Greg Abbott sent condolences to Jimmy Carter's wife - who had been dead a year [View all]

Source: The Guardian

Mon 30 Dec 2024 10.10 EST
Last modified on Mon 30 Dec 2024 10.12 EST


The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, mistakenly offered his condolences to Jimmy Carter’s dead wife shortly after the Democratic former president died on Sunday.

Abbott’s statement sent “prayers and deepest condolences” to former first lady Rosalynn Carter and the rest of her family shortly after her husband’s death at the age of 100, as the Dallas news station WFAA reported. But Rosalynn Carter had died more than a year earlier – on 19 November 2023, at age 96.

The Democratic party of Collins county, Texas, seized on the blunder and wrote on X: “Did anyone in the governor’s office proof the condolence note?” Another social media user wrote, “Condolences to Rosalynn Carter? She passed in Nov of 2023. WTF is wrong with you?”

A couple of hours passed before Abbott’s office distributed an amended statement about Jimmy Carter’s death that removed the reference to his late wife, as the Houston Press noted. The revised statement read: “Cecilia and I send our prayers and deepest condolences to the entire family.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/30/greg-abbott-jimmy-carter-rosalynn-condolences