Hello and welcome to This Day, a history podcast from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, April 1, 1979, on the White House lawn, President Jimmy Carter staged a final showdown

with the so-called Killer Rabbit. We've talked on this show about that bizarre news story in which Carter was paddling his canoe

about a year earlier and was confronted by a rabbit that was swimming towards him,

and the press loved that story.

There were cartoons and jokes and it kind of turned into a punchline, Jimmy versus the swamp rabbit.

Well, this is the follow-up to that when Carter, sick of all the jokes,

brought a huge rabbit to the White House and in front of the press pool, chased it around on the

White House lawn. They scuffled for a bit, wrestling on the ground. The rabbit got a few bites and

scratches in, but eventually Carter prevailed. He pinned it down, tied it up, and held it triumphantly aloft in front of the

assembled press. Quite the spectacle. And here to discuss Carter's act of rabbit vengeance are, as

always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wesley. Hello there.

Hello, Jody. Hey there. We promised you all more animal stories.

And this is one that I actually kind of can't believe we haven't covered yet.

It really is on par with Eisenhower and those squirrels.

Remember that Eisenhower tortured those squirrels?

Yeah.

Carter tortured rodents after Eisenhower did.

Take that, you pesky rabbit.

All right.

Do you think they bought it, folks?

No.

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