President Donald Trump routinely seeks to define his legacy against his predecessors, but his own experience with the Iran war is drawing uncomfortable comparisons with one of his favorite subjects: the 39th president of the United States.
Trump has often quipped that former President Jimmy Carter was the worst president in American history. Carter was plagued by an Iran hostage crisis, stagflation and an oil shock that sent gas prices soaring — all of which contributed to his defeat in 1980.
At rallies and in interviews over the past decade, Trump depicted Carter as a weak leader whose inability to swiftly resolve an Iranian conflict stained his presidential legacy.
Six months into his war with Iran, Trump is facing a similar risk. Negotiations have stalled. Iran is absorbing the Trump administration’s military attacks and brushing off its threats of economic warfare. And this time, Iran is holding hostage the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting oil traffic through the vital waterway and driving up gasoline prices for Americans.
In both 1980 and today, Iran seems aware of its leverage ahead of a pivotal U.S. election. While Trump says the Strait of Hormuz is open, Iran insists it will constrain traffic — despite its own agreement with Oman over transit routes — until the U.S. accepts its wider set of conditions.
As a result of his predicament, Trump’s private tone about Carter has shifted, three people close to the president said.
Trump “relates to Carter right now more than he ever has before,” said a person familiar with Trump’s thinking.
“It’s not to say he’s more of a fan of Carter, but the past six months have been evidence that dealing with Iran feels like an impossible task,” this person said. “He certainly feels some of Carter’s pain there.”
Two other people familiar with Trump’s thinking, also granted anonymity to share details from personal conversations, said Carter seems to loom large in the current president’s mind. Carter’s legacy is one that Trump has long criticized and is dead set on avoiding, one of the people said.
An Iran crisis ahead of an election
In 1980, Carter confronted a hostage crisis as 52 Americans were held captive at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The 444-day standoff stood out as a painful national emergency, dominating headlines and ultimately undermining Carter’s presidency.
Carter’s attempted rescue mission, Operation Eagle Claw, failed when two U.S. aircraft collided, killing eight servicemen. That period of Carter’s presidency and its defining effect on his legacy appears to be a point of fixation for Trump.
At the start of the war, Trump acknowledged that Carter’s handling of Iran cost him the next election.
“If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter, also with Iran, but if you look at what happened with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump said.
Later, in July, Trump was asked why the U.S. hadn’t crossed the metaphorical military barrier of boots on the ground in Iran, sending special forces into Iran to retrieve and remove enriched uranium.
“I didn’t feel like being Jimmy Carter,” Trump said.
The comments — acknowledging political consequences from an unpopular war — stand out from Trump’s usual defiant rhetoric, particularly as Republicans risk losing control of Congress in November.
“Trump’s not on the ballot himself, but a Democrat majority in Congress looks pretty different than how things are right now, and Trump knows that,” one of the people familiar with Trump’s thinking said.
Trump’s long-standing fixation with Carter’s legacy
Just about every Trump campaign rally in the runup to the 2024 election featured a turn of phrase that degraded Carter — his handling of Iran, his transferring control of the Panama Canal and his weak economy.
The president regularly quipped that Carter was happy former President Joe Biden was elected, making his presidency not look so bad. Trump continued the remarks with Carter in hospice care for nearly two years before his eventual passing.
Part of Trump’s fixation with Carter aligns with a worldview pegged to the late 1970s and 1980s, a period Trump often seems to revisit and aggrandize. At that time, Trump was depicting himself as a “King of New York” type with Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue opening in 1983 and a boisterous real-estate reputation before his string of bankruptcies.
Today, Trump is focused squarely on building his legacy as one of history’s great presidents — part of what motivated him to attack Iran six months ago in a bid to spark regime change.
“Trump’s most definitive moments are playing out as we speak,” said a former White House official familiar with Trump’s thinking. “He’s locked on personal legacy and shaping it in a way other presidents haven’t been before.”
Carter reshaped his legacy through his postpresidential endeavors: worldwide election monitoring in fragile democracies, partnerships with Habitat for Humanity and decades of international conflict resolution.
His human rights advocacy eventually led to a Nobel Peace Prize — something Trump has actively campaigned for but never won.
When Carter left office, he was 56 years old. Trump will be 82 when his second term ends, leaving a short window for postpresidential endeavors — and making the outcome of his war in Iran a key part of his legacy.
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