President Joe Biden mourned the death of former President Jimmy Carter in an address to the nation Sunday night from St. Croix, where he is spending his final New Year’s as president.
Carter died Sunday at age 100, months after he became the first U.S. president to reach the milestone. He had been in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia, since February 2023.
Biden called Carter “a statesman and humanitarian” and said he and his wife, first lady Jill Biden, had lost “a dear friend.”
Biden, who said he was the first national figure to endorse Carter when he ran for president in 1976, lauded the former president’s character. Biden said his memories of Carter boiled down to “decency, decency, decency” and Carter's belief that everybody “deserved a shot.”
“Can you imagine Jimmy Carter walking by someone who needs something and just keep walking? Can you imagine referring to someone by the way they look or the way they talk? I can’t,” Biden said.
Biden, who lost his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015, said the disease had formed a bond between the two leaders. Carter survived a cancer diagnosis in 2015, introducing the world to immunotherapy and giving cancer patients new hope.
“Jimmy Carter was just as courageous in his battle against cancer as he was in everything in his life,” Biden said.
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Biden recalled Carter’s support for his family after his son’s death.
“Our son Beau died. When he died, Jimmy and Rosalynn were there to help us heal. Jimmy knew the ravages of the disease too well. He lost his father, his brother, his sister to this terrible disease. So when Jimmy was diagnosed, we did our best to comfort him,” Biden said, adding that the two leaders believed that the U.S. could “end cancer as we know it” if it made the investments.
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Biden also remembered Carter's relationship with Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years. She died Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96.
“Theirs is a love affair of the ages. I will miss them both dearly. I do take some solace, as our kids are saying, that they're united once again. They're going to remain forever in our hearts, but they're together again,” Biden said.
The four living former U.S. presidents, as well as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, mourned Carter’s death Sunday. World leaders, too, expressed their condolences for Carter, whose intervention in brokering the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.
“What I find extraordinary about Jimmy Carter, though, is that millions of people all around the world, all over the world, feel they lost a friend as well, even though they never met him. That’s because Jimmy Carter lived a life measured not by words, but by his deeds,” Biden said.
Biden recounted Carter’s work as president and after he left office, saying “his compassion and moral clarity lifted people up and changed lives all over the globe.”
“Just look at his life, his life’s work. 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 and homes for the homeless,” Biden said.
It was the second time this year that Biden has paid tribute to Carter. In September, he recognized Carter ahead of his 100th birthday in a video message on CBS, calling him “a moral force for our nation and the world.”
Carter, a would-be fellow one-term president, did not attend Biden's inauguration in 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Later that year, the Bidens visited the Carters in Georgia, where “we sat and talked about the old days,” Biden said at the time.
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