Trump to pardon two turkeys named Gobble and Waddle

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Transcript

00:00President Trump will participate in the annual pardoning of the turkey. Every year, I wonder

00:05what possible crime these turkeys committed to necessitate a pardoning, but I don't care. I

00:10love this. This year, the lucky pair to not end up on my dinner table or yours this Thanksgiving

00:17are North Carolina natives named Waddle and Gobble. So how did this tradition come to be?

00:24It all starts with Lincoln. In December of 1863, Abraham Lincoln was given a turkey by a local

00:31farmer for his Christmas feast, not Thanksgiving. Now, as the story goes, Honest Abe's nine-year-old

00:37son, Tad, befriended the bird, which he named Jack, and insisted his friend not be eaten.

00:43Lincoln, of course, relented because how can you say no and wrote out a quote-unquote pardon on a

00:48card and handed it to his son with a wink. Very cute. Now, fast forward to 1947 and enter

00:54Harry Truman. President Truman was given a bird by the National Turkey Federation, who still supplies

00:59them today. The event was meant to help struggling poultry farmers, but Tom and company still ended

01:04up roasted and carved up on the White House dining table that year. Then years later, just days before

01:10he was assassinated, John F. Kennedy freed a turkey in a lighthearted White House event. The LA Times

01:15called it a presidential pardon, but the White House didn't. Well, at least yet. Finally, in 1987,

01:21it was Ronald Reagan who first called the event a pardon. Five U.S. presidents later and two turkeys

01:27get an annual stay of execution and they get to also stay in a luxury D.C. hotel because why not?