President Donald Trump formally pardoned two turkeys, Gobble and Waddle, in a Rose Garden ceremony that blended white house tradition, lighthearted pageantry, and a pointed political jab. The event touched on the ceremony’s history going back to midcentury presidents, noted the birds’ journey to a farm program, and included a direct critique of the prior administration’s handling of its own pardons. This piece walks through the moment, the backstory, and what the president said about the 2024 pardons.
Trump stood before the Rose Garden crowd and spared Gobble and Waddle, two hefty birds brought up from North Carolina for the annual moment Americans enjoy before Thanksgiving. The pardoning was performed with the same casual theatricality that has made the event a light spot on the presidential calendar, complete with names, applause, and a few jokes. For supporters it felt like a return to a familiar, slightly absurd American ritual.
The ceremony itself traces to the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation and the midcentury practice of the National Turkey Federation bringing live birds to the White House. What began as an agricultural courtesy gradually became a ceremonial moment that presidents lean into to show a human, even whimsical side. That shift transformed a simple presentation into a symbolic pardon that resonates with families around the country.
Presidents have shaped the tradition in small ways over decades, and history remembers key moments along the way. President John F. Kennedy is often credited with the moment that people call a pardon and he famously told the bird, “let this one grow.” The Los Angeles Times even ran the headline “Turkey gets presidential pardon,” capturing how quickly the public embraced the gesture as an official act.
Later presidents treated the exchange like an opportunity to joke and connect. President Ronald Reagan once quipped about Charlie and, when a reporter pressed him, said, “If they’d given me a different answer on Charlie and his future, I would have pardoned him,” using a laugh to keep the moment light. Those kinds of lines helped a routine presentation feel like an American anecdote passed from one administration to the next.
The moment became formalized during George H.W. Bush’s time in office, when the word pardon was used explicitly to seal the ceremony as an annual tradition. He framed the act with warmth and a touch of showmanship: “But let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table, not this guy — he’s presented a presidential pardon as of right now — and allow him to live out his days on a children’s farm not far from here,” which cemented the practice in modern White House lore. That language set a precedent for how future presidents would describe the fate of the honored birds.
Gobble and Waddle themselves were imposing specimens, tipping the scales at about 50 pounds and 52 pounds each as they arrived at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington before the Rose Garden appearance. After the ceremony they were slated to go to North Carolina State University’s Prestage Department of Poultry Science, where they will live out their days in a program built to care for such animals. The logistical arc from farm to city to campus is part of what turns a photo op into a humane outcome.
During his remarks, Trump took aim at former President Joe Biden and the mechanics used in last year’s White House document signing, calling those earlier pardons “totally invalid.” He then added a flourish of his own, saying he had intervened and had “saved them in the nick of time.” The jab landed as both a punchline and a clear political point for an audience that enjoys when tradition mixes with a bit of rivalry.
