On Wednesday afternoon, freshly returned from his trip to Asia, President Obama pardoned the annual Thanksgiving turkeys and marked the occasion with a joking reference to statistician and poll wizard Nate Silver, author of the blog, FiveThirtyEight.

This year, for the first time, the American public voted which of the two Virginia-raised turkeys, Gobbler or Cobbler, would become our national Thanksgiving turkey and therefore receive a presidential pardon. The poll was conducted via the White House’s Facebook page.

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“For the first time in our history the winners of the White House turkey pardon were chosen through a highly competitive online vote,” said the president. “And once again, Nate Silver completely nailed it. The guy’s amazing. He predicted these guys would win.”

“These birds,” he said, “are moving forward.”

Both turkeys will be spared, and will live our their lives at President George Washington’s Mt. Vernon estate. The only Cobbler that will get eaten this Thanksgiving, Obama quipped, “will come with a side of ice cream.”

Watch the video, embedded via Mediaite, below: