Also included in the honours list are several one-time presidential candidates, former senator Elizabeth Dole, former vice president Al Gore, one-time secretary of state John Kerry and previous New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“After winning the popular vote, he accepted the outcome of a disputed presidential election for the sake of unity and trust in our institutions,” Biden said of Gore’s concession to George W Bush in the 2000 election, a jab at ex-president Donald Trump, who has never conceded his 2020 loss to Biden.
“That to me was amazing what you did, Al. I won’t go into that.” The remark drew some laughter.
“In my view, the last two guys should be standing here at this podium,” Biden said of Gore and Kerry.
Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman who strayed from the Republican Party he once called home, may become an important financial backer of the president’s 2024 reelection campaign.
Biden also honoured Father Greg Boyle, a Catholic priest who founded the gang intervention programme Homeboy Industries; Opal Lee, an activist who pushed for Juneteenth to be a holiday marking the end of slavery in the United States; Senator Frank Lautenberg, a consumer safety advocate; astrophysicist Jane Rigby; United Farm Workers president Teresa Romero; LGBT advocate Judy Shepard; and Clarence B Jones, who helped draft Dr Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
