As is often the case with state funerals for U.S. presidents and other major leaders, the funeral of the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, on Thursday has been something of a surreal scene for observers of U.S. politics.
Held at the National Cathedral in Washington, the funeral was attended by all of the living presidents of the United States: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, as well as First Ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Melania Trump, and Jill Biden. Vice presidents Al Gore, Mike Pence, and Kamala Harris were also on hand, and all of them were seated in the front pews of the Cathedral.
Among that group of people are several different combinations of people who have run against each other for president in the past or otherwise been longstanding political rivals or enemies, and who are very rarely in the same room at the same time. For instance, CNN reported that when Trump and his former vice president, Pence, shook hands, it was their first time seeing each other in person since they left office four years ago.
The moments before the start of the funeral contained a remarkable sight: Obama and Trump, seated next to each other, having an animated conversation for nearly ten minutes.
Trump and Obama continue their extended conversation pic.twitter.com/NWZLVn5xsy
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 9, 2025
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It will likely have to be left to lip readers to parse exactly what the two men said to one another.
Trump launched his political career, during Obama’s presidency, by pushing the racist “birther” conspiracy, leading Obama to roast him at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. Trump ran for president and won, railing against Obama regularly, while Obama has campaigned regularly for every one of Trump’s Democratic opponents the last three elections.
Obama and Trump met at the White House days after the 2016 election, and both were in attendance at the 2018 funeral of President H.W. Bush. But for the 44th and 45th presidents to appear in public together, much less to speak to each other, is an extremely rare sight.
It also formed a contrast to the state funeral of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in the summer of 2018. McCain had meticulously planned his own funeral, and invited both Bush and Obama, two men who he had run against and lost to in the 2000 and 2008 presidential elections, to deliver eulogies. The then-President Trump, on the other hand, was barred from the funeral, kicking off a feud that continued for many years after McCain’s death. And numerous speakers at McCain’s funeral made general appeals to public service and decency that were widely seen as shots at the then-president.
In addition, the sons of former President Gerald Ford and former Vice President Walter Mondale were to deliver eulogies for Carter that were written by their fathers before they passed away; Carter, who died at age 100, outlived both Ford and Mondale, as well as more than one of his own obituary writers.
Photo courtesy of X screenshot (@Acyn).
