OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
11:40 AM – Tuesday, November 25, 2025
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump participated in the White House National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation ceremony on Tuesday — an annual event in which the president pardons two turkeys — with this year’s birds named “Gobble” and “Waddle.”
The tradition of presenting a live turkey to the president of the United States first began in the 1940s. There were occasional informal “pardons” or acts of mercy in this era, though no official, annual pardon ceremony existed. Most turkeys were still eaten.
Then, in 1989, when the modern, highly publicized version of the ceremony began under President George H.W. Bush, it has since become standard practice for the U.S. president to pardon two turkeys before Thanksgiving.
One turkey is chosen as the official “National Thanksgiving Turkey” that appears at the Rose Garden White House ceremony and receives the formal pardon. The second turkey is an alternate, sometimes called the “vice turkey,” that is raised and transported with the primary bird in case anything happens to it.
This year’s chosen turkeys, coming from a flock of over 19,000 and raised by Butterball grower Travis Pittman in Wayne County, North Carolina, were spared from the dinner table and relocated to North Carolina State University’s Prestage Department of Poultry Science for educational purposes. The two turkeys will “receive specialized care and contribute to poultry science outreach.”
While only one turkey, chosen via public vote, took part in the formal ceremony, both received the pardon. The two white-feathered birds were guided to the White House briefing room with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and her young son prior to the ceremony.
Trump gave an approximately 20-minute address before pardoning one of the turkeys, making jokes and highlighting his administration’s successes since retaking office this year.
Lightening the mood, the 47th president also cracked a joke at the expense of former President Joe Biden, suggesting that he likely used an autopen device to pardon his two turkeys during his presidential term.
“I have determined that last year’s turkey pardons are totally invalid,” Trump said. “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 I have stopped that journey and I am officially pardoning them, and they will not be served for Thanksgiving dinner,” the president added. “We saved them in the nick of time.”
This year’s birds are “two of the largest turkeys ever presented to an American president, over 50 pounds each,” Trump announced.
“I shouldn’t say this,” he continued, recalling what he thought when he saw the birds’ photos. “I was going to call them Chuck and Nancy,” Trump continued, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“But then I realized I wouldn’t be pardoning them. I would never pardon those two people,” he added.
He also proclaimed that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. certified the birds as the first “MAHA turkeys,” referring to Kennedy’s slogan “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA).
Trump further emphasized his administration’s tough-on-crime position, noting that zero people had entered the country illegally in the last seven months, which even he found “hard to believe.”
“I can’t — it has to be like a few people got in. But they say zero,” Trump remarked. “And they’re radical left Democrats who do the scoring, so I can’t imagine they did that for us.”
Toward the end of the ceremony, the president touted his second-term record of brokering and mediating global peace, suggesting that more is coming and expressing optimism that the Russia–Ukraine war would be resolved sooner than expected.
Lastly, President Trump thanked his wife for being a great First Lady before pardoning Gobble.
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