WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will pardon two turkeys from Indiana named Peanut Butter and Jelly at the White House on Thanksgiving, carrying on a decades-old tradition.
The birds were featured in a short video the White House tweeted out Thursday, perched on side-by-side hotel-style beds with crested headboards.
In 1947, President Harry Truman was the first recipient of a bird gifted by America’s turkey farmers, a tradition that continued. In 1963, President John Kennedy decided to send his gift back to the farm where it came from.
George H.W. Bush was the first president to officially offer a turkey pardon at the White House in 1989. Barack Obama’s pardons featured groan-worthy jokes, and often his daughters rolling their eyes at his side.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump emerged from a self-imposed isolation he began after losing the November presidential election to pardon Corn, a 42-pound turkey.
(Reporting by Heather Timmons; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
