ALI ROGIN: Good evening.

I'm Ali Rogin.

John Yang is away.

We begin with breaking news tonight as we learn that former President Jimmy Carter has died.

The 100-year-old known for his humble beginnings and unlikely road to the White House, served from January 1977 to January 1981.

History shaped Carter's one term in office, including an economic recession, the Iran hostage crisis and the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt.

Carter was this country's longest living former president, and he died today at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by family.

Special correspondent Judy Woodruff looks back at his towering life.

JIMMY CARTER, Former U.S. President: In December of 1974 there was a major headline on the editorial page of the Atlanta Constitution that said, Jimmy Carter is running for White.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): He was seemingly the longest of long shots when he jumped into the 1976 presidential race.

But Jimmy Carter wound up celebrating on election night.

JIMMY CARTER: I pray that I can live up to your confidence and never disappoint you.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): It was the pinnacle of a wide ranging life that began in 1924 in Plains, Georgia.

James Earl Carter was born to Lillian, a nurse, and Earl, a peanut farmer.

After a Depression era upbringing, he finished the U.S.

Naval Academy and married hometown sweetheart Rosalind Smith.

In time, the newly minted officer rose to the rank of lieutenant in the nuclear submarine service.

But he cut short his Navy career after his father's death in 1953 so he could return to Georgia to try to revive the family' struggling peanut farm.

JIMMY CARTER: We've always worked for a living.

We know what it means to work.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): Within a few years, politics beckoned, and Jimmy Carter began his ascent, winning election as a state senator and then, in 1970, governor.

MAN: Congratulations, governor.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): He called for the state to transcend deep divisions over race and inequality.

JIMMY CARTER: I say to you, quite frankly, that the time for racial discrimination is over.

No poor, rural, weak or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job, or simple justice.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): Georgia law then limited governors to a single term.

But Jimmy Carter had his eyes on a much bigger prize.

On December 12, 1974, he announced he was running for president.

MAN: Jimmy who?

MAN: Jimmy Carter.

MAN: Jimmy who?

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): Outside his home state, candidate Carter began as a virtual unknown.

Jimmy who became a political punchline even in Carter campaign films.

But it was also an asset.

Voters had soured on Washington after the Vietnam War and Watergate, and Mr. Carter embraced his outsider status and began climbing in the polls.

JIMMY CARTER: I remember when we couldn't find a microphone.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): in April 1976.

He mused on his appeal in an interview with the McNeil Larrell report, a precursor to the NewsHour.

JIMMY CARTER: There's an intensity of commitment to my campaign and a depth of sacrifice among people who volunteer to go all the way to New Hampshire at their own expense to give up their vacation time, to go back later to Wisconsin.

I had over a thousand Georgians who went into Florida.

Other candidates don't have this.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): That connection with voters carried him to the Democratic nomination and on a course to face incumbent Republican Gerald Ford that November.

GERALD FORD, Former U.S. President: I, Gerald R. Ford, do solemnly swear.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): Mr. Ford had been appointed vice president during Watergate and became President when Richard Nixon resigned in August of 1974.

Years later, former President Carter spoke to Jim Lehrer on what it was like as a challenger debating a sitting president.

JIMMY CARTER: I had been quite successful in the primary season, but it was a very disturbing concept for me to be on the stage with the President of the United States.

I saw it as a good opportunity to let the people know that I could indeed deal on an equal basis, hopefully, with an incumbent president.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): The two men faced each other three times that fall.

JIMMY CARTER: He says he's learned how to match unemployment with inflation.

That's right.

We've got the highest inflation we've had in 25 years right now.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): But the third debate, just two weeks before the election, saw Mr. Carter on the defensive.

He had given a candid, in depth interview to Playboy magazine.

And on his religious beliefs, he was quoted as saying, I've looked on a lot of women with lust.

I've committed adultery in my heart many times.

This is something that God recognizes I will do, and God forgives me for it.

JIMMY CARTER: As you know, that Playboy interview could have cost me the election.

It was a devastating blow to our campaign, and I thought the best way to handle it was to say, well, I'm sorry that the interview came out, but I couldn't deny that the answers in Playboy were my own answers.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): Mr. Carter's leads steadily dwindle through the fall, but on Election Day, his strength in the south and the east was just enough to carry him to victory in the closest presidential contest in decades.

The pride of Plains, now the President-Elect brought the celebration to his hometown the morning after.

JIMMY CARTER: I think the sun's rising on a beautiful new day.

A beautiful new spirit in this country, a beautiful new commitment to the future.

I feel good about it, and I love every one of you.

MAN: I, Jimmy Carter, do solemnly swear.

JIMMY CARTER: I, Jimmy Carter, do solemnly swear.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): He took that theme of a new beginning into Inauguration Day, breaking with tradition by walking most of the way down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.

Once there, the new President Carter soon resolved to try for the seemingly impossible peace in the Middle East.

He reflected on that time at a forum in Washington in 2010.

JIMMY CARTER: There had been four wars in the previous 25 years against Israel, all led by Egypt.

It was only Arab country with enough help to really challenge Israel.

And I wanted to bring peace between Israel and Egypt.

That was my preeminent goal.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): To that end, Mr. Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David in the late summer of 1978.

For 13 days, he mediated until the breakthrough on September 17th.

The Camp David Accords laid the foundation for an Egyptian-Israeli peace.

And there were other Carter foreign policy initiatives.

He restored full diplomatic relations with China, following through on a process that began under President Nixon.

He worked to pare back the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals.

And he negotiated and signed the treaty to return the Panama Canal to Panama.

But on the domestic front, the President grappled with an economy beset by spiking inflation and interest rates and an energy crisis.

Just two weeks into his tenure, a cardigan clad Carter urged Americans to conserve during a televised fireside chat.

JIMMY CARTER: All of us must learn to waste less energy.

WOMAN: Why didn't they come out and tell us there was no gas?

JUDY WOODRUFF: But by the summer of '79, the public's patience was wearing thin.

WOMAN: I've been here since 4:30 this morning.

It's ridiculous waiting on line here.

MAN: I'm in the line two hours in, I can't get gas.

This is baloney.

Carter doesn't get my vote next year.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): With his popularity plunging, President Carter set out to turn the country's mood.

JIMMY CARTER: So I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation.

I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.

The threat is nearly invisible.

In ordinary ways, it is a crisis of confidence.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): He never actually used the term, but it came to be known as the malaise speech.

And it brought new ridicule.

Then, in November of that year, half a world away, the great crisis of the Carter presidency began.

The capture of 66 Americans in Iran, most of them at the U.S. embassy, all with the tacit backing of that country's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In April 1980, the President authorized an ill-fated military operation to try to free the hostages.

But the mission ran into mechanical troubles and one helicopter crashed, killing five U.S. airmen and three U.S. Marines.

It was the Iran crisis and the nation's deep economic trouble that haunted the Carter reelection bid.

Senator Ted Kennedy mounted a primary challenge that lasted until that summer's Democratic convention.

Meanwhile, Republicans coalesced around former California Governor Ronald Reagan.

MAN: Good morning.

How are you?

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): And Illinois Congressman John Anderson.

And also ran in the GOP primaries, turned independent for the general election.

JOHN ANDERSON, Former Illinois Congressman: Give me your help.

Give me your votes on the 4th of November.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): For weeks, the Carter campaign declined to have the President debate both Reagan and Anderson on the same stage.

JOHN ANDERSON: The man who should be here tonight to respond to those charges chose not to attend.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): But finally, just a week before the election, Mr. Carter did square off with Reagan, but found himself outmatched.

JIMMY CARTER: Now we have an opportunity to move toward national health insurance.

Governor Reagan, again, typically is against such a proposal.

MAN: Governor.

RONALD REAGAN, Former U.S. President: There you go again.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): Reagan used the debate to disarm depictions of himself as an extremist and thus ease voters' fears.

He closed with a simple question that summed up his indictment of the Carter presidency.

RONALD REAGAN: And it might be well if you would ask yourself.

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): Reagan would later call it a critical moment in the campaign.

But in President Carter's eyes -- JIMMY CARTER: The major factor in the election had nothing to do with that debate.

It was the fact that went through election day, which was the exact one year anniversary of the hostages being taken in Iran.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): By then, the Iranians had freed 14 of the original 66 American hostages.

The other 52 remained captive and Iran refused to budge.

JIMMY CARTER: The parliament decided under Khomeini's pressure that they would not release the hostages.

And this devastating negative news about hostages swept the country.

But on election day, I've always been convinced that this was a major factor.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): Whatever the reason, President Carter was trounced that night.

And at 9.50 p.m., more than an hour before polls closed on the west coast, he conceded.

JIMMY CARTER: I promised you four years ago that I would never lie to you.

So I can't stand here tonight and say it doesn't hurt.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): He spent much of his remaining time in office trying to free the Americans held in Tehran while he still could.

JIMMY CARTER: At 10 o'clock on inauguration morning, all the hostages were in an airplane ready to take off.

And Khomeini held them until five minutes after I was no longer present.

Then they took off.

But that was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Every hostage came home safe and free.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): The landslide election defeat returned the Carters to civilian life, but they set about on a new life of service that won new respect.

In 1982, the former president and wife Rosalind Carter founded the Carter Center, their platform for advancing democracy, peace, and health policy beyond America's borders.

The work took them around the world to places like Nicaragua to monitor elections and Bosnia to try to end years of fighting.

As he told the NewsHour during the 2000 Democratic Convention, it seemed to be ideal work for a former president.

JIMMY CARTER: The best times of my life have been after the White House.

You have served a great nation, the greatest nation on earth, and then you have freedom from political obligations.

You have an almost unlimited menu of things that you can either choose or say no.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): His new agenda did lead to occasional run ins with his successors in the White House, as in 1994, when the Clinton White House balked at Mr. Carter's talks with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung on freezing his government's nuclear program, and in 2002, when he made waves in Cuba, meeting with President Fidel Castro and calling for an end to the decades long U.S. embargo.

He was also a vocal critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

But his diplomatic work, including the Camp David Accords, ultimately won him the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He remained in the public eye through his final years, and he minced no words in his attitudes about President Trump.

JIMMY CARTER: There's no doubt that the Russians did interfere in the election, and I think the interference, although not yet quantified, if fully investigated, would show that Trump didn't actually win the election in 2016.

He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfere.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): In 2015, he was diagnosed with melanoma, a cancer that spread to his liver and his brain, but underwent a new treatment that sent it into remission.

JIMMY CARTER: I've had a wonderful life.

I've had thousands of friends, but now I feel, you know, that it's in the hands of God whom I worship, and I'll be prepared for anything that comes.

JUDY WOODRUFF (voice-over): Through it all, Jimmy Carter remained active, especially in his well-known work for Habitat for Humanity, building homes for the poor, and he continued teaching Sunday school in his hometown of Plains.

President Biden visited the Carters there early in his term and said the former president had shown the nation what it means to be a public servant.

Age and illness ultimately forced Mr. Carter into home hospice care.

And in late 2023, he suffered his greatest loss when Rosalind Carter died at 96.

They had been married for 77 years.