Michael jordan. Actors tom hanks, Robert De Niro, Robert Redford. Singers, Bruce Springsteen and diana ross. This is about an hour and 10 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, the recipients of the medal of freedom. Kareem adbuljabar. [applause] Ellen Degeneres. [applause] tom hanks. [applause] Michael Jordan. [applause] [applause] Robert Redford. [applause] Bruce Springsteen. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, the Vice President of the United States. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States and mrs. Michelle obama. [applause] president obama this is not all fun and games. Welcome to the white house, everybody. Today we celebrate extraordinary americans who have lifted our spirits, strengthened our union, pushed us toward progress. I always love doing this event. But this is a particularly impressive class. [laughter] we have got innovators and artists, publicer is and haves, rabblerousers, athletes, renowned character actors like the guy from space jam. [laughter] we pay tribute to those distinguished individuals winning our highest honor, the president ial medal of freedom. Let me tell you about each of them. First, we came close to missing out on a bill and Melinda Gates partnership because apparently bills openly opening line was do you want to lease two weeks from this coming saturday . He is good with computers. [laughter] fortunately melinda believes in Second Chances and the world is better for it. For two decades, the Gates Foundation has worked to provide life saving medical care to millions, boosting clean water supplies, improving education , rallying dren against climate change, cutting childhood mortality in half. Thesethelist could go on. These two have donated more money than name whenever you. By this and just about any other measure, few in Human History have been more successful than these two impatient optimists. Frank geary has never let popular acclaim reverse his impulse to defy convention. I was on outsider from the beginning, he said. For better or worse, i thrived on it. The child of poor jewish immigrants, frank grew up in los angeles and throughout his life he embraced the spirit of a city defined by an open horizon. He spent his life rethinking shapes. The idea of what architecture , uld be, he decided to up end constantly repurposes every aterial. Is doing our dedication for our schools in guggenheim to chicagos Millennium Park to his home in santa monica which i understand caused some consternation among his neighbors. Franks work teaches us while buildings may be sturdy to the ground, they can lift our spirits and soar and broaden our horizons. When an undergraduate from appalachia first set foot, she tried to show that war is not just a victory or loose but bout individual lives. The project that maya lynn designed for her College Class earned her barn plus and a permanent place in american history. So all of you bplus students out there, the Vietnam Veterans memorial has changed the way he think about monuments but also how we think about sacrifice and patriotism and ourselves. Maya has given us more than places for remembering. She has created places for us to make new memories. Sculptures, chapples, homes, physical acts of poetry, each reminding us that the most important element of art or architecture is human emotion. Three minutes before armstrong d aldrin touched down on the the apollos alarms triggered. They didnt have much time but thankfully they had Margaret Hamilton. A young m. I. T. Scientist and a working mom in the 1960s. He led the team that created what allowed the eagle to land safely. There were no textbooks to follow. As margaret says, there was no choice but to be pioneers. Luckily for us, margaret never stopped pioneering and she symbolizing that generation of unsung women who helped send human kind into space. Her Software Architecture echoes in countless technologies today. The discovery that exists in every little girl and little boy who know that somehow to look beyond the heavens is to look deep beyond ourselves and figure out just what is possible. If flight is night and ed sunny born ht then hopper is in 1906. Grace Murray Hopper followed her mother into mathematics. Heroined her ph dd from yale and set out on a young and storied career. At age 37 and a full 15 below military guidelines, she joined the navy and was sent to work on ne of the first computers. She invented the first compiler. While a woman who pioneered software, the most prestigious award for young computer sinet itselfs now bears her name. From cell phones, cyber command, we can thank her for ushering in the Information Age and shaping our digital world. Speaking of really smart people, in the summer of 1960, a physicist found themselves in the Los Alamos National laboratory. They paid the faculty for nine months but his family ate for 12. By the next summer, he helped create the hydrogen bomb. The e worked on reducing threat of nuclear war. Ever since he was a kid, he never met a problem he couldnt solve. Gps technology, touch screen on theres is fingerprints. Where is it . Where is he . He has advised every president since eisenhower. Ather bluntly. A pretty smart guy he a genius ever met. I want to see this. All the scientists, we honor those who shape our culture. In the long and great career and two is raised by a hardworking mother but she may conscious decision to speak out. She made a conscious decision not just to salines but to speak out. I would not accept roles unless they projected us, particularly. Men in a realistic light from sounder to the autobiography of miss jane pittman, it helps us see the dignity of every Single Member of the american family, and she is just gorgeous. [applause] yes, she is. In 1973, a critic wrote of Robert De Niro, this kid doesnt just act, he takes off into the vapors. It is true. His characters are iconic. A sicilian father, who turns into a mobster who runs a casino, needs therapy and a father law scared al capone. A mobster. Robert with dramatic precision and it turns out comedic timing with a signature eye for detail. And while the name de niro is he is a ugh guy, director, philanthropist, cofounder of the tribeca film pennsylvania, learning the saxophone to remaking his body, he once said i feel i have to earn the right to play a part. And the result is honest and they think art that reveals who we really are. In 1976 Lorne Michaels implord the beatles to reunite on his brand new show. In exchange, he offered them 3,000. [laughter] and then he told him they can share it equally or they can give ringo a smaller cut, which was early proof that Lorne Michaels has a good sense of humor. On saturday night live, he created a show where our friends from his cheerleaders and deadbeats and lawyers show up and sometimes is on black jeopardy. [laughter] president obama after four decades, even in this fractured media culture that we have got, s. L. Snmbings a mainland into not just our counterculture but our culture. Still a challenge to the powerful, especially fols like me. And yet even after all of these years, loren jokes his tombstone should bear a single word that is often found in the shows reviews. Uneven. [laughter] s the current u. S. Senator would say dog gone it, loren. Thats why people like you. He produced a senator too. Pretty impressive. Ellen degeneres has a way of making you laugh at something rather than at someone. Except when i danced on her show, she laughed at me, but that is ok. It is easy to forget now when we ave come so far. Where now marriage is equal under the law. Just how much courage was required for ellen to come out on the most public of stages almost 20 years ago. Just how important it was not just to the Lgbt Community but for uflse to see somebody so full of kindness and light, somebody we liked so much, somebody who could be our neighbor or our colleague or our sister challenge our own assumptions. Remind us that we have more in common than rerealize. Pushed our country in the direction of justice. What an incredible burden that was to bear. To risk your career like that. People dont do that very often. And then to have the hopes of million ops your shoulders. On your shoulders. T is like ellen says, we all want tortilla chip that can support the weight of guacamole, which really makes no sense to me. [laughter] but i thought it would break the mood because i was getting kind f choked up. And she did pay a price. We dont remember this. I hadnt remembered it. She did. For a pretty long stretch of time. Even in hollywood. Day, in day, every inspires us to be better. One joke, one dance at a time. When the candidate wins his race 1972 film ic film the same name. Many of you are too young. He famously asked his Campaign Manager the question, what do we do now . Like the man he played in that movie, Robert Redford has figured it out and applied his talent and charm to achieve success. We admire bob not just for his acting but figure ought what to do next. He has supported the national parks, National Resources is one of the most formalist onservationists. He has given his unmatched charisma to unforgettable characters like ray hobbs, and of course the sundance kid, entertaining us for more than a half a century. He apparently drives so fast that he had breakfast in napa and dinner in salt lake. At 80 years young, Robert Redford has no plans to slow down. According to recent headlines, the movie sully is the last straw. We should never travel with tom hanks. You have pilots. Plane crashes. You get marooned in airport purgatory. Volcanoes. Something happens with tom hanks and yet somehow we cant resist going where he wants to take us. He has been an accidental witness to history. A crusty womens baseball manager. A man who fell in love with megaryan three times. Made it seem natural to have a volleyball as your best friend. From a philadelphia courtroom to nor mandys beachheads, he to the dark side to have moon, he introduced us to americas unassuming heroes. Tom said he just saw ordinary guy who is did the right thing at the right time. It takes one to know one. He has stood up to kieran with his beloved wife rita, supported space exploreation and he has always saved his best roles for real life. He is a good man, which is the best title you can have. So we have ino vators, entertainers. Three more folks who have dedicates themselveses to Public Service. In the early 1960s, thousands of cuban children fled to america seeking an education they would never get back home. One refugee was a 15yearold. His life changed when he enrolled at Miamidade College. That decision led to a bachelors degree and then a masters and then a ph. Pitched a. He made a choice to create more stories like his. As miamidades president since 195, he has built a dream factory for one of our nations most diverse student bodies. 165,000 students in all. He is one of the worlds preeminent education leaders thinking out of the box, supporting students throughout their lives, embodying the belief that were only as great it is a doors we open. Eduardos example is one we can all follow. A champion of striving for the American Dream that first drove him to our shores. When she first filed a lawsuit to recover land and money for her people, she said i just wanted to give it to people who didnt have it. To address the mismanagement of American Indian lands, resources, trust funds wasnt about special treatment but equal treatment at the heart of the american promise. She fought for almost 15 years across three president s, seven trials, 10 appearances before a federal appeals court. All the while she traveled the country some 40 weeks a year telling the story of her people. In the end this graduate of a oneroom schoolhouse became a mac arthur genius. She reached ultimately a historic victory for all native americans. Through through sheer force of will. She overcame the longest odds reminding us that fighting for what is rights is always worth it. Every journal history in the room, every media critic knows the phase the vast waste land but the two words he prefers we emember are public interest. That has been the heart beat of his lifes work. Leading the f. C. C. When newt helped launch the first communication satellites making nationwide broadcasts possible and g. P. S. Possible, he predicted it would be more important than the moon landing. This will launch ideas into space, he said. Ideas last long thearn people. As far as i know he is the only one who was present on my first with michelle. [laughter] imagine our surprise when we saw nute, one of our bosses that summer, at the movie theater. Do the right thing. He has been vital to my personal nterest. Finally, we honor the alltime greats in sports and music. A game of baseball of signature sounds. The crack of the bat. The crowd singing in the seventh Inning Stretch and you have the voice of vin scully. Most fans listen to the broadcast when they cant be at the ballpark. You didnt want to miss one of vicinitys stories. Most play by play announcers partner with an analyst in the booth. Vin worked alone and talked just with us. Since Jackie Robinson started at second base, vin talking us the game and introduced us to its players and narrated the probable years, the impossible heroics, turned contests into conversations. When he heard about the honor, he asked are you sure . Im just an old baseball announcer and we had to inform him that to americans of all ages, you are an old friend. In fact, i thought about him doing all of these citation which would have been very cool, but [applause] i thought we should not make him sing for his supper like that. Here is how great kareem a b dual jabar was. 1967, he spent a year dominating college basketball. The ncaa bans the dunk. They didnt say it was about kareem but it was about kareem. When a sport changes its rules, to make it harder just for you, you are really good. [laughter] [applause] yet, despite the rule change, it was the most unstoppable force. Title he held for more than o decades winning m. V. P. Finals m. V. P. S a staggering 14 years apart. Bless you. And a surprisingly similar looking copilots once said in the movie airplane. We have some great actors here. Space jam. Airplane. He did it all while dragging walton and lanier up the court for 48 minutes. The reason we honor kareem is not just a pair of goggles and the skyhook. He stood up for his muslim faith when it wasnt easy and it wasnt popular. He is as comfortable sparing th bruce lee as he is with advocating on capitol hill. Physically, intellectually and spiritually, kareem is one of a ind. When he was 5 years old, Michael Jordan nearly cut off his big toe with an axe. His handle needed a little work. If things had gone differently, air jordans might not have ever taken place. You dont want to buy a shoe with like one toe missing. [laughter] we may have never seen him switch hand midair against the lakers or drop 63 in the garden or gut it out in the flu game or hit the shot three different time over georgetown or russell. We might not have seen him take on larry bird in horse. Or lift up the sport globally along with the dream team. Yet m. J. Is still more than those moments. More than just the best player on the two greatest teams of all time. The dream team and the 1996 chicago bulls. [applause] he is more than just a logo. More than just an internet meme. More than just a charitable donor or Business Owner commilted to diversity. There is a reason you call somebody the Michael Jordan of ichael jordan of neurosurgery. The Michael Jordan of outrigor canoeing. They know what youre talking about. Because Michael Jordan is the Michael Jordan of greatness. He is the definition of somebody so good at what they do that everybody recognizes him. Hats pretty rare. As a child, diana ross loved single for family and friends, but not for free. She was smart enough to pass the hat. Later she made mary wilson and florence ballard. Their neighbor, smoky robinson put them in front of barry gordy and the rest was magic. Music history. The supremes earned a permanent place in the american sound track along with her honey voice, her soulful sensibility, diane i exuded glamour and grace and filled stages that helped to shape the sound of motown. On top of becominging one of the most successful recording artists of all time, raised five kids and somehow earned an oscar nomination for acting, today from the hiphop that samples her to the youngsters inspired by her to the audiences that still cannot get enough of her, diana ross influence is as inescapable as ever. He was sprung from a cage out on highway 9. [laughter] quiet kid from jersey trying to make sense of the mysteries that dotted his hometown, pool halls, girls, cars, alters and assembly lines. For decades, bruce spring streen , the ought us all along simple glories and scattered heartbreak of every day life in america. To create one of his biggest hits, he said i wanted to create a record that sounded like the last record on earth. The last one youd ever need to hear. One glorious noise. Then the apocalypse. Every restless kid was given born to run. He didnt stop there. Once he told us about himself, he told us about everyone else. The steel worker in youngstown. Born in the u. S. A. The sick and margin alliesed on the streets of philadelphia. The young sol