President Jimmy Carter is being eulogized by President Joe Biden in Washington D.C. on Thursday, in a service where all five living presidents are attending, including President-elect Trump, and former presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush.
The state funeral service is a rare joint appearance of the former commander-in-chiefs, just days before Trump will be inaugurated for a second term in Washington.
More: Celebrate Jimmy Carter’s remarkable life and contributions with our new book
Follow along with the USA TODAY team for live coverage and updates.
Biden begins eulogy
President Joe Biden opened his eulogy with a reflection on his 2021 visit to Plains, Ga., the last time he saw Carter before his death.
Biden and wife, Jill, visited Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, at their ranch home, where the elder couple “greeted us like family,” Biden said.
“Jimmy Carter’s friendship taught me … strength of character,” Biden added. “It’s the strength to understand that everyone should be treated with dignity, respect.”
— Savannah Kuchar
Man who wrote Carter as a boy pays respects
When Carter entered hospice care in February 2023, J.T. Friel decided that when the former present died, he would travel to Washington from Idaho to pay his respects.At 9-years-old, Friel wrote a letter to Carter when he was running for president in 1976. Carter replied with a post card and — after he won the election — an invitation to attend his inauguration in Washington.Friel wasn’t able to go, but ever since he was remained a lifelong admirer of Carter, reading his many books and keeping up with his humanitarian work.“He was just an amazing man and I always wanted to meet him,” Friel, a retired Idaho state government worker, said as he waited for hours in the cold to see the motorcade. “He lived his life serving other people, serving humanity and always trying to do the best he could.”
–Christopher Cann
Trump and Pence shake hands amid frayed relationship
President-elect Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence shook hands at Carter’s funeral service after a frosty relationship.
The two hit a crossroads during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, in which Trump pressured Pence to reject electoral votes from certain states that President Joe Biden won. But Pence stood his ground, saying at the time that there’s “almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
Trump and Pence later ran against each other in the Republican 2024 presidential primaries, during which Trump shifted the blame for the Capitol attack onto Pence.
Pence dropped out of the race and said in an interview with Fox News that he wouldn’t endorse Trump for president.
In his memoir published in 2022, Pence recounted the Capitol attack and wrote that Trump’s “reckless words” endangered his family that day.
— Sudiksha Kochi
Michelle Obama absent from Carter funeral
While former presidents and their wives gathered in the pews of the National Cathedral for Jimmy Carter’s state funeral, former first lady Michelle Obama was notably missing from the congregation.
According to CNN coverage of Carter’s funeral, Michelle Obama had “scheduling conflicts” Thursday and is “still in Hawaii.”
Her husband, former President Barack Obama, was in attendance seated next to President-elect Donald Trump. The Obamas had campaigned heavily for Trump’s 2024 opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, who was also in attendance.
Barack Obama and Trump could be seen conversing for several minutes before the start of the funeral, with Obama at one point smiling and laughing.
— Savannah Kuchar
Brotherhood of the ex-VP’s
Former Vice President Mike Pence is in attendance for Carter’s funeral, and sat between his wife, Karen, and fellow ex-second-in-line Al Gore.
The two men had shared a heartfelt moment last summer, Politico recently reported, in which Pence credited his Democratic predecessor with giving him a guide to follow.
From L to R, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush, his wife Laura Bush, President Joe Biden, First Lady Lady Jill Biden, former President Barack Obama, President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff stand as the casket bearing the remains of former President Jimmy Carter is carried into the Washington National Cathedral for his national funeral serice on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. Carter, the 39th President of the United States, died at the age of 100 on Dec. 29, 2024 at his home in Plains, Ga.
Pence rejected calls from violent rioters and members of his own party to overturn the 2020 presidential election results on Jan. 6, 2021, in part inspired by Gore’s role 20 years before certifying his own loss to President George W. Bush.
“I never forgot it,” Pence reportedly said to Gore.
“You don’t know how much that means,” Gore is said to have responded.
– Savannah Kuchar
From L to R, front row, President Joe Biden, First Lady Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamla Harris, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, second row, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush, his wife Laura Bush, former President Barack Obama, President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump attend the national funeral service for former President Jimmy Carter at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, on Jan. 9, 2025.
Crowd gathers to greet Carter’s casket`
Dozens of people milled along the streets outside the National Cathedral on Thursday, hoping to catch a glimpse of the former president’s motorcade, members of the Carter family and other dignitaries attending the state funeral.Huddled in heavy coats and thick scarves, several of the mourners traveled from across the country to attend the week’s funeral events and visit the former president as his remains lied in state from Tuesday night through Thursday morning.Lincoln Brown, 61, came from Chicago to pay his respects to the former president.He first met Carter at a church in Minnesota where the former president had preached. Brown, in his 20s at the time, recalled how Carter asked him where he was from and what he was studying in university.“He was so easy to talk to,” Brown, a middle school science teacher, said. “That’s what I remember most about him.”
Among those navigating metal barricades and snow lined streets near the National Cathedral was Joyce Muis Lowery.Pushing a walker up Wisconsin Avenue, the retiree said she wanted “witness history” and see the hearse carrying former president Carter.“He was something special,” she said, describing Carter as “the epitome of decency and kindness.”
–Christopher Cann
Washington leaders remember Carter firsthand
President Carter died at 100, having outlived his successors, former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush; former speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill; and his own vice president, Walter Mondale.
But there are still some around in Washington today who were there for Carter’s one-term leadership.
Sen. Chuck Grassley is the only current member of Congress who was serving in the legislature while Carter was in the White House. On Wednesday, the Iowa Republican visited Carter’s casket in the Capitol Rotunda to pay his respects.
“I will remember him fondly Jimmy Carter is now in his heavenly home,” Grassley wrote on X.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s nonvoting representative, called Carter a “model” for presidents upon leaving office, in a statement offering her condolences to his family. Carter nominated Norton in 1977 to be chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the first woman to serve in the role.
President Joe Biden was in his first term as senator for Delaware in 1977 at the time Carter was in office. Biden will be at Carter’s funeral Thursday morning to give a eulogy to the late 39th president.
– Savannah Kuchar
Trump and his wife pay respects to Carter at the Capitol
President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, arrived at the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday evening to pay their respects to Carter. They stood somberly in front of Carter’s flag-draped casket, which a military honor guard surrounded. Donald Trump later told reporters he met with the Carter family.
“Went over to Blair House. I went over with the First Lady. Met the Carter family. They were lovely. They were very sad. But also they were celebrating. Because he was a very fine man. I knew him a little bit. But I knew him only as a fine man,” he said. He is expected to attend Carter’s funeral at the Washington National Cathedral on Thursday.
— Sudiksha Kochi
Biden and Harris will depart for Carter’s funeral at 9:05 a.m
President Joe Biden and First lady Jill Biden will join Vice President Kamala Harris and Second gentleman Doug Emhoff as they depart the White House to attend former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral at the Washington National Cathedral, according to the White House. They will depart at 9:05 a.m.
Biden told USA TODAY in an interview on Sunday he promised Carter he’d deliver his eulogy in 2021.
“I bent down − he was in tough shape − to kiss him goodbye, and he asked me to do his eulogy,” he said of the final conversation the two had and which marked Biden’s 100th day in office.
—Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy
Public mourners gathered in Washington for Carter
Members of the public paid their respects to Carter this week, as the late president was lying in state from Tuesday evening through Thursday morning. From framing how they see the role of the president to leaving a legacy of kindness and decency, the 39th president left a lasting impression on Americans across the country.
Who was Jimmy Carter? The 39th US president and noted humanitarian, has died
Members of the public pay their respects to former President Jimmy Carter as his body lies in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington D.C. on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. Carter’s body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until a funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington on January 9.
Phyllis Sylvester, 71, drove about 30 miles south from Brookeville, Md., to join her daughter, Lauren Sylvester, in the capital city. She said it was important to her to take the time to honor a man like Carter.
“I think people were just so impressed with his humanity, his love of the country. He cared about the people… Just a wonderful human being,” said Phyllis Sylvester, who voted for Carter in her twenties.
Aggie Heller, 68, was in Washington for Carter’s 1977 Inaugural Parade. She returned almost 50 years later on Tuesday to watch his casket be brought to the Capitol and pay her respects in person.
“I am here because he was such a good man,” she said. “Nobody can beat his loyalty to his country.”
Former President Jimmy Carter will lie in repose in Georgia: Updates
— Savannah Kuchar and Christopher Cann
Services for Carter began last week
Funeral services for former President Jimmy Carter began Saturday as the U.S. pays respect to the 39th president who passed away last Sunday at 100 years old. The nation will honor Carter over six days of funeral events.
A funeral motorcade started in the morning near Carter’s farming hometown of Plains. The solemn sound of a bell ringing out 39 times broke the quiet of a chilly January morning at Carter’s boyhood home. (That same bell would ring an hour before daylight during Carter’s boyhood, which was the name of his memoir about his early years.)
Then, his remains were taken to the state capital in Atlanta, where he was honored in a moment of silence at the Capitol before a service at the Carter Center.
‘An unbelievable American story’: Mourners line streets from Plains to honor Jimmy Carter
Who was Jimmy Carter?
The son of a farmer and nurse, Carter was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, according to his official biography. He grew up in nearby Archery. He attended public schools, went to the U.S. Naval Academy and became a nuclear engineer, serving on the second nuclear submarine. He married Rosalynn Smith in 1946.
When his father died, Carter returned home to his family farm and also operated a seed and farm supply company in Plains. He served in the Georgia Senate before becoming governor in 1971.
In 1976, he ran for president as a Democrat and won, beginning his term at 52 years old. Carter served a single term in the White House.
As president, Carter expanded diplomatic relations abroad, invested in the energy sector and increased national park space for Americans. However, he also oversaw inflation and an American hostage crisis that likely cost his re-election, losing to Ronald Reagan.
Carter had a lengthy post-presidency with humanitarian work across the globe, including with preventable diseases. In 2002, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to “find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
On Nov. 19, 2023, Rosalynn Carter died at their home in Plains. She was 96.
Contributing: Ryne Dennis, Evan Lasseter, Sarah Clifton and Eduardo Cuevas
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jimmy Carter funeral: All 5 living presidents attend ceremony
