President Joe Biden broke from his family vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands to remember late former President Jimmy Carter, recalling his predecessor as a role model and friend.
America and the world lost a “remarkable leader” with Carter’s death, Biden said, adding that he had spoken to several of the former president’s children and was working with them to formalize memorial arrangements in Washington.
Speaking for roughly 10 minutes, Biden remembered Carter as a humanitarian and statesman, someone he could not imagine walking past a person in need without trying to help them. He represented “the most fundamental human values we can never let slip away,” Biden said.
The president repeatedly praised Carter’s “simple decency” and his values, saying some will see him as a man of honesty and humility from a bygone era.
Carter “lived a life measured not by words, but by his deeds,” Biden in televised remarks addressing Carter’s death. Biden’s tribute, like many that came in from U.S. and global leaders, focused on Carter’s character, with the outgoing president describing his predecessor as seeming to be from a “bygone era.”
“Just look at his life, his life’s work,” Biden said, speaking from the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he was on vacation. “He worked to eradicate disease, not just at home, but around the world.
“He forged peace, advanced civil rights, human rights, promoted free and fair elections around the world. He built housing for the homeless with his own hands.”
Carter died Sunday afternoon at the age of 100, after nearly two years in hospice care. He rose from humble beginnings in rural Georgia to lead the nation from 1977 to 1981, and went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize in his active post-presidential life.
His nonprofit Carter Center, founded in 1982, pursued diplomacy, election observations and public health work around the world.
Known for his toothy smile, Carter said basic Christian tenets such as justice and love served as the bedrock of his single-term presidency.
“The rest of the world looks to us … and he was worth looking to,” Biden said.
The remarks came as Biden is preparing to move out of the White House, with Republican rival Donald Trump set to take office in January after beating Biden’s vice president Kamala Harris in a caustic and bruising campaign.
“Some look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of a bygone era with honesty and character, faith and humility,” the 82-year-old Biden said.
“But I don’t believe it’s a bygone era. I see a man not only of our times, but for all times, someone who embodied the most fundamental human values we can never let slip away,” he added.
“We’d all do well to try and be a little more like Jimmy Carter.”
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said on X that Carter’s significant role in achieving the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel “will remain etched in the annals of history.”
He went on to say Carter’s “humanitarian work exemplifies a lofty standard of love, peace, and brotherhood.” Carter will be remembered as “one of the world’s most prominent leaders in service to humanity,” el-Sissi said.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter had one of the great love stories and political partnerships in U.S. presidential history.
The former president sometimes called his wife, who died Nov. 19. 2023, “Rosie,” which is a good way to remember how her name actually is pronounced. It is “ROSE-uh-lyn,” not, repeat NOT, “RAHZ-uh-lyn.”
They were married more than 77 years but their relationship went back even further. Jimmy’s mother, “Miss Lillian,” delivered Eleanor Rosalynn Smith at the Smith home in Plains on Aug. 18, 1927. The nurse brought her eldest child back a few days later to visit, meaning the longest-married presidential couple met as preschooler and newborn.
She became his trusted campaign aide and White House adviser, surprising Washington by sitting in on Cabinet meetings. Then they traveled the world together as co-founders of The Carter Center.
Most of the nation saw the former president for the last time at Rosalynn Carter’s funeral.
Jason Carter is now the chairman of The Carter Center’s board of governors. He said his grandparents “never changed who they were” even after reaching the White House and becoming global humanitarians.
He says their four years in Washington were just one period of putting their values into action and that the center his grandparents founded in Atlanta is a lasting “extension of their belief in human rights as a fundamental global force.”
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter traveled the world advocating for democracy and fighting disease, but Jason Carter said they weren’t motivated by pity, or arrogance that a former American president had all the answers — they ventured to remote places because they could “recognize these people.” They too were from “a 600-person village” and understood that even the poorest people “have the power … the ability … the knowledge and the expertise to change their own community.”
As reaction poured in from around the world, President Joe Biden mourned Carter’s death, saying the world lost an “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” and he lost a dear friend. Biden cited Carter’s compassion and moral clarity, his work to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless and advocacy for the disadvantaged as an example for others.
Biden said he is ordering a state funeral for Carter in Washington.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is remembering Carter as a man steeped “in devotion to public service and peace.”
The California Democrat said in a statement Sunday that Carter was committed to “honoring the spark of divinity within every person,” something she said manifested in “teaching Sunday school in his beloved Marantha Baptist Church, brokering the landmark Camp David Accords to pave the way to peace or building homes with Habitat for Humanity.”
Pelosi also said Carter led “perhaps the most impactful post-presidency in history.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer noted in a post on X the special contribution Carter made by brokering the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt and through his work with the Carter Center.
“Motivated by his strong faith and values, President Carter redefined the post-presidency with a remarkable commitment to social justice and human rights at home and abroad,” Starmer said.
To commemorate Carter’s death, officials with the Empire State Building said in a post on social media that the iconic New York City landmark would be lit in red, white and blue on Sunday night, “to honor the life and legacy” of the late former president.
In a statement issued Sunday, former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama said Carter’s beloved Maranatha Baptist Church “will be a little quieter on Sundays,” but added that the late former president “will never be far away – buried alongside Rosalynn next to a willow tree down the road, his memory calling all of us to heed our better angels.”
Noting the “hundreds of tourists from around the world crammed into the pews” to see the former president teach Sunday school, as he did “for most of his adult life,” the Obamas listed Carter’s accomplishments as president. But they made special note of the Sunday school lessons, saying they were catalysts for people making a pilgrimage to the church. “Many people in that church on Sunday morning were there, at least in part, because of something more fundamental: President Carter’s decency.”
The longest-lived American president died Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023, spent most of their lives.
“Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” The Carter Center said in posting about his death on the social media platform X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family.
In his 1975 book “Why Not The Best,” Carter said of himself: “I am a Southerner and an American, I am a farmer, an engineer, a father and husband, a Christian, a politician and former governor, a planner, a businessman, a nuclear physicist, a naval officer, a canoeist, and among other things a lover of Bob Dylan’s songs and Dylan Thomas’s poetry.”
A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer.
After he left office and returned home to his tiny hometown of Plains in southwest Georgia, Carter regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world.
Former Vice President Al Gore praised Jimmy Carter for living “a life full of purpose, commitment and kindness” and for being a “lifelong role model for the entire environmental movement.”
Carter, who left the White House in 1981 after a landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan. concentrated on conflict resolution, defending democracy and fighting disease in the developing world. Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, remains a leading advocate for action to fight climate change. Both won Nobel Peace Prizes.
Gore said that “it is a testament to his unyielding determination to help build a more just and peaceful world” that Carter is often “remembered equally for the work he did as President as he is for his leadership over the 42 years after he left office.”
During Gore’s time in the White House, President Bill Clinton had an uneasy relationship with Carter. But Gore said he is “grateful” for “many years of friendship and collaboration” with Carter.
Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, remember Carter as a man who lived to serve others.
“Hillary and I mourn the passing of President Jimmy Carter and give thanks for his long, good life. Guided by his faith, President Carter lived to serve others — until the very end.”
The statement recalled Carter’s many achievements and priorities, including efforts “to protect our natural resources in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, make energy conservation a national priority, return the Panama Canal to Panama, and secure peace between Egypt and Israel at Camp David.”
After he left office, the Clinton statement said, Carter continued efforts in “supporting honest elections, advancing peace, combating disease, and promoting democracy; to his and Rosalynn’s devotion and hard work at Habitat for Humanity — he worked tirelessly for a better, fairer world,” the statement said.
