Biden drops ANOTHER 2024 hint as he honors prominent artists

President Joe Biden came armed with dad jokes and dropped another 2024 hint as he handed out a new batch of arts and humanities medals to a group of cultural figures Tuesday in the East Room.

“Don’t be mad at me if I mess up your hair,” she warned the women honorees receiving the National Humanities Medals or National Art Medals during the Tuesday afternoon ceremony.

In all, there were 24 recipients, the most famous being actresses Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mindy Kaling, musicians Bruce Springsteen and Gladys Knight, and fashion designer Vera Wang.

Biden spoke about each of the honorees before handing them their medals, marveling at how author Colson Whitehead had won back-to-back Pulitzer Prizes.

“I’m looking back to back,” Biden commented, drawing cheers from the crowd.

As far as Biden was concerned, there was another commander in chief in the crowd.

“And my friend, the president Julia Louis-Dreyfus,” he said while introducing the great Veep and Seinfeld.

“I was going to talk to Julia the other day about whether she liked being vice president or president better,” Biden said, acknowledging how Louis-Dreyfus’s vice president eventually rose to the presidency. “I have to figure that out,” Biden said with a laugh.

Biden is particularly close with Louis-Dreyfus, who formed a warm friendship with him after he starred in the HBO comedy about an ambitious vice president.

The two performed together in a play for the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in May 2014.

She also revealed that Biden called her after her breast cancer diagnosis in 2017, when she was among the handful of celebrities who showed up at the virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention. She attended the Bidens’ first state dinner with France in December. .

When Biden paid tribute to Kaling, a big supporter of Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, he noted that she was from Massachusetts.

But, Biden said, “as we all know, Scranton, Pennsylvania made her who she is.”

Kaling’s breakout role, as both an actress and a writer, was in the American version of The Office, which took place in Biden’s birthplace of Scranton.

Actor BJ Novak, a close friend of Kaling’s, was spotted by DailyMail.com in the crowd.

Then, when Biden turned to Springsteen, he tried to reclaim him for Delaware, where the president moved as a child and represented for decades in the Senate.

“I just want you to know, Bruce, there was a lawsuit between the governor of Delaware and the governor of New Jersey and now it’s a matter of law: we own, Delaware owns, the Delaware up to the highest water mark in New Jersey. ‘

“So, for all I know, I could claim part of Delaware from you before we know it,” Biden told ‘The Boss’.

Springsteen performed at Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, singing Land of Hope and Dreams on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was the same song that Barack Obama walked off the stage with on January 10, 2017, when he delivered his farewell address to the nation.

And, during the 2020 presidential campaign, Springsteen narrated a Biden ad based on the president’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Biden also noted that “some people are born to run.”

Biden also told the crowd about the unwitty way in which he introduced himself to Wang.

“When it comes to fashion, this is what I know, like I said today, when I said, ‘Every time I open the closet I see her,’ when I was introduced to Vera and Jill turned to me and said, ‘What are you doing?’ saying that?” said the president. ‘All labels! Vera Wang.’

Looking for Wang in the front row, he asked, ‘You know what I mean to start with, right?’

“I think I could have said it a little better,” he acknowledged, trying again: “When I open the closet I see you all the time.”

The audience continued to laugh out loud.

“But anyway,” Biden said. You are one of the greats. And I know that her dresses always look beautiful on my wife, God love her.’

Wang tailored First Lady Jill Biden’s dress for Biden’s second inaugural ball as vice president.

He also designed merchandise for Biden’s 2020 campaign, which was sold online to benefit his candidacy.

Biden honored singer Gladys Knight after she received a Kennedy Center Honor in December.

She sat with the president in his box at the ceremony and was honored with a reception at the White House.

Authors honored include Whitehead, historian Walter Isaacson, Amy Tan, Tara Westover and Ann Patchett.

Patchett, in 2018, hosted Jill Biden at his Nashville bookstore for an event for Biden’s memoir ‘Where the Light Comes In.’

Also honored were Judith Francisca Baca, whose murals tell the story of those who have not always been recognized: women, minorities and queer people; and documentary filmmaker Joan Shigekawa, who served at the National Endowment for the Arts under Barack Obama.

As a child, Shigekawa spent 18 months in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans.

The Billie Holiday Theater in Brooklyn, New York. he was honored for his cultivation and mentoring of black talent as was the International Association of Blacks in Dance. The administration also honored the Native America Calling radio show.

Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization, was honored for his work challenging bias against the poor and minorities in the legal system.

Its National Monument for Peace and Justice pays homage to the victims of lynching.

Other honorees included poet Richard Blanco, singer Antonio Martorell-Cardona, African-American historian Earl Lewis, Native American scholar Henrietta Mann, dancer Fred Eychaner, singer José Feliciano, and anthropologist Johnnetta Betsch Cole.

Biden previously awarded a National Humanities Medal to Sir Elton John in September 2022, during a White House event, “A Night Where Hope and History Rhyme.”