Don’t leave your day job. On Tuesday, Donald Trump came prepared to serve up some political satire at the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardon ceremony at the White House. It happened just as you would expect.
Like a startled turkey flapping in zigzags, the US President’s speech bounced surprisingly from one topic to the next. They told jokes in the worst possible way and watched as they floated across the Rose Garden sky and then descended with a thud. And on a day intended for charity and rejoicing, he described the governor of a state as “a big, fat man.”
Trump never fulfilled a presidential tradition he didn’t want to ruin. For nearly eight decades, the turkey presentation has been a silly but reassuring ritual in which the president offers a few bad words and uplifting words about the state of the nation. They are not there to make news.
But this year, of course, things were different. Typically, after a public vote there are two turkeys present who should be pardoned. However, on Tuesday, Goblet was present, but Waddle was “missing in action,” as Trump put it — apparently a bird with the same plumage as Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The Rose Garden was transformed, its grass paved with Mar-a-Lago-style slabs, while nearby the presidential footprint of fame, with tacky gold and framed portraits of Trump’s predecessors except Joe Biden, was replaced with an Auto Pen. Behind the President was a framed mirror in which a yellow crane could be seen on the site of the former East Wing.
“I hope you enjoy our beautiful new patio at the White House with matching stones,” Trump said as he walked out of the Oval Office with first lady Melania amid a light rain. “If there were grass today, you would be wallowing in the mud as they have been doing for many years, and you would be very unhappy.”
It’s hard for Trump’s critics to accept that the man can be funny. At election campaign rallies, he can cut through the posturing of politicians with an insightful comment that moves his audience. However, he lacked spontaneity on occasion, his wit less sharp than a baseball bat. The situation soured a day later when a judge dismissed a lawsuit by his Justice Department against political opponents.
Trump talked about the thorough investigation by Bondi and multiple departments into “the terrible situation caused by a guy named Sleepy Joe Biden. He used an auto pen last year to file a turkey pardon.”
If the President was expecting hearty laughs from the audience that included J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha, as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi and “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, he was disappointed. There was barely a sound of laughter.
Still, he persisted. “It is my official duty to make this determination, and I have determined that last year’s turkey pardon is completely invalid,” he said.
Finally, some polite laughter from the audience. what a relief! But then Trump went and screwed it up by messing up the pardon for Biden’s son Hunter and taking another dark turn.
“Last year the turkeys, known as Peach and Blossom, were located, and they were on their way to being processed – in other words, killedBut I’ve stopped that trip, and I’m officially forgiving them, and they won’t be served Thanksgiving dinner, We rescued them in time,” he said,
Trump was looking amazing in his dark coat, suit and red tie. Will Melania or someone use a hook to remove him from the stage? The privilege of the presidency is that no one dares.
Trump was “weaving”, from nuclear power plants to border security, from car factories to AI, from tax cuts to the price of eggs. This was the biggest misconception because they tried to tell military generals how to be tough guys.
Ultimately, he returned to Turkey. “When I first saw their pictures, I thought we should send them — well, I shouldn’t say this — I was going to call them Chuck and Nancy,” he said — a reference to Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi that earned mild cheers from the sycophants’ corner.
“But then I realized I wouldn’t forgive them, I would never forgive those two people. I wouldn’t forgive them. I wouldn’t care what Melania said to me: ‘Darling, I think this would be a good thing to do.’ “I wouldn’t do that, darling.”
Will the turkeys pardoned next year be called Maxwell and Mountbatten?
Trump claimed that, weighing more than 50 pounds, his turkeys were larger than those of his predecessors. He claimed that Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. had certified him as the first “MAHA” (Make America Healthy Again) turkey. She worried that Goble might attack her and then, suddenly, he talked about immigration again.
This led to the worst sarcasm of the day: “Instead of saying sorry, some of my over-zealous employees were already drafting paperwork to send Gobble and Waddle straight to a terrorist detention center in El Salvador. And even those birds don’t want to be there. You know what I mean.”
It was funny because it’s all a lot more believable than Stephen Miller. would like Try sending turkeys to an El Salvador mega-prison along with kittens, puppies and cute bunnies. White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt may be regretting bringing her newborn son Nicholas to work.
Indeed, Trump moved forward with his crackdown on crime in Chicago and Washington DC. “They burned this beautiful woman on the train,” was another phrase that didn’t exactly match this once joyous occasion. His voice rising in anger, he dropped a previously written line about Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s weight and called him a “big, fat idiot” before admitting that he could also lose a few pounds.
Trump then walked over to Goble, made one of his characteristically dramatic hand gestures and announced: “Goble, I just want to tell you – very important – you are unconditionally pardoned!” He even appeared to picture a turkey for a moment, then ran his hand over its feathers and asked: “Who would want to harm this beautiful bird?”
The future Lame President was a box-office hit. Had Mark Twain’s Nation Reached This? But no one in this crowd of supporters was going to object. First they laugh at you, then they fight with you, then they pretend to laugh at your authoritarian jokes.
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