President Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors, to 20 people on Thursday afternoon, including former Representative Liz Cheney and two close personal advisers, Ted Kaufman and Christopher J. Dodd.
Speaking in the East Room, the president thanked the recipients of his final presidential medals — a group of lawmakers, lawyers and activists — for helping to “ensure our democracy delivers” and bringing America “closer to our highest stated ideals.” He likened their work to that of two former presidents, including Jimmy Carter, who died this week at 100, and who Mr. Biden said had set a high standard in serving his country through words and deeds.
He quoted Theodore Roosevelt. “Grave perils are yet to be encountered in the stormy course of the republic, but there is no reason, no reason we should fear them, or doubt our capacity to overcome them,” Mr. Biden said, citing a speech Roosevelt gave before becoming president. “We each endeavor to live so as to deserve the high praise of being called good American citizens. That’s what you all are.”
It is not unusual for a president’s personal esteem to influence the recipients of presidential medals, which are approved through a less formalized process than other awards like Medals of Honor or acts of clemency like pardons and commutations. Several of Mr. Biden’s selections are fellow lawmakers he has known and worked with for decades, and a few are from his home state, Delaware.
But the bestowing of presidential medals is also an opportunity for a president to showcase those who have fought for causes he championed. The selection of Ms. Cheney, a Wyoming Republican whose vocal opposition to Donald J. Trump cost her her political career, was a continuation of his push for bipartisanship and decency in politics at a time when Ms. Cheney’s own party has turned against her. Mr. Biden is said to have been considering a pre-emptive pardon to protect her from retribution by the next administration.
Ms. Cheney, wearing a purple dress, accepted the medal “for putting the American people over party” to extended applause.