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WASHINGTON — Former President Jimmy Carter arrived at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday and will lie in state after a memorial service attended by his family, Vice President Kamala Harris, members of Congress and other officials.
Harris, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will deliver eulogies, and several members of Carter’s presidential Cabinet are expected to attend.
In addition, the Carter family has invited Democratic and Republican lawmakers who served in Congress during the Carter administration and Carter’s White House staff to pay their respects. a U.S. military release said.
Supreme Court justices, governors, members of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser have also been invited to attend, it said.
Carter’s casket arrived at the Capitol in a horse-drawn caisson at around 4:30 p.m. ET, with canons fired upon its arrival. His casket was set to be placed in the Rotunda for the service and rest on the Lincoln catafalque, a platform built to support President Abraham Lincoln’s casket and now used for such ceremonies. It will be open to public viewing from about 7 p.m. to midnight. The statues of Lincoln and other presidents — including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman and Gerald Ford, who Carter defeated in 1976 — line the Rotunda.
His body will lie in state through Thursday morning, when there will be a service for him at Washington National Cathedral.
Tuesday’s events began in the morning with the transport of Carter’s remains from his presidential library in Atlanta to Joint Base Andrews near Washington. From there, Carter and his family are traveling by motorcade to the U.S. Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White House and the Capitol.
At the Navy Memorial, which Carter authorized in 1980 after it was approved by Congress, the former president’s remains will be transferred from a hearse to a horse-drawn caisson for the funeral procession to the Capitol. The procession is designed to mirror Carter’s inaugural parade on Jan. 20, 1977, when, instead of riding in the presidential limousine, he and his family walked from the Capitol to the White House, the military release said.
The White House Historical Association noted, “This was the first time a president walked the pavement of Pennsylvania Avenue after the inauguration ceremony,” demonstrating Carter’s desire to make the presidency accessible to all citizens.
The public is invited to honor and celebrate Carter’s life along the funeral procession route on Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues to the Capitol, his family said.
Once he arrives at the Capitol, honorary pall bearers will carry the late president into the Rotunda, where his casket will lie on the Lincoln catafalque.
The last president to lie in state at the Capitol was President George H.W. Bush in 2018.
Carter, the longest-living former president, died at age 100 on Dec. 29. He had been living in hospice care since February 2023 at his home in Plains, Georgia.
Biden is expected to give a eulogy Thursday morning at the cathedral service and has declared the day a national day of mourning. After the service, Carter’s body will be flown back to Plains and to the Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday school for decades, followed by a private burial.
Rebecca Shabad is a politics reporter for NBC News based in Washington.
Neil O'Brien is a senior broadcast producer for NBC News Specials.
Zoë Richards is a politics reporter for NBC News.
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