Donald Trump crash-landed into the annual White House Thanksgiving turkey pardoning ceremony. Unlike any previous election cycle, this event marked a major shift away from standard presidential convention. The ceremony featured two remarkable turkeys, “Gobble” and “Waddle.” Trump boasted that they were the biggest ever pardoned, each weighing in at over 50 pounds. In a ceremony that combined humor with controversial commentary, Trump made headlines for both his remarks and his approach to the ritual.
One the day of the event, November 23, Trump went out on a limb and announced these birds were the first-ever “Maha” (Make America Healthy Again) turkeys. He gave high marks to Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. for certifying them. He announced, “Gobble, I want to let you know Gobble – very very important – you are unconditionally pardoned!” The audience reacted with a mixture of applause and puzzlement. This was an unfortunate reaction since the statement’s release, issued in the middle of a series of unrelated and incoherent remarks.
Trump’s speech quickly began ricocheting from subject to subject, a reminder of his penchant for wandering off the teleprompter. He daringly threw away the rehearsal lines about Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s corpulence. Rather, he called him a “big fat, fat slob.” This was just one of the many shots he took at drivers’ political leaders during his keynote address.
Shifting focus from the turkeys, Trump launched into a discussion about his plans for crime reduction in cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. He referenced a current, still-active investigation that Pam Bondi is conducting. He described it as “a horrible mess created by this guy Sleepy Joe Biden.”
Perhaps the most surprising moment came when Trump cracked a joke about pardoning Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, which received applause and gasps from the audience. He quipped that some of his aides had originally written the paperwork to send Gobble and Waddle to a “terrorist confinement center in El Salvador.” They promptly turned their attention right back to the work at hand.
The ceremony was short on humor — even of the deeply inappropriate variety. Peach and Blossom, last year’s turkeys, received individual greetings from Trump. He said they were en route to be prepared for roasting for Thanksgiving dinner, but he intervened and pardoned them on the spot. We rescued them at the last possible minute,” he said today, explaining that all of last year’s pardons were retroactively invalidated.
Trump even re-landscaped the Rose Garden for the occasion, excising its grass and replacing it with Mar-a-Lago-style slabs. As he put it, “If it were grass today, you would be sinking into the mud—as they have for decades, trust me—you would not be smiling at all! This change was typical of his desire to customize presidential rituals to fit his distinctive approach.
Presidents from Truman to Obama have used this time as an opportunity to encourage a spirit of community and thankfulness. Trump’s efforts were more about self-promotion and political commentary. He even considered naming the turkeys after top Democrats. He added, “When I first saw their images, I thought about sending them – well you can’t say that – but I was going to name them Chuck and Nancy.”