Trump 'should not pardon' Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Megyn Kelly says
In an X post on July 30, Kelly said that "Trump should not pardon Diddy" because "he doesn't deserve it" referencing a Deadline report published a day earlier – featuring unnamed sources – that considered the possibility of a pardon.
"He's a Trump hater. He's a woman abuser. MAGA is already upset over elites seeming to cover for each other. This would not help. GOP struggling w/young female voters, most of whom will HATE a Diddy pardon," Kelly continued.
USA TODAY reached out to Combs' team for comment.
Trump weighed in on the possibility of pardoning Combs on May 30 in the Oval Office. "Nobody's asked" about a pardon, the president said. "But I know people are thinking about it. I know they're thinking about it. I think some people have been very close to asking." Trump added, "I haven't spoken to him in years. He really liked me a lot."
Kelly and Trump have a complicated relationship of their own that spans more than a decade.
Despite falling out in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won, the pair have since patched things up: They embraced at a Pennsylvania campaign rally in November, where the former Fox News star proudly endorsed him for president in an enthusiastic speech.
Trump should not pardon Diddy. He doesn't deserve it. He's a Trump hater. He's a woman abuser. MAGA is already upset over elites seeming to cover for each other. This would not help. GOP struggling w/young female voters, most of whom will HATE a Diddy pardon.
Ex-Trump staffer Hope Hicks joins Megyn Kelly's media company as COO
Pressure toward the president has mounted recently as questions arise about his past relationship with former friend and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who sexually abused underage girls and died by suicide in August 2019 under circumstances that have since become the source of widespread conspiracy theories.
But Trump has shown a willingness in the past to pardon imprisoned celebrities, including during his first term and now in his second. In May, Trump announced pardons for reality TV couple Todd and Julie Chrisley and rapper NBA YoungBoy – also known by his legal name Kentrell Gaulden and artistically as YoungBoy Never Broke Again. Near the end of his first term in 2021, Trump pardoned rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black.
Sean 'Diddy' Combs argues for jail release on $50 million bond ahead of sentencing
Combs legal team argued again this week for his release from federal prison, nearly one month after the embattled music mogul was acquitted of the most serious charges in his sex-crimes trial.
According to legal documents reviewed by USA TODAY, Combs' lawyers asked Judge Arun Subramanian on July 29 to release Combs on a $50 million bond and allow him to live in his Miami mansion — instead of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn — as he awaits sentencing in October.
Contributing: David Oliver, Marco della Cava
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
7 minutes ago
- The Hill
White House mulling Zelensky invite to Trump-Putin Alaska summit
The White House is considering inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to an Alaskan summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a White House official told The Hill's sister network NewsNation. It is unclear if Zelensky would attend the meeting with the two leaders as meeting details have yet to be finalized. Trump announced Friday that he will meet with Putin in Alaska next week to discuss ending the over three-years long war between Russia and Ukraine. The president has not ruled out hosting a meeting between the two Eastern European leaders — a move that was previously shot down by the Kremlin. 'The President remains open to a trilateral summit with both leaders. Right now, the White House is planning the bilateral meeting requested by President Putin,' a senior White House official told NewsNation's Libbey Dean on Saturday. The possible invite comes after Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, their fifth summit this year. Their meeting took place just two days before the president was set to impose new sanction s on Moscow. During their meeting, Putin reportedly shared a proposal for a complete ceasefire, which would entail Ukraine withdrawing its military from the Donetsk region, allowing it to be under the Kremlin's control, along with Luhansk. Trump said on Friday at the White House that some territorial swapping would take place for 'the betterment of both' countries. Zelensky fired back on Saturday morning, dismissing the idea of potentially ceding land to Russia. 'Of course, we will not give Russia any awards for what it has done. The Ukrainian people deserve peace,' Ukraine's leader said. Vice President Vance, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Zelensky's top adviser, Andriy Yermak and European national security advisors took part in a meeting in Kent, England, where they weighed in on the ceasefire proposal. 'The UK's support for Ukraine remains ironclad as we continue working towards a just and lasting peace,' Lammy wrote Saturday after the meeting.
CNBC
8 minutes ago
- CNBC
Europe and Ukraine press the U.S. ahead of Trump-Putin talks in Alaska
European officials presented their own Ukraine peace proposals to the United States on Saturday as President Donald Trump prepared for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war. Trump plans to meet Putin in Alaska on August 15, saying the parties, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, were close to a deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict. Details of the potential deal have yet to be announced, but Trump said it would involve "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both". It could require Ukraine to surrender significant parts of its territory, an outcome Zelenskyy and his European allies say would only encourage Russian aggression. U.S. Vice President JD Vance met Ukrainian and European allies on Saturday at Chevening House, a country mansion southeast of London, to discuss Trump's push for peace. A European official confirmed a counterproposal was put forward by European representatives at the meeting but declined to provide details. The Wall Street Journal said European officials had presented a counterproposal that included demands that a ceasefire must take place before any other steps are taken and that any territory exchange must be reciprocal, with firm security guarantees. "You can't start a process by ceding territory in the middle of fighting," it quoted one European negotiator as saying. A U.S. official said "hours-long" meetings at Chevening produced significant progress toward bringing an end to the war in Ukraine. The White House did not immediately respond when asked if the Europeans had presented their counterproposals to the U.S. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke and pledged to find a "just and lasting peace" in Ukraine and "unwavering support" for Zelenskyy, while welcoming Trump's efforts to end the fighting, a Downing Street spokesperson said. It was not clear what, if anything, had been agreed at Chevening, but Zelenskyy called the meeting constructive. "All our arguments were heard," he said in his evening address to Ukrainians. "The path to peace for Ukraine should be determined together and only together with Ukraine, this is key principle." He had earlier rejected any territorial concessions, saying "Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier." The Trump administration is considering inviting Zelenskyy to join the U.S. and Russian presidents at their Alaska meeting, NBC News reported, citing an unnamed U.S. official. A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Russian and Ukrainian officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Macron also said Ukraine must play a role in any negotiations. "Ukraine's future cannot be decided without the Ukrainians, who have been fighting for their freedom and security for over three years now," he wrote on X after what he said were calls with Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Starmer. "Europeans will also necessarily be part of the solution, as their own security is at stake." Zelenskyy has made a flurry of calls with Ukraine's allies since Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff's visit to Moscow on Wednesday, which Trump described as having achieved "great progress." Ukraine and the European Union have pushed back on proposals that they view as ceding too much to Putin, whose troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, citing what Moscow called threats to Russia's security from a Ukrainian pivot towards the West. Kyiv and its Western allies say the invasion is an imperial-style land grab. Moscow has previously claimed four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014. Russian forces do not fully control all the territory in the four regions and Russia has demanded that Ukraine pull out its troops from the parts of all four of them that they still control. Ukraine says its troops still have a small foothold in Russia's Kursk region, a year after its troops crossed the border to try to gain leverage in any negotiations. Russia said it had expelled Ukrainian troops from Kursk in April. Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, described the current peace push as "the first more or less realistic attempt to stop the war." "At the same time, I remain extremely skeptical about the implementation of the agreements, even if a truce is reached for a while. And there is virtually no doubt that the new commitments could be devastating for Ukraine," she said. Fierce fighting is raging along the more than 1,000-km (620-mile) front line along eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russian forces hold around a fifth of the country's territory. Russian troops are slowly advancing in Ukraine's east, but their summer offensive has so far failed to achieve a major breakthrough, Ukrainian military analysts say. Ukrainians remain defiant. "Not a single serviceman will agree to cede territory, to pull out troops from Ukrainian territories," Olesia Petritska, 51, told Reuters as she gestured to hundreds of small Ukrainian flags in the Kyiv central square commemorating fallen soldiers.
Wall Street Journal
8 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Sudden Fed Resignation Surprised Colleagues and Gave Opening for Trump
This past week President Trump said he would nominate Stephen Miran, head of the Council of Economic Advisers, to fill an open spot on the Federal Reserve, giving Trump a loyalist inside the Fed. Trump's chance to wield greater influence over the central bank came suddenly and unexpectedly when Fed governor Adriana Kugler resigned roughly six months before the end of her term. Kugler, an appointee of President Joe Biden, hasn't said why she left the Fed's board early before the end of her term in January. She missed last month's meeting of the rate-setting committee for what the central bank described as a personal matter. Her resignation was effective Friday.
