Biden will visit Minnesota for Mondale memorial Sunday

President Joe Biden will visit Minnesota to attend a memorial service for former Vice President Walter Mondale on Sunday.

Biden will deliver remarks at the service commemorating Mondale's legacy at the University of Minnesota campus from 1:30-3 p.m. Biden described Mondale, who died last year at 93, as a "dear friend and mentor" and "one of our nation's most dedicated patriots and public servants," according to a news release from the University of Minnesota.

The event is invitation-only but will be livestreamed for the public to watch.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith will speak at the memorial at Northrop auditorium, as well as presidential historian Jon Meacham.

As a U.S. senator, Mondale helped create new social programs and was a champion of civil rights and environmental protections. Former President Jimmy Carter chose Mondale as his running mate in 1976, forging a partnership where Mondale acted as Carter's chief adviser.

Mondale's transformation of the office became a model for future vice presidents.

Mondale was the Democratic nominee for president in 1984 and lost in a historic landslide to incumbent President Ronald Reagan. But he stayed active in politics, serving from 1993 to 1996 as U.S. ambassador to Japan under President Bill Clinton. Mondale resisted urging from colleagues to run again for the U.S. Senate, but in 2002 he agreed to take the place of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone on the ballot after Wellstone died in a plane crash days before the election. Mondale lost to Republican Norm Coleman.

Other than the three years they lived in Japan, Mondale and his wife, Joan, called Minnesota home. He died in Minneapolis on April 20, 2021. She died in 2014.