Kit Roberts
Donald Trump used the traditional turkey pardoning ceremony to take a stab at his predecessor Joe Biden.
As is tradition every year, the president prepared to pardon a turkey ahead of Thanksgiving.
But before carrying out his presidential duties and pardoning the turkey, Trump used his speech to hit out at Joe Biden, arguing that his pardons of two turkeys the year before were invalid.
In a rambling, meandering speech, Trump said: "Before going any further I want to make an important announcement, because you remember last year after a thorough and very rigorous investigation by Pam Bondi and all of the people at the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, the White House Council's Office, and the Department of Everything, we have a Department of Everything, you know what that is, I think that's called the White House, into a terrible situation caused by a man named Sleepy Joe Biden."
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Explaining the reason, Trump said: "He used an autopen last year for the turkeys' pardon, so I have the official duty to determine and I have determined that last year's turkey pardons are totally invalid."
An autopen is a machine which replicates the signature of someone, and they are commonly used by senior politicians to sign routine correspondence, with Trump himself admitting to having used them for this purpose.
Trump said that the turkey pardons were invalid 'as are the pardons of every other person that was pardoned'.
He then joked that 'the turkeys known as Peach and Blossom' had been located and pardoned for a second time.
"They will not be served for Thanksgiving dinner," he said. "We saved them in the nick of time."
It might seem ridiculous, but Trump was actually alluding to Biden's use of an autopen to sign documents far more serious than the pardoning of turkeys.
This was Trump claiming that Biden had also used an autopen to sign pardons to lawmakers and staff on the congressional committee which investigated the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump said: “In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!”
It's not the first time that Trump has criticized Biden for using an autopen either, with the BBC reporting that Biden's portrait in the White House had been replaced by a photo an autopen signing his name.
According to AP, there are currently no laws regulating politicians' use of autopens in the US.