Former President Carter turned a century old on Tuesday, Oct. 1, after spending more than 19 months in hospice care
Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty, Jessica McGowan/Getty
Donald Trump, left, criticized Jimmy Carter, right, on the 39th president of the United States’ milestone 100th birthday
Donald Trump mocked fellow former President Jimmy Carter during a campaign speech on his predecessor’s historic 100th birthday.
Trump, 78, brought up the 39th president of the U.S. while speaking at a manufacturing facility in Waunakee, Wis., on Tuesday, Oct. 1, according to PBS.
After calling President Joe Biden the worst president in U.S. history, Trump told the crowd, “Jimmy Carter is the happiest man because Jimmy Carter is considered a brilliant president by comparison,” according to The Daily Beast and USA Today.
Carter, a Democrat, was a one-term president from 1977 to 1981. He was defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in his 1980 reelection bid.
Trump’s comment about the Carter legacy was made as other Republican leaders put aside partisanship to honor the longest-living president’s centennial birthday, which came more than 19 months after he entered hospice care in February 2023.
Carter has been critical of Trump in the past. During a 2018 interview with CBS News, he claimed that Trump was “very careless with the truth,” a notion also raised in an interview with The Washington Post that same year.
“I think he’s a disaster … In human rights and in treating people equal,” Carter said at the time, before former first lady Rosalynn Carter — who died in November 2023 — chimed in.
“The worst is that he is not telling the truth, and that just hurts everything,” she added.
Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, recently told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his grandfather hopes to live long enough to cast his vote in this year’s presidential election.
“I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris,” President Carter reportedly told loved ones.
Early voting in Georgia, where Carter lives, opens on Oct. 15 for the Nov. 5 election, and absentee ballots are sent out up to 29 days before the election. Georgia does not have any laws prohibiting a ballot from being counted if someone dies between the early voting period and Election Day.
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Carter is currently the oldest living former president and longest-living president in U.S. history.
Trump is currently the oldest presidential nominee in U.S. history and the second-oldest person to be sworn in as president, behind Biden.
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