All five living presidents, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, attended former POTUS Jimmy Carter’s funeral Thursday morning.
The past, present and future commanders in chief were photographed mingling among other world leaders at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, before the service began.
Carter, the 39th president, died at age 100 on Dec. 29.
Carter, who died late last month at 100 years old, is being remembered as a compassionate Christian and ahead-of-his-time progressive, despite serving a single term in the White House that was seen as a disappointment at the time.
Under the stained glass and stone filigree of the soaring Neo-Gothic nave, family members and dignitaries recalled private kindnesses and public sacrifices, noting that Carter taught Sunday school at his Plains, Georgia church “every Sunday from World War II to Covid.”
“Carter was farsighted. He put aside his short-term political interests to tackle challenges that demanded sacrifice to protect our kids and grandkids,” said Walter Mondale wrote in a eulogy before his own death in 2021 and that was read Thrusday by his son.
Living such a long life meant many of Carter’s contemporaries have already passed, but several had prepared remarks for the occasion years ago.
Ted Mondale noted that “very few people in the 1970s had heard the term climate change,” before recalling how Carter pushed renewable energy, while also noting he was a leader in women’s rights and racial justice.
Stuart Eizenstat, a longtime top advisor to Carter, said his former boss “may not be a candidate for Mount Rushmore, but he belongs in its foothills, making the U.S. stronger and the world safer.”
Together in front rows were presidents and vice presidents, past and present, Republican and Democrat, several of whom have run bitter elections against each other.
Some, like Vice President Kamala Harris, sat quietly looking ahead. While others, like President-Elect Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama, could be seen chatting and even laughing together.
Also in attendance are members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, members of Carter’s administration and foreign dignataries.
President Joe Biden is set to deliver a eulogy.
“There’s an old line that two presidents in a room is too many,” said the son of the man Carter defeated to win the presidency, former President Gerald Ford, reading a eulogy prepared by his father’s death.
“But we immediately decided to exercise the privilege of former presidents: To immediately forget what either of us said about the other in the heat of battle,” Ford continued. “There is indeed life after the White House.”
Carter understood that, seeing his public image soar during his post-presidency as he threw himself into charitable causes at home and abroad, while continuing to live a relatively humble life with his beloved wife, Rosalyn, who died just a year before him in late 2023.
Tributes have been pouring in since Carter’s death on Dec. 29, as his body has made a slow progression through Georgia and Washington to be witnessed by thousands.
Before the funeral, his casket laid in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building, draped with an American flag and resting on the catafalque that once held Abraham Lincoln’s body.
After the funeral, the proceedings will continue to Georgia, where there will be a private family funeral. Carter will then be buried on the grounds of his home in Plains, Georgia.
