President Joe Biden handed out medals — and a few jokes — to the delayed recipients of the 2021 Nationwide Humanities Medal and the Nationwide Medal of Arts.
The White Home hosted a livestreamed East Room ceremony on Tuesday for recipients, together with Mindy Kaling, Gladys Knight, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bruce Springsteen and dressmaker Vera Wang.
The honorees obtained their awards about two years late on account of a backlog as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
First woman Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris additionally attended the ceremony, which Biden opened with a speech stuffed with jokes in regards to the honorees. The president hailed Louis-Dreyfus as his “good friend” and requested the “Veep” star, during which she performs a White Home politician, if she “appreciated being president or VP extra” on the present.
Biden advised Knight she’s “among the best issues that ever occurred to music,” telling Springsteen, “Some individuals are simply born to run, man,” a reference to the singer’s 1975 hit.
Recipients of the Nationwide Medals of Arts — america authorities’s highest award for advancing the nation’s arts — embody actors, comedians, and singers. Different recipients included artist-activist Judith Francisca Baca, philanthropist Fred Eychaner, Puerto Rican musician José Feliciano, Puerto Rican painter Antonio Martorell-Cardona, and movie producer Joan Shigekawa.
The Billie Vacation Theater and The Worldwide Affiliation of Blacks in Dance additionally obtained medals.
The Nationwide Humanities Medal honors those that have enhanced People’ understanding and engagement with historical past, literature, philosophy, and extra humanities topics. The 2021 recipients are poet Richard Blanco, anthropologist Johnnetta Betsch Cole, writer Walter Isaacson, social historian Earl Lewis, Indian research educational Henrietta Mann, novelist Ann Patchett, activist Bryan Stevenson, novelist Amy Tan, memoirist Tara Westover and novelist Colson Whitehead, in addition to the Native America Calling group.
Elton John was blown away throughout a live performance on the White Home garden: ‘That is in all probability the icing on the cake’
In September 2022, Biden awarded British singer Elton John the Nationwide Humanities Medal for his contributions to music and combating AIDS, a illness brought on by HIV that assaults the physique’s immune system.
John stopped by the South Garden for a present known as “A Night time When Hope and Historical past Rhyme”, a reference to a poem by Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney. On the finish of the present, Biden introduced John with the medal.
The musician admitted to feeling overwhelmed by the night and the distinction, saying, “I’ll cherish this a lot.”
Elton John, extra stars return to the White Home underneath Biden. However do individuals hear?
Contributors: Bryan Alexander and Sudiksha Kochi
This text initially appeared on USA TODAY: President Joe Biden Honors Mindy Kaling Physician Bruce Springsteen
