Overview
- At the Nov. 25 White House event, President Trump granted a “complete and unconditional pardon” to two turkeys named Waddle and Gobble.
- He joked that last year’s turkey pardons should be void because an autopen signed for Joe Biden, repeating allegations used to question Biden’s cognition.
- NBC noted the ceremony alongside Trump’s broader clemency record, reporting more than 1,000 pardons or commutations for people charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
- The annual turkey pardon has been observed by presidents since at least 1989, with origins often traced to an anecdote from the Lincoln era.
- This was Trump’s first turkey-pardoning ceremony since 2020, and the two birds are set to live out their days in North Carolina.