Social Media Users Say Jimmy Carter Left 'One Last Gift' For Trump After His Death

Former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, appears to have left a hard-to-escape reminder of his legacy for Donald Trump to see as the president-elect takes the oath of office next month.

Following Carter’s death, President Joe Biden issued a proclamation that called for the US flag to be displayed at half-staff at the White House, on public buildings and grounds, at military posts as well as naval stations and vessels “for a period of 30 days from the day of his death.”

This is in line with the United States Department of Veteran Affairs, which states that the flag should be displayed for such a period after a former president’s death at “all federal buildings, grounds, and naval vessels” throughout the country and its territories.

The flags are set to be flown at half-staff until sunset on January 28 — more than a week after Trump’s inauguration on January 20, which happens to fall on Martin Luther King Jr Day.

The rare, likely scenario became the talk of social media users who called it Carter’s “one last gift” for Trump, who offered a tribute to the former president in a social media post on Sunday.

Carter was notably a critic of the president-elect and once described him as “a disaster.”

This isn’t the first time that a presidential inauguration occurred as flags flew at half-staff to honour a former president.

Then-President Richard Nixon — after the death of Harry S. Truman on December 26, 1972 — took the oath of office for a second term on January 20, 1973 as the D.C. sky was “heavy with gray clouds” while flags flew at half-staff and the sounds of a protest could be heard faintly in the distance, Time magazine reported.

Nixon’s predecessor, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, would go on to die of a heart attack just two days later, which caused Nixon to call for flags to fly at half-staff for another 30 days.