Former president Jimmy Carter, 99, turned to his son several weeks ago as he watched President Joe Biden, 81, announce that he was passing the torch to a younger generation and said softly, \u201cThat\u2019s sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carter and Biden are friends and share much in common as members of the elite group elected to the White House. Biden is the oldest to ever serve and Carter has outlived all others. Neither went to Harvard or Yale. Biden is the son of a used-car salesman and Carter\u2019s father ran a peanut farm. Now, both will be one-term presidents.<\/p>\n
Carter has been in hospice for 18 months, and his health slipped further after his wife, Rosalynn, died in November, two members of his family said. But recently, as the former president\u2019s 100th birthday approaches on Oct. 1, he is talking more, asking about the fast-changing 2024 presidential campaign and delighting in the momentum behind Vice President Kamala Harris, the new Democratic nominee. He is even eating mini cupcakes \u2014 red velvet and caramel are his favorites.<\/p>\n
James Earl \u201cChip\u201d Carter III said in an interview with The Washington Post that his father spent days watching all of the speeches from the Democratic National Convention last month that he recorded for him. \u201cHe thought Michelle Obama was the best, and he thought Kamala was great, too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For Carter\u2019s birthday next month, a concert in Atlanta, a 100-mile bike ride near his hometown of Plains, Ga., and other events are planned. But when Chip Carter told his father that many people believe he is trying to stay alive to reach his birthday, \u201cHe said he didn\u2019t care about that. It\u2019s just a birthday. He said he cared about voting for Kamala Harris.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carter\u2019s state of Georgia is critical to the November election. Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020 by less than 1 percent of the vote in the state, and Carter\u2019s family said he can\u2019t wait to cast his mail-in ballot for Harris.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe does not believe Donald Trump should be president again,\u201d Chip Carter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll never lie to you,\u201d Carter famously promised in his 1976 campaign that followed Richard M. Nixon\u2019s lies about his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Carter has said one of the many things that upsets him about Trump is that he does not tell the truth. Fact-checkers at numerous media outlets have documented Trump\u2019s many falsehoods, including the lie that Biden stole the election from him in 2020.<\/p>\n
Trump has long derided Jimmy Carter as the worst president in history, and more recently has said he thinks Biden may be worse. After losing his reelection bid to Ronald Reagan in 1980, Carter began a post-presidency of humanitarian work. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote democracy, human rights and better health worldwide.<\/p>\n
Though his vital signs are good and he is eating well, Carter remains very weak and some days are better than others, his family said. He needs a wheelchair to get around.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter my grandmother passed, he had a pretty long low period when he wasn\u2019t really engaging much at all,\u201d said Jason Carter, his eldest grandchild. \u201cBut now he\u2019s talking about politics again.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Aug. 18, Rosalynn\u2019s birthday, the former president was brought to her grave at the edge of a pond in front of their home.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was looking at her tombstone and I started talking, and he told me to be quiet,\u201d Chip Carter said. For about 20 minutes, his father sat in silence looking at where his wife of 77 years was buried last year. \u201cNo doubt he was praying, but he could have been just having a conversation with Mom,\u201d Chip Carter said.<\/p>\n
The next day, the Democratic convention started and Carter began tuning in to the presidential race. He had been shielded from TV news, especially reports about the Israel-Gaza war, for fear it would upset him.<\/p>\n
Carter had brokered the 1978 Camp David Accords, a historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Earlier this summer, Chip Carter said his father was worried about how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was handling the war and told him, \u201cI hope Joe [Biden] doesn\u2019t let Netanyahu bring him down,\u201d noting that he believes Netanyahu supports Trump.<\/p>\n
So until recently, Carter\u2019s TV often had been turned to baseball games and the wholesome 1950s sitcom \u201cLeave It to Beaver.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Chip started playing the Democratic National Convention campaign speeches. \u201cIt took most of the day to watch the convention session from the night before with some breaks,\u201d he said. His father was captivated, commenting on the speeches and saying how well Hillary and Bill Clinton, Obama and others did. \u201cHe is big time interested in this campaign,\u201d his son said.<\/p>\n
Jason Carter said Harris\u2019s vice-presidential pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, \u201chas some Jimmy Carter vibes.\u201d Walz is the first person on a Democratic ticket who did not attend law school since Carter. Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. Walz earned a graduate degree in education at the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Carter, who has a long record of promoting women and African Americans, wants to live to see Harris elected. During his 1977-1981 administration, Carter appointed the first Black woman ever to serve in the Cabinet, Patricia Roberts Harris, who served as secretary of housing and urban development.<\/p>\n
Carter enjoys hearing updates about the family farm, where 1,400 acres of longleaf pines were recently planted. He smiles when he hears about Habitat for Humanity. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter for years led home-building efforts with the group, and to mark his birthday, country music stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, friends of the Carters, will lead a project to build 30 homes in St. Paul, Minn.<\/p>\n
His family and the Carter Center in Atlanta have scheduled several events to honor the landmark birthday, including a Sept. 17 concert of pop, rock, country, jazz, hip-hop and classical music by Chuck Leavell, D-Nice, Drive-By Truckers, Maren Morris, Carlene Carter, the B-52\u2019s and other artists. It will also feature former Atlanta Braves star Dale Murphy, rapper Killer Mike and actors Sean Penn and Ren\u00e9e Zellweger.<\/p>\n
Carter still has very difficult days, and no one is sure how long he will live and what keeps him going.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really don\u2019t know what to make of it,\u201d Jason Carter said. \u201cI really think at this point he has given up his thought of being in control. I think he is waiting for God\u2019s plan to run its course.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former president Jimmy Carter, 99, turned to his son several weeks ago as he watched President Joe Biden, 81, announce that he was passing the torch to a younger generation and said softly, \u201cThat\u2019s sad.\u201d Carter and Biden are friends and share much in common as members of the elite group elected to the White […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}