While President Donald Trump continues to resist the American tradition of having to acknowledge his electoral defeat, he attended another long-established tradition on Tuesday: the national gratitude of thanksgiving to Turkey.
The annual event typically serves as a light-hearted respite from Washington’s partisan rancora, with the president making remarks filled with bad puns and ending with the grace of a turkey player.
This year, the atmosphere around Tuesday’s grace was significantly more restrained. The president has remained largely out of the public since his election defeat, having not asked any questions from journalists in the three weeks since, and instead fired angry missions on Twitter with false claims claiming to have won the election.
At Tuesday’s event, the president once again ignored questions from journalists about whether he would commit, plan to launch another White House in 2024, and whether he wanted to forgive himself. Earlier in the day, the President surprisingly appeared at a White House press conference, where he made remarks for just over a minute before announcing the stock market and vaccine progress before leaving immediately without questions.
In the president’s first big sign of accepting the reality of defeat, the Trump administration officially acknowledged the Biden transition on Monday, freeing up government resources as well as outgoing and incoming troops for coordination. The president then tweeted that the cooperation was not a concession.
Despite the fact that the president has been relatively quiet since the election – he had nothing on his public schedule for most days and spent his weekends playing golf – he made an exception to the annual turkey-grace tradition.
The president has gathered fewer jokes than in recent years when he announced that a turkey named Corn will be Turkey’s Thanksgiving this year. Together with an alternative cob of corn, hail from an Iowa farm.
“Like so many presidential staff, this started in the great state of Iowa, which can only be called obvious panic. And by the way, I love the state of Iowa, ”Trump said with a laugh from the audience.
“Corn, I give you complete grace,” Trump said, raising his hand. – Thank you, Corn.
In an online vote by the White House, corn was chosen as this year’s winner. Corn came up with a nearly eight-point advantage over champion Cob.
As the president now disputes the results of his own election loss, the joke made during the 2018 Turkey grace has received a new meaning. Then the president joked that the losing turkey, Carrot refused to admit defeat and dispute the election results.
“The winner of this vote was decided by fair and open elections held on the White House website. It was a fair election,” the president joked, provoking laughter. “Unfortunately, the Carrot refused to let go and demanded a recount, and we continue to fight the Carrot.
“I’ll tell you, we came to the conclusion: Carrots, I’m sorry I said, the result has not changed. This is very bad for Carrots,” the president joked.
But although only one turkey wins the official title of Turkey’s national Thanksgiving each year, the reality is that none of the white turkeys lose their lives as a result of the White House ceremony.
Lucky birds usually go to Virginia Tech University, where they live the rest of their natural lives in a facility known as “Gobbler’s Rest.”
According to Trump, this year the turkeys will head to Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, where they will be cared for by veterinarians and members of the public can meet with them.
The tradition of the President giving grace to the turkey can be traced back to President Abraham Lincoln, who spared a turkey from becoming the family’s Christmas meal through his son’s intercession.
But the tradition of official turkey pardon, as we know it today, only began seriously when President George HW Bush handed over pardon to the turkey handed over to him in 1989 as animal rights activists protested nearby. White House Historical Society.
