President Biden's jab at President-elect Donald Trump that he could learn about "decency" from the late Jimmy Carter didn’t play well with conservatives online.
Carter died on Sunday at the age of 100 as the longest-living American president in history. When a reporter asked Biden what Trump should take from Carter's legacy, Biden replied, "Decency."
"Decency, decency, decency," Biden said. "Can you imagine Jimmy Carter walking by someone who needed something and just keep walking? Can you imagine Jimmy Carter referring to someone by the way they look or the way they talk?"
Radio host and ex-Washington Post writer Hugh Hewitt was among those who cried foul at Biden's comments.
"Is it 'decent' to have deceived the American public for years about your condition and to do so via a complicit and complacent legacy media?" Hewitt wrote on X. "The greatest cover-up in modern American political history, and the greatest media scandal as well, is still unacknowledged on the record by anyone around President Biden and by almost all legacy media figures. Their sunk costs are enormous but they won’t cut them loose and own the cover-up or the complicity."
Legal analyst Jonathan Turley contrasted Biden with Carter over the former's broken promise to not pardon his son Hunter. Carter's younger brother Billy was scrutinized for his business relationship with Libya during the Carter administration.
"Instead of showing Carter's honesty, Biden lied for years and then pardoned his own son after repeatedly denying that he would ever do so during the campaign. He pardoned his son for any crimes committed over a ten-year period, including potential crimes that many believe implicated the President himself in the multimillion influence-peddling operation," Turley wrote in a thread on X.
"Biden is one of the most INDECENT humans to ever be near the White House," radio host Joe Pagliarulo wrote on X. "He's a garbage human who enriched himself and his family through influence. It's true irony and hypocrisy to hear him talking about 'decency.'"
"We're going to all hear a lot about Jimmy Carter," Newsweek's Josh Hammer wrote. "His legacy, both in office and afterward, was not good. But Joe Biden called Carter ‘decent’—and then attacked Trump. Talk about indecency."
Animator Doug TenNapel fired off a lengthy screed on Biden's remarks, saying he'd done damage to the country with his "indecent" presidency and would have been better suited working at a gas station.
"I pray that he found faith, because that is not only his only hope for salvation, it is all of our hope. Being merely decent doesn't cut it for him or anyone else," he wrote.
JIMMY CARTER, 39TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DEAD AT 100
Trump and Carter clashed before and during his presidency, but the president-elect paid tribute to Carter on Truth Social, saying Americans owed him a "debt of gratitude" for his service.
"Those of us who have been fortunate to have served as President understand this is a very exclusive club, and only we can relate to the enormous responsibility of leading the Greatest Nation in History," Trump posted. "The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude."
Trump later wrote that although he "strongly" disagreed with Carter philosophically and politically, he realized that the former president "truly loved and respected" the U.S. and all it stands for.
Carter, who also served a term as governor of Georgia, became the first former president to ever reach the age of 100 in October. The Democrat was elected president in 1976 but was soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 re-election bid. His wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, died last year.
Fox News' Greg Wehner and Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.
