Donald Trump hasn't always given the impression that the previous incumbents of his office have much to teach him - witness that painting where it looks like all the Republican presidents are laughing at his jokes over a poker game - but it seems that he's turned a corner.

Trump apparently received a "beautiful letter" about trading relations with China from former president Jimmy Carter and the two chatted, prez-to-prez, on the phone on Sunday. A White House statement released yesterday was very warm: "The President has always liked President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter, and extended his best wishes to them on behalf of the American people."

Which is nice, isn't it? Humble, respectful, affectionate. The exact opposite, basically, to how Trump has treated Jimmy Carter for the last decade or so.

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Former President Jimmy Carter is so happy that he is no longer considered the worst President in the history of the United States! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2013

Trump tweeted in 2013 that Barack Obama's time as president would leave Carter "so happy that he is no longer considered the worst president in the history of the United States," which might have been news to the ghosts of Millard Fillmore (responsible in part for the Civil War because he was too meek), James Buchanan (described by a biographer as the man who "came closer to committing treason than any other president in American history") and Warren G Harding (once said, "I am not fit for this office and should never have been here").

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Then there was that other tweet in 2014: "Of course I don’t think Jimmy Carter is dead - saw him today on TV. Just being sarcastic, but never thought he was alive as President, stiff!"

There were other attacks too. "Obama has been truly, you could say one of, but I think you could almost say I think he has now superseded Jimmy Carter as the worst president in the history of this country," Trump told Sean Hannity in 2016. He worked in a similar dig during a chat in 2014 with Howard Stern about how Barack Obama's method of walking down stairs was unpresidential. Normal chat.

"I don't think he should be running down the stairs, I mean he's bouncing, and running down the stairs," Trump said. "And I don't think it looks very 'Presidential'. But of course, he knows it's not, you know, but he's not much of a President. Look, he is making the happiest person about President Obama, and his Presidency is Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter is no longer the worst president ever."

Carter's been far more measured on Trump, though when Stephen Colbert asked him in March 2018 whether he'd been too nice to be president, and whether America actually wanted "kind of a jerk" in the White House, he replied: "Apparently, from this recent election year. I never knew it before."

He's probably best known in the UK for his peanut farming and starting a speech in Newcastle on his first overseas trip as president with "Howay the lads", and is very much not dead. He's 94 and, since George HW Bush died, he's the oldest living president and has had a bit of a reappraisal over the last few years.

A 2017 poll of presidential experts by C-SPAN ranked Carter highly for his work on equality, his vision and his moral authority, which obviously are far less important than his ability to lob completely unwanted advice into conversations about how to save 12th century French cathedrals from destruction by fire.

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So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019

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