President Joe Biden revealed Monday that former President Jimmy Carter, who entered hospice care at home last month after a series of hospital stays, asked him to deliver his eulogy.
During a fundraiser in Rancho Santa Fe, California, on Monday night, Biden said he recently spent time with Carter and that the former president’s health «finally caught up with him.»
“He asked me to do his eulogy, excuse me, I shouldn’t say that,” said Biden, who spoke without notes. “I spent time with Jimmy Carter and finally got him. But they found a way to keep it going much longer than they expected because they found a breakthrough.»
Biden also spoke about his “Cancer Moonshot” initiative that aims to reduce the death rate by at least 50% in the next 25 years.
The Carter Center It did not provide details of the former president’s recent hospitalizations when he entered hospice care at his home in Georgia last month.
Biden expressed his well wishes to Carter and his wife, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, last month.
During his first term in the Senate, Biden endorsed Carter’s 1976 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Carter and his wife filmed a video of his endorsement of Biden which aired during the 2020 Democratic National Convention. In the video, Carter said that they have «known and admired Joe and Jill for many years» and described Biden as his «first and most effective supporter in the Senate.»
Carter, 98, is the oldest living former US president and the first president born in a hospital. He was diagnosed with cancer in August 2015, a melanoma that had spread to his liver and brain, but was later declared cancer-free. In 2019, he suffered a black eye and received stitches after a fall and was later hospitalized with a fractured pelvis in another fall.
Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner and carolina kenny contributed.