President Biden honored the late President Jimmy Carter at a state funeral in Washington, DC, on Thursday, hailing the humble Georgia peanut farmer as a principled statesman who reshaped America and the world for the better with his “deep Christian faith.”
“I was a 31-year-old senator,” Biden, 82, recalled of his first meeting with Carter in 1974. “And I was the first senator outside of Georgia, and maybe the first senator, to endorse his candidacy for president. With an endorsement based in what I believe is Jimmy Carter’s enduring attribute: character, character, character.”
“It’s an accumulation of a million things built on character that leads to a good life in a decent country,” he said.
The two enjoyed a lifelong friendship that culminated in Biden and first lady Jill Biden visiting Carter and his wife Rosalynn at their home in Plains, Ga., during his first year in office, where he said they were “greeted like family.”
“Jimmy Carter’s friendship taught me the strength of character is more than title or the power we hold. It’s the strength to understand that everyone should be treated with dignity, respect; that everyone — and I mean everyone — deserves an even shot.”
That character, Biden contended in his eulogy at Washington National Cathedral alongside other world leaders and former presidents, was only possible because of the 39th president’s “deep Christian faith in God.”
“Throughout his life, he showed us what it means to be practitioner of good works, a good and faithful servant of God and of the people,” the president said. “Today, many think he was from a bygone era. But in reality, he saw well into the future.”
Biden went on to list Carter’s achievements while in the White House and after leaving office, claiming that they were the fruit of both his modest upbringing and “keeping the faith with the best of humankind and the best of America.”
“A white Southern Baptist who led civil rights; a decorated Navy veteran who brokered peace; a brilliant nuclear engineer who led a nuclear nonproliferation; a hardworking farmer who championed conservation and clean energy,” he somewhat contradictorily described the ex-commander-in-chief
“In the words of the Prophet Micah, who Jimmy so admired until his final breath, Jimmy Carter, did justly, loved mercy, walked humbly,” he concluded. “May God bless a great American, a dear friend and a good man.”
Carter, who died last month at the age of 100, rose from a childhood in a house without running water or electricity in Plains to become a US Navy officer, Georgia’s governor from 1971 to 1975 — and eventually president from 1977 to 1981.
While succeeding in the first major test of his presidency by engineering the Camp David Accords, he faced a series of trials in the final years of his term with Russia invading Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis, during which 53 Americans were kidnapped from the US Embassy in Tehran and held captive for 444 days.
Americans’ perception of Carter’s increasing weakness on the world stage enabled Republican Ronald Reagan to defeat the incumbent Democrat in 1980 in a 489-49 landslide. All the hostages in Iran were released shortly after Carter left office.
Critics have noted the many similarities between the presidencies of Biden and Carter, with both of their terms marked by rampant inflation, escalating conflicts abroad and even charges of family influence peddling.
Some pundits have also accused Carter of treason in his post-presidency.
“In the run-up to the Persian Gulf War, he wrote letters to all of our allies and to Arab states asking them to abandon their cooperation and coalition with the United States of America,” CNN contributor Scott Jennings said last month. “If it’s not treasonous, it’s borderline treasonous.”
Biden called Carter a “patriot,” whose Christian beliefs furthered the cause of the American Founding.
“A nation where all are created equal in the image of God and deserved to be treated equally throughout our lives,” the president recited. “You’ve never fully lived up to that idea of America. We’ve never walked away from it, either, because the patriots like Jimmy Carter.”
Recalling the brokered peace between Israel and Egypt, former White House domestic affairs adviser Stuart Eizenstat claimed Carter was “among the most consequential one-term presidents in American history.”
“He may not be a candidate for Mount Rushmore, but he belongs in the foothills of making the US stronger and the world safer,” Eizenstat said.
While he left office with one of the lowest approval ratings of any modern president, Carter was still remembered by former President Gerald Ford, former Vice President Walter Mondale and even his grandchildren for having laid the groundwork for others’ accomplishments in the future.
The 38th president’s son Steven Ford and the son of Carter’s vice president while in office both read eulogies their dads had written before their deaths in 2006 and 2021, respectively.
“By fate of a brief season, Jimmy Carter and I were rivals,” Gerald Ford said from beyond the grave in a remembrance read by his son, claiming that the 1976 presidential adversaries later “bonded … as no two presidents” since John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
“We told the truth, we obeyed the law and we kept the peace,” Ted Mondale read from his father’s words. “I will always be proud and grateful to have worked with you towards noble ends.”
After leaving office, Carter was most remembered for his peacekeeping efforts and work on behalf of Habitat for Humanity building homes for the poor.
He eventually won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Carter will be laid to rest in a private ceremony in Plains, Ga., beside his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19, 2023. He died in his birth town on Dec. 29, 2024.
The state funeral service was also attended by ex-Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump along with their spouses, except former first lady Michelle Obama.
Being so filled with US and other world leaders — in the wake of Trump’s resounding win over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Biden’s ouster from the 2024 contest — led to a range of awkward interactions.
Obama and Trump appeared to be engaged in a friendly chat with each other about a “matter of importance” at one point, a professional lip reader has told The Post, causing the vice president to seemingly sigh and roll her eyes.
Trump and his former vice president, Mike Pence, warmly shook hands before sitting down — though the ex-running-mates are believed not to have spoken to each other since the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The once and future president, however, did not engage Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Panama’s leader José Raúl Mulino after threatening to annex both of their nations in a press conference earlier this week.
At another point, Bush also gave his predecessor Obama a gut check, playfully poking his belly before squeezing into the presidential pew.
Michelle Obama skipped the funeral entirely due to “scheduling conflicts,” her advisers told CNN and Politico, though she apparently was slated to sit next to Trump again as she was forced to do during the ceremony for President George H.W. Bush years before.
