In a twist nobody had on their 2025 bingo card, the White House says it might award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to a 19-year-old ex-DOGE staffer better known by his online nickname, “Big Balls.” Yes, you read that right.
Two weeks ago, Edward Coristine was reportedly viciously attacked during a carjacking in Washington D.C.’s Dupont Circle. The teen, who now works for the Social Security Administration after helping Elon Musk “streamline” (read: slash) the federal government earlier this year, was reportedly set upon by two teenagers at around 3 a.m. Coristine was left bloodied but very much alive, which, in MAGA circles, instantly made him a hero.
The idea of giving “Big Balls” the same honor as Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. came up during a White House press briefing when press secretary Karoline Leavitt called on conservative pundit Benny Johnson for the first question, something of a tradition in the new administration. Johnson, after recounting his own brushes with D.C. crime and praising Trump for “saving the city,” asked whether the president would consider giving Coristine the medal for his “heroic actions just a few blocks from this building.”
“Perhaps it’s something he would consider,” Leavitt replied, managing to keep a straight face while discussing a Medal of Freedom for someone named after oversized anatomy.
Coristine’s rise to MAGA martyrdom began when Trump himself posted a gruesome photo from the crime scene on Truth Social, vowing to crack down on D.C. crime and even threatening a federal takeover of the city. The photo, more Quentin Tarantino than White House, made “Big Balls” a household name among Trump supporters overnight.
Big Balls has put everything on the line, his career, his reputation, even his own body to protect the public. I might change his name to Cajones Mas Grande. pic.twitter.com/NHpfc4itn2
— Hernan Cortes (@CyberPunkCortes) August 5, 2025
Republican Senator Mike Lee even fanned the flames last week by posting an AI-generated video of Trump hanging the Medal of Freedom around Coristine’s neck, complete with a soundtrack fit for a Marvel origin story. Creepy? Sure. Effective? Definitely.
And on Monday, Trump’s threats turned into action. He announced he was bringing in the National Guard and federalizing D.C.’s metropolitan police to “restore law and order,” a bold move, given that the crime rate is actually at a 30-year low.
By Tuesday, Leavitt was boasting that about 850 officers and federal agents were now patrolling the streets. The result? Just 23 arrests in a city of more than 700,000 people, many for offenses like fare evasion, reckless driving, and the occasional lewd act. The list of crimes sounded less like the plot of The Wire and more like a slow Tuesday on Cops.
Just asking questions here — because I’d like more info on the actual number of people who supposedly assaulted Edward “Big Balls” Coristine. I’m seeing no verified number of attackers anywhere, just random accounts on social media and in articles.
There’s an unverified police… pic.twitter.com/oIeTeHSj1l
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) August 12, 2025
Critics pounced on the numbers. “With 850 agents making 23 arrests, that’s a 37-to-1 ratio of force results,” one user on X, going by the name White House X Ray, wrote. “This isn’t a law enforcement surge—it’s political theatre with a federal budget.”
Still, none of that appears to be slowing the “Big Balls for Medal of Freedom” movement. In MAGA world, Edward Coristine is no longer just a young government staffer who survived a late-night mugging, he’s a symbol of grit, survival, and, apparently, a set of steel.
Whether he’ll actually join the ranks of Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King Jr. remains to be seen. But if it happens, it might just be the first Medal of Freedom ceremony where the honoree’s nickname gets more press than the medal itself.
