What’s the Story with Presidential Turkey Pardons?

It's a sure sign that Thanksgiving is just around the corner when the annual White House turkey pardon comes around. On Monday, President Joe Biden continued this somewhat baffling holiday tradition by “pardoning” two turkeys during a brief ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House. It was also the president’s 81st birthday, though he joked that he was only turning 60.

This year’s lucky turkeys hail from Willmar, Minnesota. Named Liberty and Bell, the massive birds each weigh over 42 pounds (18 kg). The ceremony, which included numerous fowl-related puns, was attended by local schoolchildren and the children of Cabinet members and the president’s staff.

The National Turkey Federation has been supplying the White House with Thanksgiving turkeys since 1947. Although there have been presentation ceremonies since the Truman administration, those early turkeys didn’t have much to celebrate on Thanksgiving. Beginning with John F. Kennedy in 1963, U.S. presidents and first ladies pardoned turkeys sporadically. Interestingly, as CNN pointed out in a recent article, neither Richard Nixon nor Gerald Ford pardoned any turkeys, despite Ford’s famous pardon of Nixon in 1974.

Presidential turkey pardons were increasingly common during the Reagan years. They became an official White House tradition in 1989, during the administration of George H.W. Bush, when he announced that that year’s turkey would “live out his days on a children’s farm.”

Perhaps the most bizarre part of the current tradition is that the night before their pardon, the turkeys stayed at the upmarket Willard InterContinental hotel in Washington, D.C., where they were formally introduced to the public in a news conference. Chosen for being extroverts that aren’t ruffled by crowds, Liberty and Bell were exposed to recordings of music and clapping to prepare for the big event.

Something to gobble about: