Vice President Harris on Tuesday praised the late President Jimmy Carter, calling on his decent and humble life to serve as a lesson to others.
“Jimmy Carter maintained basic decency and humility throughout his life and career. James Earl Carter Jr. loved our country. He lived his faith and served others. And in the end, Jimmy Carter's work and those works speak for him more eloquently than any tribute we can offer.” she said.
She called on his life to be “a lesson for the times and a lighthouse for the future.”
Carter's casket arrived at the Capitol on Tuesday and was laid to rest. The former Democratic president died last month at the age of 100 at his mansion in Plains, Georgia.
“I'm just trying to vote for Kamala Harris,” Carter said in August, and got his wish in November, voting for her just over two weeks after turning 100. Carter entered hospice care in February 2023 and lived a long life. His wife Rosalynn Carter passed away last November.
“Jimmy Carter was an all-too-rare example of a talented man with humility, modesty and grace,” Harris said Tuesday.
She recalled that while Mr. Carter was running for president, he would sleep in the homes of his supporters and share meals with them. Harris added that on his first trip with Habitat for Humanity, he shared a bus with Rosalynn Carter and gave up his private room to another volunteer couple to sleep on the church basement floor.
“Jimmy Carter established a new model for what it means to be a former president and what it means to leave office and have an extraordinary post-presidential legacy,” she said.
Harris began her eulogy by praising Carter's accomplishments as president, calling him the first president to have a “comprehensive energy policy” ahead of his time.
She outlined Carter's efforts to pass more than a dozen major pieces of legislation focused on environmental protection, more than doubling the size of America's national parks, and her contributions to protecting California's redwoods. He emphasized that he was doing it.
He said that in his four years in office, Carter appointed more Black Americans to federal commissioners than all of his predecessors combined and five times as many women. And she noted that he passed the post-Watergate ethics law.
On the international stage, Carter said he had established full diplomatic relations with China and helped establish peace between Israel and Egypt. He also noted that he secured the Camp David Accords, calling it “one of the most important and enduring peace treaties since World War II.”
“Jimmy Carter was a forward-thinking president with a vision for the future,” she said, adding that he founded the Department of Energy, FEMA and the Department of Education.
The vice president said she was in middle school when Carter was elected and how her mother admired Carter's “strength of character, honesty, integrity, work ethic and determination, intelligence and generosity of spirit.” I recalled what I had done.
Earlier Tuesday, President-elect Trump criticized Carter for selling the Panama Canal in a 1977 deal, threatening to return the canal to U.S. control. He later said he did not regret having harsh words for Mr. Carter when he was prepared to lie nationally, saying, “I liked him as a man. I didn't agree with his policies.'' So he thought it was a good thing to give away the Panama Canal. I think that cost him the election. That and the hostages.”
Following Harris' memorial, Vice President and Vice President Doug Emhoff, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (R-New York), and Senate Majority Leader John Thune Several wreaths were placed around Mr. Carter's coffin in front of the General Secretary. (RS.D.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.N.Y.).
In his eulogy, Prime Minister Johnson praised Carter's “humble” presidency and said he spent one week each year building and repairing homes with Habitat for Humanity.
“It's amazing to think that one of the 45 people to have served as president, and one of only 13 to have served in the role of president during the nuclear age, would be humbled by such service. ” said the speaker.
Thune also talked about Carter's work with Habitat for Humanity, saying that having his name attached to the organization brought him attention, but he also got his hands dirty with volunteers. Ta.
“But it wasn't Jimmy Carter's style to just lend his name and maybe attend a gala or two. He came here to get down in the weeds and dirt, and He literally did that with a lot of habitat construction,” he said.
Mr. Thune praised Mr. Carter as a Navy veteran, peanut farmer, governor, president, Sunday school teacher, Nobel Prize winner, advocate and “faithful servant of the Creator.”
Carter's service in the Rotunda was attended by senators and congressmen, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh, and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
President Biden visited California on Tuesday and will return to Washington to attend the Carter memorial service at the National Cathedral on Thursday.
