Trump Announces Roger Clemens Will Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom at San Antonio Rally

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday night, Oct. 7, that he will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Roger Clemens. He made the announcement at a rally at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio.

The event was for Republican candidates less than a month before the November midterms, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for Senate.

A surprise near the end of a long speech

Clemens had been invited to introduce the president. He praised Trump as "a man that loves our country" and credited him with making the country safer because of the border.

The medal news came late. Trump's speech ran more than 100 minutes, and the crowd had lost some of its energy by then, according to the Associated Press.

"We're giving him the Presidential Medal of Freedom," Trump said. "And, along with the Congressional Medal of Honor, it's the highest award bestowed upon anyone." He called it "a big step up from the Hall of Fame."

The Medal of Honor is a military decoration, and the Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest civilian honor. Either way, Trump's framing was about stature.

Clemens returned to the stage. "Well, I'm stunned," he said. "This supersedes anything that obviously I've done in my playing career."

He added: "There wouldn't be another president I'd want to get it from." He also joked that Trump, who had recited his statistics, could be his agent.

The résumé

Clemens pitched 24 seasons for the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees and Astros. He won seven Cy Young Awards and two World Series titles, and finished with 354 wins and 4,672 strikeouts.

He is from Texas, went to the University of Texas at Austin, and won the 1983 College World Series there.

The steroid question

The Hall of Fame has not opened its doors to him. Clemens was named in the 2007 Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball, and he fell short in 10 appearances on the Baseball Writers' Association ballot.

The writers who voted him down, and the report that named him, are the main opposition to Trump's framing. They treat the doping suspicion as a reason to keep him out.

Clemens has always denied using performance-enhancing drugs. A federal probe examined his testimony to Congress about the allegations. He was acquitted of the related perjury charges in 2012.

Trump's case rests on that outcome. "By the way, people talk drugs. He never admitted to anything," he said at the rally.

In a December Truth Social post urging the Hall to induct Clemens, Trump wrote that Clemens "never tested positive" and was "FULLY ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES." He blamed the Obama Justice Department for relying on "rumors and innuendo."

An acquittal and a clean testing record are real facts. A criminal verdict is also a different standard from the one Hall voters apply, and the writers have not changed their view.

How the medal works

There is no formal selection procedure for the Medal of Freedom, and awards often reflect a president's political and personal interests, according to Congress.gov. That makes Trump's pick entirely his own call. Nobody has to ratify it.

Trump has handed the medal to several athletes across his two terms: Tiger Woods, Roger Staubach, Mariano Rivera and Lou Holtz. Elvis Presley received it posthumously. Rush Limbaugh received it the year before he died.

The Pete Rose precedent

Clemens is the second baseball star whose cause Trump has taken up. Last year Trump issued a posthumous federal pardon for Pete Rose, who died in September 2024. Major League Baseball then lifted its ban on the all-time hits leader.

Trump has called for Rose's induction as well, so far without success. At the rally he said Commissioner Rob Manfred's move to reopen Rose's case came too late.

The Hall of Fame sits outside Trump's authority. Clemens has been repeatedly rejected by the writers. Other induction routes exist, but the road is not easy, according to the AP.

The open question is whether a presidential medal changes that. The Rose case offers one data point: a pardon and a lifted ban did not produce a plaque.