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Jimmy Carter in July 2021
Photo: POOL / REUTERS
As recently as March, the Carter Center announced that Jimmy Carter was receiving palliative care at home. Since then, it has become quiet around the 39th US president. Now the grandson has commented on the state of health. Hugo Wentzel told the US magazine »Entertainment Weekly« that his grandfather was very ill. At the same time, however, he still uses his brain. "He listens to audio books. He's a genius, he's so smart. I love him. He always wants to do something with his mind, so he tries to keep himself busy."
According to Wentzel, he is cared for in particular by Amy Carter, Carter's 55-year-old daughter. "My mother spends a lot of her time with him. She now takes care of him for almost half of her time," says Wentzel. He himself can hardly see the 98-year-old, but he knows "that I love him and that we support him at this time".
Wentzel also talks about his grandmother, Rosalynn Carter, in the interview. The now 95-year-old, who suffers from dementia, sometimes forgets what is happening around her. "But when she remembers, it's great. I love them," says Wentzel.
Replaced after only one term of office
Carter, a Democrat, became the 39th president of the United States when he defeated incumbent President Gerald R. Ford in 1976. He was in office for only one term and was replaced by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1981.
In August 2015, Carter had a small cancerous tumor removed from his liver. The following year, Carter announced that he did not need further treatment because an experimental drug had eliminated any signs of cancer.
Carter celebrated his last birthday in October with family and friends in Plains, the small town in Georgia where he and his wife were born between World War I and the Great Depression.
Along with Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Carter is one of five surviving ex-US presidents. On October 1, he will be 99 years old.
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