President Biden, on his birthday Monday, cracked numerous jokes about his age during the annual White House turkey pardon before confusing Taylor Swift and Beyonce when talking about the origin of the massive birds.
The now 81-year-old Biden, who told a crowd gathered in Washington that it is “difficult turning 60,” spared the lives of Liberty and Bell, two turkeys from Minnesota.
“Now, just to get here, Liberty and Bell had to beat some tough odds, a competition. They had to work hard to show patience and be willing to travel over a thousand miles,” Biden said. “You could say even this is harder than getting a ticket to the Renaissance tour, or, or Britney’s tour she’s down in – it’s kind of warm in Brazil right now.”
Biden apparently was referring to Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” – which was notorious for difficulty in getting tickets, and which has a performance scheduled for tonight in Rio De Janeiro – and Beyonce’s “Renaissance” tour, which recently wrapped up at the start of October.
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The president said today’s event was the “unofficial start of the holiday season” and was a time to “share joy and gratitude and a little bit of fun.”
“This is the 76th anniversary of this event. And I want you to know, I wasn’t there, the first one,” Biden said in another joke about his age.
Biden said that this week Americans will “gather with the people we love and the traditions that each of us have built up in our own families.
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“We’ll also think about the loved ones we lost, including just yesterday. We lost former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who walked her own path, inspiring the nation and the world along the way,” he said.
“Let’s remind ourselves that we’re blessed to live in the greatest nation on this face of the earth. That’s what I see when I travel America,” Biden also said after pardoning the turkeys, mentioning how he helped serve food to service members yesterday at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.
“Let’s remember we are the United States of America. And there is nothing, nothing, nothing – I mean this sincerely – nothing beyond our capacity when we work together. We’ve never come out of a situation in a bad circumstance, not without being better off when we come through it,” he concluded. “And this is always who we are as Americans. So happy Thanksgiving. God bless you all. And may God protect our troops.”