Then, of course, Jimmy Carter, who died last month at the age of 100. And there he was speaking in 2015 at a press conference after

After announcing his cancer diagnosis, of course, he lived more than eight years after that diagnosis, was in hospice, I think, for well over a year. Quite an extraordinary life. And we're talking about all of that with Jonathan Alter from MSNBC, author of his very best, Jimmy Carter, A Life. Also, Stuart Eisenstadt, who served Jimmy Carter for decades, including as his domestic policy advisor in the White House. Also, the author of President Carter, The White House Years After.

and Mary Frances Berry, professor of history and American social thought at the University of Pennsylvania, served in the Carter administration as assistant secretary for education in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Again, if you want to join us, give us a ring at 866-733-6786, or you can reach out on Facebook, Instagram, threads. We're at KQEDforum.org.

I want to play a little clip from what became known as the malaise speech, Stuart Eisenstadt. And before we hear this clip, this is given by the president in 1979. And it had to do with what he saw as a crisis of confidence in the country. Give us some

policy and political context for that speech and the lead up to it. How controversial was it within the administration before it was delivered? It was extraordinarily controversial. The context was the following.

He was at a G7 summit in Tokyo, came back, was totally exhausted. We had an energy speech nationwide scheduled and written. He decided at the advice of Pat Cadell, his young pollster, to cancel that, to go to Camp David,

seek advice from the sort of elders of the country on how to redo his administration and become more sensitive to people's concerns and to scrap the energy speech. At Camp David itself,

The meeting I was in, and I've been in five administrations, was the single most emotional, almost violent meeting with Vice President Mondale and myself saying, this speech is blaming the American people for problems that they blame us for, inflation, gas lines, and the like.

And on the other side were Ham Jordan, his chief of staff, chief political advisor Joe DiPaola's press secretary, and Pat Cadell. And in the end, he moderated the speech somewhat, added an energy element, and gave the speech. Still, I had great trepidation. And I have to say, it turned out to be wrong.

The speech unexpectedly touched a real nerve in people and his polls went up almost 15% in two days. And then in what was one of the most disastrous decisions, at the advice of his media advisor, Jerry Ravchin, he decided to show that he was shaking things up to ask for the resignation of his entire cabinet. Hmm.

And in the end, he only took two or three, which he could have easily done singly. And that single act totally...

obscured and stepped on the headlines of the speech. I remember going to the Communication Workers of America rally with Carter, and it was like the old days in the campaign. And then it all fell apart when he did this ill-fated cabinet resignation. Well, before we got to that, of course, there was this speech. Let's hear just a little bit of that speech delivered in 1979. The threat is nearly invisible.

In ordinary ways, it is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric

Jimmy Carter from that now infamous, I guess, speech, famous at the time, became known as the Malay speech. Mary Frances Berry, do you want to jump in? I interrupt you? Yeah, please. Go right ahead. I was at Camp David during that time, up there. And the people who were up there who talked to the president, I was up there as a staffer, a group of us. I

I just don't want that ignored. And that Vernon Dillon was up there, the head of the Urban League, and Bill Clinton, who I had not met until then, was up there. And Ann Wexler, who ran, was a staffer in the White House Communications. And I was sitting next to each other, and Bill Clinton kept popping up every two minutes to make the kind of statements about the loss of...

faith and strength on the part of the American people and so on and so on and so on. And I asked Dan Wexler, who is that young guy? He said, that's Bill Clinton. He said he's going to be president of the United States. And we all laughed. But anyway, the mood of the people who were up there, and they published in the press before we went up there, who was coming that he was having. I was in administration, but the other people who were coming.

And the tone, except for Fritz, by Chris Mondale and his staff, was exactly as Pat, I think it was Pat, who

who just described it, that he was going off the deep end on this business of talking about the American people and their loss. But one of the things that happened, and the reason why he asked for those resignations, the number of those people, he was trying to figure out, sorting out which ones,

had tried to undermine his policies and keep him from getting what he wanted, including the Department of Education, because they wanted to keep things the way they were, or they had political friends who wanted to keep it that way, and they just didn't believe in it. But he was adamant about that, and he was unnerved, and he was criticized by people in his own administration for being too dire and too, you know, critical.

Yeah, I think... I was just going to say what amazed me, just to pick up on Mary Frances Berry's point about him being criticized at Camp David. That was all in private. The extraordinary thing about this speech, beyond its attack on American materialism and just saying things that would never and could never be said now by an American president, you know, that...

People are placing too much value on money in their lives. Even beyond that, what he did was he took some of his private advice that he'd gotten and he told it to millions and millions of Americans in his speech. So just to quote a little bit of it, he said, I got a lot of personal advice at Camp David. Let me quote a few of the typical comments that I wrote down. This from a Southern governor. It was Richard Riley of South Carolina.

Mr. President, you are not leading this nation. You're just managing the government. Then another person said, was that advice or criticism? It was a criticism. Then another person at Camp David said, you don't see the people enough anymore.

Remember, I'm quoting Jimmy Carter talking on television when I'm saying these things. This is what he's telling the American people in this so-called Malay speech. And then he quotes another one saying, don't talk to us about politics or the mechanics of government, but about an understanding of our common good. And another person at Camp Davis says, Mr. President, we're in trouble. Talk to us about blood and sweat and tears.

So can you imagine today a president saying to the American people and the world in a speech that he got advice saying that he wasn't doing a good enough job, that America was in trouble, that he was too focused on mechanics and just managing the government, that he didn't have enough discipline in his cabinet, all these kinds of things that he repeated in the speech, and

And it made it one of the most remarkable speeches in all of American history, and one that I think really reflects some of Jimmy Carter's values. Well, let's bring in some of our listeners here, and let's go down to San Diego. Roberta, welcome.

Good morning. I get a little impatient when commentators will open up the topic of President Carter saying, President Carter, a peanut farmer, which is a wonderful thing. And it was the only one we had. But I think he should be recognized for his brilliance. When he was on active duty, he helped develop nuclear propulsion for our submarines.

And then this was interrupted because Canada had a meltdown and they asked for help. And Captain or President Carter was dispatched to Canada to take care of that for two years. So I think it's, you know, just a wee bit slasher than peanut farmer. Yeah, no, he was certainly a man of great accomplishment. And of course, that continued after he left the White House with all the books that he wrote.

Yes, yes. But he was a young lieutenant. This was a young man and he was way off the page in brilliance. And no one calls attention to that. Yeah, thanks so much for that. Stuart Eisenstein, one of the things that happened coming back to the nuclear background of the president was Three Mile Island, the nuclear accident at that plant, I think in Pennsylvania in 1979, I believe. How did he, how does his

How did his background as a nuclear engineer scientist figure into the way he thought about that? Well, I'll answer that very quickly, but I want to just say to your caller, she's so correct. He was as close to a Renaissance man as we've had in the presidency. He was a farmer for sure, but he was a nuclear engineer.

He was an author, a poet, a woodworker, a fly fisherman, author of 32 books. So he was really much more than just a peanut farmer. Now, on your question, he did something very courageous. He and Rosalind, the day after Three Mile Island, walked through the plant and the outskirts to show that the nuclear release system

had been so little that it was safe. He wanted to show that personally. There were a lot of people advising him, don't do it, Mr. President, this may hurt your health. And he said, I am a nuclear engineer. I know from

from the emissions levels that this is not a problem, I support nuclear power. And in fact, ironically, I had the Nuclear Licensing and Permitting Act on my desk to send to Congress just before Three Mile Island, which would have expedited the permitting of civilian nuclear power. So he believed very strongly in it. And again, he showed a lot of courage

And going out there, the pictures are very dramatic with he and Rosalind in their boots being shown through that with the governor of Pennsylvania. Yes. And, of course, we remember how that really changed the way people, that along with Chernobyl, of course, in the Soviet Union, changed the way people thought about nuclear power, although it's having a bit of a renaissance these days like Carter. You're listening to Forum. I'm Scott Schaefer in for me to Kim. Let's go back to the phones now. And Suzanne in San Francisco, you're next.

Hi, good morning. I'm just calling to...

Comment on your interview that you had recorded and played about an hour ago with Jimmy Carter on his book, Palestine, Peace, Not Apartheid. I take issue with him calling the Israelis occupiers and aggressors as Israel predates Palestine by more than a millennium. And I think many people...

don't know that close to 900,000, up to a million people, or Jews in particular, were exiled from Arab countries when Israel was created. And the Palestinians...

in the land of Israel have been attacking the Israelis nonstop since Israel was created as an independent state. So they are not occupiers. And that's my comment. Yeah. OK, Suzanne, thanks very much for that.

Let's talk about those Middle East Accords, though, at Camp David with Menachem Begin, Amir Sadat, the leaders of Israel and Egypt. Sadat, of course, was killed in large measure because of what he did, making peace with Israel. But Stuart Eisenstadt, tell us about those days at Camp David and how important it was to President Carter to get that deal done and what it meant.

greatest act of presidential diplomacy in American history. After Sadat went to Israel and pledged no more wars, no more progress was made to actually concretize that. He took a great risk over the advice of all of his advisors to invite President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin and their teams to Camp David.

Over 13 days and nights with almost no sleep, he drafted over 20 separate peace agreements. He took the two leaders to Gettysburg to show them the futility of greater war. He had a kosher Shabbat dinner with the Israeli delegation. And yet on the 13th and last day,

Begin came to him and said, Mr. President, I cannot make any more compromises. I'm taking the first LL plane back to Israel. And Carter, realizing this would be a catastrophe for Sadat and would be a blight on his own record.

showed how much he had absorbed in the background of these two men. He knew that Begin had a great love for his great, for his grandchildren. And so he had his personal secretary at Camp David, Susan Clout, make eight copies of the original photo taken on day one of the three leaders and then got the names of each of Begin's grandchildren, endorsed it to them with hope for peace,

Jimmy Carter went over to the cabin of Begin handed him those photos. Begin's lips quivered as he spoke the names of each of those grandchildren. His eyes teared. He put his suitcase down. He said, Mr. President, for my grandchildren, I'll make one last try. That kind of last minute intervention, understanding

what Begin's real gut feelings were about his grandchildren made the difference along with brilliant mediation over those 13 days. It was something no one thought was possible. They had fought four wars since 1947. It was an extraordinary accomplishment. Yeah, and it's a piece that's largely held.

It stayed to today, even through Gaza. Yeah. Jonathan Alter, you know, it's ironic, of course, that now, all these years later, some of these same issues are very much present and were in the last presidential election. Inflation, Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, Hamas, Israel. And I'm wondering, like, what do you...

What do you make of the progress that was made, how Jimmy Carter described sort of the situation in the Middle East? I think at one point he called it apartheid in the way in which Jews and Palestinians were separated and being segregated off in the settlements and so on. Toward the end of his life, do you have any idea, how did he feel about where things were? Well, I think, honestly, he was a little discouraged about the way things were going. We talked about it on several occasions.

occasions. He had made many efforts after leaving the presidency to advance the peace process, and I think Mick's success would be the verdict on that. His great regret about not having a second term is that he felt that Camp David, as significant as it was, and Stu is absolutely right about how it was

its importance as the most enduring peace treaty since World War II. And imagine if

Israel and Egypt were fighting right now, how much worse things would be in the Middle East. But Carter wasn't satisfied with that, and his great regret about not having a second term was that he wasn't able to complete a regional peace, comprehensive peace, and he thought that he could get there if he had more time in the presidency. He couldn't get it done as a former president, and he ended up...

you know, continuing to try. We're at the end of the hour, but I really appreciate all of your thoughts. Jonathan Alter, his book, his very best, Jimmy Carter, A Life. Also, Stuart Eisenstadt, who served Jimmy Carter for decades. His book is called President Carter, The White House Years. And before that, Mary Frances Berry, who worked with him in education and health, civil rights, and so on. You've been listening to Forum. Thanks to my guests and thanks to all of you, our listeners. I'm Scott Schaefer for Mina Kim. You've been listening to Forum.

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