The MeidasTouch Podcast Trump Ruins WH Thanksgiving Pardon With Awful Speech
Nov 26, 2025
The host examines how Donald Trump turned the Thanksgiving turkey pardon into a bizarre spectacle filled with insults and odd jokes. Highlights include Trump's ludicrous suggestion to send pardoned turkeys to a detention center and false claims about murder rates in D.C. The discussion veers into his contradictory boasts about the economy and religion, alongside jabs at political rivals. As he meanders through topics from Hunter Biden to nuclear energy, stark contrasts emerge between his claims and factual reality.
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Pardon Ceremony Turned Political Rant
- Donald Trump transformed a lighthearted Thanksgiving turkey pardon into a political rant attacking Illinois Governor Pritzker and Chicago officials.
- Ben Meiselas says this ruined a respected tradition by inserting insults and policy threats into a ceremonial event.
Extreme Rhetoric Entered A Light Event
- Trump joked about sending the turkeys to a "terrorist confinement center in El Salvador," normalizing extreme rhetoric in a ceremonial setting.
- Ben Meiselas highlights this as alarming, saying it equates to joking about unlawful deportations or concentration camps.
False Crime Claims During Ceremony
- Trump made false claims about Washington, D.C. having no murders in six months, which Ben Meiselas fact-checks with recent monthly murder counts.
- Meiselas uses those statistics to show the speech contained repeated factual inaccuracies.