In an event that traditionally opens the holiday season in Washington, President Biden pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys, briefly plugged his rural policies, and joked about his age — 81 — on Monday, his birthday. “I want you to know, it’s difficult turning 60,” he said, evoking laughter from a couple of hundred people on the South Lawn of the White House. “Difficult.”
“These birds have a new appreciation for the word[s], ‘Let freedom ring,'” said the president just before declaring the turkeys, “Liberty” and “Bell,” safe from becoming the centerpiece of a Thanksgiving meal. Named for the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, the turkeys will spend the rest of their pampered lives at the University of Minnesota ag school. They were hatched in July and raised in Minnesota, the largest turkey-producing state in the nation.
The National Turkey Federation began presenting Thanksgiving turkeys to the president in 1947, during the Truman administration, 76 years ago. “I want you to know I wasn’t there at the first one,” said Biden. President Lincoln may have been the first to pardon a turkey from White House consumption in 1863, according to the White House Historical Association. Reprieves were sporadic. Early in his tenure, President Reagan established the practice of sending the Thanksgiving turkey to a farm and “the formalities of pardoning a turkey gelled by 1989” under President George H.W. Bush, said the historical association.
“That’s a big bird, man. I’m impressed,” said Biden, looking at the 42-pound turkeys, their white feathers contrasting with their blue faces and the fleshy red caruncles on their necks. “I hereby pardon Liberty and Bell.”
During the seven-minute pardoning, Biden referred to his trip to a farm near Northfield, Minnesota, on Nov. 1 to highlight his administration’s infrastructure, clean energy, and land stewardship work in rural America. “We’re restoring hope and opportunity so family farms can stay in the family,” he said. He mixed up the names of two pop singers, Britney Spears and Taylor Swift, before concluding on a serious note, “We have so much to be thankful for as a nation.”
Turkey growers are forecast to produce 219 million birds this year, 4 percent more than in 2022. Bird flu killed more than 8 million turkeys and drove up retail prices last year. Highly pathogenic avian influenza reappeared in commercial flocks this fall but the outbreaks “are not expected to significantly impact the availability of turkeys for the holidays,” said USDA economists last week.
To watch a White House video of the event, click here.