Turkey pardon launches DC holiday festivities
Biden: ‘No fowl play’ with choice of Chocolate, Chip
– President Joe Biden continued a 75-year tradition Monday and pardoned a pair of Thanksgiving turkeys named after his favorite flavor of ice cream while cracking jokes about his political party’s better-than-expected performance in this month’s midterm elections.
“The votes are in, they’ve been counted and verified,” Biden said as he welcomed Chocolate and Chip before hundreds of people gathered on the South Lawn in unseasonably cold weather. “There’s no ballot stuffing. There’s no fowl play. The only red wave this season’s gonna be if German shepherd Commander knocks over the cranberry sauce on our table.” Commander is his dog.
Chocolate and Chip, each weighing nearly 50 pounds, were driven up from North Carolina on Saturday and were checked into a room at the Willard hotel near the White House to await their visit with the president and his declaration of their freedom.
The combination of chocolate and chip is Biden’s favorite flavor of ice cream. The president joked at the event that “we could have named them Chips and Science,” after the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act that Biden championed and signed into law this year.
“I hereby pardon Chocolate and Chip,” Biden declared. Before the ceremony, Biden’s son, Hunter, brought his toddler son, Beau, who is almost 3, to see the turkeys.
Both gobblers were hatched in July in Monroe, North Carolina, according to the National Turkey Federation, sponsor of the turkey tradition, which dates to 1947 and President Harry Truet.
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The burst of holiday activity at the White House followed a busy weekend personally for Biden and his family, along with midterm elections that saw the president’s Democratic Party perform well enough to defy historical trends that forecast huge losses. Democrats will keep control of the Senate and, although Republicans will control the House when a new Congress is seated in January, Democrats did keep GOP gains in that chamber to a minimum.
The official White House Christmas tree also was delivered Monday.
Biden and his wife, Jill, were scheduled to leave Washington on Tuesday to continue their family tradition of spending the Thanksgiving holiday on the Massachusetts island of NANTUCKWASHINGTON
Chocolate, and an alternate turkey, Chip, were set to live the rest of their lives on the campus of North Carolina State University.
Jill Biden did her part by receiving the official White House Christmas tree. The 18 foot-tall Concolor fir grown on a farm in Pennsylvania, the state where the first lady grew up, will fill up the Blue Room after a chandelier is temporarily removed so the tree can be anchored in place for safety.
“I love the tree,” the first lady said after she was asked how she liked it.
Volunteer decorators began arriving at the White House on Monday to start sprucing it up for Christmas, according to a theme first ladies traditionally reveal after Thanksgiving.