President-elect Donald Trump visits Jimmy Carter’s casket in the Capitol

WASHINGTON (AP) – President-elect Donald Trump, who has alternated between praising, criticizing and mocking Jimmy Cartercame to the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday to pay their respects to Carter as the 39th president lies in state ahead of his funeral Thursday in the nation’s capital.

Carter was often the target of Trump’s taunts during his 2024 campaignand so has the president-elect renewed his criticism by the Georgia Democrat this week to cede control of the Panama Canal to his home country when he was president more than four decades ago.

Trump, who plans to attend Carter’s funeral Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral, played it live on Capitol Hill as he walked somberly into the rotunda with his wife, Melania, pausing in front of Carter’s flag-draped casket, which rests atop the ​The Lincoln hearse and stands surrounded by a military honor guard.

Throughout his successful 2024 campaign, Trump lampooned President Joe Biden and Carter together, playing Republican caricatures of Carter.

“Jimmy Carter is happy because he had a brilliant presidency compared to Biden,” Trump would say, even using a version of the attack when former first lady Rosalynn Carter was on his deathbed in 2023 and on Carter’s 100th birthday on October 1, 2024. On Tuesday, the day Carter’s remains arrived in Washington, Trump added of Carter: “I liked him as a man. I disagreed with his politics. He thought giving away the Panama Canal was a good thing.

Members of Congress, Capitol Hill staffers and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy also joined the long line of mourners. Lynda Robb and Luci Baines Johnson, the daughters of President Lyndon Johnson, also paid their respects. Luci Baines Johnson blew a kiss to the casket as she walked away.

Carter, the longest-living American president, died 29 Dec at the age of 100.

A US Naval Academy graduate, submarine officer and peanut farmer before entering politics, Carter won the White House in 1976 as an outsider in the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate. He endured four rocky years of economic turmoil and international crises that ended with his defeat by Republican Ronald Reagan. But he also lived long enough to see historians reassess his presidency more charitably than voters did in 1980, and the national rituals of a state funeral offer him a remarkable contrast to the often testy relationship he had with Washington during his four years in the oval office. .

“President Carter was governor of the great state of Georgia when I was born,” said Lyn Leverett, among the people waiting in sub-freezing weather Wednesday. “So he’s been around my, you know, my whole being. And I just want to show my respect to a decent person.”

Some visitors fondly recalled personal connections to Carter’s 1976 campaign, when his family, close friends and other supporters from Georgia formed the “Peanut Brigade” to sweep across Iowa, New Hampshire and other key primary states and help Carter surprise Washington -establishment by winning the Democratic nomination.

“I’m originally from Nashua, New Hampshire, and when I was a kid, Jimmy Carter slept over at my house,” Susan Prolman said. “He had just won the Iowa caucuses and he was in New Hampshire campaigning for the first New Hampshire presidential primary in the country. And I made him this little poster and he very kindly signed it.”

Margaret Fitzpatrick of Kensington, Maryland, recalled a family friend who had attended the Naval Academy with Carter in the 1940s and later hosted him as a presidential candidate. But she and others said what drew them most to the Capitol was what they remember of Carter when he left office — and the differences they see between Carter and Trump.

“The contrast is amazing,” Fitzpatrick said, noting the juxtaposition of Carter’s funeral with the obvious preparations around Washington for Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. “I am here to honor someone who has built a reputation for honesty, character and integrity. President Carter was a decent, kind, genuine and gentle person.”

Kim James, also a Maryland resident, said she had not yet started elementary school when Carter was elected and thinks of him more as the white-haired former president who fought disease and advocated for democracy in the developing world and built homes for Habitat for Humanity in the United States and abroad.

“He cared about other people,” she said, adding that political leaders today should work harder to replicate that example. “That selflessness — it always stood out.”

Official ceremonies this week have also remembered the Carters religious beliefslong public service and decades of humanitarian work beyond what he achieved in politics. Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune saluted Carter a day earlier at the Capitolwhen his remains first arrived at the rotunda.

Carter will remain at the Capitol until Thursday morning, when he will be transported to the Washington National Cathedral for a state funeral beginning at 7 p.m. Biden, a longtime Carter ally, will give a praise. Other living former presidents, including Trump, are expected to attend.

After the funeral, the Boeing 747, which is Air Force One when a sitting president is on board, will transport Carter and his family back to Georgia. An invitation-only funeral will be held at Maranatha Baptist Church in tiny Plains, Georgia, where Carter taught Sunday school for decades after leaving office.

Carter will be buried next to his wife in a plot near the home they built before his first state Senate campaign in 1962 and where they lived out their lives except for four years in the Georgia governor’s mansion and four years in the White House.

___ Associated Press reporter Jack Auresto contributed.