Obama appears to take shot at Trump during turkey pardon

President Barack Obama seemed to take a veiled shot at President-elect Donald Trump and his alt-right supporters Wednesday at the annual White House turkey pardoning, telling attendees in the Rose Garden to remember that diversity is one of the America’s greatest strengths.

“Thanksgiving is also a reminder of the source of our national strength, that out of many we are one, and we’re not bound by any one race or religion but rather by an adherence to a common creed that all of us are created equal,” Obama told attendees assembled in the Rose Garden.


“And while accepting our differences and building a diverse society has never been easy, it has never been more important. We are people that look out for one another and get each other’s backs. We keep moving forward defined by values and ideals that have been a light to all humanity.”

Obama’s remarks were a somber moment in an otherwise lighthearted speech, where he chided his daughters, Sasha and Malia, for not attending his last turkey pardoning. His young nephews — Austin Robinson and Aaron Robinson — filled in for the first daughters.

View 30 years of turkey jokes Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama do the annual turkey pardon.

“Thanksgiving is a family holiday as much as a national one, so for the past seven years, I’ve established another tradition — embarrassing my daughters with a corny-copia of dad jokes about turkeys,” Obama said. “This year, they had a scheduling conflict. Actually they just couldn’t take my jokes anymore. They were fed up.”

The show went on, with Obama rattling off a string of bad puns.

“Malia and Sasha, by the way, are thankful that this is my final presidential turkey pardon,” Obama said. “What I haven’t told them yet is that we are gonna do this every year from now on. No cameras, just us every year. No way I’m cutting this habit cold turkey.”

The presidential turkey pardoning reportedly dates back to John F. Kennedy, though it was George H.W. Bush who made it a White House tradition. The National Turkey Federation has presented the president with a turkey every year since 1947, though they weren’t always spared.

This year Obama got two turkeys: Tater, and his understudy, Tot. They’ll live out their days at “Gobbler’s Rest" at Virginia Tech.