With a recipient list stocked with old-guard icons and political backers, the president signaled support for the establishment his successor wants to tear down.
With 16 days left in a political career that spanned a half-century, President Biden on Saturday conferred one of the nation’s highest honors on core members of the political, financial and celebrity establishment of which he has long been a part.
President-elect Donald J. Trump will replace Mr. Biden on Jan. 20, determined to continue his assault on what he has long called “the swamp.” In 2016, Mr. Trump vowed to wage war against establishment members in both parties who he said had “reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.”
But on Saturday, Mr. Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 18 people, including some of the brightest lights of the old guard that Mr. Trump wants to tear down. In doing so, the 82-year-old president is sending an unmistakable message of support for a democratic order he has said is threatened by Mr. Trump’s re-election.
“Let’s remember, our sacred effort continues, and to keep going, as my mother would say, we have to keep the faith,” he told the crowd in the East Room of the White House at the end of the ceremony.
Among those receiving the award were Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state whom Mr. Trump threatened to jail and who received a standing ovation on Saturday; Robert F. Kennedy, the assassinated senator whose son has embraced Mr. Trump; and George Romney, the late father of former Senator Mitt Romney, the Republican from Utah who repeatedly rejected Mr. Trump’s actions and philosophy. The younger Mr. Romney accepted the award on Saturday. Mr. Kennedy’s medal was accepted by his daughter, Kerry Kennedy.
As many presidents have done with the Medal of Freedom, Mr. Biden also honored some of his party’s most prolific fund-raisers, including the man who looms largest of all among Democratic donors — George Soros, the liberal activist billionaire whom Republicans have cast as the party’s evil puppet master.
They also included the media executive and cultural figure Anna Wintour, who put the first lady, Jill Biden, on the cover of Vogue twice in the last four years while spurning Melania Trump during her husband’s presidency. Ms. Wintour is one of the leading fund-raisers in the fashion industry, having hosted events for Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign in London and Paris last year.
Mr. Biden also recognized artists, musicians, sports figures, philanthropists and others who have contributed to society, including the singer Bono; the actor Michael J. Fox; the basketball legend Earvin Johnson, known as Magic; and the investor David M. Rubenstein.
The 19th person picked to receive the award — the soccer megastar Lionel Messi — did not attend the ceremony or send a representative to accept on his behalf because of a scheduling conflict, according to the White House.
“As cultural icons, dignified statesmen, humanitarians, rock stars, sports stars, you feed the hungry, you give hope to those that are hurting, and you craft the signs and sounds of our movements and our memories,” Mr. Biden said.
All modern presidents have awarded the medal to those whom they found deserving, often as they are leaving the political scene for good and sometimes with an ideological tilt. It is seen by historians as a final use of the presidential megaphone to say to Americans: This is whom we should admire and emulate.
After Mr. Trump won in 2016, President Barack Obama gave the medal to the N.B.A. star Michael Jordan, the actors Tom Hanks and Robert De Niro and others. Earlier, Mr. Obama had given the award to Mr. Biden, who had served as his vice president.
Four years later, as Mr. Trump was leaving office, he gave the medal to two professional golfers, an Olympic athlete and Representatives Devin Nunes of California and Jim Jordan of Ohio, two of his fiercest Republican loyalists in Congress.
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