Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power,

politics and prejudices. The election is over, but the Americano never stops, and there will be a lot to talk about with the second Trump administration.

And so we'll bring you more and more Americano because judging from the feedback, that's what you guys want.

So please keep listening.

This is our last Americano of the year, an emergency one really, because we thought we should do a podcast about

the death of Jimmy Carter, President Jimmy Carter, who died aged 100 last weekend on Sunday.

And there's already been a lot of tributes and a lot of commentary from all sorts of people

across the world.

And to discuss this, I'm delighted to be joined by our political correspondent, James Heel,

who is something of a Carter expert, having written an obituary about him.

James, you regard Carter as quite a few people do,

as somebody who did more out of office than in office.

Is that right?

Yes, that's correct.

I think that certainly the post-war American presidents, he will be remembered mostly for what he did outside it, outside the White House, than inside it,

the most powerful office in the Western world.

And I think that speaks to two things, one of which was his obvious longevity.

He outlived not one but two of his obituary writers, quite the feat.

It was 43 years after he left the White House.

And second of all, to the sheer scale of his activity, I mean, just to take one example, there was a great piece in the Times in London last year about how he had committed himself in 1980 to eradicate the guinea worm,

which is a parasite. Forty years ago, that was infecting a million people across the world,

horrible, horribleties. Last year, it was just four people were infected. So he's basically

...