President Donald Trump said during a speech at the White House Turkey Pardon ceremony Tuesday that he'd like to lose some weight but was unlikely to during Thanksgiving.
The event, held at the White House and attended by members of the Trump family, administration officials, and invited guests, also featured the pardoning of two record-sized turkeys named Gobble and Waddle, which Trump noted as being among the heaviest ever presented to a president.
In his speech, Trump also touched on a series of current issues, including ICE enforcement, crime in American cities, and an ongoing spat with Chicago and leaders of the city and state, including Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker.
The president went from speaking about Pritzker, saying he wouldn't joke about the Governor's weight, to talking about his own weight.
#TrumpThanksgivingTurkeyPardon #ThanksgivingTurkeyPardon #TrumpThanksgiving2025 #TurkeyPardon2025 #DonaldTrumpThanksgiving #TrumpTurkeyPardon #ThanksgivingTrump #PresidentTrumpPardon #TrumpThanksgivingEvent #ThanksgivingLive #TrumpTu
~HT.318~ED.104~PR.152~
The event, held at the White House and attended by members of the Trump family, administration officials, and invited guests, also featured the pardoning of two record-sized turkeys named Gobble and Waddle, which Trump noted as being among the heaviest ever presented to a president.
In his speech, Trump also touched on a series of current issues, including ICE enforcement, crime in American cities, and an ongoing spat with Chicago and leaders of the city and state, including Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker.
The president went from speaking about Pritzker, saying he wouldn't joke about the Governor's weight, to talking about his own weight.
#TrumpThanksgivingTurkeyPardon #ThanksgivingTurkeyPardon #TrumpThanksgiving2025 #TurkeyPardon2025 #DonaldTrumpThanksgiving #TrumpTurkeyPardon #ThanksgivingTrump #PresidentTrumpPardon #TrumpThanksgivingEvent #ThanksgivingLive #TrumpTu
~HT.318~ED.104~PR.152~
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States and First Lady Melania Trump.
00:30Thank you very much, and I hope you like our new, beautiful patio with matching stone to the White House.
00:48If this were grass today, you'd be sinking into the mud like they've done for many years, and you would be very unhappy.
00:54Please, thank you very much.
00:57This is a big day. It's a pardon day for a very important beast.
01:05On behalf of the First Lady and the entire Trump family, I want to wish all Americans a very, very happy Thanksgiving.
01:12It's a great time of the year, and our country is doing really well economically like we've never done before.
01:18Today, we continue a time-honored American tradition.
01:25Well, that's a well-trained turkey.
01:28See how happy he is?
01:30In a few moments, I will grant a full, absolute, and unconditional presidential pardon to two handsome Thanksgiving turkeys.
01:39And this is their lucky day. This is a lucky day for them.
01:42But before going any further, I want to make an important announcement, because you remember last year, after a thorough and very rigorous investigation by Pam Bondi and all of the people at the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, the White House Counsel's Office, and the Department of Everything.
02:04Everything. We have a Department of Everything. You know what that is? I think that's called the White House.
02:11Into a terrible situation caused by a man named Sleepy Joe Biden. He used an auto pen last year for the turkey's pardon.
02:21So I have the official duty to determine, and I have determined, that last year's turkey pardons are totally invalid, as are the pardons of about every other person that was pardoned other than, where's Hunter?
02:39No, Hunter's was good. That was the one pardon, Pam, that was good, right? The rest of them are all invalid.
02:43I don't know what the hell you're going to do about that, but that's, now we're going to take a little of the joking. That is a mess.
02:49But they're hereby null and void. The turkeys known as Peach and Blossom last year have been located, and they were on their way to be processed.
02:59In other words, to be killed. But I have stopped that journey, and I am officially pardoning them, and they will not be served for Thanksgiving dinner.
03:10We saved them in the nick of time. This one has plenty of time, but they were saved in the nick of time.
03:17We're thrilled to be joined today by Vice President J.D. Vance, Second Lady Usha Vance, their daughter Mirabelle, and along with Attorney General Pam Bondi,
03:27Secretaries Marco Rubio, Scott Besant, Pete Hegseth, Brooke Rollins, Howard Lutnik, Linda McMahon, Scott Turner, Administrator Lee Zeldin, who's done a great job,
03:41A nuclear power plant gets approved in less than a week. Okay? I'm only kidding, but pretty close to that.
03:47And we have more. Where is Lee? Stand up, Lee. One of my great superstars. Thank you.
03:56Used to take 20 years before you got rejected when you put in an application. Now we're doing them in a matter of weeks, right?
04:02And that's why we have the biggest plants anywhere in the world. We're leading in AI. We're leading in everything.
04:09Our auto plants are pouring back into our country. Wait till you see the jobs coming with them.
04:14But there are many of them are under construction, but Lee's done a great job in getting those approvals.
04:18I appreciate it very much.
04:19FBI Director Cash Patel has been very busy and doing a great job. Also, thank you, Cash.
04:26Along with members of... See, you've got a following, Cash.
04:31Along with members of Congress, and in particular, I want to mention Jason Smith and David Rozier.
04:38Where is... Where are those two guys? Come on, stand up, fellas. What good people.
04:44Jason knows more about the tax code than any living human being. He knows so much, we don't even want to hear about it, right? Too complicated.
04:52We're going to make it a simpler code.
04:54But we did in the great, big, beautiful bill. It was just passed. Your imprints all over that, and it's amazing.
05:01The biggest tax cuts in the history of our country for middle-income people.
05:05And the biggest jobs bill ever passed. And nobody thought we could get that one done. I'm glad.
05:18We actually put four years, actually probably eight or ten years, but we put four years' worth of material into one great, big, beautiful bill.
05:27So that worked out very well, and I want to thank everybody for working on it. J.D., that was a great, that was a great...
05:33Well, you know, we were going to do it in small bills. We're going to have 18 bills and do it along the process.
05:38I'm glad, Scott, that we got it done, because dealing with these Democrats, I don't think...
05:43I think that was all one shot. But we have it all in one great, big, beautiful bill.
05:47Thanks as well to the chairman of the National Turkey Federation and the CEO of Butterball.
05:53That's a big deal. J. Jandren. Where's J?
05:57Thank you. Stand up, J. Thank you very much.
06:03Along with his wife, Leslie, and their three children, as well as the farmer who raised these two magnificent birds,
06:10Travis Pittman and Wayne County, North Carolina. I won Wayne County by a lot.
06:16That means you had to vote for Trump, I think. I won by 92 percent.
06:19I like Wayne County. They're doing all right, right?
06:22And this is like a record-setting turkey that's going to be saved.
06:26The turkeys being pardoned today go by the names of Gobble and Waddle.
06:31When I first saw their pictures, I thought we should send them...
06:35Well, I was going to... I shouldn't say this.
06:38I was going to call them Chuck and Nancy.
06:41But then I realized I wouldn't be pardoning them. I would never pardon those two people.
06:46I wouldn't pardon them. I wouldn't care what Melania told me.
06:50Darling, I think it would be a nice thing to do. I won't do it, darling.
06:54These are two of the largest turkeys ever presented to an American president.
06:58Over 50 pounds each. It's the largest we've ever had.
07:02Those are big turkeys. Are they as good as the normal-sized turkey?
07:06Better or as good?
07:08Do they tend to be a little fatty, maybe?
07:10No? He said no. He knows the turkey business.
07:13Anyway, despite their size, Secretary Kennedy has formally certified that these are
07:19the first-ever Maha turkeys. I don't know if I agree with that.
07:23These are Maha.
07:25In other words, they could be fat, but they're still Maha.
07:28They've been fattened on a steady diet of grass, beef,
07:31to allow the smoothies and all of the other things that they've been eating for this occasion.
07:37This was a really big occasion.
07:39But they've eaten every fattening food that you can eat.
07:43We work like — we wanted to really make them special, and they really are.
07:47They're like record-setting.
07:48I've never seen a turkey that big before.
07:51Are they violent at all? Will they attack as I walk over?
07:54Because if they were, I'll stay right up here.
07:57But as you know, we're a tough-on-crime administration.
08:01We are tough-on-crime.
08:02You know, our border had zero people coming in for the last seven months, right?
08:06Zero.
08:08I mean, even I find that hard to believe.
08:10They had millions and millions of people pour into our border from prisons,
08:15from mental institutions, gang members, drug dealers.
08:18They poured into our country like we were stupid people.
08:23We're not stupid people anymore.
08:25But nobody's ever seen anything.
08:28The job that they've done on the — Tom Holman, Kristi Noem, the whole group,
08:32the job they've done on the border is almost like a miracle.
08:35We have — and the people that make these statistics that said zero,
08:40they've said zero for the last seven months.
08:43I can't — it has to be like a few people got in, but they say zero.
08:47And they're radical-left Democrats to do the scoring.
08:50So I can't imagine they did that for us.
08:53The truth is, we have no people coming into our country illegally.
08:57It's an amazing — it's an amazing statistic, and I'm very proud of it.
09:01And we have the most people working in the United States today,
09:06by far, than we ever had in the history of our country.
09:09So those are all good numbers.
09:14But instead of pardons, some of my more enthusiastic staffers
09:17were already drafting the paperwork to ship Gobble and Waddle
09:21straight to the terrorist confinement center in El Salvador.
09:24And even those birds don't want to be there.
09:28You know what I mean.
09:29It was a tough — I'd like to thank the president of that country.
09:32They do a rather efficient job.
09:36It's got to be the largest prison in history.
09:38I've never seen anything like it.
09:39And a lot of people are behaving on our streets now.
09:42You know, Washington, D.C. is a safe — it's considered a safe zone.
09:46This was one of our most unsafe places anywhere in the United States.
09:51It is now considered a totally safe city.
09:55I won't tell you about murders.
09:56We're having murders — like a lot of murders — on a weekly basis.
10:01We haven't had a murder in six months.
10:03And it doesn't sound good even to say that.
10:05We haven't had a murder in six months.
10:07But when you are averaging one, and even sometimes two a week,
10:12and you haven't had one in six months,
10:15you can walk with your family down the middle of any street,
10:19go to a restaurant, you won't get in.
10:22They're opening new restaurants all over,
10:24and it's really been a beautiful thing to see.
10:27So, Washington, D.C. is now a totally safe city.
10:32And a year ago, it was a crime, criminal mess.
10:36We removed, Pam, 1,700 people — career criminals —
10:40and people that came to this city from Venezuela
10:45and many other places.
10:46They were let out of prisons, and they came here.
10:48They were — Trende, Aragua — a lot of Trende, Aragua.
10:51That's from Venezuela.
10:53And we got them all the hell out of our country,
10:55or they're in prisons now.
10:57And you can walk down any street in Washington,
11:00and you're going to be just fine.
11:01And I want to thank the National Guard.
11:04I want to thank Pete Hegseth.
11:05The job you've done here is incredible.
11:07And I hear you're having the same kind of success
11:09in Memphis, Tennessee, where you had an even worse situation.
11:13And Memphis, crime is down 64 percent in three weeks.
11:17And by the time you have four or five weeks,
11:19you're going to have it down almost where there won't be crime.
11:23And we could do that in Chicago, by the way,
11:25if they would let us — if the mayor was a low-IQ person,
11:30but he should understand this.
11:32This is a very serious thing.
11:34You saw all the crime that took place last night,
11:37the night before.
11:38The woman with the burning — they burned the woman.
11:42To be talking about that now, they burned this beautiful woman,
11:46riding in a train.
11:48A man was arrested 72 times — 72 times.
11:53Think of that.
11:55And they'll let him out again.
11:57The liberal judges will let him out again.
12:00But we're ready to go.
12:02You know, we've been moving toward Chicago.
12:05We have a governor that thinks it's wonderful
12:07that only, like, seven people were killed this week.
12:11But we are moving toward — and we're going to — if crime gets —
12:16it's horrible, what's happening in Chicago.
12:18We could make Chicago a safe city in a period of four weeks.
12:25In a period of eight weeks, nine weeks, ten weeks,
12:28it would be totally safe.
12:30And the people of Chicago want us to go there.
12:33And if you look at the crime that's taken place in Chicago
12:36in the last two weeks, just take a look.
12:38It's on the front page of every newspaper.
12:41It's out of control.
12:43The mayor is incompetent, and the governor is a big, fat slob.
12:50He ought to invite us in, say, please make Chicago safe.
12:57We're going to lose a great city if we don't do it quickly.
12:59Make Chicago — we'll do the same thing as we did in D.C.
13:04The same thing as we did everywhere we've gone.
13:07It's become almost instantly safe.
13:10And I want to do it in Chicago.
13:12So, Governor Pritzker, if you're listening,
13:15let's get your act together.
13:16Invite us in.
13:18We're going to make your place so safe,
13:19you're not going to have these crimes that are making the newspapers
13:22and the front page of every newspaper and television story,
13:26news story.
13:27We'll make Chicago a safe place very quickly.
13:32I looked at the various cases, granting mercy,
13:35discovering that the terrible trauma that everyone's going through.
13:41And I had a little bit of a Pritzker joke.
13:44I was going to talk about Pritzker in size,
13:46but when I talk about Pritzker, I get angry
13:49because he's not letting us do the job.
13:51So I'm not going to tell my Pritzker joke.
13:53They have a very cute little joke, you know.
13:55Some speechwriter wrote some joke about his weight.
13:59But I would never want to talk about his weight.
14:01I don't talk about people being fat.
14:04I refuse to talk about the fact that he's a fat slob.
14:07I don't mention it.
14:09On a more serious note, as we gather around the dinner table,
14:13I'd like to lose a few pounds, too, by the way.
14:17And I'm not going to lose it on Thanksgiving, I can tell you that,
14:20because I'm going to have a turkey,
14:21but it's not going to be that one.
14:24I hope all Americans will have the chance to enjoy the fellowship
14:27of family and friends and renew our faith in God's providence.
14:33One year ago, we had a — we were a dead country one year ago.
14:37The king of Saudi Arabia said it to me.
14:40He said it to me actually four months ago
14:42when I was in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE.
14:46He said, you know, one year ago,
14:48the United States was a dead country,
14:51and now you've got the hottest country anywhere in the world.
14:54They do. We're the hottest country.
14:56We have $18 trillion being invested.
14:59As of now, we're not even close to being one year.
15:03The most ever was $2 trillion for a certain country,
15:06I won't name, during the last administration.
15:10In four years, they had less than a trillion dollars
15:13being invested in the country.
15:16In nine months, we have over $18 trillion.
15:19It's a number that nobody has ever even thought possible.
15:25And that's in building plants and building so many things,
15:28investments in our country.
15:29Nobody has ever seen anything like it.
15:32But we have more people working.
15:35We have more people praying.
15:37The churches are coming back.
15:39I don't know if you've been reading that story,
15:40but religion is coming back to America.
15:43Some people say, oh, why would you mention that?
15:45To me, that's a big deal.
15:47And this Thanksgiving, we're also making incredible strides
15:51to make America affordable again.
15:53Walmart announced that the cost of their standard Thanksgiving
15:57meal is 25 percent lower than just one year ago.
16:00That's a big deal.
16:01According to the USDA, the price of Thanksgiving turkey
16:05is down 33 percent from its Biden-era highs.
16:09Potatoes are down 13 percent.
16:11Ham is down 15 percent compared to last Thanksgiving.
16:15So we are down to a level that we haven't seen in a long time.
16:19Egg prices are down 86 percent since March.
16:23And gasoline will soon be hovering around $2 a gallon.
16:27Under our leadership, we passed the largest tax cuts in history,
16:31the largest spending cuts in history,
16:33the largest regulation cuts in history.
16:36And we have fully secured our southern border.
16:38I've also ended eight wars in nine months.
16:43And we're working on that final war.
16:45It's not easy, but I don't know.
16:46I think we're going to get there.
16:48Twenty-five thousand soldiers, Ukraine, Russia.
16:51In the last month, 25 thousand soldiers have died.
16:56So I think we're getting very close to a deal.
16:58We'll find out.
16:59I thought that one would have been gone quicker.
17:03We did eight.
17:04I thought that would have been an easier one.
17:05But I think we're making progress in less than one year.
17:08We've accomplished more than most other administrations
17:12have accomplished in eight years.
17:14And this is a very special Thanksgiving.
17:17We thank God for his many blessings
17:19and the great success that this country has seen
17:22in the short period of time.
17:24We draw strength from the love of family and friends.
17:27And we express our undying gratitude for the men
17:30and the women of the United States Armed Forces.
17:33We love them.
17:34We pray that peace and prosperity will continue
17:37to bless our land.
17:39And together, we'll really just keep this great drive
17:43going to make America great again.
17:46MAGA, I think it's the greatest expression
17:48in the history of politics.
17:49Make America great again.
17:51So once again, Melania, thank you for doing such a great job
17:54and being such a great First Lady.
17:57And now, let's go and give Gobble, Waddle.
18:00Waddle, by the way, is missing in action, but that's okay.
18:03We'll pretend Waddle is here.
18:05The gift that they've been waiting for.
18:08And I'll move over, and I will just say very nicely,
18:11Gobble your pardon.
18:12Come on, let's say it in front of Gobble.
18:14Thank you very much, everybody.
18:16Thank you very much.
18:34It looks like a rather violent spurt.
18:49It's hard to play.
18:52Anyway, are you ready?
18:54Gobble.
18:55I just want to tell you this is very important.
18:58You are hereby unconditionally pardoned.
19:04Praise the Lord.
19:06Praise the Lord.
19:07There you go.
19:10Beautiful.
19:11That's great.
19:12Beautiful.
19:13Well, it's nice.
19:15Who wouldn't want to harm this beautiful bird?
19:18That's great.
19:19That's great.
19:20Thank you very much.
19:21Fantastic job.
19:21Thank you very much.
19:22Thank you very much, everybody.
19:34See you soon, everybody.
19:41I'd love you.
19:53We'll see you next time.
20:23Subscribe to One India and never miss an update.
20:28Download the One India app now.
Be the first to comment