Thanksgiving History, Lincoln Proclamation, and Presidential Turkey Pardons
A deconstruction of Thanksgiving origins challenges the traditional pilgrim narrative, attributing the modern holiday to an 1863 proclamation by Abraham Lincoln influenced by magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale. The history of the presidential turkey pardon is traced from Harry Truman's grain conservation efforts to the formal tradition established by George H.W. Bush in 1989. Mention is made of John F. Kennedy's 1963 informal sparing of a turkey just days before his assassination.
abraham lincoln· george h.w. bush· harry truman· national turkey federation· thanksgiving· john f. kennedy· sarah josepha hale
00:00 Whatever. Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak. It's Thursday, November 27th, 2025. This is your award-winning Kimmel Nation Media Assassination Episode 1820. This is no agenda. No B-Team here. We're broadcasting live from the heart of the Texas Hill Country here in FEMA Region Number 6 in the morning, everybody. I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern Silicon Valley where our motto is, don't give up the ship. I'm John C. Dvorak. Don't give up the ship you you missed the point of that I did I did what am I what am I missing? That was with this a dish is sick said oh all these other guys said at the end of their little clips that were put together I'm only convinced by Schumer first of all yeah, we'll be so happy happy Thanksgiving. I want everybody to know We're working for you
01:01 Everybody's taking the day off. It's unbelievable how many people, they all worked on Monday. Yeah. Like the entire, everybody except for the B team at Fox, for example. All bailed. All of them. Dude, even Candace Owens is taking the week off and she's about to be killed by an Israeli agent. I mean, come on. Nobody's working but us. She's just stay on the mic if that's going to happen. You know, if I was, that's what I would do. Talk about going down with the ship. Like, come on, kill me on the air, man. Let's go. Let's do it. Mr. Mossad. I want to get these clips out of the way. This is going down with the ship thing. But this... you're so out of format. This is not what we do every year. What do we do? Every single Thanksgiving...
01:51 And this is almost like the night before Christmas book. You're talking about the long story about what Thanksgiving really is? You need to tell us the actual story of Thanksgiving because... I do this every year. I used to put it in the newsletter. I gave up. Why? It's so beautiful. I actually went and looked up your previous your previous thing, because you have done this since 2005 in print. Yeah, I know, it's getting old. And I loved, because I did a search, and like, oh, let me go, let me go. This is the format. This is the format, man. Thanksgiving format. You're like, oh, let's go down with this shit. No, hold on a second. No.
02:31 By the way, I want to mention that the idea that we do work on this Thanksgiving, we did miss one. But generally speaking, but we're not like these people are all bailed out. It's unbelievable. Yeah, like they don't care about their audience, man. Well, it's not even that is there is stuff happening. Yeah, well, there's a lot happening. But wait, before you go into different directions. I'm trying to get off this track, obviously. It's not going to happen. I went, I found, I did a search, the first hit was Dvorak.org slash blog. This is great. And the first hit was a repost of your 2005 post. Yeah, all these are reposts. It is, it is.
03:17 And I love how it starts off. I'm always amused by the cock and bull story about Thanksgiving being about pilgrims, maize, turkeys and Indians when the holiday stems from an Abe Lincoln proclamation at the behest of a magazine editor. And then you go into this, but what I didn't realize, the comments are great. Have you ever looked at these comments from... Not for years. Like, shut up you old crank! Eat your turkey, you ingrate! It's great, oh that's a good one. I like that one. What? Thanksgiving didn't start with the pilgrims? Next you'll be telling us George Washington didn't chop down a cherry tree and Betsy Ross did not sew the first American flag. There's a lot of hate here. And I realize that somehow
04:08 You say these horrible things and you're able to deflect it to me. It's like I become your lightning rod. You haven't been catching the flack for the thanks for the truth about Thanksgiving. The truth. The truth. The cock and bull story. Who needs it? I noticed it's been they've been downplaying it and I've heard on a couple of shows Over the last couple days where people do refer to the Lincoln proclamation They don't mention that it was that three has to vote magazine editor, but they do mention it which they've never done before What's interesting is I looked up? Lincoln's proclamation. I'm not gonna read it. It's very long But what I found interesting this year is that he basically copied large swaths of the Bible and
05:00 Deuteronomy, Psalms, I mean it's and he did this what like in the middle of the Civil War I think? No, it was right after the Civil War. This was a Thanksgiving for the, this was immediately after the Civil War. Oh, so it was, isn't that right around the Gettysburg Address then? No, no, no. No, I think he did this one week after the Gettysburg Address. Well, I don't, well, we'd have to do... Oh, oh, oh, oh, hold on, let me talk to the robot. Let's see, error. When did President Lincoln give the Thanksgiving Proclamation?
05:40 President Lincoln gave his Thanksgiving proclamation on October 3rd, 1863. Would you like to know more about it? Yeah, was the Civil War over? No, the Civil War was still raging when Lincoln gave his Thanksgiving proclamation in 1863. It actually lasted another two years. Is there anything specific about the proclamation? Oh, shut up. Okay, well then it would be closer to the Gettysburg Address. Yeah, so and he was telling us to thank God That's what he was telling us and it wasn't for the dead soldiers like you keep writing and saying because I looked it all up It was to thank God that he has mercy on us, even though we don't deserve it that there you go. There's your 300 words Abbreviated and that's somehow that turned into this crazy turkey pardoning stuff, which I also had to look up and
06:39 Kennedy's the one who started that one, I do know that. Ah, no, I don't think so. Well, let's ask the robot. No, no, let's listen to a report. I just want to tell you this very important. You are hereby unconditionally pardoned. With an audience looking on, President Trump granted a full and complete pardon to a 52 pound turkey named Gobble, part of an annual White House holiday tradition. On behalf of the first lady and the entire Trump family, I want to wish all Americans a very, very very happy Thanksgiving. It's a great time of the year. His friend Waddle was also spared. He stopped by the White House briefing room earlier in the day. Want to give us a gobble?
07:22 President Harry Truman was the first to be presented with a turkey by the National Turkey Federation ahead of Thanksgiving. But the more modern presidential pardon dates back to George H.W. Bush. This will be our 78th presentation here and it's just a true honor for the U.S. turkey industry. Anyway, blah blah blah. So I looked it up. So Truman started this, but it wasn't, you know, I'm like, why do we pardon the turkey? I mean, I really would listen. It is dumb. Yeah, it is. So Truman was trying to conserve grain for foreign aid to Europe after the Second World War. This is just what I found. So I believe this to be true. So he pardoned the turkey so they could eat the grain? No. His administration promoted meatless Tuesdays and poultry-less Thursdays.
08:10 This enraged people were eating that much poultry. What I'm just I'm just reading it this enraged the poultry industry and you notice that it's always the poultry Union or whatever who? So before you continue you had you have you've got Truman documented I've heard about Kennedy and then they in the report you played it was George HW Bush Truman first and She said Truman first. Did she say Truman? Yeah. I thought she said George H.W. Bush. President Harry Truman was the first to be presented with a... Okay, wait. Let it play.
08:50 It's boring after that. Turkey by the National Turkey Federation ahead of Thanksgiving. The National Turkey Federation. But the more modern presidential pardon dates back to George H.W. Bush. Yeah, so there you go. But there's a reason. Actually, it was Reagan before that. This was always used for political reasons. So what happened with Truman is the National Turkey Federation were mad that he had said, hey, we don't eat any poultry on Thursday. And so in order to make it up to them, they sent crates of live chickens to the White House in protest.
09:28 And that's how this presentation started. Then it was Reagan, who was just looking at the turkey. There was no pardoning of the turkey. They'd just be out there in front of the White House going, oh yeah, about that turkey, yeah, happy Thanksgiving everybody. And I tried to get the audio, but it was really too, it wasn't good enough. a reporter yelled a question, Mr. President, are you going to pardon Oliver North and John Poindexter? And he says, no, I'd probably pardon this turkey before I did that for sure, or something to that effect. You can't really hear it. And that's kind of where the pardon came from. And now it's just become this Turkey Federation fest. Basically, it's a lobbying exercise for the Turkey Federation. Why else would we do it? It makes no sense.
10:21 It's fun to look at the turkeys, I guess. Well, when you have a 50-pounder. Well, those beautiful turkeys. So I'm gonna read from the GROK, or no, if this is from OpenAI. President John F. Kennedy was the first U.S. president on record to informally spare a Thanksgiving turkey in 1963. Through a formal tradition of a presidential pardon was not established until 1989. That would be the George H.W. Bush. During a rose garden ceremony on November 19th, 1983, just three days before his assassination, this is why they killed him. Kennedy was presented with a 55- The Turkey Federation killed him. Now we know the Turkey people killed him. And by the way, this is interesting because Trump went on and on about this 50 pound turkey. Gobble, gobble. Kennedy was presented with a 55 pound turkey from the National Turkey Federation.
11:20 So, and the turkey had a sign on his neck that said good eating. This is just it's just the best lobbying organization in the business. They every single year they get to present their beautiful birds. Everyone's all hungry. Oh yeah, I need a turkey because it makes no sense. Well, the whole thing is stupid. Yes, yes. But I think it was great that they brought this one bird into the press room. Yeah, next to the... The other turkeys. Next to her kid. What's her name? That was... What's his name? That's the kid of the press secretary. Yeah.
