United States flags are set to be flown at half-staff this month as an official sign of grieving former President Jimmy Carter, who died on Dec. 29, 2024, aged 100. However, President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration day is set for later this month and he has expressed his discontent about the matter.
In President Joe Biden’s proclamation about the death of Carter, he directed that flags be flown at half-staff “as an expression of public sorrow” for 30 days—a period of time that includes President-elect Trump’s inauguration on Monday, Jan. 20.
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The act is in accordance with a proclamation issued by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954, which states that when a President or former President dies, 30 days is the appropriate amount of time to fly the flag at half-staff at federal government buildings and their grounds, as well as at U.S. embassies and other facilities abroad, including military installations and vessels.
Biden’s proclamation also announced that Thursday, Jan. 9 would be a National Day of Mourning for the U.S., as a state funeral will be held that day at the Washington National Cathedral. Trump is expected to be in attendance. Ceremonies honoring Carter started on Jan. 4 with a procession in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. Carter will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda from Jan. 7 to Jan. 9.
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Upon learning of Carter’s death, Trump paid tribute via his social media platform, Truth Social. “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 said of Carter. “He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect.”
Trump later posted on Truth Social, about the flags, saying that Democrats are “giddy” about the flag being flown at half-staff during his Inauguration.
“In any event, because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast,” he wrote. “Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out.”
The flags were flown at half-staff during President Richard Nixon’s inauguration for his second term on Jan. 20, 1973, due to him having lowered them earlier for the death of former President Harry S. Truman on Dec. 26, 1972.
During a press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if the White House would reconsider its decision to fly the flags at half-staff, in light of Trump’s raised concerns about his inauguration. Jean-Pierre replied with a firm “no.”
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After Trump is inaugurated, he could technically override Biden’s proclamation as President and raise the flags, an act that Nixon did for a single day in 1973 to honor the release of American prisoners of war in Vietnam. Though it was during a period of national mourning after the death of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon wrote that the short raising of the flag was in accordance with Johnson’s “highest respect and affection for the men in uniform who gave so much on the battlefields and in the prison camps.”
This is not the first time that Trump has been involved in discourse about flags being flown at half-staff. When Senator John McCain died in 2018, flags at some federal buildings were fully raised earlier than would normally be expected after the death of a Senator. After criticism, the flags were lowered again.
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