Conservative commentators were outragedafter the Biden administration gave billionaire investor and Democratic mega-donor George Soros the Medal of Freedom.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called on the incoming Trump administration to rescind the medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
“Send a team to track down Soros and take the medal back,” Bannon said on his War Room podcast. “It is a disgrace that a demonic individual like that—who has been going out of his way to try to destroy this country, to mock this constitutional republic, which he hates and has dedicated his life to destroying—that we would be presenting him, awarding him, the highest civilian honor that you can give.”
“Rip it right off his neck,” he added.
On Fox News, anchor Rachel Campos-Duffy said the award was going to “people who destroyed freedom.” Her co-host Joe Concha agreed, calling Soros the most “evil man on the planet.”
Soros, 94, has long been a target for conservative pundits and elected officials. He has given an estimated $32 billion over the years, many to Democratic causes. He has also given money and backed numerous candidates who are accused of being progressive or pushing lax safety policies.
A widely shared post on X compared the decision to award the medal to Soros to giving an award to the Star Wars villain Emperor Palpatine.
Others celebrated that the investor got the medal.
“Congratulations to George Soros – w/profound gratitude for his contributions to voting rights, economic opportunity & his dogged insistence that a just society reflect diversity, promote equity and practice inclusion,” voting rights activist Stacey Abrams wrote on X. “American values he champions in word and deed.”
“My father is an American patriot who has spent his life fighting for freedom and human rights,” his son Alex Soros wrote on X. “I am incredibly proud that his legacy is now recognized with our nation’s highest civilian honor.”
Alex Soros accepted the award on his father’s behalf during a ceremony on Saturday. Alex Soros has taken over his father’s role in donating from the family’s riches.
During the Medal of Freedom ceremony on Saturday in the White House, Soros was introduced as an individual whose “generosity reminds us all of our capacity and our obligation to stand up to the abuse of power and to be guardians of democracy and all people yearning to be free.”
Other Medal of Freedom winners who received the honor alongside Soros include Bono, Hillary Clinton, Earvin “Magic Johnson,” and Michael J. Fox.
