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Trump complains that US flags will be half-staff on his inauguration day

President Joe Biden ordered flags lowered to half-staff for 30 days from the day of Carter's death on Dec. 29, as is custom when a US president dies.

Agencies
Washington
Sun, January 5, 2025

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Trump complains that US flags will be half-staff on his inauguration day A farmer shows support for Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump and a view on abortion on August 10, 2024 near Hawkeye, Iowa. Trump won Iowa by 9 percent in 2016 and 8 percent in 2020 over his democratic rivals. A new Iowa law bans most abortions after about 6 weeks, before many women know they're pregnant. (Getty Images/AFP /Scott Olson)

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resident-elect Donald Trump complained on Friday that American flags would still be lowered to half-staff in honor of the late President Jimmy Carter during Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration. 

President Joe Biden ordered flags lowered to half-staff for 30 days from the day of Carter's death on Dec. 29, as is custom when a US president dies.

Trump, who has announced plans to attend Carter's memorial service in Washington on Jan. 9, took issue in a Truth Social post on Friday with the flags remaining in the mourning position during his swearing-in ceremony.

"The Democrats are all 'giddy' about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at 'half mast' during my Inauguration," Trump said, employing a term frequently used for the lowered position when the flag is on a ship. 

"They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves," Trump said.

Trump said that due to Carter's death last week the American flag would "for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast."

"Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out," he said.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House had no plans to reconsider the decision.

The death of Carter has brought to the fore a defining characteristic of the late US president's life: his "decency," seen as a product of a bygone era in today's caustic political environment.

Biden repeated the word three times while speaking to reporters about his late White House predecessor.

Biden, who will be replaced in the White House by Trump on January 20, added: "Can you imagine Jimmy Carter referring to someone by the way they look or the way they talk?"

Despite the struggles he faced during his single term in office -- from economic malaise to the Iran hostage crisis -- Carter has emerged as a nostalgic figure.

He spent his years after the White House advocating for global democracy, fighting neglected public health scourges and teaching Sunday school.

"He was an utterly honest, transparent and healing presence in the White House, which was just what the US needed after the Watergate scandal" under Richard Nixon, Barbara Perry, a professor specializing in the history of US presidents, told AFP.

Eulogies "tell us as much about ourselves as they do about the person being contemplated and commemorated," historian Jon Meacham told broadcaster MSNBC.

"Carter is a sad but illuminating instance of someone who -- while imperfect -- believed in the centrality of character... at a moment in American politics where character is not at the forefront of most people's minds."

Born in rural Plains, Georgia, he died in the same house he and his wife -- who he was married to for 77 years -- bought in 1961.

And his modest lifestyle served as an inspiration to many Americans -- even if other presidents didn't join in themselves.

To name a few: allegations of John F. Kennedy's extramarital trysts, Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern, and Donald Trump's well-documented sex scandals have "lowered all such standards in American politics," Perry said.

"Americans have become immune to ethical standards in political life."

Even those who have stayed clean from personal scandal, such as Barack Obama or George W. Bush, have little in common with the modest lifestyle and outspoken advocacy of Carter's post-presidency.

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