Donald Trump turned Washington's fluffiest tradition into something a little tougher to carve on Tuesday -- swapping holiday cheer for political score-settling as he pardoned two turkeys in the annual White House Thanksgiving ceremony.

Since Abraham Lincoln's day, presidents have occasionally spared a lucky bird from becoming dinner, though the ceremony didn't become a yearly tradition until John F. Kennedy made it official in 1963.

This year's feathered VIPs -- Waddle and Gobble of North Carolina -- were meant to be the stars of a festive, bipartisan moment.

But the Hallmark-card episode quickly turned into a holiday roast as Trump tore into Democrats, fumed about crime and even revived a conspiracy theory about Joe Biden's pardoning process.

Waddle was absent for reasons that were no

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