The President Medal of reedom is the nation's highest civilian honor. It recognizes individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

The three recipients Thursday will join Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Charlie Sifford and Tiger Woods as the only golfers to receive the award, according to NBC's Golf Channel, which first reported Thursday's award ceremony.

Trump is an avid golfer, and his business, the Trump Organization, owns numerous golf club resorts. The president has visited those clubs hundreds of times during his one term in office.

An angry President Trump pushed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to overturn the state's presidential results, and appeared to at least partly blame him for what could be lower turnout in Tuesday's runoff elections that will decide control of the U.S. Senate, according to a recording of a phone call obtained by Georgia Public Broadcasting.

"The people of Georgia know that this was a scam, and because of what you've done to the president, a lot of people aren't going out to vote [in the runoffs]," Trump said in the remarkable Saturday call. "A lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because they hate what you did to the president."

After bringing some 60 lawsuits, and even offering financial incentive for information about fraud, Mr. Trump and his allies have failed to prove definitively any case of illegal voting on behalf of their opponent in court — not a single case of an undocumented immigrant casting a ballot, a citizen double voting, nor any credible evidence that legions of the voting dead gave Mr. Biden a victory that wasn’t his.