He attended the event with First Lady Melania Trump, and a professional lip reader later caught his unusual remark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As usual, Trump attracted media attention Tuesday by taking the podium during the annual turkey pardon, a Thanksgiving tradition that dates back to Abraham Lincoln.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Lincoln initiated the practice of saving turkeys, it was President George H. W. Bush who turned it into the annual ritual we see today, starting in 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, Trump pardoned turkeys Gobble and Wade, who had already experienced luxury before their visit to the White House. According to Jaap Boelens, manager of the Willard Hotel in Washington, the turkeys spent Monday night in a $400-a-night suite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur special guests arrived with a red carpet welcome and quickly settled in,\u201d Boelens told WAGM. \u201cI checked on them this morning and even ran a credit check,\u201d he joked. \u201cThe minibar was ransacked, which is perfectly fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his speech, Trump quickly pivoted to criticizing his political rivals. He mentioned that when he first saw the turkeys, he considered naming them Chuck and Nancy, a clear attack on Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut then I realized I wouldn\u2019t pardon them. I would never pardon those two,\u201d he said, adding that he wouldn\u2019t do so \u201cno matter what Melania tells me.\u201d
Instead of ending up on a Thanksgiving plate, Gobble and Wade will retire from the Prestage Chair in Poultry Science at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Trump also claimed that U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. certified the birds as \u201cfirst-era MAHA turkeys,\u201d a nod to his \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d slogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey may be chubby, but they\u2019re still MAHA,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey ate every fattening food imaginable. We wanted them to be special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president also appeared to make a peculiar comment to Melania during the ceremony. Nicola Hickling, a lip reader, told the Express that as the First Lady stepped back down the stairs, Trump said, \u201cI\u2019d be happy to follow you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Observing the turkeys, he continued his conversation with Melania, clearly surprised by their appearance. \u201cWow! Okay, okay, look at this\u2026 so this isn\u2019t abnormal? \u2026 Is this normal? How big do they get? They look like a pretty aggressive bird,\u201d he observed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He attended the event with First Lady Melania Trump, and a professional lip reader later caught his unusual remark. As usual, Trump attracted \n [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13625,"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13624\/revisions\/13625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevery.biz.ua\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}