Activists • Jazmin Cazares: Advocate for gun violence prevention following the death of her sister, Jackie, in the
Uvalde shooting in 2022. •
Riley Gaines: Conservative activist and former competitive swimmer who has been advocating against
transgender women in women's sports after tying for fifth with openly transgender female champion
Lia Thomas in the 200-yard NCAA freestyle championship. •
Rosa María Payá: Cuban human rights activist and opposition leader whose father,
Oswaldo Payá, was killed in a car crash in 2012 by
Ángel Carromero. •
Bettie Mae Fikes: Singer and civil rights advocate who was present on
Bloody Sunday in
Selma, Alabama, in 1965, where Alabama state troopers attacked civil rights activists crossing the
Edmund Pettus Bridge. •
Yulia Navalnaya: Widow of the late Russian opposition leader
Alexei Navalny, who
died in a penal colony on February 16 while serving a 19-year prison sentence. The United States had placed over 500 new sanctions in response to his death in late February. However, she was unable to make an appearance though she and her daughter had met with Biden in
San Francisco several weeks earlier.
Officers or veterans • Brandon Budlong:
United States Border Patrol agent who has witnessed
the worsening crisis at the border. • John Frankman: Former
U.S. Army Captain and
Green Beret who left the military following the
Department of Defense's mandated
COVID-19 vaccine policy. • Fred Hamilton: A
Montana veteran who was exposed to toxins who was helped by the
PACT Act. • Steve Nikoui: Father of
Marine Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, who was killed in
Afghanistan during the
U.S. withdrawal in 2021, as a guest of
Brian Mast • Garnett L. Johnson: Mayor of
Augusta, Georgia, which has seen a Workforce Hub that will bring advanced manufacturing, construction, and other skilled trades to students in the area. •
Ulf Kristersson: Prime Minister of
Sweden, which
joined NATO on the same day in response to security concerns surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. •
Bill Lee, governor of
Tennessee, as a guest of Senator
Bill Hagerty. • Stephen Roe Lewis: Governor of the
Gila River Indian Community who has brought innovative solutions to long-term issues confronted by the Community. His tenure has seen the completion of the first new schools on the Reservation in over 100 years and the first solar-over-canal project in the Western Hemisphere. •
Olena Zelenska: First lady of
Ukraine who was invited but unable to come. This came as Congress stalled aid for Ukraine in the
Russo-Ukrainian war.
CEOs or presidents of organizations • Barbara Collura: President and CEO of Resolve: The National Infertility Association who has also been invited in response to the decision made on
LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine. •
Shawn Fain: President of
United Auto Workers, a union that
went on strike in September 2023 following a contract disagreement that resulted in increased wages and return of cost of living adjustments, an end to two tiered employment system, improved overtime and retirement benefits, and a written contract right to strike over plant closures. • Natalie King: Founder and CEO of
Detroit-based Dunamis Charge, the first-ever African American women-owned electric vehicle charger manufacturing company in the United States that has over 135 workers and is on track to manufacture 400,000 electric vehicle chargers by 2025. • Justin Phillips: Founder and CEO of Overdose Lifeline, a non-profit from
Indiana dedicated to reducing the stigma of substance use disorder and preventing deaths resulting from opioid and fentanyl overdose. He helped sign Aaron's Law, which allows individuals to have access to Narcan to save people from overdosing. • Rashawn Spivey: Founder of Hero Plumbing in Milwaukee after graduating from a plumbing program at Milwaukee Area Technical College and completing an apprenticeship with Plumbers Local 75, which has been replacing lead water pipes. •
Liz Shuler: President of the
AFL-CIO, who has already endorsed
the 2024 Biden campaign. •
Katherine Rowe: President of
the College of William and Mary, as a guest of Representative
Rob Wittman Private or miscellaneous people • Kate Cox: A
Dallas mother who traveled out of state after suing to have an abortion because of the
Texas Heartbeat Act, which has outlawed all abortions since
the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Amanda Zurawski, who was in a situation nearly identical to Cox and is also suing the state to overturn the bans, returned to this year's event, having suffered
sepsis and nearly died two years ago. • Kayla Smith: An
Idaho mother who moved her family to
Washington in 2022 after she was unable to have an abortion due to
abortion ban in Idaho following the overturning of
Roe v. Wade. •
Caitlin Bernard: Doctor who provided an abortion in
Indiana to a
ten-year-old girl who was raped in Ohio in 2022 due to
Ohio outlawing most cases for abortion following the overturning of
Roe v. Wade. •
Elizabeth Jordan Carr: The first American to have been born via
in-vitro fertilization (IVF). The invitation is in response to
LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine where the
Alabama Supreme Court ruled that
frozen embryos can be considered
children under state law on February 21. • Latorya Beasley: An Alabama woman who was in the process of expanding her family with her husband through IVF until the decision made on
LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine resulted in many IVF clinics in the state shutting down. • Families of the American Hostages in Gaza: American families whose members or relatives in
Israel were killed or
abducted and held hostage in
Gaza since the
October 7 attacks in 2023. The hostages have suffered through starvation, physical and mental abuse, and
sexual violence at the hands of Hamas. • Intimaa Salama: Dentist and master's student at
St. Louis University who has lost 35 members of her family in
Gaza amid the
Gaza war, which has seen nearly 40,000 people killed. • Ella and Mikhail Gershkovich: Parents of
Evan Gershkovich, a journalist and reporter for
The Wall Street Journal who has been detained in
Russia since March 2023 on charges of espionage. • Jason Riley and Allyson Phillips: Parents of
Augusta University student Laken Riley who was
murdered while jogging. The accused is Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan citizen who entered the United States illegally in 2022. • Gabriel Shipton: Brother of
WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange, who was arrested in
London after being expelled from the
Ecuadorian embassy in April 2019 and is currently facing
extradition to the United States. • Dawn Chapman: A
St. Louis mother and founder of Just Moms, an advocacy group for victims of radiation from nuclear contamination in
Missouri who supports the
Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. • Samantha Ervin-Upsher: Apprentice with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 432 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The city received a boost thanks to a program by the Biden administration that focused on bringing good jobs to the city. • Kris Blackley: Oncology nurse and the Director of Patient Navigation for the Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute in
North Carolina which received a massive boost as a result of the Cancer Moonshot initiative. •
Fat Joe: Rapper who has been fighting for price transparency in healthcare, as the cost of living increases in the United States. • Steven Hadfield: A North Carolina man who has a rare blood cancer and is a diabetic, which both required expensive drugs that are now covered by the
Inflation Reduction Act. •
Michael Knowles:
Conservative political commentator and host of The Michael Knowles Show, which is part of
The Daily Wire network. • Keenan Jones: A public middle school educator from Minnesota wrote an email to President Biden thanking him for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which eliminated his remaining student loan debt after 10 years. •
Maria Shriver: Author, journalist, former First Lady of California, and founder of the Women's Alzheimer's Movement and Strategic Advisor on Women's Health and Alzheimer's at Cleveland Clinic who worked with the Biden administration in 2023 to help create the first-ever White House Initiative on Women's Health Research. • Dawn Simms: Member of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 1268 and third-generation autoworker on at
Belvidere Assembly in Illinois. When the plant was idled, she was faced with moving or working away from her son, but the UAW helped reopen the plant. • Tiffany Zoeller: Military spouse and medical coder at
Fort Liberty's Womack Army Medical Center who has been working with the Biden administration to help veterans and their families get good paying jobs after service. == See also ==