United States President Barack Obama on Friday surprised his Vice President Joseph Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction, the country’s highest civilian honour. Former presidents had reserved the honour for recipients such as Pope John Paul II and Colin Powell, former US secretary of state.

Referring to Biden as his brother, Obama said, “To know Joe Biden is to know love without pretense, service without self-regard, and to live life fully.” A teary-eyed Biden thanked Obama for the honour. “I had no inkling. I thought we were going...to toast one another and say what an incredible journey it has been,” Biden said. “You have more than kept your commitment to me by saying you wanted me to help govern. I can say I was part of a journey of a remarkable man who did remarkable things for this country.”

The 74-year-old vice president said he did not deserve the honour but that he knew “it came from the president’s heart”. Biden acknowledged that while he had not always agreed with Obama’s decisions on policy, he never doubted the president’s judgment.

Biden played a crucial role in strategising USA’s role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in the operation to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in 2011. He was also instrumental in designing Obama’s first-term economic stimulus package and was a strong propagator for gun-control legislation, The Washington Post reported.

While the equation between the US president and his second-in-command was described as strained during his first term, particularly when Biden promoted same-sex marriages in 2012, they developed a unique bond during the second term at the White House. Describing their friendship, Obama said, “My family is so proud to call ourselves honorary Bidens,” The New York Times reported.

In December 2016, Biden had hinted at making a presidential bid in 2020. Biden had said, “I am not committing not to run. I learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening,” in an apparent reference to the death of his son, Beau.