Harris calls for Carter’s decency, humility to 'be a lesson'

Vice President Harris eulogized the late President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday, calling for the decent and humble way he lived his life to be a lesson for others.

“Throughout his life and career, Jimmy Carter retained a fundamental decency and humility. James Earl Carter Jr. loved our country. He lived his faith, he served the people and he left the world better than he found it. And in the end, Jimmy Carter’s work and those works speak for him louder than any tribute we can offer,” she said.

She called for his life to “be a lesson for the ages and a beacon for the future.”

Carter’s casket arrived at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to lie in state. The former Democratic president died last month at his estate in Plains, Ga., at the age of 100.

Carter said in August that he was “only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris” and fulfilled his wish in November, casting his ballot for her just more than two weeks after he turned 100. Carter entered hospice care in February 2023 and outlived his wife, Rosalynn Carter, who died last November.

“Jimmy Carter was that all too rare example of a gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty and grace,” Harris said Tuesday.

She recalled that Carter would sleep in the homes of his supporters on his presidential run and share a meal with them. Harris added that on his first trip with Habitat for Humanity, he and Rosalynn Carter shared a bus and gave away their private room to another volunteer couple to sleep on the floor of a church basement.

“Jimmy Carter established a new model for what it means to be a former president and leaves and extraordinary postpresidential legacy,” she said.

Harris opened her eulogy by praising Carter's work as president, calling him ahead of his time as the first president to have “a comprehensive energy policy.”

She outlined that Carter passed more than a dozen major pieces of legislation focused on environmental protection and more than doubled the size of America’s national parks, highlighting that he was behind protecting the Redwoods in California.

She said in four years in office, Carter appointed more Black Americans to the federal bench than all of his predecessors combined and appointed five times as many women. She also noted that he passed post-Watergate ethics legislation.

On the international stage, she said Carter had facilitated full diplomatic relations with China and helped establish peace between Israel and Egypt. She also noted that he secured the Camp David Accords, calling them one of “the most significant and durable peace treaties since World War II.”

“Jimmy Carter was a forward-looking president with a vision for the future,” she said, adding that he established the Department of Energy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Education.

The vice president said she was in middle school when Carter was elected and recalled how her mother admired him for his “strength of character, his honesty, his integrity, his work ethic and determination, his intelligence and his generosity of spirit.”

Earlier on Tuesday, President-elect Trump criticized Carter for the sale of the Panama Canal in a 1977 deal; Trump has threatened to take it back under U.S. control. He later said he did not regret having harsh words for Carter as he was being prepared to lie in state, adding, “I liked him as a man. I disagreed with his policy. So, he thought giving away the Panama Canal was a good thing. I think it cost him the election. That and the hostages.”

After Harris’s eulogy, multiple wreaths were placed around Carter's casket in front of the vice president, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Johnson, in his eulogy, honored Carter for his “humble” postpresidency and noted that he spent one week every year building and restoring homes with Habitat for Humanity.

“It’s remarkable to think that one of the 45 men who have served as president and one of the only 13 who held the role in the nuclear age would humble himself to such service,” the Speaker said.

Thune also spoke about Carter's work with Habitat for Humanity, saying that attaching his name to the organization helped it gain attention but he also got his hands dirty with its volunteers.

“But simply lending his name or maybe attending a gala or two wasn’t Jimmy Carter’s style. He was here to get down in the weeds and the dirt and he did that literally on numerous Habitat builds,” he said.

Thune honored Carter as a Navy veteran, peanut farmer, governor, president, Sunday school teacher, Nobel Prize winner and advocate as a “faithful servant of his creator.”

Senators and members of Congress attended the service for Carter in the rotunda, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, associate Justices Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.

President Biden was in California on Tuesday and will return to Washington to attend the memorial service for Carter at the National Cathedral on Thursday.