Biden awards the 2nd highest civilian award to leaders of the Jan. 6 committee and 18 others

President Joe Biden on Thursday awarded the second highest civilian medal to Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson, leaders of the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot who Donald Trump has said should be jailed for their roles in the inquiry.

Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a ceremony in the East Room, including Americans who fought for marriage equality, a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and two of the president's longtime friends, former Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

''Together, you embody the central truth: We're a great nation because we're a good people," he said. "Our democracy begins and ends with the duties of citizenship. That's our work for the ages and it's what all of you embody.''

Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the Capitol from a mob of angry Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, or who helped safeguard the will of American voters during the 2020 presidential election, when Trump tried and failed to overturn the results.

Cheney, a Republican former Wyoming congresswoman, and Rep. Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that investigated the insurrection. The committee's final report asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a ''multi-part conspiracy'' to overturn the lawful results of the election he lost to Biden and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. Thompson wrote that Trump ''lit that fire.''

The audience erupted in loud cheers and stood when Cheney took the stage. Biden clasped her hand and gave her the medal. The announcer said she was being given it ''for putting the American people over party.''

Cheney, who lost her seat in the GOP primary in August 2022, later said she would vote for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and campaigned with the Democratic nominee, raising Trump's ire. Biden has been considering whether to offer preemptive pardons to Cheney and others Trump has targeted.

Thompson, who also received a standing ovation, was recognized ''for his lifelong dedication to safeguarding our Constitution.''

Trump, who won the 2024 election and will take office Jan. 20, still refuses to back away from his lies about the 2020 presidential race and has said he would pardon the rioters once he is back in the White House.

During an interview with NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' the president-elect said that ''Cheney did something that's inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps," claiming without evidence they ''deleted and destroyed'' testimony they collected.

''Honestly, they should go to jail,'' he said.

Cheney and Thompson were ''an embarrassment to this country" for their conduct on the committee, Trump's communications director Steven Cheung asserted.

Biden also awarded the medal to attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage, and Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage equality movement.

Other honorees included Frank Butler, who set new standards for using tourniquets on war injuries; Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse during the Vietnam War who founded the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation; and Eleanor Smeal, an activist who led women's rights protests in the 1970s and fought for equal pay.

He bestowed the honor to photographer Bobby Sager, academics Thomas Vallely and Paula Wallace, and Frances Visco, the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.

Other former lawmakers honored included former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas; and former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., who championed gun safety measures after her son and husband were shot to death.

After he presented the awards, he went back to the lectern to ask lawmakers in the room to stand, as well as John Kerry, a former U.S. senator and Biden's first climate envoy.

''Let's remember, our work continues," he said to the room after he thanked the families in attendance for the support they gave to the nominees. "We've got a lot more work to do to keep this going.''

Biden honored four people posthumously: Joseph Galloway, a former war correspondent who wrote about the first major battle in Vietnam in the book ''We Were Soldiers Once … and Young"; civil rights advocate and attorney Louis Lorenzo Redding; former Delaware judge Collins Seitz; and Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who was held with other Japanese Americans during World War II and challenged the detention.

The Presidential Citizens Medal was created by President Richard Nixon in 1969 and is the country's second highest civilian honor after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes people who ''performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.''