PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he's planning to attend the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter.
Asked about it as he walked into a New Year's Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump responded, "I'll be there.” Pressed on whether he'd spoken to members of Carter's family, Trump said he'd rather not say.
Funeral services honoring Carter, who died Sunday at 100, will be held in Georgia and Washington, beginning Jan. 4 and concluding Jan. 9.
Trump was a frequent and fierce critic of Carter on the campaign trail ahead of November's election, using the rising inflation rates of the 1970s to unfavorably compare President Joe Biden to Carter and his administration.
But the president-elect was gracious about the former president in posts on his social media site after Carter's death Sunday, writing that the nation “owed him a debt of gratitude.”
“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 wrote of Carter. “He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect.”
Wearing a tuxedo as he entered the festivities, Trump took a few minutes of questions from reporters on various topics. He was asked about the possibility of a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, but said only, “We’re going to see what happens."
The president-elect added of hostages seized more than a year ago by Hamas, “I’ll put it this way: They better let the hostages come back soon."
Trump also said he thought 2025 would be a “great year” and "we’re going to do fantastically well as a country.”
“There’s a whole light over the whole world, not just our country. They’re a lot of happy people,” Trump said of recent weeks.
Asked about his resolutions for the new year, Trump said, “I just want everybody to be happy, healthy and well.”
Trump later took the stage to briefly address the crowd ringing in the new year at Mar-a-Lago and promised “to do a great job as your president.”
Biden, for his part, spent New Year’s Eve celebrating the wedding of his niece Missy Owens in Greenville, Delaware, followed by the reception in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Biden and first lady Jill Biden cut short their traditional holiday trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands to attend the ceremony.
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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Greenville, Delaware, contributed.
President Joe Biden, holding the hand of his grandson Beau Biden, walks down the steps of Air Force One at Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024, as they return to Wilmington, Del., following their vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Melania Trump looks on as President-elect Donald Trump speaks to reporters before a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Melania Trump looks on as President-elect Donald Trump speaks to reporters before a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks to reporters before a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
NEW YORK (AP) — Rudy Giuliani seemed to favorably impress a judge with three hours of testimony Friday at a contempt hearing as he insisted he's not hiding assets from lawyers trying to recover a $148 million judgment for two Georgia election workers.
Judge Lewis J. Liman seemed less inclined to find the former mayor in contempt for failing to turn over some assets, including a valuable signed Joe DiMaggio jersey that appeared to go missing after Giuliani said he last saw it around Sept. 11 in his Manhattan apartment.
The judge said Giuliani can finish his testimony Monday by appearing remotely from his Florida residence as he explains why some assets and the paperwork related to them have been hard to locate and forfeit.
When he asked a lawyer for the election workers if the plaintiffs were more interested in recovering assets than finding Giuliani in contempt, attorney Meryl Conant Governski quickly agreed, saying contempt was not “our primary goal.”
Governski, more matter-of-fact than confrontational, elicited from Giuliani how overwhelmed he felt by court orders coming at him in multiple cases across the country at once.
She left the judge, at times, to jump in with a stern statement, like when he told Giuliani flatly: “You're in violation of a court order at least in regards to that,” referring to the DiMaggio jersey.
Giuliani said repeatedly that he wasn't purposefully trying to withhold assets. He portrayed himself as forgetful, disorganized at times and having delegated to others some of the chores regarding his assets and the legal case surrounding them.
He complained that the two-week time frame he was given to respond to some requests “was very short,” compared with how long he was given to provide information in 15 to 20 other court cases he's involved in.
He said he has turned over all his valuable watches except for a 120-year-old gold watch that his grandfather gave him.
“I was holding it so it didn't get lost,” he said. “I felt like it could get lost if it was turned over.”
When the judge asked if he understood that the watch was required to be turned over, he said he “wasn't trying to hide it from anyone” and would give it up “if you can assure me you'll put it in a safe place.”
Giuliani said the New York Yankees had been very good to him and he at one point had as many as 100 Yankees items, but he gave most everything away, including signed pictures of Reggie Jackson and Joe DiMaggio together and another of Yogi Berra and Babe Ruth.
“I get confused about what I have and don't have,” he said, claiming he lost some belongings during his most recent divorce six years ago.
The election workers' lawyers say Giuliani has displayed a “consistent pattern of willful defiance” of Liman’s October order to give up assets after he was found liable in 2023 for defaming their clients by falsely accusing them of tampering with ballots during the 2020 presidential election.
They said in court papers this week that he has turned over a Mercedes-Benz and his New York apartment but not the paperwork necessary to monetize the assets. And they said he has failed to surrender watches and sports memorabilia, including the DiMaggio jersey, and not “a single dollar from his nonexempt cash accounts.”
Liman said in an order last week that Giuliani's lawyer should be ready to explain why he should not be held in contempt with resulting sanctions that could make it less likely he gets to keep his Florida home. A trial over the disposition of the Palm Beach condominium and World Series rings is scheduled for mid-January.
Giuliani says the Palm Beach property is his personal residence now and should be shielded from the judgment.
His lawyers have predicted that he will eventually win custody of the items on appeal.
Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister contributed to this report.
Rudy Giuliani leaves Manhattan federal court in New York, on Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Rudy Giuliani speaks to the media outside of Manhattan federal court in New York, on Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Rudy Giuliani speaks to the media outside of Manhattan federal court in New York, on Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
FILE — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, wearing a New York Yankees championship ring, pulls his face mask down to speak to an aide during a press conference at the Women's Republican Club, Sept. 16, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
FILE - Rudy Giuliani speaks outside the Fulton County jail in Atlanta, on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
