Joe Biden Welcomes “Former President Selina Meyer” To White House For National Medal Of Arts Ceremony
“Vice President Harris, Second Gentleman, former president Selina Meyer, welcome to the White House,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday, opening a ceremony for the 2021 National Medals of Arts and the National Humanities Medals recipients.
Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus was among “23 extraordinary Americans,” as Biden described them, awarded honors today in a star-studded East Room gathering. Praising “my friend President Julia Louis-Dreyfus” as “one of the most decorated comedic actors of our time,” Biden made a point of noting that “she embraces life’s absurdity with absolute wit.”
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“I’m going to talk to Julia later about whether she liked being VP or President better,” Biden quipped.
Of course, even with the 2019 conclusion of the Emmy-winning Veep, Biden and Louis-Dreyfus/Meyer have a long history on and off the screen. Along with the actor’s appearance at the virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention, it is a relationship perhaps best exemplified by a video the duo made for the 2014 White House Correspondents’ Dinner on the freedoms and limitations of the office John Nance Garner once said wasn’t “worth a bucket of warm piss.”
Check out that WHCD video here:
Along with Louis-Dreyfus, Bruce Springsteen, José Feliciano, the “Empress of soul” Gladys Knight, Mindy Kaling, Antonio Martorell-Cardona, Judith Francisca Baca, Fred Eychaner, Joan Shigekawa and Vera Wang, along with organizations the Billie Holiday Theatre and the International Association of Blacks in Dance, received medals today.
In his speech, Biden gave The Office alum Kaling a shout-out for her “irreverence and sincerity” as an actor, writer and producer. Never hesitant to roll out some homespun appreciation of his hometown, the frequently ad-libbing Biden also joked to Cambridge, MA-born Kaling that “Scranton, Pennsylvania made her who she is.”
The National Humanities Medals for 2021 went to Just Mercy writer and justice advocate Bryan Stevenson; poet Richard Blanco; anthropologist Johnnetta Betsch Cole; historian Earl Lewis; educator Henrietta Mann; authors Walter Isaacson, Ann Patchett, Amy Tan and Tara Westover; call-in show Native America Calling; and Underground Railroad author Colson Whitehead.
“I’m kinda looking for back-to-back myself,” Biden said to cheers after noting Whitehead is “one of the first and only novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for back-to-back works.”
The 80-year-old POTUS has yet to officially announce he is running for reelection. However, with comments from the First Lady, Vice President Kamala Harris and hints from Biden himself the past few months, another Biden White House bid is as close to a sure bet as you can get in DC.
Feliciano and Elton John, who collected his medal last fall at a White House concert, were not in attendance this afternoon. In a Hollywood-heavy schedule for the Tinseltown-favored Biden, today’s ceremony comes one day after the president welcomed Jason Sudeikis and the main cast of Ted Lasso to the White House.
Had a wide-ranging discussion about the importance of mental health with some folks from an English soccer team.
You’ll see video of it soon. pic.twitter.com/8ehCmsW4WJ— President Biden (@POTUS) March 20, 2023
“You do make the country better,” Biden said today in that vein to all the honorees after the medals were awarded. “You make it a better place.”
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