Secret Service tells hospice bound Jimmy Carter agency will be ‘forever by your side’

President Jimmy Carter was sent tributes Saturday as it was revealed that he would enter home hospice care — including from the Secret Service, which has protected him for nearly half a century.

“Rest easy Mr. President. We will be forever by your side,” wrote Anthony Gugliemi, the agency’s spokesman, in a social media post on Saturday.

Gugliemi’s pledge came in response to the Carter Center’s announcement that the former Democratic president “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.” 

The 98-year-old “has the full support of his family and his medical team,” the statement said.

“The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers,” it concluded.

Carter was diagnosed with cancer in 2015 and underwent surgery to remove a mass from his liver. Later that month, he held a news conference to disclose that doctors had found melanoma, “four very small spots,” on his brain.

He told reporters at the time that he thought was “at ease” despite believing he only had a few weeks left to live, according to Fox News.

“I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends, and I’ve had an exciting, adventurous, and gratifying existence,” he said optimistically

After several months of treatment, Carter’s doctors said  that he was officially cancer-free. But in 2019, he was hospitalized again, after suffering a fractured pelvis in a fall at home.

The Democrat was thrust into the White House in 1976 in the wake of Republican Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal.

While rampant inflation and a number of foreign policy blunders like the Iran 979 Iran hostage crisis marred his presidency and sunk his chances at winning re-election, the Georgia peanut farmer was also remembered for his humanitarian efforts and decades spent volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.

“All of us at Habitat for Humanity are lifting up President and Mrs. Carter in prayer as he enters hospice care,” the organization said in a statement on Saturday. “We pray for his comfort and for their peace, and that the Carter family experiences the joy of their relationships with each other and with God in this time.”

Carter first volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in 1984 and became the organization’s highest profile supporter.

Each year until 2020, Carter volunteered with over 100,000 volunteers in the US and 14 other countries “to build, renovate and repair 4,390 Habitat homes,” the organization said.

Gage Yeager, CEO of Trinity Habitat for Humanity in Fort Worth, recalled Carter’s 2014 visit to assist building homes in the area.

“He shows up to the devotion at 89 years old, no notes. I was just thinking how electric the atmosphere was in that room when he showed up to do that,” Yeager told NBCDFW.

Yeager said without the former president’s help, the organization would never be where it is today.

“The power of the presidency is a wonderful thing to grab onto,” he said.

“Love your neighbor. That’s what Jimmy Carter was about, right?” said Yeager.

Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.