WASHINGTON — After conferring the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 17 folks, together with the gymnast Simone Biles and a posthumous honor for John McCain, the longtime Republican senator, President Biden mentioned, “That is America.”
However the celebratory occasion within the East Room of the White Home on Thursday mentioned as a lot in regards to the president because it did in regards to the nation represented by the group of women and men he was honoring.
The occasion underscored Mr. Biden’s longstanding Catholic religion, his unwavering help for unions, his choice for centrist lawmakers and his perception in range. Any president’s selection of whom to honor gives a window into his values and priorities. The occasion hosted by Mr. Biden was no completely different.
“Sister Simone Campbell is a present from God,” Mr. Biden mentioned as he advised the viewers of his resolution to offer the nation’s highest civilian award to a nun who has spent many years preventing for social justice and serving to the poor. The selection of a longtime ally by Mr. Biden, a working towards Catholic, was a testomony to his many years juggling politics and faith.
Earlier than transferring on to the opposite recipients, the president stopped to inform the story of Pope Benedict XVI asking him for recommendation. After protesting that giving recommendation to the pope could be presumptuous, Mr. Biden, then the vice chairman, gave in.
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“I’d go simple on the nuns,” he recalled saying. “They’re extra widespread than you’re.”
Mr. Biden gave one of many medals to Richard Trumka, who led the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and was a robust Democratic activist for years earlier than his dying final 12 months. The choice to honor Mr. Trumka was a mirrored image not solely of their private bonds, however of the position that unions have performed in Mr. Biden’s profession.
Since he started working for workplace, Mr. Biden has usual himself as a “working Joe,” somebody who understands the wants of working folks. Unions have been a few of his most fervent supporters; simply the day earlier than, on Wednesday, he flew to Ohio for an occasion about pension reforms that profit union employees.
“His work was fierce, all the time making an attempt to do the precise factor for working folks,” Mr. Biden mentioned of Mr. Trumka as he delivered the medal to Mr. Trumka’s son, including, “In additional than 30 years of friendship, he was all the time sincere, honest and difficult and reliable.”
Campaigning for president in 2020, Mr. Biden offered himself to the nation as essentially the most centrist Democratic possibility and as somebody who might work throughout the aisle in Congress to succeed in compromise. He has struggled to try this since taking workplace, however Mr. Biden’s selection of honorees on Thursday demonstrated how he nonetheless noticed himself.
Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, was one of many medal recipients. Mr. Biden referred to as him “one of the respectable, stand-up, real guys I ever served with — and I served with lots of senators.”
He additionally gave a medal to Mr. McCain, the previous senator from Arizona who had lengthy been one in every of Mr. Biden’s closest associates. Mr. McCain’s spouse, Cindy, accepted the award on behalf of Mr. McCain, who handed away in 2018.
“We used to argue like hell on the Senate ground,” Mr. Biden recalled. “However then we’d go down and have lunch collectively.”
The president recalled being on a visit with Mr. McCain many years in the past and stopping off in Hawaii, the place Mr. Biden launched his fellow senator to Cindy, including, “He nonetheless owes me!”
Because the viewers laughed, Ms. McCain appeared to wipe tears from her eyes.
Mr. Biden additionally picked Ms. Biles, essentially the most adorned American gymnast in historical past and a Black lady who — at 25 years outdated — is the youngest particular person ever to obtain the award, Mr. Biden mentioned.
He honored Megan Rapinoe, an Olympian and a Ladies’s World Cup champion, who has advocated gender pay equality, racial justice and homosexual rights.
He additionally singled out a number of folks for the work they did to advertise civil rights, together with Diane Nash, a founding father of the Pupil Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and an in depth ally of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Fred Grey, a lawyer for Dr. King and Rosa Parks; and Raúl Yzaguirre, who led the Nationwide Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group.
Taken collectively, the picks underscored Mr. Biden’s perception in ensuring various teams are represented and highlighted the methods by which the civil rights struggles of the previous a number of many years have molded his political profession.
“Diane Nash formed a few of the most necessary civil rights efforts in American historical past,” Mr. Biden mentioned. “And but,” he added, “she is the primary to say the medal is shared with tons of of hundreds of patriotic People who sacrificed a lot for the reason for liberty and justice for all.”
“And by the best way,” Mr. Biden mentioned, “she requested me to verify so as to add that as a result of she didn’t wish to take all of the credit score.”
The others who acquired medals on Thursday have been former Consultant Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat who was injured throughout a mass capturing; Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple who died in 2011; the actor Denzel Washington, who the White Home mentioned missed the occasion due to a constructive coronavirus check; Sandra Lindsay, a New York nurse who was the primary American to obtain a Covid-19 vaccine; Brig. Gen. Wilma Vaught, one of the adorned girls within the historical past of the U.S. army; Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father; the Rev. Alexander Karloutsos, the previous vicar basic of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; and Julieta García, the previous president of the College of Texas at Brownsville.