Trump expected to issue a pardon before Thanksgiving – to a lucky turkey

President could use annual event to continue pushing baseless claims of voter fraud in states he narrowly lost to Joe Biden

Donald Trump, who has not taken a reporter’s question in 13 days, is expected to carry on the tradition of a sitting president pardoning a turkey just before Thanksgiving, a White House source says.

The outgoing president has appeared in public only a few times since the Associated Press and major television networks projected Joe Biden as the winner of the election. But the source says Mr Trump will go through the staged ritual, one of the most surreal each year at the executive mansion, of sparing the life of a bird that might have otherwise ended up part of an American family’s holiday feast.

Mr Trump last year pardoned a plump white turkey named “Butter.” The White House has not yet released the name of the bird he will save next week.

As the Trump administration’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges Americans to pare their Thanksgiving guest list, conservatives have been slamming similar calls from Democratic governors. Mr Trump has yet to weigh in, however, focusing his daily tweets on so-far-unproven allegations of voter fraud – but only in states he narrowly lost to President-elect Joe Biden.

He has used the turkey saving ceremony in years past to take shots at his political foes. That means he could use next week’s event to continue pushing his preferred narrative that the election was “rigged” against him.

One of the targets of his 2019 ribbing was House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.

Mr Trump jokingly said “Butter” was scheduled to appear “in Adam Schiff’s basement on Thursday," a reference to a room where the California Democrat’s committee held closed-door depositions on the bottom floor of the Capitol Visitor Center during its impeachment investigation of the president.

He also poked Democrats over his support of Turkey’s hardline leader.

“It seems the Democrats are accusing me of being too soft on turkey,” he said, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he had just hosted at the White House.  Mr Erdogan had recently ordered a military invasion of northern Syria, killing Kurds, an ally Democrats accused Mr Trump of selling out. 

Mr Trump also jabbed the media, but showed some remorse for reading a sharp-elbowed line his staff wrote.

“I expect this pardon will be a very popular one with the media,” he said. “After all, turkeys are closely related to vultures.”

Then he added, with a grimace: “I don’t know if I like that line."