Mike Pence Wins ‘Profile in Courage' Award -- Fourth Republican To Be Honored For Opposing Trump

Former U.S. vice president Mike Pence has been announced as the 2025 recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award because he certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election over the objections of President Donald Trump.Pence will be the fourth Republican to receive the award for standing against Trump..The others are Mitt Romney (2021), who as a U.S. senator from Utah in February 2021 was one of seven Republicans to vote to convict Trump in a post-presidency impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate; Liz Cheney (2022), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming who voted to impeach Trump in January 2021, a week before he left office; and Rusty Bowers (2022), who as speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives refused to try to flip the state’s electoral votes in 2020 from Biden to Trump.President Kennedy’s daughter and grandson announced the 2025 award Thursday through the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.“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. Upholding his oath to the Constitution and following his conscience, the Vice President put his life, career, and political future on the line,” Caroline Kennedy, 67, and her son Jack Schlossberg, 35, said in a written statement.Pence, now 65, was born the year before Jack Kennedy was elected president.“I am deeply humbled and honored to be the recipient of the Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. 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 the same written statement.As vice president from 2017 to 2021, Pence worked closely with Trump during much of Trump’s first term and frequently defended him. But Pence refused Trump’s directive that he not certify Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the winners of the November 2020 presidential election.“Mr. Trump was told, incorrectly, that the vice president could stop the final validation of the election of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. in his role as president of the Senate presiding over the Electoral College count,” The New York Times reported in mid-January 2021.On January 6, 2021, Trump called out Pence four times during a speech to rally-goers in Washington D.C. that preceded rioters entering the U.S. Capitol.At one point, Trump said: “I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.”Trump later said: “Republicans are constantly fighting. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we're going to have to fight much harder. And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country. Because you’re sworn to uphold our Constitution.”Later in the speech, Trump described election irregularities in Pennsylvania, and then he said: “And they want to re-certify their votes. They want to re-certify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.”Nearer the end of the speech, Trump said: “The radical left knows exactly what they're doing. They're ruthless and it's time that somebody did something about it. And Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our constitution and for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now, I’m not hearing good stories.”As New Boston Post pointed out in mid-January 2021, Trump also said he wanted his supporters to walk over to the U.S. Capitol “peacefully and patriotically,” and his tone during the hour-plus speech was pointed but not angry.Even so, some Trump supporters broke through barricades and glass to get into the Capitol building. One of them was shot dead by a member of law enforcement. A Capitol police officer died of a stroke during the riot. Two of the rioters died of a heart attack. Another rioter died of a drug overdose.Some of the rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” Pence and his family were taken by the U.S. Secret Service to the basement of the U.S. Capitol.The rioters terrified members of Congress and staff and disrupted the proceedings of Congress.Pence as vice president certified the election of Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president at 3:41 a.m. January 7, 2021 – almost 14 hours after rioters entered the building.During an interview on CNN on May 10, 2023, when Trump was out of office but a candidate for president the following year, Trump was asked if he owed Pence an apology.“No, because he did something wrong," Trump said. "He should have put the votes back to the state legislatures and I think we would have had a different outcome. I really do."Trump also said he didn’t think Pence “was in any danger” during the riot.He called him “a very fine man” and “a very nice man.”“I like Mike Pence very much,” Trump said.The Profile In Courage Award, established in 1990, is named for a 1956 book with that title publicly attributed to Jack Kennedy, who at the time was a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts, but largely written by his speechwriter, Ted Sorensen.The book describes American politicians who Kennedy believed did the right thing under pressure instead of the easy thing.The award named for the book skews left. When Republicans receive the award, it is usually for standing up to the Republican Party.Schlossberg, the son of Caroline Kennedy, was a New York delegate to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, during which he endorsed Kamala Harris for president. During a two-minute speech from the podium, Schlossberg said that Harris would “defend our freedoms,” the first of which he described as “the freedom for women anywhere in America to make their own health care choices” – a reference to legal abortion.In 2020, Kennedy and Schlossberg endorsed Biden through a video played at the partly virtual Democratic National Convention.The joint statement from Caroline Kennedy and her son on Thursday, April 3 offered a slightly veiled endorsement of opposition to President Trump.“Political courage is not outdated in the United States. At every level of government, leaders are putting country first, and not backing down,” Kennedy and Schlossberg said in the written statement.The statement praised Pence in connection with his opposition to Trump four years ago.“His decision is an example of President Kennedy’s belief that an act of political courage can change the course of history,” they said.Pence is scheduled to receive the Profile in Courage Award on Sunday, May 4 at the JFK Library on Columbia Point in the Dorchester section of Boston.

Mike Pence Wins ‘Profile in Courage' Award -- Fourth Republican To Be Honored For Opposing Trump

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