Joe Biden’s government prepares the state funeral for January 9

Jimmy Carter’s state funeral will be held in Washington on January 9a day on which Joe Biden has already declared national mourning, as announced by the White House.

The American president is expected to leave that same day for Rome, where will meet on the 10th with Pope Francis, the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella and the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

It is not yet clear whether Biden will change his program.

A state funeral It usually lasts 7 to 10 days, So the first phase of Carter’s funeral is likely to begin this Tuesday or Wednesday in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, then the tribute will be in Atlanta at the Carter Center and, finally, in the capital.

Biden proclaimed January 9 as ‘National Day of Mourning Across America’ and invited the American people to pay tribute to the memory of former President Carter.

The funeral services will be eleven days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

President Biden also ordered that the United States flag be displayed at half-staff at the White House and on all public buildings and grounds.

The 39th president of the United States, who was at home in palliative care, had been treated for an aggressive form of melanoma skin cancerwith tumors that had spread to the liver and brain.

In a brief televised message from St. Croix, in the US Virgin Islands, where President Biden is spending vacations with his family, the president praised his “dear friend” a few hours after his death.

“Jimmy Carter is a model of what it means to live a life of meaning and purpose,” and it is wrong to see him as a reflection of “a bygone era.”

“I see a man who is not only not from our time, but from all times,” he added.

“We would all do well to be a little more like Jimmy Carter“.

The president called Carter, the 39th president and the longest-serving president in the country’s history, a “remarkable leader” who led a life measured by deeds rather than words.