Biden Honors ‘Extraordinary Americans’ Who Defended Democracy on Jan. 6

“Boy is it onerous,” he mentioned. “I understand how proud I’m when my son Beau is honored on the anniversary of his dying as a consequence of burn pits in Iraq. However it brings all the pieces again prefer it occurred that second.

“I wish to thanks for having the braveness to be right here at the moment,” he added.

Along with the cops, Mr. Biden awarded the medals to 5 native officers, every of whom refused to do the bidding of those that insisted that the election had been rigged.

Two of them — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who’s her daughter — acquired the awards for serving as ballot staff in Atlanta, the place they have been subjected to abuse by Trump supporters who falsely accused them of collaborating in election fraud.

“Each of them have been simply doing their jobs, they usually have been focused and threatened by the identical peddlers of a lie that was fueling the rebel,” Mr. Biden mentioned. “They have been actually pressured from their properties and confronted despicable racist taunts.”

Mr. Biden additionally praised Al Schmidt, who was a metropolis commissioner on the Philadelphia County Board of Elections in 2020, noting that he “didn’t bend, he didn’t bow, he didn’t yield to the political threats and stress.” And he hailed Jocelyn Benson, who served because the Secretary of State of Michigan through the 2020 election, and Rusty Bowers, the Republican Home speaker in Arizona. All three resisted stress from these looking for to overturn the ends in 2020.

Mr. Biden known as Ms. Benson “a real chief in our nation” and mentioned Mr. Bowers reveals folks “what integrity is all about.”

A 12 months in the past, with the occasions of Jan. 6 looming within the more moderen previous, Mr. Biden expressed better fear about the way forward for the nation, saying that “as we stand right here at the moment — one 12 months since Jan. 6, 2021 — the lies that drove the anger and insanity we noticed on this place, they haven’t abated.”

However on Friday, he returned to the optimism that has typically characterised his speeches.

“We’re not a land of kings and dictators, autocrats and extremists,” he mentioned. “As we see in at the moment’s honorees, we’re a nation and we the folks that toughen our fiber, renew our religion and strengthen our trigger. There’s nothing past our capability, if we act collectively.”