Zelensky, Liz Cheney Receive 2022 JFK Profile in Courage Award For Efforts to ‘Defend Democracy’
The 2022 JFK Presidential Library “Profile in Courage” awards honored Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and four Americans it said had worked to “defend democracy” in the United States.
The announcement of this year’s recipients categorizes both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin as challenging democratic principles.
For the first time ever, the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award will honor five individuals — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Arizona state Rep. Russell “Rusty” Bowers, and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss — each for their courage to protect and defend democracy in the United States and abroad.
These honorees have placed their careers and lives on the line to protect democratic principles and free and fair elections. They embody what President Kennedy admired most in others—political courage.
The library usually doles out only one award annually to a leader it deems as courageous. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) received the award in 2021 after he voted to convict Trump in 2020 during his first impeachment trial.
This year’s five recipients each protected democratic values, Zelensky from Putin, and the others from Trump, per the JFK library.
On Cheney, the library noted she was ostracized from most of the GOP for opposing Trump after the 2020 election.
“She has been one of the most conservative members within the Republican Conference,” the JFK library noted. “After the election, however, when President Trump falsely claimed that the election was stolen, she repeatedly called on the President to respect the rulings of the courts and his oath of office, and to publicly support the peaceful transfer of power.”
In granting her a Courage Award, the Library noted she risked her career:
She stood against the lawlessness and violence of January 6th, and voted to impeach President Trump, concluding: “The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing.”
Cheney received numerous death threats after casting her vote in favor of impeachment, and yet refused to take the politically expedient course that most of her party embraced. Because she would not remain silent or ignore the events of January 6th, Cheney’s congressional colleagues stripped her of her leadership position in the GOP caucus.
Trump-backed efforts to overturn the 2020 election is mentioned a combined 15 times among the three U.S. recipients.
Of Bowers, the JKK library stated he “refused to go along with an illegal scheme to replace Arizona’s legal slate of electors with a false slate of electors who would elect Trump.”
On Benson, the library stated she “repeatedly refused to back down from fulfilling the duties of her office” by certifying Michigan’s certification of the vote.
Benson was courageous “even as threats and harassment from then-President Trump and his allies grew increasingly aggressive,” the JFK library concluded.
