President Donald Trump announced that he plans to grant a massive number of pardons before leaving the White House at the end of his second term, scheduled for January 2029. He made the announcement in a lengthy interview on CBS News' 60 Minutes, which aired this Sunday, just days after Republicans faced historic losses in the midterm elections.
"I intend to grant tremendous amounts of pardons," Trump declared to correspondent Ross Douthat. The president justified his decision by arguing that he does not want officials and collaborators in his administration to spend years defending themselves against investigations he considers politically motivated, just as he himself had to do for four years.
In a humorous tone, Trump claimed that he could pardon anyone who had been "a thousand miles from the Oval Office," and even joked that he might have to forgive the interviewer himself. "I don't want people to spend the rest of their lives [defending themselves]," he emphasized.
Regarding the possibility of pardoning himself, Trump was more cautious: "I don't expect to do it," he said, although he claimed to have the constitutional authority to do so. The U.S. Constitution grants the president broad clemency power over federal offenses, but it does not explicitly address the issue of self-pardon, and no court has issued a definitive ruling on the matter.
The president also defended the mass pardons he granted on January 20, 2025, to nearly 1,500 individuals convicted or charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. "I pardoned those from January 6. I don't believe any group has been treated more unfairly than they have. And to this day, when they see me, they cry," he stated.
Among those who benefited from that measure was the Cuban-American Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the Proud Boys sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. Throughout 2025, Trump expanded those pardons on several occasions.
The statement contrasts with another remark by the president in the same interview: when asked if he could forgive his political enemies—mentioning James Comey and Nancy Pelosi—even in the face of divine judgment, Trump replied bluntly that he would not. "The answer is no. I want to be honest... I hate some of my enemies and I will always hate them," he said.
Trump's record on clemency is extensive. During his first term, he granted 237 measures of grace —144 pardons and 93 commutations— with a massive concentration on the last day: 74 pardons and 70 commutations on January 20, 2021, benefiting, among others, his former advisor Stephen Bannon and musician Lil Wayne. Already in his second term, in May 2025, he commuted the sentence of Miami Cuban-American businessman Lawrence Duran, sentenced to 50 years for a fraud of over 205 million dollars against Medicare.
The interview with 60 Minutes was Trump's first extensive public appearance following the electoral defeats on Tuesday, in which the Republican Party lost more than forty seats in the House of Representatives and at least seven in the Senate. The president himself attributed this outcome primarily to dissatisfaction with the Iran war and rising gasoline prices.
"I probably can't do it, no. Because I hate some of my enemies, and I always will," Trump concluded when pressed about whether he could find it in his heart to forgive his adversaries.
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