Introduced to you all before. Im going to use a prop to introduce my grandfather to you in a unique way, for the first time ever. Hold on. [laughter] [applause] jason i would like to introduce you to jonathans greatgrandfather. [laughter] jason how is that, buddy . [applause] is the easiest applause line of the whole day. In all seriousness, we are thrilled that you are here. We are excited that you have devoted your life to human rights and all of us are doing our very best to ensure that incredible legacy on this particular issue is preserved forever. So thank you very much, and welcome president carter. [applause] jason jonathans greatgrandfather. Next, another person who needs no introduction, is the 42nd Vice President of the United States. He served with my favorite president of all time. [laughter] i think you could see, even this morning at breakfast, the relationship these two great leaders have is one unique in history. They have an enormous amount of respect for each other. [applause] jason the fact that they are getting to hang out today is a treat for both of them, i know. Thank you very much for that. Karen ryan is the Senior Advisor for human rights and special representative on womens and girls at the Carter Center. She has been at the Carter Center in various aspects since 1988, assisting on human rights issues. Human rights has been the heart and soul of the Carter Center, respects, and karen has been the heart and soul of the human rights endeavor here the whole time. So it is a giant treat to have karen here, and i know you have heard from her before. We are also blessed to have john meacham here, who is a pulitzer prizewinning biographer, contributor to the New York Times book review. He is a professor at Vanderbilt University from chattanooga. Many of you may not know that there is a significant border dispute between georgia and tennessee, but we are pleased he that, today at least, he is from north georgia. [laughter] [applause] dr. Meacham you are obviously not running this year. Jason i am not running in tennessee, thats for sure. [laughter] jason his project, battle for the better angels, that project may be better than introducing you to them, i will introduce them to you, which is to say this is a group of people who share your desire to find out what it is and to remember what it is that our country is based on, and that goal is real, and we believe that the Carter Center has a special place there of course. My grandfather has been a part peering, and has been into the heart and soul of the country and into human rights. He is ready for the spotlight again. That is what he wants. We are going to have a panel discussion, but as an introduction, there is a video we will show very briefly that highlights the work of the human center. The Carter Center has done is not best to focus on ideals only but supportive practice and those who are on the ground every day, day in and theirt among fighting for human rights and communities, and i think these examples are remarkable ones. I will show the video briefly, and then john meacham will the rest of the rest of the panel. There will be time for questions. Once we get there, we will let them go for a wild, and then we will cut them off after we have had too many questions. How about that . First, the video. I am excited about the panel. [applause] [video clip] ]heroes playing [applause] dr. Meacham thank you all as a tennessean here, i am the diversity. [laughter] dr. Meacham i appreciate it very much, but i think we should all be honest that the only reason we are here is because of mrs. Carter. So thank you. [applause] dr. Meacham i know its the only reason you got this far. [laughs] dr. Meacham i want to start with a little bit of whats happening right now. Im interested, mr. President , in your views at whats happening at the u. S. Mexico border with the family separation, and your reaction to what we are seeing there and what you think ordinary americans can do about it. Mr. Carter well, every day, we send a disgraceful signal around the world that this is what the president and the United States government stands for, and that is torture and kidnapping of those children, separation from their parents, and deprivation of those who are incarcerated, and there are thousands of unknown children still incarcerated that has not been revealed by the government. I think what i. C. E. Is doing under the direct orders of the president is a disgrace to the United States, and i hope it will soon be ended, maybe not until 2020 elections. Im not sure. Even then, i hope it will end as we change president s. Dr. Meacham would it be basic political activism that you would advise to people worried about it . Should they just try to change the president . I think if everyone in the United States would take the same position for human rights, the basic measurement of how governments are performing, that would be the best thing to do. What we would do is apply human rights in the finest and most precise way we can, and as fulfilling as we can, to comply with the universal declaration as as is humanly possible. If you apply the basic human rights standards to every instance that happens in diplomacy and everyday life, that would be the best thing for the United States to do, and i hope all americans will take this on. Dr. Meacham what would a cartermondale administration how will the administration have reacted to the murder by saudi arabia of Jamal Khashoggi . Mr. Carter i hope we would have, and i believe we would have demanded a complete accounting about how high up the orders came from concerning the direct murder of khashoggi. As you know, they sent about 15 khashoggi was destined to be, and apparently they killed him and cut him up in little pieces and buried him in an unknown place. That could only have been done under the orders from some of the highest people in the government of saudi arabia. I would demand an accounting for that. When i was president , we tried to put human rights as a measuring stick in every incidence. We didnt always succeed, but thats what our effort was. Mr. Meacham one more off the top of the news and then we will dive in. Russia has been proven by our Intelligence Community to have interfered with one of our human rights, which is the right of free and fair elections. What is your reaction . How should we deal with russia . Mr. Carter the president himself should condemn it and admit it happened, which 16 intelligence agencies have already agreed. There is no doubt the russians interfered in the election. I think the interference, though not yet quantified, would show president ial lost the election in 2016. He was put into office because the russians interfered on his behalf. Mr. Meacham you believe President Trump is an illegitimate president . [laughter] mr. Carter based on what i just said which i cannot retract. [laughter] [applause] mr. Meacham having made news [laughter] lets talk about Eleanor Roosevelt. [laughter] which, to me, is news. Talk about your interest in human rights. Given both your background in the segregated south and your International Experience in the navy, heading into your public career. Mr. Carter i grew up in a Little Village in georgia, which had about 50 families. Farm families. My family was the only one that was white. All the rest of them were africanamerican. I grew up completely immersed in africanamerican culture, black culture. I can say as a little child i could see that there was a great differentiation between white and black. My mother was a registered nurse and never paid any attention to racial distinctions. She treated everyone the same. She was part of the medical establishment in plains, so she was impervious to condemnation or criticism. I grew up in that environment and later i became chairman of the board of education in our county. I demanded that the other Board Members go with me to visit all the schools. We found that the black kids were going to school as close as they could to where they live because they did not have school buses. White kids had school buses, but black kids didnt. The africanamerican kids got the handmedown worn out textbooks and inferior schools. Later on the board of education i insisted that africanamericans get school buses too. So when they finally got a few school buses, they painted the fenders of a bus carrying black children back so that everyone would know this was being done in a segregated way. So thats how i grew up. It was a culture that was completely segregated. I went into the navy when i was 18 years old. I went to georgia tech at naval rotc and i eventually got into submarines. I was in the submarine force in 1948. Harry truman was commanderinchief and president and who i still think of the best president who has lived in my own lifetime. Anyway, harry truman ordained that racial segregation be abolished in all the military forces and in the civil service. It went into effect because he was commanderinchief and he commanded it. Because of that, i saw a very easy transition on my submarine and other ships around me and how much benefit it brought to everybody and the attitude toward one another, treating fellow citizens and fellow navy men and officers equally. That was a very good test seven or eight years before Martin Luther king jr. Became famous or rosa parks sat in the front seat of a bus. Harry truman was the one that broke the ice and started the desegregation of america. Mr. Meacham your religious upbringing must have been essential. Mr. Carter it was. I grew up also immersed in a church in plains, a baptist church. My father was a sunday School Teacher and we went through many parts of the bible. Particularly the sermon on the mount and the chapter of matthew. Jesus spells out the essence of what is presently known as universal human rights. He spelled out the proper relationship between the powerful and the weak, between the jews and gentiles, between men and women, and he said everybody should be treated equally. That was the foundation of what Eleanor Roosevelt later did and it evolved into the universal declaration of human rights. There are times in Human History where the United States has gone through all the basic measure of revisions and struck at the essence of the primary moral and ethical values are and put them together in lay terms, but also semilegal terms, was in the development of the declaration of human rights. That has never happened before or since in history. I am afraid that they are basically being abandoned in many ways around the world. The Carter Center is fighting against that abandonment every day. Mr. Meacham when you were running for president in 1975 and 1976, did you know that the human rights agenda would be as central to you if you got there . President carter i did. I would say when i became president , during my term, there was a general sigh of relief in america that finally we have resolved the race issue, we have gotten over years of slavery and 100 years of official and legal discrimination by white people against black people. We kind of breathed a sigh of relief, but lately, with developments in the white house and other places, its become a very burning issue again. There is a great deal of discrimination and racial animosity that is evolving and coming to the forefront again. One of the demonstrations of that is not only between africanamericans and white people. We have seen that on television lately. For a long time, as a matter of fact, but also at the border. We assume someone trying to come to our country like my grandparents did many years ago is inferior to those who are longestablished here like i am. That discrimination against newcomers to our country is another indication of a serious human rights mistake in our country that is being promulgated worldwide. Every country on earth. The United States doesnt stand anymore for human rights. We are opposed to some basic human rights, openly, without being embarrassed about it. Mr. Meacham one of the things you hear, and i agree with as well is when people say about the current moment, this is not who we are. It kind of is. Right . This perennial tension, we are southerners. Faulkner was right, the past is never dead. It is not even past. And i look at your work, army on the right side in this perennial struggle between our better angels and worst instincts. But its never on this side of paradise going to be resolved. Is it fair to think is there a benefit to the country to our being more honest about our worst instincts . That racism and xenophobia and isolationism and nativism are parts of the american character . And our struggle is to make them ebb as opposed to flow . Mr. Carter that certainly is part of our political situation. The fact is that in the past, overcoming slavery and overcoming Racial Discrimination of 400 years after slavery was officially abolished is a way for the United States to correct its longstanding mistakes. Sometimes, its not easy to do it, to face altercation in our country. Luckily, this time, instead of having a civil war, we are having a war of political factions. I would say in general, the Democratic Party is now standing on the side of presenting the finest aspect of American Civil Rights is to the world, and i hope our party will continue to show that everybody in the United States and around the world is equal to everybody else, not only in the eyes of human beings but also in the eyes of god. Mr. Meacham mr. Vice president , can i ask you we talked about 1948, which in many ways is a huge Inflection Point in the formation of the human rights question. You have the declaration with mrs. Roosevelt, you had the break up of the Democratic Party fellow minnesotan and said the party had to walk out of the shadows into the sunlight of civil rights, which sent Strom Thurmond back to the south pretty fast. Can you talk about your upbringing in minnesota and how you were shaped in these questions, and when you signed in with president carter, did you know this was a lifetime gig . [laughter] mr. Mondale i do now. [applause] mr. Mondale our upbringings were different. There were a lot of similarities. My dad was a farmer and a minister. He was a devout methodist. He would give three sermons every sunday morning. Mr. Meacham three . Mr. Mondale in these little towns and i would go to sunday school, wednesday night prayer dinner, and then i would sweep and cleanup the church. That was my religious leadership. [laughter] mr. Meacham wasnt bad preparation for the vice presidency. [laughter] mr. Mondale yes, i was sweeping around there. Youre not being helpful. [laughter] mr. Meacham i will be quiet now. Mr. Mondale one of the things that i found most impressive about our years together was how much our backgrounds suited us to work together, even with out anybody briefing us. I think even though carters background from the south was different, in fundamental ways it was very similar. We had 125 years without a southern president until jimmy carter. The difference was, he stood for civil rights. And one of the great contributions to human rights in our country and in the world was his personal courage in the small town in southern georgia, standing up for civil rights when it was not the thing to do. Then going into the white house and speaking up for human rights and filling in the blanks of what america should do as the leader in the world of human rights. It was my privilege over those four years to try to work with the president as he led us in this remarkable direction, which set a precedent, which is not perfectly complied with today, but it made a difference which still has a big effect in the world. Mr. Meacham when you think back, is there an example or two you would point to or a case study about how we should be doing this . Mr. Mondale i thought the boat people issue was a good example of human rights leadership. The vietnamese communist government decided to push their citizens of chinese ethnic origin out to sea on seaworthy boats. Many of them lost their lives as a result. President carter tried to intervene in a positive way to provide an alternative for these boat people to live a decent life. Mr. Carter we were trying to admit 12,000 per month of the refugees, you might say, from the vietnam war. Mr. Mondale yes. [applause] mr. Mondale a lot of them were drowning at sea and we got the navy to go out and pick these people up. It wasnt a very popular thing at the time, but i think it proved to be a great step forward. The first thing these poor people in the boat saw was the American Navy trying to help them and save their lives and set them on a new way. I dont think they will ever get over that. That was carters leadership. [applause] mr. Meacham when you went up to the hill to talk to your former colleagues about these kind of issues, did they get it . Mr. Mondale some of them did, and some of them still havent gotten it. [laughter] mr. Mondale we had to work on it, but we have pretty good support on the hill, i would say in both parties. As one of the positive positive memories i have of that time, we spent a lot of time the main thing is that senators are afraid of it. They say, you are right and i know youre right, but ive got to get elected and this will not be very popular. I remember we got some of them. I can remember a couple of them said im going to vote for you, but im going to lose the election and i want president carter to put me on the federal bench afterwards. [laughter] mr. Meacham so the jobs broker. Mr. Mondale yeah. Mr. Carter and a lot of them voted for us and lost. Mr. Mondale i think five of them lost their seats voting for this. Mr. Meacham what about latin america . South america . Mr. Mondale i