wants a long sentence for his son. he claims he did not see a lot of signs of his son s troubles, but police reports prove otherwise. but first, moments from now, president biden will present the medal of freedom, the highest civilian honor, to 17 recipients. the prestigious list includes olympians, actors, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, and the first american to receive the covid vaccine. cnn s phil mattingly joins us now from the white house. what do we expect from today s ceremony? reporter: it s a buoyant moment to some degree. this is a particularly difficult moment for this white house, but the opportunity to present the highest civilian honor to an array of individuals from former lawmakers, olympic athletes, civil rights kind of people at the highest level of the civil rights movement, is something i think the president enjoys and i think the white house looks forward to, to some degree. yes, there are definitely celebrities here. denzel washington will b
it was important for him to be part of the civil rights movement, human rights movement. he was a social activist. here we re seeing, you know, in 2009 how president obama helped underscore, i mean, really his legacy with that medal of freedom award. yeah, sidney poitier was a good friend of harry belafonte, he had been an understudy of him in a play. it was in his influence that he came to be actively involved in the civil rights movement. he understood that as a person who was famous, he had an incredible platform. so if you saw him at a civil rights march, it carried a lot of weight. so he understood that he was someone that could make a difference just by virtue of the fact that he was famous. and he did a lot behind the scenes. he gave money. he wasn t always the one that was there with the bull horn, but he was extremely supportive. at the end of the day one of the most important things that he did was he represented black people in such a way that you
who served in world war ii, 405,000 who gave the ultimate sacrifice. as we talk about bob dole s legacy, his service in uniform, his service as a senator, this ceremony noted his service as somebody who would simply come here to honor those who like him had served in world war ii, only according to the latest statistics, some 250,000 of those 16 million world war ii veterans still with us. the fun and poignant story about bob dole, right after he lost the presidential election to president bill clinton, he was invited to the white house in 1997, just months after, to get the house medal of freedom award, the ceremony. he said, i, robert j. dole, do solemnly swear, then he said, oops, sorry, wrong speech, i had a dream i would be here receiving something from the president but i thought it would be the front door key. it s funny. and jon, i know we have you back, that s a funny, humorous
room. the president doing with the president is honored to do which is give out the medal of freedom award. you ll note you saw somebody representing babe ruth. somebody representing elvis. somebody representing justice antonin scalia. and miriam adelson. donald trump giving and bestowing upon them the medal of freedom. it s one of those honors that only presidents get to do. it s a big deal for those that receive it and it s a big deal for the country to see who is on the receiving end of it and what message that sends. we re going to go over to some other breaking news. we have developments in the russia probe along with new legal questions for wikileaks. the president told reporters
an afghan ground council for approval today. this after a senior aide to karzai claimed no agreement would be approved without an apology from the u.s.. kerry has denied any discussion of an american apology. president obama awarded 16 people the presidential medal of freedom on wednesday, including former president bill clinton and oprah winfrey. the award which is the country and he highest civilian honor was established by president can kennedy. speaking of the kennedys, a kennedy kuz sip is expected to be released from prison after being granted a new trial in the killing of his 15-year-old neighbor. he has been serving a 20 years to life sentence since 2002. today three women are graduating from the marine corps s enlisted infantry training course for the very first time. they were in a group that matched the same standards as the men as the military prepares to open up combat jobs to women. congrats to them. harvard researchers tracked 119,000 men and women over a 30