President Joe Biden presented the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to 18 recipients at the White House on Saturday—celebrating leaders in politics, humanitarianism, and entertainment. With honorees ranging from Ralph Lauren to Jane Goodall, it’s the last time Biden will hand out the prestigious award.
“As cultural icons, dignified statesmen, humanitarians, rock stars, sports stars, you feed the hungry, you give hope to those that are hurting, and you craft the signs and sounds of our movements and our memories,” Biden said, addressing the crowd in the East Room, just weeks before he’ll be leaving office. The nineteenth recipient is Argentinian professional football player Lionel Messi, who was unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts, according to the White House.
In the past, this recognition has been used by presidents to honor cultural legends, political activists, and others at the top of their fields. Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama awarded 118 people with the honor, the most of any president, to people like Maya Angelou, Bob Dylan, Bill Gates, Billie Jean King, Oprah Winfrey, and his running mate, then-vice president Biden. During Donald Trump’s years in office, he bestowed 24 Presidential Medals of Freedom. His awardees included Rush Limbaugh, Elvis Presley, Tiger Woods, and Antonin Scalia, amongst others.
Biden used the honor to recognize just under 60 individuals, including Simone Biles, Michael Bloomberg, John McCain, Nancy Pelosi, and Michelle Yeoh.
On Saturday, Biden awarded several former political leaders. Hillary Clinton, who has served as first lady, senator, and secretary of state and made history as the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party, received a standing ovation when Biden placed the medal around her neck.
Biden also posthumously honored Ash Carter, who served as the 25th Secretary of Defense; former attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy, whose son, RFK Jr., has embraced Trump and hopes to serve in his administration; George Romney, the late father of former senator Mitt Romney who served as the 43rd Governor of Michigan and the 3rd Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; and Fannie Lou Hamer, the civil rights activist who famously said she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
US President Biden presents the nation's highest civilian honor to recipients at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 4, 2025
Biden gave an award to global investment leader and philanthropist David Rubenstein. And—much to the chagrin of some Republicans—Biden granted the honor to George Soros, the liberal activist billionaire who some on the conspiratorial right have cast as the party’s puppet master.
“Apparently, all it takes to receive the highest civilian honor from President Biden is to donate millions to him and his family,” Senator Rick Scott of Florida wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “January 20 can’t come soon enough.” Representative Eli Crane of Arizona bemoaned that Biden awarded Clinton and Soros over Daniel Penny, the man who was recently acquitted on a charge of criminally negligent homicide in New York after putting Jordan Neely in a chokehold on a subway car and ultimately killing him. “Says all you need to know. Counting down to January 20th,” Crane wrote in an X post.
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