Rosalynn Carter

And that's why this is not working.

So we're gonna reverse this and bring back the skills, the awareness, the perspective, to bring it back into communities, to bring it back to the family level, and to say, how do we show up for each other? So you are gonna find yourself, as Rosalynn Carter says, that there's only four types of people in the world, period.

Ones that are caregivers, ones that will be caregivers, ones who will need a caregiver, And ones that I'm sorry, I want to have that quote.

It's so good.

So, yeah, he would have been...

And then the fundraising event in Chicago where there's a photo of this person with First Lady Rosalynn Carter is John Wayne Gacy.

I didn't know if

that was too obvious.

He was like a well-to-do guy.

He has a pic- he, he had his picture taken with the First Lady, Rosalynn Carter.

Oh my gosh.

Anyway, but he was murdering-

Betty Ford wasn't perfect, but she never claimed to be, and that authenticity might have been her greatest contribution to American public life.

Rosalynn Carter, the mental health policy partner.

Rosalynn Carter didn't just advise Jimmy.

She participated in governance with a directness that made some people uncomfortable and that set a new precedent for first lady involvement in policy.

Rosalynn attended cabinet meetings, not occasionally or symbolically, but regularly, sitting in and listening and sometimes contributing.

Some people found this troubling, but others saw it as a model of genuine partnership of two intelligent people working together toward shared goals.

After they left the White House in nineteen eighty-one, Rosalynn continued mental health advocacy through the Carter Center, which she and Jimmy founded in nineteen eighty-two.

She established the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, worked to reduce stigma around mental illness, and promoted policy reforms.

the presidential prayer breakfast, this was a sort of amazing little thing, and you may have seen it on, on, uh, YouTube 'cause it's fairly famous for Sheen lore.

It was, um, Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter were sitting there and, uh, other dignitaries had come to sitting at the high table.

And Sheen starts out and he says, "Mr.

President, you are a sinner." Pause.

Vaccinate Your Family was founded in 1991 as Every Child by Two in response to a measles epidemic that sickened tens of thousands of Americans.

Amy joined the organization in 1996 and worked closely with its legendary co-founders, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and former Arkansas First Lady Betty Bumpers.

30 years later, she's leading this organization as the country once again confronts serious measles outbreaks and declining vaccination rates.

Second, Amy has helped shape immunization policy at the national level.

That is so cool.

I mean, you sort of shared a little bit of something you learned from First Lady of Arkansas, Betty Bumpers.

But I wonder just, you know, before we get into sort of your own strategies of influence, working with both her and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter.

What are some of the things that you learned from them? Can you kind of bring us into experiences that you may have had on the road or in communities? Just love to know a little bit more about what they taught you about earning trust and moving people to action that might still stick with you today.

She turned the annual White House Christmas decoration process into a well-oiled machine, which meant future first ladies would have a framework to build on rather than having to reinvent everything every November.

The first ladies who came after, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, they each added their own touches.

Pat Nixon was the first to open the White House for candlelight Christmas tours in the evenings, which was lovely but also meant the staff had to work even longer hours during an already exhausting season.

Betty Ford emphasized handmade ornaments from all fifty states.

Rosalynn Carter continued Lady Bird’s focus on American crafts and involved her staff in the decorating process rather than just hiring professional designers.

Nancy Reagan, first lady from nineteen eighty-one to nineteen eighty-nine, went big.

Very big.