Former President Jimmy Carter honored at state funeral; Biden gives eulogy at rare gathering of presidents
WASHINGTON (KTVZ) -- Former President Jimmy Carter was honored at a state funeral Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral.
Carter died December 29 at the age of 100. People were able to pay their respects this week at the US Capitol Rotunda, where Carter had been lying in state.
President Joe Biden declared Thursday as a National Day of Mourning, and he delivered a eulogy at the funeral. President-elect Donald Trump was in attendance, as were former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Tributes to the former president praised him as an honest man who was a leader ahead of his time.
Carter’s casket will be taken back to Georgia, where he will be laid to rest in his hometown of Plains at the same location where his wife, Rosalynn, was buried last year.
The 39th president, who died last month in Georgia, was the oldest living former US president and the first to reach 100. He led enduring foreign policy initiatives, including a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, the normalization of relations with China and the treaties that gave Panama control of the Panama Canal from the US.
Biden said during his eulogy that there is an obligation to stand up to the abuse of power.
“We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor. And to stand up to what my dad used to say is the greatest sin of all, the abuse of power. That’s not about being perfect, because none of us are perfect,” Biden said.
He continued, “We’re all fallible. But it’s about asking ourselves, are we striving to do things, the right things? What value – what are the values that animate our spirit? Do we operate from fear or hope? Ego or generosity? Do we show grace? Do we keep the faith when it’s most tested?”
Biden highlighted Carter’s life and referred to the late president as “a man who never let the ties of politics divert him from his mission to serve and shape the world.”
Jason Carter, Jimmy Carter’s grandson, jokingly described his grandfather as “the first millennial” after listing many of his progressive stances.
“As governor of Georgia, half a century ago, he preached an end to racial discrimination and an end to mass incarceration. As president in the 1970s, as you’ve heard, he protected more land than any other president in history. Fifty years ago, he was a climate warrior, who pushed for a world where we conserved energy, limited emissions, and traded our reliance on fossil fuels for expanded renewable sources,” Jason Carter said.
“And by the way, he cut the deficit, wanted to decriminalize marijuana, deregulated so many industries that he gave us cheap flights, and as you heard, craft beer. Basically, all of those years ago, he was the first millennial,” he said.
But in the end, Jason Carter said, Jimmy Carter’s “life is a love story.”
“And of course, it’s a love story about Jimmy and Rosalynn and their 77 years of marriage and service,” he said.
“Rest assured that in these last weeks, he told us that he was ready to see her again,” he said.
