President Barack Obama pardoned Popcorn — crowned the 2013 National Thanksgiving Turkey — and his alternate Caramel at a ceremony on Wednesday, joking that the two birds had won the turkey equivalent of The Hunger Games.
And People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals didn’t think the President’s joke was funny.
POTUS made brief remarks while standing outside the North Portico of the White House. He cracked plenty of jokes, including a reference to the popular book series by Suzanne Collins.
“Now, 80 turkeys on John’s farm competed for the chance to make it to the White House, and stay off the Thanksgiving table,” Obama said. “It was, quite literally, The Hunger Games.”
For those unfamiliar with the series, competitors in the Games must kill off other competitors in order to live. While the turkeys undoubtedly didn’t compete in a ‘kill or be killed’ fashion, all the other birds on John Burkel’s farm in Minnesota will likely land on Thanksgiving dinner tables.
Following Obama’s Hunger Games joke, PETA’s Senior Media Coordinator David Perle issued a statement to Red Alert Politics, criticizing the President for jesting about “animals’ lives and slaughter.”
“In an earlier time, when some human beings were thought little of, what if President Lincoln had laughingly announced that he was going to free only one random slave?” Perle wrote in an email. “Turkeys need people to spare them all from the table, something that former President Bill Clinton and many other people already do.”
Earlier this month, PETA had already condemned the annual presidential pardon. The organization claimed the President was “pimping” for the poultry industry.
The White House Twitter account congratulated the winner on Wednesday before pointing out that both birds are pardoned.
Congrats to #TeamPopcorn! Your bird is this year’s National Thanksgiving Turkey. #DontWorryTheyBothLive, pic.twitter.com/F2tNXdxpsN
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 27, 2013
Watch the pardoning ceremony below:
