All living first ladies to pay tribute to Rosalynn Carter in Atlanta

Melania Trump and all living former first ladies will join President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden in paying tribute to Rosalynn Carter in Atlanta on Tuesday. Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Michelle Obama and Melania Trump will attend an invitation-only tribute, the Carter Center announced. Former President Bill Clinton will also be in attendance, as will Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

It is a rare public appearance by Melania Trump, whose husband Donald Trump has been highly critical of Jimmy Carter’s term in office. The Trumps paid tribute to Rosalynn Carter’s work on humanitarian and mental health issues when she died earlier this month. Melania Trump has been featured in social media posts from Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago Club, but she has not been in the public eye for almost a year. She was spotted running errands in New York this summer, but her last public appearance was on November 15, 2022, when Donald Trump announced he was making a new bid for the White House.

And Melania Trump in particular has not been by Donald Trump’s side in his many legal battles in New York, Georgia and federal courts. Her husband mocked Jimmy Carter’s presidency shortly after Rosalynn entered hospice care. At a political rally in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Trump, in criticizing Biden, told a crowd of supporters that “the happiest person anywhere in this country right now is Jimmy Carter, because his administration looked brilliant compared to these clowns.” ‘

“Compared to Biden, Jimmy Carter was a brilliant, brilliant president,” Trump said. Both Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter had attended Trump’s 2017 presidential inauguration. The former president was not on the guest list for the memorial service released by the Carter Center, nor were former presidents Barack Obama or George W. Bush.

But it is traditional for all living first ladies to attend the memorial service for a predecessor. Melania Trump attended Barbara Bush’s funeral service in April 2018, along with her predecessors at the White House. President Biden will not speak for Rosalynn Carter at the service, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

Rosalynn Carter died on November 19 at the age of 96 at her home in Plains, Georgia, along with her 77-year-old husband, President Jimmy Carter, 99. President Carter will travel to Atlanta on Tuesday to attend his wife’s official memorial service .

Family members and current and former U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to Rosalynn’s department gathered Monday morning as her casket left Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Georgia, where wreaths were laid for the former first lady. Secret Service agents carried her casket and walked past the motorcade of the hearse carrying her body as it left Georgia Southwestern State University’s Rosalynn Carter Health and Human Sciences Complex.

Members of the Carter family, including Jimmy and Rosalynn’s daughter Amy and son James “Chip,” paused at their mother’s statue at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center during the wreath-laying ceremony Monday morning. According to AJC, Jimmy Carter was not seen in the motorcade from America to Atlanta.

The former first lady’s private funeral will take place Wednesday at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, followed by an internment at the family’s residence in Georgia. Rosalynn’s death came days after she entered hospice care at home and months after her family announced in May that she had dementia.

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