For Biden and Carter, hostage history rhymes
Looking at the world Biden is leaving Trump.
Watching Joe Biden’s eulogy for Jimmy Carter last week, it was hard not to think about the obvious parallels between the 39th and 46th commanders-in-chief.
The two Democrats — who were close allies back in the ’70s — both entered the White House promising a clean break with the scandals of a predecessor. But they spent their presidencies battling a similar crop of challenges: rising inflation, national malaise, intraparty criticism. Both were eventually branded as weak and unpopular, and were forced to depart after a single term, each leaving the White House to a more charismatic rival who heralded a new era of politics.
This isn’t a case of history fully repeating itself. (One notable difference: Carter left office at age 56, giving him more than four decades with which to rehabilitate his reputation. Biden, 82, is unlikely to have the same luxury.) But it’s certainly a case of history rhyming.
And the comparison could soon become even starker, with the news that negotiators are a closing in on a Gaza ceasefire in the waning days of Biden’s presidency. According to CBS News, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal in principle. The draft agreement calls for a 42-day ceasefire, during which Hamas would release 33 Israeli hostages and Israeli would release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, while also withdrawing from Gazan population centers.
During that first phase, a second 42-day phase would be negotiated, during which Hamas would release the remaining hostages, while Israel would release more Palestinian prisoners and withdraw fully from the Gaza Strip. A third phase — involving a reconstruction plan in Gaza — would then follow.
The negotiation teams in Qatar are still wrestling over final details; the deal, like previous near-agreements could fall apart, but officials appear more optimistic than they have been at any other point in the war, which has lasted more than a year — since the October 7, 2023 attacks, when 1,200 Israelis were killed and about 250 were taken hostage — and led to 46,000 Palestinian deaths, according to the Hamas-led Gazan Health Ministry.
Carter’s tenure was haunted by a hostage crisis with even more domestic resonance, after 53 Americans were detained in Tehran in November 1979 by a group of Iranian students, who kept them there for 444 days. Just as the war in Gaza may now be letting up only in the twilight of Biden’s presidency, the Iran hostage crisis dragged on right until the hour (literally) that Carter left office: the hostages were finally freed on January 20, 1981, twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as his successor.
In both cases, an outgoing Democratic president labored for months to ink a deal with a Middle Eastern adversary — only, at least some evidence suggests, for the election of a Republican successor to provide the jolt needed to furnish an agreement.
“With Carter it was taken for granted that he would do nothing rash,” the journalist Mark Bowden wrote in his 2007 book “Guests of the Ayatollah,” a definitive retelling of the Iran hostage crisis, “but there was no such certainty with Reagan, who with a large popular majority behind him might well consider swiftly ending the standoff. Many Americans would applaud a bold, punitive move by the new administration, even if it was a bloody one. By any calculation, most of the blood spilled would be Iranian. Thus the election results imparted a new urgency to the talks.”
Algeria was selected as a mediator, the role Qatar is playing today. “What followed over the next month in Algiers was like haggling over a rug in the Tehran bazaar,” Bowden wrote. During the back-and-forth, Reagan continued his brash denunciations of the Iranian “barbarians”; more than 60% of Americans expected Reagan to attack Iran in some way, a poll during the transition found. In Iran, the hostages listened to radio broadcasts of his rhetoric with “pleasure,” knowing that they added pressure on their Iranian captors to ink a deal with Carter.
Finally, at 4:55 a.m. on the morning of Reagan’s inauguration, Carter appeared in the White House briefing room to announce that his deputies had reached a deal. The hostages would be freed.
In a final poke at Carter, the Iranians did not formally release the Americans until just after Reagan’s term began, meaning it was the new president who announced at his inaugural luncheon that the hostages had exited Iranian airspace, and later greeted the hostages in a White House ceremony. (Adjacent to the question of whether Reagan’s rhetoric influenced the deal, Carter allies have long alleged that Reagan’s team backchanneled with the Iranians to ensure the hostages weren’t released until after Carter had been defeated. Two separate congressional investigation rejected those claims in the 1980s, although an intriguing account in the New York Times last year added fuel to the fire.)
Trump, who has long been a practitioner of the “madman theory” of diplomacy, has taken a similarly fiery approach during his transition. “If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” Trump wrote in December.
Many assumed that he was threatening Hamas — but Trump’s imminent arrival has also seemed to have the effect of pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his close ally, into accepting a deal after months of stalled negotiations. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff pressured Netanyahu to take the deal during a tense Friday meeting. Unlike the ’80s, when only Carter’s team participated in Algiers, Witkoff has been on hand in Doha during the negotiations.
Unlike Reagan, who loaned Air Force One to Carter to greet the hostages when they landed in Germany — the former president called it the happiest day of his life — if a ceasefire deal is, in fact, reached as his predecessor is preparing to leave office, Trump is unlikely to be as generous about sharing credit.
Putting aside the question of credit, there’s a broader point to be made here about the state of the country — and world — as Trump enters office.
According to Bowden, during the transition, Reagan played little role in the actual hostage negotiations, wanting only for the situation to be resolved so he would have a “clean slate” upon entering office. Similarly, for months, Trump has made clear that he cares more about the war in Gaza ending by the start of his presidency than any particular outcome.
A ceasefire won’t quite give Trump a “clean slate”: big questions still remain about the future of Gaza, and whether a truce will stick. But, still — no matter whose diplomats sparked the breakthrough — the fact remains that a successful Israel-Hamas ceasefire would take one urgent crisis from the top-left to the top-right in Trump’s version of Dwight Eisenhower’s famous decision matrix as he begins his second term.
It’s not the only thing that’s been taken off his plate. While Carter left Reagan with a shaky economy, last month’s job report was much larger than expected. The unemployment rate sits at a mere 4.1%. Border crossings are down. This morning’s Consumer Price Index showed a slight uptick, to 2.9% — but, still, Biden hands the White House back to Trump with much lower inflation than the rate at which Trump, mid-pandemic, handed it to Biden.
For the second time, Trump will enter office having been left a fairly strong hand by his predecessor — one that will only be bolstered by a Gaza ceasefire. (Plus, new to this administration, this time he’s much more popular.) The question remains whether he will opt to coast on the hand he’s being given, or — as is often his wont — he will get in his own way by creating new crises and controversies.
More news to know
Pete Hegseth appeared on track to be confirmed as Defense Secretary after a Tuesday hearing where he was grilled by Democratic senators on allegations of sexual assault and his views on women in combat. His answers were met with approval from Republicans; after the hearing, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) — widely seen as the key vote — announced that she’d support him.
President Biden removed Cuba from the U.S.’ list of state sponsors of terror, a move that President-elect Trump can reverse. He also signed an executive order to bolster AI infrastructure.
Michelle Obama won’t be at Trump’s inauguration; Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg will be. The flags at the Capitol will be flown at full-staff, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced, in a one-day break from being lowered in honor of Jimmy Carter.
Kamala Harris has not invited JD Vance for a courtesy visit to the vice president’s residence.
IRS? Make that ERS. Trump announced plans to create an External Revenue Service to collect revenue from tariffs.
A bipartisan coalition teamed up to block a far-right speaker of the Texas House, while Democrats boycotted the election of a Republican House speaker in Minnesota. A legal battle is expected, as the GOP moved forward with the election despite a state official ruling that they lacked a quorum; Minnesota Republicans are expected to lose control of the chamber after a special election in two weeks.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Elon Musk.
The day ahead
President Biden will deliver his farewell address at 8 p.m. ET from the Oval Office. Vice President Harris will be in the room during the address.
The Senate will continue consideration of the Laken Riley Act, which would require federal authorities to detain undocumented migrants who are arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.
Senate committees will hold confirmation hearings for six Trump nominees: Marco Rubio (Secretary of State), Pam Bondi (Attorney General), Chris Wright (Energy Secretary), Sean Duffy (Transportation Secretary), John Ratcliffe (CIA director), and Russell Vought (OMB director).
The House will vote on the United States-Taiwan Expedited Double-Tax Relief Act, which would prevent double taxation for residents of Taiwan.
Currently, Taiwanese residents who work for American companies have to pay both Taiwanese and U.S. taxes; this bill would change that, although it would only go into effect when Taiwan does the same for U.S. residents employed by Taiwanese companies. The U.S. has the same arrangement with many of its allies.
The Supreme Court will announce opinions — potentially including its ruling in the TikTok case — and then hear arguments in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, a challenge to a Texas law that requires pornography sites to verify that users are at least 18 years old.
Unlike Reagan, who loaned Air Force One to Carter to greet the hostages when they landed in Germany — the former president called it the happiest day of his life — if a ceasefire deal is, in fact, reached as his predecessor is preparing to leave office, Trump is unlikely to be as generous about sharing credit.
This statement encapsulates the character of these three men.
Decision matrix. What decision matrix
The great Bobby Jones once said of Jack Nicklaus, “He plays a game with which I’m not familiar.”
In a similar vein Trump has a decision matrix with which no one’s familiar