President Joe Biden inadvertently revealed Monday that he has been asked by former President Jimmy Carter to deliver a eulogy at his memorial service, according to The Washington Post.
Carter, 98, entered hospice care last month, according to WSB-TV. The reason he is in hospice care was not revealed.
Speaking at a fundraiser in Rancho Santa Fe, California, Biden let slip that he had spent time with Carter recently and that the former president’s health has “finally caught up with him, but they found a way to keep him going for a lot longer than they anticipated because they found a breakthrough.”
Carter was diagnosed with melanoma in 2015. The skin cancer had spread to parts of Carter’s brain, according to his doctors at the time. However, he received a combination of radiation treatments and immune-based therapy and was declared cancer-free.
Carter’s father, two sisters and brother all died from pancreatic cancer. His mother died from breast cancer.
“He asked me to do his eulogy,” Biden said, before catching himself and adding: “Excuse me, I shouldn’t say that.”
On Monday, Biden also spoke about his “Cancer Moonshot” plan to halve the death rate from cancer over the next 25 years, according to a pool report.
Carter’s decision to enter hospice care was announced in February.
“After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,” the Carter Center — which the former president founded along with his wife, Rosalyn, in hopes of advancing world peace and health — said at the time. “He has the full support of his family and his medical team.”
