Donald and Melania Trump heckled by reporters at Thanksgiving turkey pardon ceremony
Donald Trump and First Lady Melania were all smiles at a Thanksgiving event at the White House despite heckles from reporters.
She was notably absent during most of her husband’s election campaign – but Melania Trump was uncharacteristically cheery during her last Thanksgiving event as US First Lady.
Ms Trump accompanied outgoing President Donald Trump at the annual turkey pardon ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House earlier today, with First Daughter Ivanka and her family also in attendance.
During the traditional ritual, Mr Trump pardoned a birds – dubbed Corn – ahead of the national holiday which will be observed on Thursday US time.
Corn was spared after winning a nationwide online poll, while another bird, Cob, will also survive the holiday.
But Mr Trump was heckled with cries of “will you pardon yourself?” as he pardoned Corn.
Just moments after Mr Trump concluded the annual National Thanksgiving Turkey presentation at the White House, reporters shouted out questions as the president and First Lady Melania walked away.
“Pardons before leaving office. Will you be issuing a pardon for yourself,” one reporter is heard yelling out.
Another said: “Mr President, will you invite President-elect Biden?”
The reporters’ questions come as Mr Trump may use his final days as president to issue a cascade of pardons for himself – a move he has previously hinted he would do.
Mr Trump - who is facing a series of legal challenges when he leaves the White House - ignored the remarks and continued thanking the audience, smiling, and waving.
The president issued a full pardon on a “very, very fortunionate turkey,” he said - adding: “Because thanksgiving is a special day for turkeys - I guess, probably for the most part, not a very good one when you think about.”
While Mr Trump is still refusing to officially concede to Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden after losing the November 3 election, the presidential transition is now under way ahead of Mr Biden’s January 20 inauguration ceremony.
Mr Trump’s legal team are insisting he won in a “landslide” despite receiving just 232 electoral college votes compared with Mr Biden’s 306, with Mr Biden also winning the popular vote by more than six million ballots.
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But with the Republican Party’s options fast drying up, it seems the Thanksgiving event will be one of the last undertaken by the Trump family before they are prised from the White House in less than two months.
“For the past 73 years, the National Turkey Federation has presented the National Thanksgiving Turkey to the President. Starting under President George H.W. Bush, these birds have received a formal pardon every single year,” Mr Trump said at the event.
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“On behalf of the entire Trump family, I want to wish every American a healthy and very happy Thanksgiving.”
Melania Trump was all smiles during the ceremony, with Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner and their children Theodore, Arabella, and Joseph also fawning over Corn while donning face masks.
However, critics didn’t miss the chance to remind the public of comments made by Mr Trump during a previous turkey pardon, which are all the more poignant in light of the current election drama.
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In 2018, Mr Trump made a joke about a turkey named carrot that refused to accept the result of that year’s Thanksgiving poll.
“This was a fair election … unfortunately, Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount,” he said at the time, with Twitter users comparing the President to the defiant turkey.
FLASHBACK: In 2018, President Trump attacked Carrots the turkey for refusing to concede he had lost the vote on the White House turkey pardon contest.
— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) November 23, 2020
"This was a fair election... unfortunately, Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount."
pic.twitter.com/MzcackiDwd
Melania Trump’s happy demeanour at the event comes after she was a no-show for the bulk of the election campaign.
In fact, she made her first solo campaign appearance at a Make America Great event in Pennsylvania just one week before the November 3 vote got underway.
It was also one of her first appearances since her shock COVID-19 diagnosis in early October, when Mr Trump and the couple’s teenage son Barron were also struck down.
The decision raised eyebrows at the time as Ms Trump took a radically different approach compared with previous First Ladies, who have traditionally been front and centre on the campaign trail and a powerful tool deployed by campaign strategists.
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First Ladies are regularly wheeled out at events in place of their husbands and tend to take a very active role during election periods – and many claimed Ms Trump could have been a crucial weapon for the President, who particularly needed to win over the key demographic of suburban white women this time around.
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