Jimmy Carter was the first American president to be born in a hospital. At midnight tonight, he’ll mark a new milestone as the oldest living former president ever.
At 94 years and 172 days old, Carter will have passed the previous record held by the late President George H.W. Bush.
“He and Mrs. Carter take walks, and they have followed a healthy diet for a lifetime,” said Deanna Congileo, a spokeswoman for the Carter Center. “Both President and Mrs. Carter are both determined to use their influence for as long as they can to make the world a better place, and millions of the world’s poorest people are grateful for their resolve and heart.”
Just a few former presidents have lived past the 90-year mark, including former President Ronald Reagan, Carter’s successor, who lived to be 93.
The Carter Center, the former president’s human rights and anti-poverty organization, has benefited millions of the world’s poorest people.
The Carter’s have also remained active supporters of Habitat for Humanity, the nation’s most prominent housing charity, since leaving the White House and announced last year that they planned to join the organization for volunteer work in Nashville later in 2019.
“President and Mrs. Carter know the cause of affordable housing is only becoming more urgent, and so we are so grateful they will once again mobilize hundreds of hands and thousands more voices to this cause,” said the organization’s CEO, Jonathan Reckford, in a press release last year.
“Through the 2019 Carter Work Project, President and Mrs. Carter will shine the light on not only Nashville, but our country’s struggle to address the real challenges facing the families who cannot afford safe and decent housing in their communities,” Reckford added.
Volunteers who have worked with the Carters told Habitat for Humanity that the two have an unstoppable work ethic.
“After 35 years, no one would question if President and Mrs. Carter wanted to take a break from the build site. But the words ‘Carter’ and ‘retire’ aren’t even in the same vocabulary,” Trisha Yearwood, a Habitat for Humanity volunteer, told the organization last year.
Carter — who once brokered a nuclear agreement with Kim Jong Un’s grandfather in the 1990s — has also offered to travel to North Korea to try and break President Trump’s deadlock with the North Korean dictator.
The normally reserved ex-president has challenged Trump, saying that he would “change all of the policies” Trump has instituted if he could, and describing his presidency as a “disaster.”