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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. President Jimmy Carter joins us now. Do you know he's 90 years old? He was in the studio with me last year and he looked so great. I wasn't even thinking about his age, but now he has a memoir called A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, so I guess he's 90. Mr. President, thanks for coming back on with us. Welcome back to WNYC

President Jimmy Carter: Brian, it's always good to be with you. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Let me start with something you wrote about New York City. During the fiscal crisis of the 1970s here, there was a famous daily news headline, Ford to City: Drop Dead, when he as president wouldn't do a bailout. You inherited the issue when you beat Ford in the election?

President Jimmy Carter: That's correct. I worked with Abe Beame, the mayor then, in a very harmonious way. Eventually, New York had some very high debts or loans for that period of time. Under his good management and his dedication, they repaid the debt completely.

Brian Lehrer: What may come as a surprise to many New Yorkers is that you have praise for the much-maligned Mayor Abe Beame, who you just praised now and who you wrote in the book worked heroically to reduce the city's debts. What do you remember about Mayor Beame?

President Jimmy Carter: Well, I met him when I was campaigning for president. He wasn't particularly aligned with me. He was a Democrat, of course. Then when they came to the White House to ask for some relief support for New York City, which was in debt, I told him that he would have to reduce the indebtedness first and then I would consider it, which he did, by the way, in a very politically courageous move.

He was one of the most self-effacing and modest but dedicated public servants I've ever known. I was very enthusiastic about making sure that we help New York in every way that they needed. They honored their side of the bargain quite well. I put my Secretary of Treasury in charge of the issue. He and New York officials handled the case quite satisfactory and New York survived.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think about Greece's debt crisis or, for that matter, Puerto Rico's debt crisis today? Do you have an opinion on what Europe or Washington needs to do about either?

President Jimmy Carter: I think Europe needs to help Greece. I think Washington needs to help Puerto Rico. They've made some mistakes in the past of financial nature. They are trying to make some corrections, at least Greece is. I think Greece has made some sacrificial concessions. I think they'll make a few more. My guess is that Chancellor Merkel in Germany and the other Europeans will go along and give Greece another chance if Greece will make some additional steps that are required.

As far as Puerto Rico is concerned, I don't think that the United States government is adequately involved in that issue. I think it's a surprise maybe to people in our government. When the facts are made, I believe there'll be a combination of concessions and corrective actions to be taken in Puerto Rico, plus some financial help to tie them over.

Brian Lehrer: You recall in the book, the 1979 Camp David peace treaty, of course, between Egypt and Israel. Can you tell us the story of the 11th day of the summit when Sadat from Egypt had his luggage packed and was ready to give up and fly back to Egypt? You call that in the book one of the worst moments of your life.

President Jimmy Carter: Well, it was. I was informed by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance that Sadat had decided to leave without telling me about it. He had all his bags packed and he had already ordered a helicopter to take him back to Washington, where he could fly to Egypt. [clears throat] Excuse me. I went in the room by my--

Brian Lehrer: You need a minute? That's all right.

President Jimmy Carter: I went in the room by myself and held down and said a quick prayer. I took off my blue jeans and my T-shirt and put on the coat and tie. I went in and confronted Sadat in the most, I'd say, antagonistic attitude I've ever taken toward a foreign leader. He had always been my friend. His wife was my wife's friend and children were friends of me and of my children and so forth.

I told Sadat that if he had left Camp David and violated all his promises to me to stay there that this would be the end of my personal relationship with him. Also, they would severely damage the relationship between the United States and Egypt. Finally, he agreed to give me one more chance. He stayed and we survived that particular crisis only to be faced a couple of days later by rejection of everything that we proposed by Menachem Begin. That brought us into the final day, which proved to be ultimately successful as you know.

Brian Lehrer: How did you get Begin to yes?

President Jimmy Carter: Well, Begin was absolutely objecting to two issues. One of which was whether he would withdraw all the Israelis from the Sinai desert area, which belonged to Egypt. He had taken an oath before God that he would never dismantle a settlement, and so we went to deadlock. Sadat went back down on that and neither would Begin. Finally, Begin said, "Well, we've already failed, Mr. President. As a souvenir, I'd like to have a signed photograph of me and you and Sadat just to give to my grandchildren."

My secretary, without asking me or anybody else, called Israel and got the personal names of all of Begin's eight grandchildren. Instead of just saying, "Best wishes, Jimmy Carter," I put on every photograph with love and best wishes too. I put down the name. When I took him over to Begin's cabin, he had been separated from Sadat at that time. 10 days, they hadn't even seen each other.

He was very huffy and aggravated with me. I handed him the photographs and he began to look at the photographs and read out the names of his grandchildren. He read about the third one and he began to be emotional. Tears began to run down his cheeks and mine too. He finally said, "Why don't we try one more time?" We had one more effort and it was successful. We've had peace between Israel and Egypt now for more than 35 years.

Brian Lehrer: Such a fascinating story. A personal touch and not just a good policy argument can make a difference.

President Jimmy Carter: That's true. We had some more negotiations after that. He finally decided in my request that he not become involved in making the final decision on dismantling the settlements but that the Knesset parliament would do so. He agreed not to interfere with the decisions of the parliament. The parliament voted 85% to approve the peace proposal that I had put forward, which involved two things. One was a peace between Israel and Egypt that came six months later. The other one was the full autonomy and human rights and so forth of the Palestinians. That part of it has not been honored, but the peace treaty has held intact.

Brian Lehrer: You're right that peace for Israel has been a preeminent foreign policy goal of your life, and that it was very painful to you, the reaction you got to your book from about a decade ago, promoting a two-state solution called Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

President Jimmy Carter: Right.

Brian Lehrer: Were you surprised that such a title would bring condemnation from supporters?

President Jimmy Carter: I really was because I was very careful not to mention Israel. I said "Palestine" and then the rest of the title was Peace Not Apartheid, but the use of the word "apartheid," which had been used by several prime ministers of Israel, was held against me. I've always regretted very deeply the alienation of some of my previous supporters in America and some of the folks in Israel that appreciates that I brought them peace with Egypt. The use of the word "apartheid" was, I think, distorted and to my grievance.

Brian Lehrer: If you had it to do over again, you would write the same book but with a different title?

President Jimmy Carter: I probably would if I had to do over again. I would have make it more clear. I wanted to point out that if we did have peace and justice for the Palestinians, there would be no need for an apartheid over depriving the Palestinians of full citizenship rights within their own government on a two-state solution.

Brian Lehrer: Right, but Israelis would ask you, "Do you really think Israel is more responsible for the stalemate than Hamas, which basically rejects the idea of any land for peace deal and remains committed to destroying Israel no matter what?"

President Jimmy Carter: Well, there are plenty of blame to go around. I think though now that the government of Netanyahu, particularly the newly-reconstituted government since he was reelected, has rejected a two-state solution completely. Every nation on earth, so far as I know, supports the two-state solution, including the United States and the United Nations and so forth, except Israel. I think that has been the final nail in the coffin, at least for the time being. Because of the Israeli's rejection of a two-state solution, the United States has basically withdrawn for the first time in modern history from the role of an interlocutor or mediator.

Brian Lehrer: Netanyahu would say he didn't really just temporarily, but we don't want to go around on that. Jimmy Carter is my guest, former president, of course, and his new memoir is called A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety. Closer to home, we have the Confederate flag debate going on today in the South Carolina legislature. The Senate, as you may have heard if you were listening in on our newscast, did just pass taking down the flag. It goes to the House there. Growing up in Georgia, was that flag present in your life and did it mean heritage, not hate as the supporters of the flag say?

President Jimmy Carter: Well, it was accepted and it was revered in Georgia as a symbol of heroism and loss of many of our ancestors and so forth. We did away with a Confederate battle flag 12 years ago, I believe it was, under a very wonderful Democratic governor named Roy Barnes. Because of that flag issue, he was defeated in his next reelection campaign. It was almost exclusively because of the adverse reaction against doing away with a flag, but I'm glad we did it.

We still have the new flag now that's not the battle flag. I think the battle flag has a lot of sentimental and historical value for the Southerners, but it also has a connotation among some people of white supremacy and the implied wish that we hadn't ever done away with slavery. That aspect of it is certainly enough, in my opinion, to warrant a complete elimination of the battle flag as a preeminent symbol of a history that we revere.

Brian Lehrer: Beyond the flag, what do you think, as someone who has thought so much about race in America and in the South, is the next most important step toward racial equality in the country today?

President Jimmy Carter: Well, I think that the recent publication to the news media of the mistreatment of Black people by white police officers, plus this terrible tragedy in South Carolina, those two things combined, I think, may have woken us up to the fact that the halcyon days of the passage of the Civil Rights Act under President Johnson and the success of the civil rights movement under Martin Luther King, Jr., and Andrew Young and others, we breathed a sigh of relief back in those days and thought that we had finally done away with the remnants of white supremacy, all racial discrimination, and we found that that's not yet happened.

I think we just have to reassess our commitment and, as a nation, make sure that the majority opinion in our country, which is what I just described, prevails in every aspect of life, including the makeup of police departments and the training of police officers who treat everybody the same and, hopefully, condemnation by the whole communities involved of the white supremacist remnants that are now in this extreme minority.

Brian Lehrer: Back to the Middle East and, this time, Iran. Of course, you had the hostage crisis in your final year or so as president. I'm curious if your experience with Iran then informs your position today on what term should be acceptable on a nuclear weapons deal.

President Jimmy Carter: Well, as soon as the Shah was overthrown, I immediately established full diplomatic relations with the revolutionary government under the Ayatollah Khomeini. To represent me to him, I sent about 65 diplomats. They were the ones that were taken into captivity and kept for more than a year. I wanted to have full diplomatic relations with Iran. I tried to negotiate with Iran to get our hostage released, but the Ayatollah Khomeini refused to negotiate with me directly and we had to use intermediaries.

I've always felt that we should communicate with Iran freely and try to find some ways on which we could cooperate with them. I believe that this latest effort being made, which I pray will be successful, by the way, to reach an agreement on the control or prevention of going into a nuclear weapon capability is extremely important, not only for Iran and Iraq, and Iran and the United States, but also for all their neighbors and for our neighbors and the entire world as a matter of fact. I pray that John Kerry will be successful in bringing these negotiations to a conclusion.

Brian Lehrer: How would you compare the Ayatollah Khomeini to the supreme leader today, Ayatollah Khamenei?

President Jimmy Carter: Well, they're both all-powerful. Eventually, the Ayatollah Khomeini was flexible enough to let our hostages be released. They were in an airplane ready to take off early in the morning that I was going out of office, but he didn't let the plane run down the runway and go to freedom until after I was no longer president. He was flexible at the end. My hope is that the president, Ayatollah Khamenei, will be equally flexible in the last minutes and do what's best for Iran and the United States.

I don't know either one of them personally. Of course, I studied everything I could know about the Ayatollah that was there when I was president. There's no doubt that Iran is under tremendous pressure from our sanctions. They have sworn, even taken a fatwa, I understand, that they would not ever develop nuclear weapons. I hope on accordance with their religious beliefs and also the economic restraints that's been placed on them by us and others that they'll see the light and accede to the demands that the United States and others are making.

Brian Lehrer: President Carter with us. His new book called A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety. With a new presidential election cycle beginning, you recall in the book how little money you and Ford and then you and Reagan spent running your races in 1976 and 1980. How different was it then?

President Jimmy Carter: Well, when I ran against an incumbent president, Gerald Ford, neither he or I raised any money from contributions. The same thing happened four years later when I ran against Governor Reagan.

Brian Lehrer: Any money?

President Jimmy Carter: We didn't raise any money. No, we just used a $1 per person check-off that came from individual taxpayers. We didn't have any private contributions to our campaign. Nowadays, with this stupid decision that the Supreme Court has made on Citizens United, it's almost impossible to imagine a Democratic or Republican nominee being successful without being able to raise $200 or $300 million.

Those people that give that enormous amount of money are mostly wealthy people and they want something in response. I think that adversely affects the tenor of the election, the essence of democracy and freedom, and also distorts the decisions that are made later on by elected officials, including the president and including the members of Congress.

Brian Lehrer: On the topic of special interest, you unsurprisingly opposed Citizens United and denounced excessive corporate influence and wealthy individual influence, but you also write that, "Women's organizations were the most demanding and unappreciative," and that union leaders were never satisfied with you. Can you talk about those relationships?

President Jimmy Carter: Well, they were the ones that are closest to me. I was a working man myself. I tried to promote the equality of opportunity between wealthy and poor people. I was for an increase in the minimum wage. I actually put a cost-of-living index on the minimum wage at that time. I did everything I could to help the union people and the working people of our country. I did the same thing with women. I appointed more women judges and diplomats and so forth than all the other presidents before me combined, but neither one of those organizations were ever satisfied.

It took me a while to realize, as I put in the book, that ones who represent them, their chosen leaders or the executive secretaries and so forth, they get everything they can out of a president no matter how accommodating he or she might be. Then they want even more and they're always demanding. Sometimes they are more demanding on somebody that's acquiescent and on their side than the odds of somebody that they know is antagonistic. I was their friend, but they didn't seem to appreciate my friendship.

Brian Lehrer: You're a progressive on most things, but you make it clear in the book, you opposed abortion rights, except after rape or incest or for the life of the mother. Is that still your position today?

President Jimmy Carter: It is. It always has been. This is the only thing that I've ever found where there was a conflict between my own religious faith and my duties as a public official. I never have felt that Jesus Christ, whom I worship, would approve abortion unless it was a result of incest or rape or would endanger the life of the mother.

I did all I could as president to reduce the need for abortion by passing special legislation called the Women and Infant Children program, the WIC program, which guaranteed that a mother and her little child would have plenty of food to eat, and also to make adoption easier, and to promote the education of young girls and so forth, and the availability of contraceptives so they could avoid pregnancy if they did have sex outside of marriage. These were the things that I did to try to compensate for my acceptance of the Roe v. Wade ruling.

Brian Lehrer: As a matter of law, why would you have your religious beliefs enshrined if it opposes other people's religious beliefs under a doctrine of religious freedom?

President Jimmy Carter: Well, I couldn't do that. I had to comply with a Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade. I complied with the law, but within the bounds of the law, I tried to minimize the need for or call for abortion.

Brian Lehrer: Because that was the federal law. Did you just say that that was the only instance in which your Christian values conflicted with your work in the public sector?

President Jimmy Carter: It was only one of initial significance, yes.

Brian Lehrer: As a Christian, you watched the modern religious right form in the 1970s and support Reagan in 1980. Was there a time that Southern white evangelicals weren't so right-wing?

President Jimmy Carter: They were not right-wing at all in 1976. It was between 1976 and 1980 that the Moral Majority and others formed officially and aligned themselves, it turned out permanently, with the Republican Party. That happened during '78, '79 within the Southern Baptist Convention and with Jerry Falwell and others, yes.

Brian Lehrer: I know we're nearing the end of our time. I want to ask about two more things real quick. One that surprised me in the book was about China that you helped to set up local democratic elections in places around the country. The Chinese government let you do that?

President Jimmy Carter: Well, I didn't do it. The Chinese government did it. Deng Xiaoping thought that it was best to let local people elect their own officials. The local people or the cities, the small towns, are not part of the Communist Party system, which starts with big cities and then goes to counties and provinces. He thought that it would be better to let them handle their own local affairs, potholes in the streets, and collection of garbage, and running the schools and that sort of thing.

He asked The Carter Center to monitor the process, upholding local democratic elections. We did that for 12 years. We actually put forward proposals that let them be as pure a democratic process as we could possibly envision. Everybody would be registered to vote automatically when they reached the age of 18, both men and women. Anybody could run for office whether they were a member of the Communist Party or not. There would be a secret ballot. They would serve for a limited amount of time. They could run for reelection if they wanted to.

We monitored that process and reported on the progress that was made toward pure democracy in almost a million small communities, 650,000, still. That's what The Carter Center did for a long time in China. Eventually, our websites, which got to be extremely popular, were a measuring stick on how well China itself was moving toward democratic principles. We've been subject of tightening up lately. We don't have nearly as much freedom to run our websites and have thousands of hits on it every minute as a matter of fact like we did before.

Brian Lehrer: Why do you think that is? Did Beijing feel burned or threatened by the results of your work with local democracy?

President Jimmy Carter: Yes, Deng Xiaoping was completely in favor of it. In fact, he induced the government to pass all the laws I've just described to you. Jiang Zemin, who followed him, was also quite progressive on that issue. Hu Jintao, the one that served last, has been much more restraining on that process. Xi Jinping, the current president of China, is much more recalcitrant about this issue.

Also, there's been a lot of conflict between the Communist Party officials, who kind of look upon themselves as ultimate authorities, and the local people who elected their own local officials. There are arguments back and forth about what to do with surrounding land and taxation and things of that kind. There's been a lot of dissension within China as this inevitable clash comes forward between the old Communist Party officials on the one hand and the newly-elected folks from the local governments. That's why it's much more tight now, much more reluctant to make, I'd say, democratic process progress than it was before.

Brian Lehrer: Final thing, on the topic of a post-presidency, you've had, by anyone's gauge, an immensely successful and admirable post-presidency. So has President Clinton, I think, with the work of the Clinton Global Initiative, even though all the financial ties from it are dogging Hillary Clinton's run for president. Does your experience suggest any possible roles for President Obama when he leaves office, which is not that far in the future?

President Jimmy Carter: I think all of the presidents since I left office have either come down to The Carter Center or sent representatives down just to see what we do. They reject some of the things that we have demonstrated and accept some others. I would hope that President Obama would either come down to The Carter Center, spend a day or two, or send his top representatives as he shapes his own agenda for the post-presidential years.

President Clinton did it and George H.W. Bush did it and George W. Bush did it and so forth. That's a normal thing to do. Look at other presidents or former presidents, see what they did. As I've said often, presidents are just as different as the next five people you meet on the street. We have our own priorities and our own special interest, so every former president is free to do and choose whatever they wish to do.

I would expect, though, that President Obama, when he leaves office, will have a special opportunity to work with people, I'd say, in the Southern Hemisphere since he does have an African-American background and culture that he would be more easily acquainted with and attuned to the needs of people in the very poor and sometimes African countries than most of us would. He has a good opportunity, but it'll be up to him to decide.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have any thoughts as somebody who expressed in the book and in this interview, you're concerned with all the money in politics, the fact that a lot of people with an interest in government policy try to perhaps get their hooks into the Clintons indirectly through donating to the Clinton Foundation?

President Jimmy Carter: I would guess that anybody that gives a major amount of money to the Democratic or Republican candidates hopes to have at least some easy access to the White House. Maybe sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom or when they make a telephone call to the President, the President would personally get on the phone and listen to their particular request. A lot of them have a much more direct ambition for preferential treatment by the government, by the Congress, and by the President in the passage of taxation laws and privileges and special grants from the government.

I think a lot of economics are involved in it and just a desire to be close to the origin of power would be involved. It's not just the President who would benefit because every Congress member or every senator, every governor as a matter of fact who's elected in the United States now is heavily affected by and influenced by and partially controlled by the major donors that make their campaign successful or possible and give them the money to destroy the reputation of their opponent, which is one of the major new factors that have evolved in the political scene in the last 30 or 35 years.

Brian Lehrer: Even donating indirectly, that is donating to the Clinton Foundation, which was my question, might be an attempt to influence Hillary Clinton in the future?

President Jimmy Carter: I think that's part of the factor, but I'm not criticizing them in any way. We have a lot of contributions to The Carter Center too, so I understand the need to raise money for good purposes. I'm not criticizing the Clintons because of that, but just the standpoint that some of the people that give money to those purposes do want to have some special status with an incumbent president or incumbent members of Congress in the future.

Brian Lehrer: Well, thank you very much, President Carter. I see that people who may have just heard this interview and now may want to go meet you will have a chance shortly. You have a busy day because you're going from this to book signing at the Barnes & Noble at 5th Avenue and 46th Street at noon. Just to let everybody know, that's just 35 minutes from now if you want to meet President Carter, who's doing a book signing at Barnes & Noble, 5th Avenue and 46th Street in Manhattan at noon, and then again tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock at the YWCA Bergen County in Ridgewood. Noon today, Barnes & Noble, 5th and 46th. Four o'clock tomorrow afternoon, the YWCA in Ridgewood in Bergen County. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, sir. Thank you for giving us the time.

President Jimmy Carter: Thank you. I'm on the way. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

Brian Lehrer: Jimmy Carter's new book is called A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety. Let's follow up our conversation with President Carter with a two-track call-in. First, any reaction you have to anything he said in the interview and, secondly, what do you think President Obama should do with his post-presidency? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. President Carter suggested, maybe because of his African-American background, something having to do with the Southern Hemisphere, meaning the poorer, darker countries of the world, and something on their behalf and on behalf of global equality.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, to react to anything in the interview or with what you think President Obama should do with his post-presidency. Like Carter and Clinton, Obama will be young enough to have an impact for a long time. What might he try to accomplish? Something more on domestic policy? Something on race in America? More than global equality? Something global like Carter suggests? What should he do with his post-presidency? Anything you want to say in response to the Jimmy Carter interview just now, 212-433-WNYC We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, your reactions for a few minutes to the interview with President Carter there. What do you think President Obama might do with his post-presidency even if you don't agree with all of Carter's views like on Israel or whatever? He's been admirable in the way he has used his post-presidency for good all over the world as he sees it. Should Obama model on him in some way? What should Obama do with his post-presidency? 212-433-WNYC. David in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Hi, I think that Obama should consider doing what John Quincy Adams did and run for Congress. I think he really probably, by this time, gets Washington and he could make a great contribution over the years and probably also be called "Old Man Eloquent" when he retires frankly.

Brian Lehrer: Well, the problem of being in Congress is that, especially if you're in the minority, if Democrats are going to continue to be in the minority, you don't have any power really. Why wouldn't he have more influence by being a freelance post-presidential commentator?

David: Well, I think that he's young enough to view running for Congress as a long-term investment. He could work his way up through the seniority system. Maybe by the time the Democrats retake the Congress after the 2020 census, he could be chairman of a powerful committee, ways and means. Why not?

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you very much. Carol in Scotch Plains, you're on WNYC. Hi, Carol.

Carol: Good morning. I am mystified that the perspective with regard to the Palestinian situation assigned responsibility to the problems only to Israel as though there are no other factors in the picture. That perspective is uneven, leaves out significant information. One example is Gush Katif. The farms were left in perfect condition. They were destroyed. They could have been used to improve the economic situation of the people who live there, but instead, they were destroyed. That's never acknowledged. The people who had to leave suffered greatly. Many went for years without finding any employment. Those things are never talked about and that leaves an uneven picture and it is misleading. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Phil in Sayville, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Phil: Thanks for taking my call. Another homerun interview. Always a pleasure to listen to your show. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Phil: My reaction to the interview is all about how great President Carter is. How sharp. What an inspiration. Here you are, redirecting a question back to the Clintons, and he'll have none of it. At 90, he's as articulate and as on-point as anyone has ever been. Let me tell you, at 50, he was the president for me. I was 14 in 1976 on the end of the boomers. Literally, the last one on the list.

It was very inspirational for me to hear him speak and motivational to stay sharp myself. As far as President Obama goes and what he should do with his future, without a doubt, I'm on my knees praying. I would love to see him on the Supreme Court. That's where he belongs. That's the right role. If nothing else in the last few weeks, we've seen the importance of the court. That's where his influence can do this country the most good without a doubt.

Brian Lehrer: That's an interesting one.

Phil: I really appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: That's certainly better than being in Congress, I think. He was a constitutional lawyer before going into politics per se.

Phil: Certainly, he's guided legislation through court approval showing that he understands the document and the systems and where the levers of power really are. I am a single-payer supporter, but the fact that this is what we got-- and let us not forget. We got it on in appropriations. He used the nuclear option. It was every one vote, Christmas Eve. It's an amazing, amazing legislative achievement that we hope will stay in the test of time. No one else is going to have that level of delicacy in the judicial branch.

Brian Lehrer: Phil, I'm going to leave it there. I really appreciate your call and the nice words. There's one on the table. Obama appointed by the next president, who's a Democrat, to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. Mike in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Hey, good afternoon. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Okay.

Mike: All right, it was a pleasure listening to President Carter. What stood out is here's an ex-president who has been speaking about political contribution. What he mentioned that I thought was very critical is that he used the word "influence" and "control." That's what a lot of people believe is going on with the political process today. As for President Barack Obama, I'm in agreement with him as well. It's not only President Obama, but other Black people that have power and influence to join him and do the same to develop those human beings that we have in Southern Africa and Africa as a whole.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Josh in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Josh.

Josh: Hi, Brian. I think he should focus on gun violence post-presidency. I think it's just been a huge plague to this country. After every one of these massacres, he said something. I know former Mayor Bloomberg is a big proponent of that. I'm not sure they would ever team up, but I think he could do a lot of good in that world.

Brian Lehrer: Well, they might team up on an issue-by-issue basis, and yet it's hard to-- I guess it's such an intransigent-- It's an issue on which there's so much intransigence, right? I think Obama thought he was going to have a big influence over it as president after Newtown and found that Congress was too much under the sway of the NRA still. I wonder what he could do not even being a president anymore that it would actually flip the script on that.

Josh: Yes, I'm not exactly sure, but I think maybe his community activist background, he could maybe rouse some folks that way and get in front of the right people and lead some groups on that. I just think it's an ongoing issue and people just seem to forget about it. It needs to be in the national forefront more often.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Richard in Ramsey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Richard.

Richard: Hi, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Okay.

Richard: In response to President Carter, I think there's several issues. One, he threw out a red herring that, look, Israel, the Netanyahu government, doesn't support a two-state solution. In fact, most Israelis do. In fact, most Palestinians-- There was a survey last year. 68% of Palestinians reject a two-state solution, furthermore, reject Israel. Carter, I think, I'm very concerned. He calls for legitimate recognition of Hamas but doesn't call for recognition of other terror groups, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, and so on.

Why the double standard that only the Israelis should be required to recognize somebody sworn to their destruction, namely Hamas as a government? I think the various accusations that his view towards Israel borders on what's been called anti-Semitism by holding Israel to a double standard by our State Department and by the British foreign service, I think there's some legitimacy to that.

Brian Lehrer: He would say about Hamas that the difference between Hamas and something like Boko Haram is that Hamas was elected. They're a militaristic, call it, terrorist organization in some of their attacks on Israel.

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Brian Lehrer: I'm just telling you what he would probably say. The difference in terms of the issue of recognizing is that they were elected as a government. They're a government that's at war with Israel. No question. In terms of recognizing the government and then trying to deal with it on those terms, I think that's where he was going with that.

Richard: Brian, think of the moral relativism implicit in what you've just said. Adolf Hitler was elected to the Weimar Republic to be the head of a republic. To say that Hamas was elected, come on, is that really a valid defense of what appears to be some very strange views on Israel that are totally unfair and hold Israel to a double standard, which is regarded as anti-Semitism?

Brian Lehrer: Richard, thank you very much. Ashley in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Ashley: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: What do you want to say about President Carter?

Ashley: I really respected his position on abortion and his ability to separate his personal beliefs from his governing policies and his really smart way of dealing with the abortion issue. He didn't believe fully in a woman's ability to access abortion for all circumstances. He was able to smartly implement policies that help reduce the need for abortion in proven ways rather than abstinence-only education and reducing access to health services that women need and ways that people currently try to restrict women's access to abortion and health services as a way of seeing to prevent it from happening. I felt that he was really smartly tackling the issue and doing it in a compassionate way and in a smart way and not demonizing the women for their choices, and really seeing the issue as a way that can be fixed with policy and not driven by religious belief and impulse.

Brian Lehrer: Ashley, thank you very much. You'll get the last word. Thank you for all your calls on President Carter and what he said in his interview here relating to his memoir, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, which just came out, touched on so many issues, and obviously agree or disagree with President Carter. That's why we open up the phones and hear your voices. Thank you for your calls and on your thoughts for President Obama and what he might do after being president of the United States.

This idea of him on the Supreme Court is gathering a lot of steam. People keep writing in now and more calling up and saying, "Yes, Obama on the Supreme Court." Who knows? Is that who Hillary Clinton, if she's president, would appoint when there's a next opening and would he want it? That's a really interesting question. Somebody should ask him that. All right, Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Coming up next, senior editor of New York Magazine, Jesse Singal, on the new article about how to get the most from your summer vacation. Stay with us.

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