President Barack Obama and his wife praised Nancy Reagan’s “proud example” in a statement after her death, saying she redefined the role of first lady.
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Mrs. Reagan, who died Sunday at 94, planned the smallest details of her funeral.
In a retraction that did little to calm the waters, Clinton said she had meant to say Alzheimer’s, but said she “misspoke” during her initial interview. It was a cause she advocated following her husband’s diagnosis.
“It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980sand because of both president and Mrs. Reagan, in particular Mrs. Reagan, we started a national conversation when before nobody would talk about it”, she said.
“I think we can admit that she was not always the easiest person to deal with”, her son said, drawing laughter from an audience filled with politicians, heads of state, actors, musicians, a former president and several first ladies. It was part funeral for Nancy Reagan and part celebration of Nancy and Ronald Reagan’s love story.
Wednesday and Thursday, more than 5,500 people lined up to pray in front of the closed casket of the former first lady, who was covered with her favorite flowers, white roses and peonies.
The services for the onetime Hollywood actress and first lady capped two days during which thousands of mourners filed past her coffin as it lay in repose at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, north of Los Angeles. “For that, I am sorry”, Clinton said on her Twitter account.
Mr. Mulroney, who was Prime Minister of Canada during the first term of Mr. Reagan, also read a love letter written by the former president at the first Christmas the couple to the White House in 1981.
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“When they were together, he hid love notes around the house for her to find”, said another Reagan former chief of staff, James Baker. Michelle Obama, George and Laura Bush, Caroline Kennedy, Tom Brokaw, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Diane Sawyer, John Stamos, Anjelica Houston, and Arnold Schwarzenegger were among them. He dedicated the rest of the address to recognizing her for support of her husband, both during his time as president and when he struggled with Alzheimer’s later in his life. I love the whole gang of you: “Mommy, First Lady, the sentimental you, the fun you and the Peewee Powerhouse you”, Reagan wrote.
