Former Vice President Mike Pence is this year’s recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for “putting his life and career on the line” in overseeing the certification of the 2020 presidential election results, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation announced Thursday.
“Despite our political differences, it is hard to imagine an act of greater consequence than Vice President Pence’s decision to certify the 2020 presidential election during an attack on the U.S.
Capitol,” the Foundation’s Caroline Kennedy and Jack Schlossberg said in a statement.
“Upholding his oath to the Constitution and following his conscience, the Vice President put his life, career, and political future on the line,” the pair continued.
The award, created in 1989, is presented to “public servants who have made courageous decisions of conscience without regard for the personal or professional consequences.”
The former Republican vice president said he’s “deeply humbled and honored to be the recipient” of the award, which he’ll be presented with in May.
“I have been inspired by the life and words of President John F. Kennedy since my youth and am honored to join the company of so many distinguished Americans who have received this recognition in the past,” Pence said in a statement.
Pence broke with his boss President Donald Trump in his decision to not overturn the 2020 election results while he was ceremonially overseeing Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s win on January 6, 2021. Pence later said Trump’s “reckless words” that day, when a mob of the president’s supporters violently breached the US Capitol, “endangered” his family and others at the US Capitol. He ran against Trump in the 2024 GOP primary and continued defending his actions on January 6.
Past recipients of the award have been tied to “protecting democracy” against the efforts to overturn the election results, including Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney, Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, former Arizona Republican House Speaker Rusty Bowers and Fulton County, Georgia, election worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss.
By CNN
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