ATLANTA — President Joe Biden mentioned Jimmy Carter during his inaugural address, saying he spoke to the former president on Tuesday night and saluted “his lifetime of service.”
Carter, now 96, announced in early January that he would be unable to attend the inauguration.
Biden’s mention of Carter came as he thanked the former presidents who attended “for their presence here today. I thank them from the bottom of my heart,” Biden said, “and I know the resilience of our Constitution and strength of our nation, as does President Carter, who I spoke with last night, who cannot be here with us today, but whom we salute for his lifetime of service.”
Now-former President Donald Trump left Washington before the ceremony, which was attended by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Carter had attended every presidential inauguration since 1977.
A spokeswoman said Tuesday that neither Carter, 96, nor his 93-year-old wife, Rosalynn Carter, would be attending the Jan. 20 ceremony.
The Carters “have sent their best wishes to President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris and look forward to a successful administration,” said Deanna Congileo, a spokeswoman at the Carter Center.
Carter, who has stayed close to Plains, Georgia, since a series of falls in 2019, last traveled to Washington for an official event in 2018 for the funeral of former President George H.W. Bush.
Carter, a Democrat, has said that, during his presidency, “Joe Biden was my first and most effective supporter in the Senate.”
“For decades, he’s been my loyal and dedicated friend,” Carter said.
In Jonathan Alter’s new Carter biography, “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life,” he wrote that Biden was the first senator to endorse Carter in his bid for the presidency.
”Biden would appear in dozens of states for Carter in 1976,” Alter wrote. “He joked that. at age 33, he was still two years shy of the constitutional age requirement to be president. So, since he couldn’t yet run himself, he was backing Jimmy.”
In August, he and Rosalynn Carter delivered a recorded speech on the second night of the Democratic National Convention in support of Biden and Kamala Harris.
“Joe has the experience, character and decency to bring us together and restore America’s greatness,” Carter said at the time. “Joe Biden must be our next president.”
