Jimmy Carter hasn’t made any secret of it: He wants to see Guinea worm disease wiped out in his lifetime.
On Wednesday, he got a big assist as Britain said it would provide £4.5 million (about $6.5 million) in new support for the Atlanta-based Carter Center's Guinea Worm Eradication Program. That announcement came just hours before the former president got the rare opportunity to deliver a lecture in the House of Lords in London.
As for the "almost completely unpredictable" Republican race, Carter said he had a feeling Donald Trump would fade "When people actually get ready to put on a ballot, 'This is the person I want to lead me for the next four or eight years.'"
Still, better Trump than Ted Cruz.
Carter spoke in the same room where the Queen dons her crown and ceremonial robes before entering the House of Lords. International politicians sometimes are invited to address Parliament (including President Barack Obama in 2011), "but that is usually part of a wider visit to the UK," the House of Lords press office said.
“It’s a rare thing for a foreigner to do,” Carter said in a phone interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from London on Tuesday.
But given the current intense focus on diseases like Ebola and Zika, this particular speaker — and his message — may have shown up at just the right time.
“A lot of people don’t think foreign aid helps anything, but it helps prevent our own people from getting diseases,” Carter said in the interview, previewing a key point he made in his lecture. “It’s time consuming and a little bit costly now, but in the long term, it’s a good investment.”
The ex-president turned deeply personal near the end of his address, telling his rapt audience, “My prayer has been that I will live longer than the last Guinea worm.” The initial laughter that greeted that remark quickly turned into thunderous applause as Carter added, “My doctors tell me, by the way, that the treatment I’m getting is making the cancer disappear in my liver and my brain.”
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