Biden to award Medal of Freedom to Nancy Pelosi and Katie Ledecky, among others

President Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Friday to a number of prominent Americans, including several of his most important political allies such as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina.

With six months until the election, Biden has put together a list of 19 people to honor, filled with key Democratic Party figures and others he has worked with over the years, including former Vice President Al Gore and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from New York. The only known Republican to be honored is former Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina.

“Today, we have another extraordinary honor,” Biden said at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, noting that he was bestowing the nation’s highest civilian honor on “19 incredible people whose tireless curiosity, inventiveness, ingenuity and hope kept faith in a better tomorrow.”

The medal was established in its current form by President John F. Kennedy and is intended to honor “any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution” to national security, world peace or “cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” as the original executive order put it.

In addition to the political recipients, the president selected a handful of well-known figures from the worlds of civil rights, sports, entertainment and space exploration.

Among those honored were Clarence B. Jones, a civil rights activist who helped write the “I Have a Dream” speech given by the Rev. Opal Lee, an educator who in 2016, at age 89, walked from her home in Texas to Washington to lobby to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday marking the end of slavery; and Judy Shepard, who helped found the Matthew Shepard Foundation to combat gay hate crimes after her son was brutally murdered in 1998.

Others recognized Friday included the Rev. Gregory J. Boyle, a Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, the gang intervention and rehabilitation program active in Los Angeles; and Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers and the first Latina to lead a national union.

The cultural and athletic figures honored were Michelle Yeoh, the first Asian to win the Oscar for best actress; Katie Ledecky, seven-time Olympic gold medal winner and most decorated swimmer in history; and Phil Donahue, one of the pioneers of daytime talk shows.

Biden also selected some pioneering figures in the space field: astronaut Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman to leave the planet and the second woman director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center; and astronomer Jane Rigby, chief scientist of the James Webb Space Telescope.

Three recipients received the medal posthumously: Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader whose 1963 assassination shocked the nation and galvanized the movement to end racial discrimination; Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal; and former Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, a longtime colleague of Biden’s in Congress.

Friday’s ceremony was an opportunity for Biden to thank some allies who helped him in important moments. Pelosi, who still represents California in the House after stepping down as speaker, was instrumental in passing some of the most important legislation of Biden’s presidency, including programs to rebuild infrastructure, combat climate change, reduce prescription drug costs and increase corporate taxes.

Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, served with Biden in the Senate for years and as secretary of state during President Barack Obama’s administration, when Biden was vice president. Until recently, Kerry served as Biden’s special climate envoy.

Clyburn, a longtime member of House Democratic leadership, may have been more important than any other ally in propelling Biden to the White House with his timely support in the campaign-flipping 2020 Democratic primary.

Among those Biden defeated that year for the nomination was Bloomberg, the billionaire former three-term mayor who supported Biden when he dropped out and has been an ally on shared priorities such as climate change.

Like Biden, Gore is a former senator who served as vice president for eight years. Since leaving office, he has shared the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change. But it also served as a reminder of the tradition of conceding elections after a defeat, a sharp blow to former President Donald J. Trump, who just this week again refused to commit to accepting the results of this year’s election if he lost.

Gore won the national popular vote in 2000 but lost a tight race in Florida by just 537 votes, giving the Electoral College advantage to George W. Bush, a Republican. After a Supreme Court ruling ended the recount in Florida, Gore made a gracious concession to Bush — and didn’t try to use his role as vice president to overturn the results while Trump tried to pressure his own vice president. Mike Pence, to do in 2020.

Biden’s only nod on the medal list was Mrs. Dole, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of transportation, secretary of labor under President George H.W. Bush and president of the American Red Cross before winning election to the N.C. Senate. of the North in 2002.

Her own campaign for president began with many promises, but exploded before the start of the Republican primaries in 2000. Her husband, former Senator Robert J. Dole of Kansas, was the party’s presidential candidate in 1996, losing the general election for Bill Clinton, a Democrat. . Dole was the only living Republican presidential candidate to support Trump for president and died at age 98 in 2021.

The Elizabeth Dole Foundation released a statement Friday thanking Mr. Biden for the honor: “The foundation deeply appreciates President Biden’s decision to bestow this award on Senator Dole, celebrating her life of leadership and service and rightly placing her among those extraordinary Americans who have changed the course of history.”