Texas governor mocked for tweet about former president directed at Rosalynn Carter, who died in November 2023. The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, mistakenly offered his condolences to Jimmy Carter’s dead wife shortly after the Democratic former president died on Sunday.
Abbott’s statement sent “prayers and deepest condolences” to former first lady Rosalynn Carter and the rest of her family shortly after her husband’s death at the age of 100, as the Dallas news station WFAA reported. But Rosalynn Carter had died more than a year earlier – on 19 November 2023, at age 96.
The Democratic party of Collins county, Texas, seized on the blunder and wrote on X: “Did anyone in the governor’s office proof the condolence note?”. Another social media user wrote, “Condolences to Rosalynn Carter? She passed in Nov of 2023. WTF is wrong with you?”.
A couple of hours passed before Abbott’s office distributed an amended statement about Jimmy Carter’s death that removed the reference to his late wife of 77 years, as the Houston Press noted. The revised statement read: “Cecilia and I send our prayers and deepest condolences to the entire family.”.
Both versions of Abbott’s statement were otherwise effusive about Jimmy Carter, who was US president from 1977 to 1981 and won the 2002 Nobel peace prize for his work seeking peaceful resolutions to global conflicts, advancing human rights and democracy, and promoting economic and social development.
“Our nation remains the greatest beacon of freedom and opportunity in the world because of our fearless chief executives who are our guiding force through the best and worst of times,” Abbott’s statement said in part as politicos around the world weighed in on Carter’s death. “For that, we owe President Carter our enduring gratitude … and he will be greatly missed by many.”.
