“Unfortunately, the answer is no,” Carter said when asked by NBC’S Andrea Mitchell in an exclusive interview whether the current inhabitant of the White House calls him, adding that former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan asked for his help with diplomacy when dealing with “unsavory characters.”

Saying that it is difficult to explain “with complete candor” why the two men don’t have a closer relationship, he noted that the nonprofit Carter Center’s positions on the Middle East may be the source of the tension.

“I think the problem was that — in dealing with the issue of peace in between Israel and Egypt — the Carter Center has taken a very strong and public position of equal treatment between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And I think this was a sensitive area in which the president didn’t want to be involved,” he said.