Former President Jimmy Carter offered a sharp attack on the Trump administration’s fidelity to the truth on Tuesday before claiming he didn’t want to “criticize the incumbent president.”
An interview on Mr. Carter’s latest Habitat for Humanity project quickly turned political when “CBS This Morning” co-host John Dickerson steered the conversation to the current political climate.
“You said that you thought telling the truth was important when you were president, but you seem to suggest it might not be so important to the presidency,” Mr. Dickerson asked during their meeting in Indiana.
“Well, that seems to be the case now,” Mr. Carter, 93, replied. “I think it’s well-known that the incumbent president is very careless with the truth. Telling the truth has been pretty deeply ingrained in me, and I think that makes it even more deplorable to me to see that it has been abandoned by some people.”
The 39th commander in chief, who spent one term in office, told the network that he exited the White House in 1981 “without ever lying to the people or making a deliberately false statement.”
“I don’t see much to be emulated in recent months, but, you know, I’m not here to criticize the incumbent president,” he said of President Trump. “I just wish him well, and I pray for him.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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