President Joe Biden on Monday pardoned two turkeys, Peach and Blossom, but not before one of them kept interrupting him.
“This past July, at the Zimmerman family farm, raised by the —” President Biden started during the annual presidential pardoning of the turkeys outside the White House.
One of the turkeys set to be pardoned, Peach, then gobbled, interrupting the speech.
“Yeah, I hear you,” the president said, drawing laughs from the crowd that gathered for the tradition. “Peach wants to speak a little bit.”
“Trip’s 1,100 miles. Takes 16.5 hours. Through it all, they stayed calm and they gobbled on. And still gobbling,” Biden said, pausing as Peach continues to gobble. “They were staying nice, listening to their favorite music, which apparently includes the song, ‘Living on a Prayer.’”
“Well, fellas, your prayers are going to be answered today. Based on your temperament and commitment to being productive members of society, I hereby pardon Peach and Blossom!”
For Thanksgiving in 1873, Horace Vose, the turkey king of Rhode Island, sent a 36-pound bird to the White House, and he continued to gift holiday turkeys through 11 administrations. But the actual presidential turkey pardons began in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy broke with the tradition and spared the life of the turkey that was sent to the White House.
Ronald Reagan was the first president to call his act of poultry clemency a pardon, which was a joke amid speculation that he planned to issue real pardons in the Iran-Contra affair. But the tradition stuck and continues to this day.
