Why did Trump suspect that these birds were associated with MAHA, a movement supported by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? According to Trump, the turkeys were as fat as Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s.
Trump said, “Regardless of their size, Secretary Kennedy has formally certified that these are the first MAHA turkeys. I don’t know whether I agree with that or not. These are MAHAs.” “In other words, they may be fat, but they’re still mega.”
Trump further said that the turkeys have been fed various things, although it is not clear whether he read his speech correctly.
Trump said, “They have been fattened up on a regular diet of grass…to allow for beef, smoothies and all the other things they are eating on occasion.”
Maybe Trump meant “grass-fed beef,” though we can’t be sure. It is also possible that he misread “beef tallow” as “permissible beef”. The rest of Trump’s declaration about “allowing smoothies” makes no sense grammatically, so we have to assume this line was supposed to be something like “grass and beef tallow smoothies”, since turkeys don’t typically consume beef.
but who knows? Trump is actually required to wear reading glasses, and his refusal to do so is often attributed to a misreading of the words in the teleprompter. Or, in this case, from a sheet of paper in front of him.
Trump added, “It was a really big occasion, but he’s eaten every fattening meal you can eat.” “We acted like…we really wanted to make them special, and they really are. They’re like record-setting. I’ve never seen a turkey this big before.”
Trump asked someone off-camera, presumably one of the turkey farmers who was present at the event, whether turkeys were predatory.
“Are they violent at all? Are they going to attack me as I walk by? Because if they were, I would stay right here,” Trump said.
The MHA movement is full of pseudoscience and seems especially preoccupied with things that don’t actually make people less thin. RFK Jr., for example, is obsessed with replacing seed oil with beef tallow in fast food restaurants, something that arguably makes fries taste better but actually does nothing to make them healthier or reduce their potential to make people overweight.
But Trump is highly weight conscious and, despite his own weight, often denigrates overweight political opponents. When the President talked about Illinois Governor JB Pritzker later in the speech, he called him a fat fool.
Trump said, “The mayor is incompetent, and the governor is a big fat man. He should be inviting us over, saying ‘Please make Chicago safe.’
The President said Pritzker should do his job properly and should be allowed to bring in the National Guard. And about a minute later, Trump said he would never call Pritzker a fat slut.
“And I had a little Pritzker joke. I was going to talk about the Pritzker in shape, but when I talk about the Pritzker, I get angry because he’s not letting us do the work. So I’m not going to tell my Pritzker joke. He has a very sweet little joke, you know,” Trump said, turning the turkey pardon ceremony into an uproar.
Trump added, “Some speechwriter wrote some joke about his weight, but I would never want to talk about his weight.” “I don’t talk about people being fat. I refuse to talk about the fact that he’s a fat boor. I don’t mention it.”
“The governor is a big fat man.”
[1 minute later]
“I had a Pritzker joke. Some speechwriter wrote some jokes about his weight, but I would never want to talk about his weight. I don’t talk about people being fat. I refuse to talk about the fact that he’s a fat man.”
[image or embed]
– Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) November 25, 2025 at 9:29 am
Trump admitted, “By the way, I’d like to lose a few pounds, too. And I’m not going to lose it on Thanksgiving, I can tell you that, because I’m going to have a turkey, but it won’t be that much.”
Trump and his far-right friends often comment on Pritzker’s weight. Billionaire Elon Musk once wrote, “There’s nothing more dangerous than getting between JB Pritzker and the buffet table!” But Pritzker responded, “I salute @TheWienerCircle, Not a Nazi,” a reference to Chicago’s famous hot dog restaurant.
i salute @TheWienerCircleNot a Nazi. https://t.co/JFNoBvN807 pic.twitter.com/Y3zArkieE5
– JB Pritzker (@JBPritzker) 29 January 2025
Musk had given two Nazi-style salutes at an event celebrating President Trump’s inauguration just a few days earlier.
Trump’s speech on Tuesday meandered here and there, with the President also saying a lot of things about inflation that were extremely misleading. Trump insisted that grocery prices have dropped significantly since “Biden-era heights,” which is technically true. But they ignore the fact that inflation peaked just before Trump took office in January and has been getting worse since his tariff policies were implemented.
For example, Trump claims that ham prices have dropped from Biden-era highs without mentioning that they have increased since he took office. This graph from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shows that ham prices in the Midwest dropped significantly in the fall of 2024, then increased in March 2025 after Trump’s second inauguration.
Trump also claimed that gas prices are going to be near $2 per gallon soon, which is simply not true. According to the current rate of inflation is 3% Bureau of Labor StatisticsThat’s down from the peak of 9% in the summer of 2022 (the Joe Biden-era high), but above the 2.3% that was achieved between April 2024 and April 2025. You’ll recall that April 2025 was the beginning of “Liberation Day,” when Trump announced all of his record-breaking tariffs.
<a href