Donald Trump pays respect to Jimmy Carter at US Capitol Building in ‘awkward encounter’

Out of a grey sky above Maryland this week, a US Air Force 747 made its approach to Joint Base Andrews near Washington DC, landing just as the capital shivered through its heaviest snowfall in years.

The jet’s livery, familiar around the world, identified it as ‘Air Force One;’ one of two Boeing 747s used to fly the US President.

In fact, the Air Force had redesignated this flight ‘SAM - 39’, or ‘Special Air Mission for the 39th President’.

Joe Biden was not the high-ranking passenger. Rather, it was an earlier president - Jimmy Carter.

Commander-in-chief for one four-year term in the late seventies, Carter passed away two days before the new year. He was 100 years old - the longest-lived president in U.S. history.

Jimmy Carter’s family disembarked the jet, stood on the tarmac with a military band and high ranking officials and watched as the removal of their patriarch’s casket from the jet set off the first wave of ceremony.

The silence; the music; the twenty one gun salutes; the coffin drawn by horses down Pennsylvania Avenue. It is familiar at least back to the black and white footage of Washington mourning after John F. Kennedy’s assassination more than sixty years ago.

Prior to Jimmy Carter’s Presidential farewell, the most recent was for George H. W. Bush, six years ago.

This morning, I joined a walk thousands will likely take in the next two days, through the snow, up to the East entrance of the US Capitol Building and into the Rotunda.

There, people stand in a silent circle around Jimmy Carter’s casket and after a few minutes, file through for others to take their place.

It is simple, poignant and beautiful.

Among those to show their respects in the Rotunda today, were Donald and Melania Trump.

The couple walked hand in hand up close to the casket, for a brief, but solemn visit. He turned to her as though to suggest, ‘That’s enough’ and they turned and left.

For those who’ve followed Trump’s recent comments about Carter, this was an awkward encounter, never mind that neither Trump nor Carter was likely to speak.

Even before Jimmy Carter’s death, Donald Trump had established him as a benchmark of bad Presidents.

During the recent Presidential campaign, he repeatedly told supporters Joe Biden was such an appalling President, he made Carter look “brilliant” by comparison.

He has also promised to reverse some of Carter’s environmental accomplishments and now wants to unpick the treaty under which the late President ceded control of the Panama Canal.

Donald Trump even expressed annoyance on learning the customary lowering of flags for thirty days when a former President dies, means they’ll still be at half-mast for Carter, on Trump’s inauguration day later this month.

It seems mourning Carter trumps celebrating Trump.

It’s not that Trump hasn’t tried. He has.

Carter was “a good man” and “very consequential” according to the soon-to-be President.

“He truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for.”

Donald Trump has climbed down a little from the hyperbole of last year’s election, but he can only go so far.

He is in Washington, in part to attend Jimmy Carter’s state funeral; one of five surviving US presidents attending the service to pay their respects.

While Donald Trump is driving attention to his new Presidency to start in less than a fortnight, Washington demands attention on a presidency for almost half a century ago.

It’s proving awkward.