WASHINGTON  — President Joe Biden kicked off his final holiday season at the White House on Monday by issuing the traditional reprieve to two turkeys who will bypass the Thanksgiving table to live out their days in southern Minnesota.

The 82-year-old president welcomed 2,500 guests to the South Lawn under sunny skies as he cracked jokes about the fates of “Peach” and “Blossom” and sounded wistful tones about the last weeks of his presidency after a half-century in Washington power circles.

“It’s been the honor of my life. I’m forever grateful,” Biden said, taking note of his impending departure on Jan. 20, 2025. That’s when power will transfer to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, the man that Biden defeated four years ago and was battling again until he was pressured to bow out of the race amid concerns about his age and viability.

Until Inauguration Day, the president and first lady Jill Biden will continue a busy run of festivities that will double as their long goodbye. The White House schedule in December is replete with holiday parties for various constituencies, from West Wing staff to members of Congress and the White House press corps.

Biden relished the brief ceremony with the pardoned turkeys, named for the official flower of the president’s home state of Delaware.

“The peach pie in my state is one of my favorites,” he said during remarks that were occasionally interrupted by Peach gobbling atop the table to Biden’s right. “Peach is making a last-minute plea,” Biden said at one point, drawing laughter from an overflow crowd that included Cabinet members, White House staff and their families, and students from 4H programs and Future Farmers of America chapters.

Biden introduced Peach as a bird who “lives by the motto, ‘Keep calm and gobble on.’” Blossom, the president said, has a different motto: “No fowl play. Just Minnesota nice.”

Peach and Blossom came from the farm of John Zimmerman, near the southern Minnesota city of Northfield. Zimmerman, who has raised about 4 million turkeys, is president of the National Turkey Federation, the group that has gifted U.S. presidents Thanksgiving turkeys since the Truman administration after World War II. President Harry Truman, however, preferred to eat the birds. Official pardon ceremonies did not become an annual White House tradition until the administration of President George H.W. Bush in 1989.

With their presidential reprieve, Peach and Blossom will live out their days at Farmamerica, an agriculture interpretative center near Waseca in southern Minnesota. The center’s aim is to promote agriculture and educate future farmers and others about agriculture in America.

Later Monday, first lady Jill Biden will receive delivery of the official White House Christmas tree that will be on display in the Blue Room. Then the Bidens will travel to New York City for an evening “Friendsgiving” event at a Coast Guard station on Staten Island.

Biden began his valedictory calendar Friday night with a gala for hundreds of his friends, supporters and staff members who gathered in a pavilion erected on the South Lawn, with a view out to the Lincoln Memorial.

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Cabinet secretaries, Democratic donors and his longest-serving staff members came together to hear from the president and pay tribute, with no evidence that Biden was effectively forced from the Democratic ticket this summer and watched Vice President Kamala Harris suffer defeat on Nov. 5.

“I’m so proud that we’ve done all of this with a deep belief in the core values of America,” said Biden, sporting a tuxedo for the black-tie event. Setting aside his criticisms of Trump as a fundamental threat to democracy, Biden added his characteristic national cheerleading: “I fully believe that America is better positioned to lead the world today than at any point in my 50 years of public service.”

The first lady toasted her husband with a nod to his 2020 campaign promise to “restore the soul of the nation,” in Trump’s aftermath. With the results on Election Day, however, Biden’s four years now become sandwiched in the middle of an era dominated by Trump’s presence on the national stage and in the White House.

Even as the first couple avoided the context surrounding the president’s coming exit, those political realities were nonetheless apparent, as younger Democrats like Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg not only raised their glasses to the president but held forth with many attendees who could remain in the party’s power circles in the 2028 election cycle and beyond.

Associated Press reporters Darlene Superville in Washington and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed.

By MICHELLE L. PRICE

NEW YORK (AP) — When Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. circled up aboard the president-elect’s plane over some McDonalds burgers and fries recently, Donald Trump Jr. was seated in the center of that power foursome.

The central spot occupied by Trump’s eldest son, as captured in a photo widely shared online, reflects how Trump Jr. has become a prominent player in his father’s political orbit and a potential heir to his Make America Great Again movement.

For the son of a president-elect, Trump has already had an outsized impact on the next White House. He lobbied hard for the former president to choose his good friend, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, to be his running mate.

“I exerted 10,000% of my political capital,” Trump Jr. said of his effort in an interview with Tucker Carlson on the night of the election. “I may get a favor from my father in like, 2076. I used it all.”

FILE – Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump hugs Donald Trump Jr., at a campaign rally at PPG Paints Arena, Nov. 4, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed, File)

As an honorary chair of the Republican president-elect’s transition team, Trump Jr. is part of a core group of people deciding who will fill top jobs in the next White House, and his imprint is clear.

Trump Jr. pushed in particular for roles for former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, whom the president-elect has chosen to be director of national intelligence, and Kennedy, who is in line to lead Health and Human Services.

Another close ally, Sergio Gor, will be running the personnel office. He and Trump Jr. run a publishing company, Winning Team Publishing, which has published two of the former president’s books.

The younger Trump has said he has no plans to join his father’s administration in the way his younger sister Ivanka Trump did during the first Trump term. His brother Eric is also an honorary chair of the transition but hasn’t been as much of a political player. Eric’s wife Lara has been more involved, serving as co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

Trump Jr. is expected to continue to be a vocal supporter of his father and his agenda and has made it clear he wants to be an influential voice from the outside, according to a person familiar with his thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.

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The president-elect’s style — brash, indelicate and pugilistic — is distilled in his son. Donald Trump Jr. often takes a more aggressive tack than his father, in his calls for disrupting government as usual, in the way he dives into the culture wars with gusto and in his enthusiasm for trolling.

“He’s probably the best embodiment of the take-no-crap attitude of the Republican Party,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican political strategist.

Trump Jr.’s attitude and the way he communicates don’t make him sound like a regular political figure, Jennings said, and that’s part of the appeal.

“I think that’s one thing about the Trumps that is probably broadly true but certainly for him: They just don’t participate in the normal political pablum that sort of pre-Trump politicians were schooled in or trained to do.”

The 46-year-old is fluent in the online world of conservative politics and attuned to cultural issues that catch on with the MAGA faithful.

The posts on Trump’s X account, where he has more than 13 million followers, are often peppered with exclamation points and emojis. On Instagram, he is a prolific poster of conservative memes.

He flexes between interviews on established media outlets like Fox News and an array of podcasts influential among young conservatives, and he hosts his own twice a week, “Triggered With Don Jr.” During the campaign, he pushed for the former president to make appearances on podcasts as part of an effort to reach young men, including the popular Joe Rogan podcast.

FILE – Michael Boulos and his wife Tiffany Trump, Lara Trump, Eric Trump and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listen as Donald Trump Jr., speaks at a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena, Nov. 5, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

Trump Jr.’s aggressive style has particular appeal with younger men.

“I think that’s one of the reasons a lot of these young men like it because that’s how they talk,” Jennings said.

Trump Jr. has said he has no plans to run for office himself, but he’s been working to cultivate the next generation of his father’s movement, boosting like-minded, communication-savvy Republicans.

Beyond his political activity, the father of five also serves as executive vice president at the Trump organization’s main family business, has launched a new crypto platform and recently announced he’s joining a venture capital firm that invests in conservative-focused businesses.

In an earlier time, Trump Jr. appeared with his father on “The Apprentice,” the reality show that helped propel the billionaire’s first presidential campaign. When Donald Trump launched his White House bid in 2015 and faced skepticism from swaths of the Republican Party, Trump Jr.’s outreach helped his father win more support, especially among conservatives who saw someone who espoused their views and as an avid hunter and fisherman who is a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

He’s been increasingly visible in Republican politics since then, campaigning not just for his father but for like-minded candidates. He was a backer of Vance in his 2022 Ohio Senate race, nudging his father to do the same, and this year threw his support heavily behind successful Republican Senate candidates Jim Banks in Indiana, Bernie Moreno in Ohio and Tim Sheehy in Montana.

Trump Jr. helped broker a relationship with Kennedy as the Democrat-turned-independent suspended his presidential campaign, working to bring him into the MAGA fold and endorse his father. He floated the idea of Kennedy joining the administration early, saying in an interview with conservative host Glenn Beck that “I loved the idea,” of Kennedy joining a Trump White House.

“I love the idea of giving him some sort of role in some sort of major three-letter entity or whatever it may be and let him blow it up,” Trump Jr. said, a reference to the many initials for government agencies.

The two hit it off, and Trump Jr., an avid outdoorsman, shared images on social media in October of a day he spent with Kennedy enjoying the latter’s favored hobby: falconry.

The choice of anti-vaccine activist Kennedy to run the nation’s public health agencies is sure to draw tough scrutiny during confirmation proceedings in the Senate, even with a Republican majority,

Trump Jr., in a recent interview on Fox News, acknowledged some of his father’s choices will face pushback.

“They are going to be actual disrupters,” he said. “That’s what the American people want.”

Darius Tahir | (TNS) KFF Health News

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the sprawling government agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act marketplace — celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz — recently held broad investments in health care, tech, and food companies that would pose significant conflicts of interest.

Oz’s holdings, some shared with family, included a stake in UnitedHealth Group worth as much as $600,000, as well as shares of pharmaceutical firms and tech companies with business in the health care sector, such as Amazon. Collectively, Oz’s investments total tens of millions of dollars, according to financial disclosures he filed during his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat.

Trump said Tuesday he would nominate Oz as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The agency’s scope is huge: CMS oversees coverage for more than 160 million Americans, nearly half the population. Medicare alone accounts for approximately $1 trillion in annual spending, with over 67 million enrollees.

UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest health care companies in the nation and arguably the most important business partner of CMS, through which it is the leading provider of commercial health plans available to Medicare beneficiaries.

UnitedHealth also offers managed-care plans under Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for low-income people, and sells plans on government-run marketplaces set up via the Affordable Care Act. Oz also had smaller stakes in CVS Health, which now includes the insurer Aetna, and in the insurer Cigna.

It’s not clear if Oz, a heart surgeon by training, still holds investments in health care companies, or if he would divest his shares or otherwise seek to mitigate conflicts of interest should he be confirmed by the Senate. Reached by phone on Wednesday, he said he was in a Zoom meeting and declined to comment. An assistant did not reply to an email message with detailed questions.

“It’s obvious that over the years he’s cultivated an interest in the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry,” said Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a watchdog group. “That raises a question of whether he can be trusted to act on behalf of the American people.” (The publisher of KFF Health News, David Rousseau, is on the CSPI board.)

Oz used his TikTok page on multiple occasions in November to praise Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including their efforts to take on the “illness-industrial complex,” and he slammed “so-called experts like the big medical societies” for dishing out what he called bad nutritional advice. Oz’s positions on health policy have been chameleonic; in 2010, he cut an ad urging Californians to sign up for insurance under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, telling viewers they had a “historic opportunity.”

Oz’s 2022 financial disclosures show that the television star invested a substantial part of his wealth in health care and food firms. Were he confirmed to run CMS, his job would involve interacting with giants of the industry that have contributed to his wealth.

Given the breadth of his investments, it would be difficult for Oz to recuse himself from matters affecting his assets, if he still holds them. “He could spend his time in a rocking chair” if that happened, Lurie said.

In the past, nominees for government positions with similar potential conflicts of interest have chosen to sell the assets or otherwise divest themselves. For instance, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Attorney General Merrick Garland agreed to divest their holdings in relevant, publicly traded companies when they joined the Biden administration.

Trump, however, declined in his first term to relinquish control of his own companies and other assets while in office, and he isn’t expected to do so in his second term. He has not publicly indicated concern about his subordinates’ financial holdings.

CMS’ main job is to administer Medicare. About half of new enrollees now choose Medicare Advantage, in which commercial insurers provide their health coverage, instead of the traditional, government-run program, according to an analysis from KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

Proponents of Medicare Advantage say the private plans offer more compelling services than the government and better manage the costs of care. Critics note that Medicare Advantage plans have a long history of costing taxpayers more than the traditional program.

UnitedHealth, CVS, and Cigna are all substantial players in the Medicare Advantage market. It’s not always a good relationship with the government. The Department of Justice filed a 2017 complaint against UnitedHealth alleging the company used false information to inflate charges to the government. The case is ongoing.

Oz is an enthusiastic proponent of Medicare Advantage. In 2020, he proposed offering Medicare Advantage to all; during his Senate run, he offered a more general pledge to expand those plans. After Trump announced Oz’s nomination for CMS, Jeffrey Singer, a senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said he was “uncertain about Dr. Oz’s familiarity with health care financing and economics.”

Singer said Oz’s Medicare Advantage proposal could require large new taxes — perhaps a 20% payroll tax — to implement.

Oz has gotten a mixed reception from elsewhere in Washington. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, the Democrat who defeated Oz in 2022, signaled he’d potentially support his appointment to CMS. “If Dr. Oz is about protecting and preserving Medicare and Medicaid, I’m voting for the dude,” he said on the social platform X.

Oz’s investments in companies doing business with the federal government don’t end with big insurers. He and his family also hold hospital stocks, according to his 2022 disclosure, as well as a stake in Amazon worth as much as nearly $2.4 million. (Candidates for federal office are required to disclose a broad range of values for their holdings, not a specific figure.)

Amazon operates an internet pharmacy, and the company announced in June that its subscription service is available to Medicare enrollees. It also owns a primary care service, One Medical, that accepts Medicare and “select” Medicare Advantage plans.

Oz was also directly invested in several large pharmaceutical companies and, through investments in venture capital funds, indirectly invested in other biotech and vaccine firms. Big Pharma has been a frequent target of criticism and sometimes conspiracy theories from Trump and his allies. Kennedy, whom Trump has said he’ll nominate to be Health and Human Services secretary, is a longtime anti-vaccine activist.

During the Biden administration, Congress gave Medicare authority to negotiate with drug companies over their prices. CMS initially selected 10 drugs. Those drugs collectively accounted for $50.5 billion in spending between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023, under Medicare’s Part D prescription drug benefit.

At least four of those 10 medications are manufactured by companies in which Oz held stock, worth as much as about $50,000.

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Oz may gain or lose financially from other Trump administration proposals.

For example, as of 2022, Oz held investments worth as much as $6 million in fertility treatment providers. To counter fears that politicians who oppose abortion would ban in vitro fertilization, Trump floated during his campaign making in vitro fertilization treatment free. It’s unclear whether the government would pay for the services.

In his TikTok videos from earlier in November, Oz echoed attacks on the food industry by Kennedy and other figures in his “Make America Healthy Again” movement. They blame processed foods and underregulation of the industry for the poor health of many Americans, concerns shared by many Democrats and more mainstream experts.

But in 2022, Oz owned stakes worth as much as $80,000 in Domino’s Pizza, Pepsi, and US Foods, as well as more substantial investments in other parts of the food chain, including cattle; Oz reported investments worth as much as $5.5 million in a farm and livestock, as well as a stake in a dairy-free milk startup. He was also indirectly invested in the restaurant chain Epic Burger.

One of his largest investments was in the Pennsylvania-based convenience store chain Wawa, which sells fast food and all manner of ultra-processed snacks. Oz and his wife reported a stake in the company, beloved by many Pennsylvanians, worth as much as $30 million.

©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.