Nightly News   |  November 23, 2011

Obama pardons turkeys

President Obama held the ceremonial pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkeys at the White House Wednesday. NBC’s Savannah Guthrie reports.

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This content comes from a Full-Text Transcript of the program.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, anchor: Today in Washington , the president did what presidents have done for the last 64 years now, pardoned the national Thanksgiving turkey. This year's lucky bird, appropriately named Liberty , along with his understudy Peace , were officially spared at the White House as the first family looked on.

President BARACK OBAMA: You are hereby pardoned. Some of you may know that recently I've been taking a series of executive actions that don't require congressional approval. Well, here's another one. We can't wait to pardon these turkeys, literally. Otherwise they'd end up next to the mashed potatoes and stuffing. Now I'm told that in order to prepare Liberty and Peace for their big day, the students expose them to loud noises and flashbulbs so that they'd be ready to face the White House press corps . This is actually true. They also received the most important part of their media training, which involves learning how to gobble without really saying anything.

GUTHRIE: And this afternoon the president and his family took other turkeys, unpardoned, to a local food bank.