Biden cites Carter’s character as spur for early endorsement for White House
Joe Biden has given a short public address paying tribute to Jimmy Carter, with both official praise and personal anecdote.
The US president said that Carter told him in the past that he was the first official figure to endorse Carter for the presidency, back in 1976 when Biden was the Democratic US senator for Delaware. Carter was a one-term Democratic president, 1977 to 1981, before he lost to Ronald Reagan and had to leave the White House at the age of just 56.
Biden said of Carter’s passing yesterday: “It’s a sad day but it brings back an incredible amount of good memories. Today, America – and the world, in my view – lost a remarkable leader. He was a statesman and a humanitarian and Jill [first lady Jill Biden] and I have lost a dear friend.”
Biden said it “dawned on him” that he and Carter “have been hanging out for 50 years” and he recalled that the former president used to tease him affectionately.
Biden said he came out to endorse Carter for president so early because of the Georgia politician’s character.
Here’s the video of Biden’s address.
Key events
Ramon Antonio Vargas
The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, mistakenly offered his condolences to Jimmy Carter’s dead wife shortly after the Democratic former president died on Sunday.
Abbott’s statement sent “prayers and deepest condolences” to former first lady Rosalynn Carter and the rest of her family shortly after her husband’s death at the age of 100, as the Dallas news station WFAA reported. But Rosalynn Carter had died more than a year earlier – on 19 November 2023, at age 96.
The Democratic party of Collins county, Texas, seized on the blunder and wrote on X: “Did anyone in the governor’s office proof the condolence note?”
A couple of hours passed before Abbott’s office distributed an amended statement about Jimmy Carter’s death that removed the reference to his late wife of 77 years, as the Houston Press noted.
The revised statement read: “Cecilia and I send our prayers and deepest condolences to the entire family.”
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, joined foreign leaders in paying tribute to Jimmy Carter on Monday, hailing the former US president’s “defence of democracies and his dedication to peace”.
Carter “was one of the leaders most committed to justice and human rights and will always be remembered for his defence of democracies and his dedication to peace”, Sánchez wrote in a post on X.
Interim summary
Hello readers, thank you for following all the news developments and responses with us as they come in, the day after the death of America’s longest-lived president, Jimmy Carter. We’ll keep you abreast of reactions and analysis, both historical and contemporary, as the US loses a figure whose presidency was short but legacy is long and very relevant right up to today – and beyond.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
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The US government has ordered, by tradition, that American flags will fly at half-staff, or half-mast, on all federal buildings, grounds and naval vessels across the country and overseas territories for 30 days, as a mark of respect upon the death of Carter. This means flags will not be flying at their customary position atop the flagpole when Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20, taking over the White House for the Republicans from Democrat Joe Biden.
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Pope Francis has said he is saddened to learn of former US president Jimmy Carter’s death and offered “heartfelt condolences” and prayers to all those mourning his passing. He praised Carter’s commitment “to the cause of reconciliation and peace between peoples, the defense of human rights and the welfare of the poor and those in need”.
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Biden has given a short public address paying tribute to Carter, with both official praise and personal anecdote. In the video, the US president said: “It’s a sad day but it brings back an incredible amount of good memories. Today, America – and the world, in my view – lost a remarkable leader. He was a statesman and a humanitarian and Jill [first lady Jill Biden] and I have lost a dear friend.”
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The state funeral for Carter will be held in Washington DC on Thursday 9 January. The date has also been declared a national day of mourning in the United States. There will be a public service in Atlanta, the capital of Carter’s home state, and then the former president will be buried in a private service in Plains, his home town in Georgia, where he died yesterday.
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World leaders, former US presidents and other prominent figures in US political life have sent messages and tributes to the US to mark Carter’s passing.
US flags to fly at half staff for 30 days
The US government has ordered, by tradition, that American flags will fly at half-staff, or half-mast, on all federal buildings across the country as a mark of respect upon the death of Jimmy Carter, who died yesterday.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs requires that after the death of a US president or former president, the Stars and Stripes will fly in its lower position on “all federal buildings, grounds, and naval vessels” across the US and its territories worldwide.
The tradition is carried out for 30 days, which means flags will be at half staff when president-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated in Washington DC on 20 January and Joe Biden leaves the White House as president for the last time.
Jimmy Carter “introduced a lot of people to the term ‘born again Christian’ … and his faith informed everything about his life”, although he was a strong believer in the separation of church and state that lies at the heart of the founding principles of the United States of America, a historian of religion said this morning.
Randall Balmer, a historian of American religion, professor of religion at Dartmouth College and an author, was interviewed on CNN a few moments ago on the topic of Carter’s faith and said: “He was a strong supporter of freedom of religion.”
Balmer called Carter a progressive evangelical, a “true Baptist” who “would not want to impose his belief on anyone else”.
But his faith informed his pursuit of human rights, racial equality, women’s rights, voting rights, public sector education, prison reform, peace processes and care for the environment, he said.
“He was a progressive evangelical, he cared for what Jesus called ‘the least of us’”, which was reflected in his style as a politician, making a lot of progressive gains and reviving that ethos, Balmer said “before the rise of the religious right during his presidency reversed a lot of those gains”.
Pope praises Carter’s faith, expresses sadness
Pope Francis has said he is saddened to learn of former US president Jimmy Carter’s death and offered “heartfelt condolences” and prayers to all those mourning his passing.
In a telegram of condolence, the pontiff praised Carter’s “firm commitment, motivated by deep Christian faith, to the cause of reconciliation and peace between peoples, the defense of human rights and the welfare of the poor and those in need”, Vatican News, the official news outlet of the Holy See, reports.
Pope Francis commended the late president “to the infinite mercies of Almighty God”.
Carter was an early-era evangelical Christian, not a Catholic (John F Kennedy was the first Catholic president of the US, Joe Biden was the second), but Carter was the first US president to host a pope at the White House, with John Paul II visiting in 1979, the Vatican News article further reports.
In his tribute to Jimmy Carter, US president Joe Biden also said that the former president “built houses for the homeless with his own hands”.
Carter began volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in 1984 and continued into old age. Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown also said in the piece he wrote for the Guardian today: “Think of his work with Habitat for Humanity, helping build with his own hands affordable homes for people in some of the world’s poorest neighbourhoods.”
Carter back in the day said of the organization: “Habitat has successfully removed the stigma of charity by substituting it with a sense of partnership.”
Last night, Habitat for Humanity thanked Carter and noted that he had “helped families build and repair homes, shone a light on the tremendous global need for decent and affordable shelter, and brought hope and opportunity to communities around the world”.
Biden cites Carter’s character as spur for early endorsement for White House
Joe Biden has given a short public address paying tribute to Jimmy Carter, with both official praise and personal anecdote.
The US president said that Carter told him in the past that he was the first official figure to endorse Carter for the presidency, back in 1976 when Biden was the Democratic US senator for Delaware. Carter was a one-term Democratic president, 1977 to 1981, before he lost to Ronald Reagan and had to leave the White House at the age of just 56.
Biden said of Carter’s passing yesterday: “It’s a sad day but it brings back an incredible amount of good memories. Today, America – and the world, in my view – lost a remarkable leader. He was a statesman and a humanitarian and Jill [first lady Jill Biden] and I have lost a dear friend.”
Biden said it “dawned on him” that he and Carter “have been hanging out for 50 years” and he recalled that the former president used to tease him affectionately.
Biden said he came out to endorse Carter for president so early because of the Georgia politician’s character.
Here’s the video of Biden’s address.
Jimmy Carter was born and died in Plains, Georgia, a dot on the map in the south-western part of the southern state. He will be buried there after his state funeral in Washington, DC next week.
Plains is actually closer to Montgomery, Alabama, to the west, than it is to the Georgia state capital of Atlanta to the north, where the Carter Presidential Center is.
Funeral, burial details announced for Carter
The state funeral in Washington DC for the late Jimmy Carter will take place on Thursday 9 January, according to a schedule drawn up by Joe Biden, the sitting US president who is into his last few weeks in office.
The date has also been declared at national day of mourning in the United States. There will also be a public service in Atlanta, the capital of Carter’s home state.
The Carter Center, the late president’s organization in Georgia promoting conflict resolution, human rights and democracy, has said that after those official events, Jimmy Carter will be buried in a private service in Plains, his home town in Georgia, where he died yesterday.
The former prime minister of the UK, Gordon Brown, has written for the Guardian today about his memories of Jimmy Carter. He said:
He is, and will be, mourned in every country and continent where civil liberties are valued and peace has proved elusive; revered as the leader who stood with all those who faced imprisonment, torture or persecution for defending democracy and human rights. Carter gave oppressed people hope. I was proud to learn from him and to count him and his wonderful wife, Rosalynn – who was also his closest adviser – as friends. How to assess such a life? History will probably see Carter’s second act – his work as a former president – as more momentous than his four years in the Oval Office.
You can read his recollections in full here: Gordon Brown – My friend Jimmy Carter will be remembered long after other presidents are forgotten. Here’s why
Reuters, citing the Xinhua state news agency, reports that China’s president Xi Jinping has sent a message of condolence to US president Joe Biden, after the death yesterday of former president Jimmy Carter.
In a statement, XI said:
Former president Carter was the driving force behind the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the US, and made important contributions to the development of China-US relations and the friendly exchanges and cooperation between the two countries.
Richard Nixon had visited the People’s Republic of China in 1972, but the US did not formally have diplomatic relations with the nation until during the Carter administration in 1979, when the US embassy in Taipei was closed and a new embassy opened in Beijing.
Among many foreign leaders paying tribute to Jimmy Carter, India’s Narendra Modi and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa have also issued statements.
Modi said he was “deeply saddened” at the news of Carter’s death, describing him as “a statesman of great vision,” adding “His contributions to fostering strong India-US ties leave a lasting legacy.”
South Africa’s president Ramaphosa said:
I am deeply saddened by the passing of former US president Jimmy Carter, who we remember as an outstanding, compassionate leader and champion of human rights and peace globally.
Jimmy Carter was an outspoken critic of the apartheid state at a time when the regime was trying to ingratiate itself with influential economies around the world, and justify its inhumane policies.
Jan-Werner Müller writes for the Guardian today on the topic of Jimmy Carter, arguing that he was the most successful ex-president of the postwar period.
Carter apparently went through a difficult, depressive phase after being defeated by Reagan in a landslide. But, only 56 at the time, he resolved to use his talent and prominence to improve democratic politics, speed along whatever might have looked like a plausible “peace process” somewhere and to engage in a global fight to eradicate guinea worm. Others took different paths.
You can read more here: Jan-Werner Müller – Jimmy Carter’s life after the presidency set a bar that few others have followed