Presidents club convening to honor Jimmy Carter at contentious moment for the exclusive group

Washington CNN —

It’s the world’s most exclusive fraternity and, on Thursday, all five members of the so-called presidents club will gather to honor one of their own.

Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are expected to attend the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, who died December 29.

It’s an exceedingly rare convening, and it will mark the first time all of the club’s living members will come face to face since the funeral of George H.W. Bush in December 2018.

Six years later, the group has a sharply fractured dynamic that will be closely watched at the Washington National Cathedral service. The former presidents have directly, and indirectly, spoken forcefully against Trump, who mounted a successful political comeback after his defeat four years ago and who in less than two weeks will return to the White House.

Former President Jimmy Carter in his home in Plains, Georgia, on September 30, 2017.

Related article What we know about funeral plans for former President Jimmy Carter

“Definitely in modern history — from Kennedy on — there hasn’t been a more contentious moment between these men,” said Kate Andersen Brower, the author of “Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump.”

Linked by the shared experience of having served in what one of their predecessors — William Howard Taft — once described as “the loneliest place in the world,” the five living American presidents will gather “at a funeral for a man who always stood a bit, figuratively, apart from them,” said Brower.

The presidents club, by nature, is complicated by past rivalries and future legacies. Those complications have only intensified as Trump, who has railed against all of his