Fox News pundit questions whether Jimmy Carter was actually ‘decent’ as he ‘essentially’ called Reagan ‘racist’

’I think we have to remember ... when everyone says he’s decent? Remember the campaign he ran against Reagan, essentially calling him a racist and a warmonger,’ Bill McGurn said on Fox News

Fox News contributor Bill McGurn on Monday challenged the public perception that the late President Jimmy Carter was a “decent” man, pointing out that Carter “essentially” labeled Ronald Reagan a “racist” and “warmonger” during the 1980 presidential election.

McGurn – a Wall Street Journal editorial board member and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush – took the swipe at Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, when he was asked on The Story by anchor Jonathan Hunt to weigh in on the late president’slegacy. Hunt acknowledged that it didn’t seem “there’s any disagreement on what a decent human being” the late president was.

But, he also noted: “I think when you look at Jimmy Carter, and I disagree with his policies, and I lived through his administration, and it was very hurtful to a lot of people,” McGurn replied. “People were suffering not just here but around the world.”

McGurn added: “But his personal – like his charity, his volunteer work – that’s all going to be lauded. Frankly, I think his marriage [to Rosalynn Carter]– more than seven decades – is an extraordinary achievement. I think most of the achievements are personal. He has some public achievements. But in the public area, there are more problems.”

After Fox News media analyst Howie Kurtz talked about his past interviews with Carter and some of the difficulties he faced toward the end of his presidency, Hunt turned back to McGurn to ask about Carter’s foreign policy accomplishments.

“We should not forget the Israel-Camp David Accords. That is one of the few and most abiding treaties that we have seen out of the Middle East. President Carter certainly deserves a lot of credit for his work on that. Would you not agree, Bill?” Hunt asked.

“I agree with that,” the Fox pundit responded. “Also, he supported the Afghan Mujahideen in ‘79 after the Soviets invaded. And he brought in Paul Volcker to cure inflation, which may have cost him the election.” Having said that, McGurn then took issue with Carter’s campaign against Reagan toward the end of the 1980 election.

“I think we have to remember, you know, when everyone says he’s decent? Remember the campaign he ran against Reagan, essentially calling him a racist at one point and a warmonger,” McGurn declared.

McGurn was apparently referencing remarks made by Carter during a campaign stop in the Atlanta church where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had served as co-pastor. During his speech, Carter took a swipe at his opponent for referencing “states’ rights” in a speech before a nearly all-white crowd at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi.

“You’ve seen in this campaign the stirrings of hate and the rebirth of code words like ‘states’ rights’ in a speech in Mississippi; in a campaign reference to the Ku Klux Klan relating to the South,” Carter said. “That is a message that creates a cloud on the political horizon. Hatred has no place in this country.”

As the New York Times reported in 1980, the fair was known for hosting political candidates who engaged in “bitter racist diatribes,” especially considering it was located just a few miles away from where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. Slate also noted that Reagan’s appearance at the fair “was part of a strategy, articulated by a Republican official in a 1979 letter, to send the eventual nominee to venues that might draw ‘George Wallace–inclined voters.’”

McGurn continued his remarks by comparing Carter’s achievements in office to Reagan’s.

“You know, just a few years later, Reagan had won the Cold War without a shot. And Jimmy Carter admitted the Soviets had played him,” McGurn said. “They lied to him and they played him. And I think, you know, we have to talk about a president in terms of his public effects. And a lot of it was pretty sorry.”

Hunt, meanwhile, concluded the segment by stating that “we can all certainly disagree... on the policies of the Carter administration,” but that “nobody disagrees that he was indeed a very fine man and will be greatly missed.”

After Carter passed away, tributes poured in from world leaders, dignitaries and other ex-presidents, praising the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s humanitarian achievements and commitment to public service upon leaving office.

“Over six decades, we had the honor of calling Jimmy Carter a dear friend,” President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden said in a statement. “But, what’s extraordinary about Jimmy Carter is that millions of people throughout America and the world who never met him thought of him as a dear friend as well.”

President-elect Donald Trump also offered up some kind words for the 39th president, saying that “we all owe him a debt of gratitude” as Carter did “everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans,” despite the challenges he faced in the White House. Still, he also noted that he “strongly” disagreed with Carter philosophically and politically.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday night, Biden was asked if there was one thing that Trump could learn from Carter and his legacy. “Decency. Decency. Decency,” the outgoing president said, adding: “Can you imagine Jimmy Carter walking by someone who needed something and just keep walking? Can you imagine Jimmy Carter referring to someone by the way they look or the way they talk? I can’t.”

MAGA did not take kindly to Biden’s shot at his soon-to-be successor, grumbling at Biden’s “gall” to suggest Trump was “indecent” while calling the president a “garbage human.” Additionally, some conservative columnists and commentators took the opportunity to describe Carter as a “terrible president” who was “an even worse former president” while saying he was “no saint.