President Donald Trump turned the traditional White House turkey pardon into a bizarre campaign-style rant where he took aim at political foes and touted false information.
The annual event held before Thanksgiving has long been an opportunity for presidents to deliver a light-hearted speech full of jokes.
But Trump, 79, delivered some of his nastiest attacks against Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to date.
The president said he had a “little bit” of joke written about Pritzker’s “size,” but instead he quickly went in a more aggressive direction while also blasting the city’s mayor as “low IQ.”
“The mayor is incompetent and the governor is a big fat slob,” Trump said.
The president was hosting guests and members of his team in the Rose Garden when he complained that he was not going to tell the Pritzker joke because talking about the governor made him angry.
“Some speech writer wrote some joke about his weight, but I would never want to talk about his weight. I don’t talk about people being fat,” Trump said. “I refuse to talk about the fact that he’s a fat slob. I don’t mention it.”
Trump’s fat shaming of Pritzker, who has lost a lot of weight, came as he was ranting about crime in Chicago and even went into graphic detail about one horrific incident despite being at a holiday event.
“You saw all the crime that took place last night, the night before, the woman with the burning? They burned the woman. To be talking about that now,” Trump said. “They burned this beautiful woman riding in a train. A man was arrested 72 times.”
The awful crime Trump appeared to be referencing in Chicago as “the night before” had actually taken place earlier this month, on November 17.
“The liberal judges will let them out again, but we’re ready to go. You know, we’ve been moving toward Chicago,” Trump said.
The president claimed during his rambling that Washington, D.C. had not had a murder in six months after he brought in the National Guard, but his declaration was not true, as the police said it was investigating a homicide on November 8.
Pritzker was not the only Democrat who got the full weight of Trump’s wrath.
The president started off by going after his predecessor “sleepy” President Joe Biden and his use of an autopen.
“I have determined that last year’s turkey pardons are totally invalid, as are the pardons of about every other person that was pardoned other than… where’s Hunter?” Trump said.
The president started to wander further off the point before getting back on script as he discussed Biden’s final turkey pardon at the White House.
“Now we’re going to take a little of the joking. That is a mess, but they’re hereby null and void. The turkeys known as Peach and Blossom last year have been located, and they were on their way to be processed. In other words, killed,” Trump continued. “We saved them in the nick of time.”
This year’s turkeys were named Gobble and Waddle, but Trump used the moment to aim at Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“I shouldn’t say this. I was going to call them Chuck and Nancy,” Trump said. “But then I realized I wouldn’t be pardoning them. I would never pardon those two people.”
The president went so far as to imitate First Lady Melania, who was sitting in the front row as he rambled.
“I wouldn’t pardon them. I wouldn’t care what Melania told me. ‘Darling, I think it would be a nice thing to do.’ I won’t do it, darling,” he said.
While the president lobbed insults at Pritzker and others, he did admit that he would like to “lose a few pounds too.”
“I’m not going to lose them on Thanksgiving, I can tell you that,” Trump said.
He and the first lady head down to Florida on Tuesday evening to spend the holiday at Mar-a-Lago.
The post Trump, 79, Turns Holiday Turkey Pardon Into Mean Fat Shaming appeared first on The Daily Beast.
