Biden hails Carter’s ‘strength of character’ in eulogy for 39th president
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46th president eulogizes 39th at a state funeral attended by all living American presidents. President Joe Biden on Thursday eulogized the late former president Jimmy Carter as a man whose “deep Christian faith in God” had led him to lead an extraordinary and forward-looking life over the century he spent on the earth, one who “never let the tides of politics divert him from his mission to serve and shape the world .”.
![[The Bidens and Carters are pictured in this 2021 file photo]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2021/05/04/21/Biden_Carter_Visit_66744.jpg)
“Throughout his life, he showed us what it means to be a practitioner of good works and a good and faithful servant of God and of the people,” said Biden, who praised Carter as having seen “well into the future” even though he had appeared to many as being a relic of “a bygone era.”.
![[From L to R, former US President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush, his wife Laura Bush, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris, President-elect Donald rump and his wife Melania Trump attend the State Funeral Service for former US President Jimmy Carter at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, on January 9, 2025]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/09/16/GettyImages-2192480203.jpg)
“A white southern Baptist who led his son civil rights, a decorated Navy veteran who brokered peace, a brilliant nuclear engineer who led a nuclear nonproliferation, a hard working farmer who championed conservation and clean energy ... through it all, he showed us how character and faith start with ourselves and then flows to others,” he said.
Noting how Carter had risen from a humble beginning to “the pinnacle of power” while keeping his own faith at the center of the politics he practiced as leader of the free world, Biden recalled how as a freshman senator, he became the first member of the upper chamber to endorse the then-Georgia governor during his long shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976.
