Kamala Harris eulogized former President Jimmy Carter as a ‘gifted’ man of grace

Dignitaries, including Supreme Court justices and members of Congress, take part in lying-in-state ceremony at Capitol Rotunda

Jimmy Carter, former US president, dies aged 100

Vice President Kamala Harris eulogized former President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC, where Carter lay in state, remembering him as a leader who was "ahead of his time" and deeply empathetic to the needs of the people he represented.

Carter, the 39th President of the United States, died on December 29, at the age of 100.

Harris praised Carter for leaving the world "better than he found it," and praised him for his progressive actions, including appointing more Black Americans to the federal bench than all of his predecessors combined. He also appointed five times as many women, Harris noted.

The vice president also praised Carter's commitment to diplomacy, noting the success of the Camp David Accords in 1978.

She did not just praise his time as president; Harris said Carter "established a new model for what it means to be a former president and leave an extraordinary post-presidential legacy."

Harris praised his Carter Center, his public health workers, and his "tireless advocacy for peace and democracy" around the world.

The vice president called Carter a "rare example" of a "gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty, and grace," and said it was clear that he "loved our country."

"He lived his faith, he served the people, and he left the world a better place than he found it," she said.

Key Points

• Kamala Harris praises Jimmy Carter during DC ceremony
• Carter to lie in state at Capitol
• Who are Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s children?
• Trump bashes Carter over Panama Canal
• PHOTOS: Carter motorcade heads to Dobbins Air Reserve Base for departure to Washington D.C.

[8 January 2025 01:00 · Gustaf Kilander]

VIDEO: Jimmy Carter, former US president, dies aged 100

[8 January 2025 01:47 · Graig Graziosi]

End of coverage

This concludes our coverage of former President Jimmy Carter’s memorial service in Washington, DC.

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[8 January 2025 02:00 · Mary Dejevsky]

Jimmy Carter brokered peace in the Middle East – then triggered his greatest failure

For all the praise that has been lavished on Jimmy Carter, he was a one-term president and his four years at the White House were for the most part a failure – albeit outweighed many times over by the charitable endeavours of his retirement.

The Carter administration did, however, notch up one diplomatic success, which might have gained more recognition without what happened next. The success came with the Camp David accords that were signed in September 1978; that is a third of the way through his term, and constituted a diplomatic breakthrough of the first order.

They afforded Israel more security than it had arguably enjoyed since its creation in 1948 and they brought peace, for a while, to the Middle East. It is hard to recall now, but the main conflict before then had pitted Israel against the whole of the Arab world, with Egypt in the vanguard as the strongest military power.

[8 January 2025 03:00 · Chris Megerian]

How American presidents have planned their own funerals

Jimmy Carter‘s memorial journey will end at his house in the tiny town of Plains, Georgia, where he grew up on a peanut farm. That is where his wife, Rosalynn, was laid to rest last year in a burial plot that they chose years ago.

But before Carter reaches his humble final destination, there will be an interstate choreography of grief, ceremony and logistics that is characteristic of state funerals. Ever since the nation’s founding, America has bid farewell to former presidents with an intricate series of events weaving together longstanding traditions and personal touches.

Funerals often are planned by the presidents themselves, who usually have years after leaving the White House to ponder how they want to be memorialized.

[8 January 2025 04:00 · Alex Croft]

Did Jimmy Carter blow royal etiquette by kissing Queen Mother on the lips?

The late former US president Jimmy Carter was a relative novice at international diplomacy when made his first visit to the UK just four months into his term in the White House in 1977 – which resulted in him earning the displeasure of the Queen Mother after being said to have given her a parting kiss on the lips.

It was the year of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee, marking her 25th year on the throne, and world leaders attending a G7 summit were invited for a state banquet in Buckingham Palace where they were to meet the Queen and other members of the Royal Family.

Photographs showed Mr Carter and the Queen Mother being all smiles as the president escorted her by her white-gloved hand to their places in a formal group portrait with the G7 leaders before dinner. But the evening would end with a short moment which would spark debate among British tabloids and the American media for decades afterwards, with the president accused of a total ignorance of royal protocol.

[8 January 2025 05:00 · Gustaf Kilander]

The humblest president in history: How Jimmy and Rosalynn returned to their Plains home after the White House

Jimmy Carter once held the highest office in the land — but was just as content in his family home in small town Georgia.

At the age of 56, having lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter returned to Plains, Georgia, the small town where both he and his wife Rosalynn were born in the 1920s.

From the White House, they moved back into the ranch house they built in the city in 1961. That modest home is where Carter peacefully died on Sunday at the age of 100.

At the 2020 census, Plains, which to many is only known for being the birthplace of the Carters, had a population of 573. In 2022, the median household income was $36,138.

[8 January 2025 06:00 · PA Reporters]

Longest-lived US president was always happy to speak his mind

Jimmy Carter, the United States’ longest-lived president, was never afraid of speaking his mind.

Forthright and fearless, the Nobel Prize winner took pot-shots at former prime minister Tony Blair and ex-US president George W Bush among others.

His death came after repeated bouts of illness in which images of the increasingly frail former president failed to erase memories of his fierce spirit.

Democrat James Earl “Jimmy” Carter Jr swept to power in 1977 with his Trust Me campaign helping to beat Republican president Gerald Ford.

[8 January 2025 07:00 · Ariana Baio]

Jimmy Carter’s life in photos

Jimmy Carter’s life was marked by his devotion to his family, public service and humanitarian efforts.

The former president first emerged into the political scene in the early 1960s and spent the rest of his life working to ensure people in the US and around the world received fair treatment and a better quality of life.

From an early age his desire to make a difference in people’s life was evident.

[8 January 2025 08:00 · Graeme Massie, Ariana Baio]

How Jimmy Carter spent his final years building houses for the poor as he continued life of public service

He was the oldest living president and had been out of the White House for more than 35 years, but Jimmy Carter never stopped working to improve the lives of others — much of which included building homes for the needy.

Even well into his 90s, Carter put on a hard hat and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit organization he often partnered with through The Carter Center.

The one-term president — who died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia — worked alongside 103,000 volunteers in 14 countries to build, renovate and repair 4,331 homes with Habitat for Humanity for more than 35 years. Often, Carter and his late wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, volunteered together.

[8 January 2025 09:00 · Andrew Buncombe]

Meeting Jimmy Carter — and getting a scoop about Bush, Blair and Iraq from the perfect gentleman

The thing that sticks in my mind — even now — was the welcoming eyes and the warm smile.

He stretched out his hand to offer it in greeting and said something along the measure of: “Thanks for coming down to see us.”

Jimmy Carter — who died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, at age 100 — was always known as a gentleman, a farmer from Georgia who had held the most powerful political office in the world. But it did not seem forced, it did not seem an act.

I’d flown to the offices of The Carter Center in Atlanta to interview him about his latest book, The Hornet’s Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War. He’d written plenty of books — he would go on to author more than 30 — but this was his first novel, one that the publisher Simon & Schuster described as “a sweeping novel of the American South and the War of Independence.”