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Traditionally jovial event that included JD Vance's little kids also took dark turn as Trump vented about woman set ablaze on Chicago subway
Andrew Feinbergin Washington, D.C.Tuesday 25 November 2025 17:32 GMTComments
President Donald Trump speaks during a pardoning ceremony for the national Thanksgiving turkeys Waddle and Gobble in the Rose Garden of the White House, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP)
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President Donald Trump turned what was meant as a lighthearted Thanksgiving presidential tradition into a stage for partisan complaints, swipes at his predecessor and gruesome rants about crime in Democratic-led cities as he used the annual ceremony to “pardon” a pair of turkeys as a stage for familiar grievances.
After boasting to guests — including Vice President JD Vance’s wife and children — about how his recently-renovated patio in the White House Rose Garden was keeping them from “sinking into the mud” as a light rain fell on Washington, Trump said he had an “important announcement” to make before pardoning this year’s turkeys, dubbed Gobble and Waddle by the White House.
He claimed a “thorough and very rigorous investigation by Pam Bondi and all of the people at the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA and the White House Counsel’s Office” had determined that then-president Joe Biden had used an autopen to pardon last year’s birds, Peach and Blossom.
“I have the official duty to determine, and I have determined that last year’s Turkey pardons are totally invalid,” he said.
“They’re hereby null and void, the turkeys known as Peach and Blossom last year have been located, and they were on their way to be processed. In other words, to be killed.”
But Trump added that he’d “stopped that journey” and claimed he was now “officially pardoning” last year’s turkeys, saving them “in the nick of time.”
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