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November 26, 2025

Turkeys, Trump, and Really Giving Thanks

The annual White House turkey pardon was an opportunity for Donald Trump, the showman, to shine. The holiday is a chance for all of us to take stock.

Our friends at The Babylon Bee continued their incredible streak of satire-as-prophecy. Well, it was close, anyway. On Monday, the Christian humor site headlined, “Trump To Execute All Turkeys Pardoned By Biden’s Autopen.” On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that Joe Biden’s pardons of last year’s turkeys were null and void because of the autopen, but that he had “saved them in the nick of time.”

There may never be another president who’s as much of an entertainer as Trump.

The annual turkey pardon at the White House is a fun tradition that usually allows Americans to set aside political rancor in favor of some holiday cheer. Trump never sets aside political rancor, but he was also pretty doggone funny going after his opponents yesterday. After some initial welcoming comments, here’s how he began:

In a few moments, I will grant a full, absolute, and unconditional presidential pardon to two handsome Thanksgiving turkeys. And this is their lucky day. This is a lucky day for them.

But before going any further, I want to make an important announcement because you remember last year, after a thorough and very rigorous investigation by Pam Bondi and all of the people at Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, the White House Counsel’s Office, and the Department of Everything — We have a Department of Everything. You know what that is? I think it’s called the White House — into a terrible situation caused by a man named Sleepy Joe Biden. He used an autopen last year for the turkeys’ pardon. So I have the official duty to determine, and I have determined that last year’s turkey pardons are totally invalid, as are the pardons of about every other person that was pardoned, other than, where’s Hunter? No, Hunter’s was good. That was the one pardon, Pam, that was good, right? The rest of them are all invalid. I don’t know what the hell you’re going to do about that, but now we’re going to take a little of the joking, that is a mess. But they’re hereby null and void. 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’ve stopped that journey, and I am officially pardoning them, and they will not be served for Thanksgiving dinner. We saved them in the nick of time.

Remember, last year’s pardon for the other turkey, Hunter Biden, was one of the precious few that Joe Biden signed by his own hand, which might tell you all you need to know about how Team Biden viewed those pardons and the autopen.

Bringing up that whole situation might have been “political rancor,” but it was hilarious and well deserved.

Trump also proceeded to pardon this year’s turkeys, Gobble and Waddle. Those weren’t necessarily the first options for names, though. “Well, I shouldn’t say this,” he joked. “I was going to call them Chuck and Nancy. Then I realized I would be pardoning them. I would never pardon those two people.”

Rimshot.

He also teased about his own deportation policies, saying, “Instead of pardon, some of my more enthusiastic staffers were already drafting the paperwork to ship Gobble and Waddle straight to the terrorist confinement center in El Salvador. And even those birds don’t want to be there.”

The rest of the speech was typical Trump, talking about many things his administration has done or is doing, while throwing the occasional insult at his opponents. One other thing, though, particularly caught my attention: his comments about the economy and the specific prices that are lower now than when Biden was president.

Here, the president is treading perilous ground. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris tried the whole Jedi mind trick last year, telling Americans that everything was “cheaper” and “better” than what they could see with their own eyes and bank accounts. Ask President Harris how that worked out for her.

It’ll fall just as flat for President Trump to keep doing the same thing. The national average for gas yesterday was $3.05. One year ago, it was … $3.06. Overall inflation remains stubbornly persistent at about 3%. That’s a far cry from the Biden high of 9.1%, but cumulative inflation since Biden “rescued” America in 2021 is nearly 25%.

It simply defies reality for Trump to say that almost anything costs less now than before. He should focus on affordability, not dismiss it.

That said, I’ll offer this as my “Thanksgiving message”: Thanks to our Founders’ wisdom about securing Liberty and the economic system of capitalism, we live in what is arguably the freest and most prosperous nation in history. If you want a turkey, you can buy one. Or, if you realize that ham is superior, do that instead. Because we’re not a communist “utopia,” you can fill your table with an appetizing feast and then take a nap during a football game. Take the opportunity to actually be kind to your TDS-suffering relatives. Crowd out the anxiety with thankfulness.

We Americans have nearly countless reasons to be thankful. Don’t miss out.

Follow Nate Jackson on X.

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