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PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s planning to attend the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter.
Asked about it as he walked into a New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump responded, “I’ll be there.” Pressed on whether he’d spoken to members of Carter’s family, Trump said he’d rather not say.
Funeral services honoring Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, will be held in Georgia and Washington, beginning Jan. 4 and concluding Jan. 9.
Trump was a frequent and fierce critic of Carter on the campaign trail ahead of November’s election, using the rising inflation rates of the 1970s to unfavorably compare President Joe Biden to Carter and his administration.
But the president-elect was gracious about the former president in posts on his social media site after Carter’s death Sunday, writing that the nation “owed him a debt of gratitude.”
“He was such a phenomenal president and just amazing, amazing person,” said one visitor. “I had a draft letter ready to put in the book. I drafted it in my phone and then I wrote it out by hand in my best writing possible.”
“While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for,” Trump wrote of Carter. “He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect.”
Wearing a tuxedo as he entered the festivities, Trump took a few minutes of questions from reporters on various topics. He was asked about the possibility of a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, but said only, “We’re going to see what happens.”
The president-elect added of hostages seized more than a year ago by Hamas, “I’ll put it this way: They better let the hostages come back soon.”
Trump also said he thought 2025 would be a “great year” and “we’re going to do fantastically well as a country.”
“There’s a whole light over the whole world, not just our country. They’re a lot of happy people,” Trump said of recent weeks.
Reactions and statements from across the political spectrum are pouring in, mourning former President Carter’s death.
Asked about his resolutions for the new year, Trump said, “I just want everybody to be happy, healthy and well.”
Trump later took the stage to briefly address the crowd ringing in the new year at Mar-a-Lago and promised “to do a great job as your president.”
Biden, for his part, spent New Year’s Eve celebrating the wedding of his niece Missy Owens in Greenville, Delaware, followed by the reception in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Biden and first lady Jill Biden cut short their traditional holiday trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands to attend the ceremony.
Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Greenville, Delaware, contributed.
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