Liberty and Bell are ready for their presidential pardons.

The two Thanksgiving turkeys were due at the White House on Monday to play their part in what has become an annual holiday tradition: a president sparing them from becoming someone’s dinner.

“We think that’s a great way to kick off the holiday season and really, really a fun honor,” Steve Lykken, chairman of the National Turkey Federation and president of the Jennie-O Turkey Store, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The event, set for the South Lawn this year instead of the Rose Garden, marks the unofficial start of the holiday season in Washington, and Monday was shaping up to be an especially busy opening day.

President Joe Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, also was celebrating his 81st birthday on Monday. In the afternoon, his wife, first lady Jill Biden, was accepting the delivery of a 5.6-meter Fraser fir from Fleetwood, North Carolina, as the official White House Christmas tree.

Lykken introduced Liberty and Bell on Sunday at the Willard Intercontinental, a luxury hotel close to the White House. The gobblers checked into a suite there on Saturday following their red carpet arrival in the U.S. capital after a dayslong road trip from Minnesota in a black Cadillac Escalade.

“They were raised like all of our turkeys, protected, of course, from weather extremes and predators, free to walk about with constant access to water and feed,” Lykken said Sunday, as Liberty and Bell strutted around the Willard’s newly renovated Crystal Room on plastic sheeting laid over the carpet. Young children in the crowd of onlookers — many of them employees and guests of the Jennie-O company — yelled “gobble, gobble” at them.

The male turkeys, both about 20 weeks old and about 19 kg, were hatched in July in Willmar, Minnesota — Jennie-O is headquartered there — as part of the “presidential flock,” Lykken said. They listened to music and other sounds to prepare them for Monday’s hoopla at the White House.

“They listened to all kinds of music to get ready for the crowds and people along the way. I can confirm they are, in fact, Swifties, and they do enjoy some Prince,” Lykken said, meaning that Liberty and Bell are fans of Taylor Swift. “I think they’re absolutely ready for prime time.”

The tradition dates to 1947 when the National Turkey Federation, which represents turkey farmers and producers, first presented a National Thanksgiving Turkey to President Harry Truman.

Back then, and even earlier, the gobbler was given for the first family’s holiday consumption.

But by the late 1980s, the tradition had evolved into an often-humorous ceremony in which the birds are pardoned, given a second chance at life after they are spared from ending up on a family’s Thanksgiving table.

In 1989, as animal rights activists picketed nearby, President George H.W. Bush said, “But let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table, not this guy — he’s granted a presidential pardon as of right now — and allow him to live out his days on a children’s farm not far from here.”

After Biden pardons his third pair of turkeys on Monday, Liberty and Bell will be returned to their home state to be cared for by the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Sciences.

“You can imagine the wonderful care they’re going to get from students and veterinarians and professors, etc., and so they will hopefully have a chance, maybe, to go see a hockey game or spend time with Goldy the gopher,” Lykken said, referring to the university’s mascot.

A little over 200 million turkeys will be eaten on Thanksgiving, Lykken said.

Biden will eat his Thanksgiving turkey with family on Nantucket, a Massachusetts island, continuing a long family tradition. On Sunday, he and the first lady served an early Thanksgiving meal to hundreds of service members from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R. Ford at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia, the largest installation of its kind in the world, along with their families.

Markus Platzer, the Willard’s general manager, said the hotel’s role in introducing the turkeys is the “highlight of the year.” The Willard has been involved for more than 15 years, he said, calling the turkeys “very special guests of ours.”

“There are so many bad things going on globally that this is something where everybody, you know, brings a smile into the face of the people, at least for a few minutes,” Platzer said Sunday.

 
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Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is meeting with senior U.S. military leaders and members of Hawaii’s large Filipino community this weekend in a visit steeped in geopolitical and personal significance for the leader, but also drawing small protests from a younger generation of Filipinos who point to the actions of his dictator father who died in exile in Hawaii.

Marcos, who stopped in Hawaii on his way home from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, connected Saturday evening with members of Hawaii’s large Filipino-American community before a planned Sunday meeting with Adm. John Aquilino, the top U.S. military commander in the Indo-Pacific region.

Marcos is then due to deliver a talk about his nation’s security challenges and the role of the Philippines-U.S. alliance.

A small number of protesters gathered outside the community meeting and at the airport where he landed.

Marcos’ trip comes at a time when the U.S. and the Philippines have been deepening their long-standing alliance in a shift after Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, nurtured cozy ties with China and Russia.

The Philippines this year agreed to give the U.S. access to four more bases as America looks to deter China’s increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea. In April, the two countries held their largest military exercises in decades.

But the trip also likely has personal resonance for the leader of the Philippines. His father, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, died in exile in Honolulu after he was ousted in a 1986 army-backed “people power” uprising.

Many Filipino immigrants in Hawaii also hail from the same part of the Philippines as Marcos and revere him and his family. Filipinos are the largest single ethnic group in Hawaii, accounting for 26% of the state’s population as of the 2020 census.

Winfred Damo, who immigrated to Honolulu from Marcos’ province of Ilocos Norte in 1999, said being Ilocano means “we always support the Marcoses.”

The 58-year-old helped campaign for Marcos Jr. in Hawaii and said the president is a different person than his father and from a different era. Philippine nationals living abroad can vote in elections back home.

“We have a better government now in the Philippines,” he said. “Marcoses are good people. They did a lot in our country, and they are the best.”

Not all are Marcos fans. Arcy Imasa organized a protest outside the convention center where Marcos met with community members Saturday. Her aim was to help younger Filipinos learn his family’s history.

Marcos’ father placed the Philippines under martial rule in 1972, a year before his term was to expire. He also padlocked Congress, ordered the arrest of political rivals and left-wing activists and ruled by decree.

A Hawaii court found the senior Marcos liable for human rights violations and awarded $2 billion from his estate to compensate more than 9,000 Filipinos who filed a lawsuit against him for torture, incarceration, extrajudicial killings and disappearances.

Imasa, 40, who is part of Hawaii Filipinos for Truth, Justice and Democracy and grew up in the Ilocos province of Pangasinan, said the mindset of many Filipinos in Hawaii is fixed, especially those of older generations.

“They’re not on the right side of history. They’re not fully aware of the crimes that transpired,” she said.

Satu Limaye, the vice president of the East-West Center, noted the U.S. and the Philippines have a long, complicated relationship. He pointed to years when the U.S. ruled the archipelago as a colony, when the two nations signed a mutual defense treaty in 1951 and when the U.S. military withdrew from major bases in the country in the 1990s.

Duterte was often critical of the U.S., at times questioning the value of the alliance and demanding more military aid to preserve the pact. Under Marcos there has been a “180-degree turn” and a massive change in cooperation and coordination with the U.S., Limaye said.

China has laid sweeping territorial claims over virtually the entire South China Sea, areas also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

China has clashed with its smaller neighbors and subsequently drawn in the U.S., which is Manila’s treaty ally and China’s main rival in the Asia-Pacific region. Washington and its allies have deployed navy ships and fighter aircraft to promote freedom of navigation and overflight, to build up deterrence and reassure allies.

Earlier this month, dozens of Chinese coast guard and accompanying ships chased and encircled Philippine vessels during a four-hour faceoff.

Marcos in September said his country does not want a confrontation but will defend its waters after its coast guard dismantled a floating barrier placed by China at a disputed shoal.

Limaye said it’s important to watch how the U.S. and the Philippines manage their nations’ long and complex relationship while facing their common concern, China.

 
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Landmarks and notable events in the life of former U.S. first lady Rosalynn Carter:

— Aug. 18, 1927: Eleanor Rosalynn Smith is born at her family home in Plains, Georgia. She is the daughter of Wilburn Edgar Smith, a mechanic, and Allie Murray Smith, a seamstress and postal worker.

— Late August 1927: “Miss Lillian” Carter, a neighbor and nurse who delivered Rosalynn, brings her son, Jimmy, nearly 3 years old, to meet the new baby.

— 1940: Rosalynn’s father dies, leaving her to help her mother raise her younger siblings.

— 1945: She begins dating Jimmy Carter, now a Naval Academy midshipman and the brother of her close friend, Ruth Carter.

— Spring 1946: She graduates from Georgia Southwestern College.

— July 7, 1946: She marries Jimmy at Plains Methodist Church, her childhood congregation. They would have four children: John William (“Jack”), born 1947; James Earl III (“Chip”), 1950; Donnel Jeffrey, 1952; and Amy Lynn, 1967.

— 1946-1953: Rosalynn manages the Carter household while Jimmy serves in the Navy’s nuclear submarine program, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander.

— 1955: She begins helping Jimmy in the farm warehouse; she soon “knew more on paper about the business than he did,” she recalled ahead of their 75th anniversary.

— 1962: She helps Jimmy campaign for state Senate, an office he would win in a contested election that was ultimately settled in court.

— 1966: Rosalynn begins campaigning on her own for the first-time during Jimmy’s first run for Georgia governor, a race he loses. But their model of campaigning separately would be key to winning four years later and to capturing the presidency in 1976.

— 1975-76: She leads the “Peanut Brigade” of Carter family, friends and supporters from Georgia who spread out across Iowa and other key nominating states to widen the campaign’s person-to-person reach. The same model they used in Georgia revolutionizes presidential campaigning, with Rosalynn as Jimmy’s top surrogate.

— Jan. 20, 1977: Rosalynn, the newly sworn-in 39th president and their family draw special attention on Inauguration Day by walking down Pennsylvania Avenue rather than riding in an armored limousine. The Carters enroll their daughter Amy in a Washington, D.C., public school that is majority-Black. In Atlanta, when Carter was governor, Amy attended private school.

— Summer 1977: Rosalynn makes a 13-day diplomatic trip to seven Latin American nations and Caribbean islands. She also urges Jimmy to delay action on treaties yielding control of the Panama Canal, arguing it is too politically costly for a first term. He proceeds with the treaties.

— September 1978: Rosalynn is with Jimmy at Camp David for much of the intense negotiations with Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. She listens to and advises the president daily before the three leaders reach the Camp David Accords. Begin and Sadat both warm to the first lady, and Sadat becomes especially close to the Carters.

— November 1979: Rosalynn leads a delegation to Cambodian refugee camps, bringing international media attention to the humanitarian crisis. She convinces the president to admit more refugees to the U.S.

— Summer and fall 1980: She campaigns nearly daily on Jimmy’s behalf, while he stays at the White House working to win the release of American hostages in Iran.

— 1980: She helps win congressional approval for the Mental Health Systems Act, dedicating more federal money to local centers for treating mental health; Republican Ronald Reagan would later reverse course as president.

— November 1980: Jimmy Carter is denied a second term by Reagan, who wins 51.6 percent of the popular vote to 41.7% for Carter and 6.7% for independent John Anderson.

— 1982: The Carters co-founded The Carter Center in Atlanta with a mission of resolving conflicts, protecting human rights, advocating democracy and preventing disease around the world.

— 1984: Rosalynn releases her memoir, “First Lady from Plains,” in which she admits to missing Washington. It is the first of her five books.

— September 1984: She travels to New York City, where the Carters volunteer building homes for Habitat for Humanity; this would become their annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project.

— 1987: She establishes the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, located at her collegiate alma mater, to advocate for Americans who are unpaid caregivers.

— Summer 1989: Rosalynn travels with Jimmy on a weeklong Africa tour that includes an international conference on Guinea worm eradication, perhaps The Carter Center’s most ambitious public health initiative.

— 1996: She establishes the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, based at The Carter Center, to help working journalists produce better reporting on the topic.

— 1999: She is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.

— July 10, 2007: She testifies before a U.S. House subcommittee, urging Congress to require that health insurance policies cover mental health treatment on par with treatment for other illness.

— November 2016: She hosts the Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy for the 32nd time.

— October 2019: In Nashville, the Carters participate in person for the last time in their Habitat for Humanity work project; the program would continue.

— April 30, 2021: The Carters receive President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden at their home in Plains. The couples were friends since the 1976 campaign, when Biden, then a young lawmaker from Delaware, became the first U.S. senator to endorse Carter for president.

— July 7, 2021: The Carters celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. Offering advice for a successful marriage, she says, “each (person) should have some space. That’s really important.”

— Feb. 18, 2023: The Carter family announces that Jimmy is entering home hospice care. They would later say they thought he would live only days but rebounded to celebrate their 77th wedding anniversary and his 99th birthday later in the year.

— May 30, 2023: The family announces that Rosalynn has dementia.

— Sept. 23, 2023: The Carters make a surprise appearance in the Plains Peanut Festival parade, riding in a Secret Service vehicle with the windows down for what would be her last public appearance.

— Nov. 17, 2023: The Carter family announces that she has entered home hospice care.

— Nov. 19, 2023. Rosalynn Carter dies at home in Plains, Georgia, in the same house where the Carters lived when Jimmy was elected to the state Senate in 1962.
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Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, the closest adviser to Jimmy Carter during his one term as U.S. president and their four decades thereafter as global humanitarians, has died at the age of 96.

The Carter Center said she died Sunday after living with dementia and suffering many months of declining health.

The Carters were married for more than 77 years, forging what they both described as a “full partnership.” Unlike many previous first ladies, Rosalynn sat in on Cabinet meetings, spoke out on controversial issues and represented her husband on foreign trips. Aides to President Carter sometimes referred to her — privately — as “co-president.”

“Rosalynn is my best friend … the perfect extension of me, probably the most influential person in my life,” Jimmy Carter told aides during their White House years, which spanned from 1977-1981.

Fiercely loyal and compassionate as well as politically astute, Rosalynn Carter prided herself on being an activist first lady, and no one doubted her behind-the-scenes influence. When her role in a highly publicized Cabinet shakeup became known, she was forced to declare publicly, “I am not running the government.”

Many presidential aides insisted that her political instincts were better than her husband’s — they often enlisted her support for a project before they discussed it with the president. Her iron will, contrasted with her outwardly shy demeanor and a soft Southern accent, inspired Washington reporters to call her “the Steel Magnolia.”

Both Carters said in their later years that Rosalynn had always been the more political of the two. After Jimmy Carter’s landslide defeat in 1980, it was she, not the former president, who contemplated an implausible comeback, and years later she confessed to missing their life in Washington.

Jimmy Carter trusted her so much that in 1977, only months into his term, he sent her on a mission to Latin America to tell dictators he meant what he said about denying military aid and other support to violators of human rights.

She also had strong feelings about the style of the Carter White House. The Carters did not serve hard liquor at public functions, though Rosalynn did permit U.S. wine. There were fewer evenings of ballroom dancing and more square dancing and picnics.

Throughout her husband’s political career, she chose mental health and problems of the elderly as her signature policy emphasis. When the news media didn’t cover those efforts as much as she believed was warranted, she criticized reporters for writing only about “sexy subjects.”

As honorary chairwoman of the President’s Commission on Mental Health, she once testified before a Senate subcommittee, becoming the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to address a congressional panel. She was back in Washington in 2007 to push Congress for improved mental health coverage, saying, “We’ve been working on this for so long, it finally seems to be in reach.”

She said she developed her interest in mental health during her husband’s campaigns for Georgia governor.

“I used to come home and say to Jimmy, ‘Why are people telling me their problems?’ And he said, ‘Because you may be the only person they’ll ever see who may be close to someone who can help them,’” she explained.

After Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election, Rosalynn Carter seemed more visibly devastated than her husband. She initially had little interest in returning to the small town of Plains, Georgia, where they both were born, married and spent most of their lives.

“I was hesitant, not at all sure that I could be happy here after the dazzle of the White House and the years of stimulating political battles,” she wrote in her 1984 autobiography, “First Lady from Plains.” But “we slowly rediscovered the satisfaction of a life we had left long before.”

After leaving Washington, Jimmy and Rosalynn co-founded The Carter Center in Atlanta to continue their work. She chaired the center’s annual symposium on mental health issues and raised funds for efforts to aid the mentally ill and homeless. She also wrote “Helping Yourself Help Others,” about the challenges of caring for elderly or ailing relatives, and a sequel, “Helping Someone With Mental Illness.”

Frequently, the Carters left home on humanitarian missions, building houses with Habitat for Humanity and promoting public health and democracy across the developing world.

“I get tired,” she said of her travels. “But something so wonderful always happens. To go to a village where they have Guinea worm and go back a year or two later and there’s no Guinea worm, I mean the people dance and sing — it’s so wonderful.”

In 2015, Jimmy Carter’s doctors discovered four small tumors on his brain. The Carters feared he had weeks to live. He was treated with a drug to boost his immune system, and later announced that doctors found no remaining signs of cancer. But when they first received the news, she said she didn’t know what she was going to do.

“I depend on him when I have questions, when I’m writing speeches, anything, I consult with him,” she said.

She helped Carter recover several years later when he had hip replacement surgery at age 94 and had to learn to walk again. And she was with him earlier this year when he decided after a series of hospital stays that he would forgo further medical interventions and begin end-of-life care.

Jimmy Carter is the longest-lived U.S. president. Rosalynn Carter was the second longest-lived of the nation’s first ladies, trailing only Bess Truman, who died at age 97.

Eleanor Rosalynn Smith was born in Plains on Aug. 18, 1927, the eldest of four children. Her father died when she was young, so she took on much of the responsibility of caring for her siblings when her mother went to work part time.

She also contributed to the family income by working after school in a beauty parlor. “We were very poor and worked hard,” she once said, but she kept up her studies, graduating from high school as class valedictorian.

She soon fell in love with the brother of one of her best friends. Jimmy and Rosalynn had known each other all their lives — it was Jimmy’s mother, nurse Lillian Carter, who delivered baby Rosalynn — but he left for the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, when she was still in high school.

After a blind date, Jimmy told his mother: “That’s the girl I want to marry.” They wed in 1946, shortly after his graduation from Annapolis and Rosalynn’s graduation from Georgia Southwestern College.

Their sons were born where Jimmy Carter was stationed: John William (Jack) in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1947; James Earl III (Chip) in Honolulu in 1950; and Donnel Jeffery (Jeff) in New London, Connecticut, in 1952. Amy was born in Plains in 1967. By then, Carter was a state senator.

Navy life had provided Rosalynn her first chance to see the world. When Carter’s father, James Earl Sr., died in 1953, Jimmy Carter decided, without consulting his wife, to move the family back to Plains, where he took over the family farm. She joined him there in the day-to-day operations, keeping the books and weighing fertilizer trucks.

“We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business,” Rosalynn Carter recalled with pride in a 2021 interview with The Associated Press. “I knew more on paper about the business than he did. He would take my advice about things.”

At the height of the Carters’ political power, Lillian Carter said of her daughter-in-law: “She can do anything in the world with Jimmy, and she’s the only one. He listens to her.”
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