Trump suggests it was a mistake for Biden not to pardon himself

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US president Donald Trump has suggested that it was a mistake for the former president, Joe Biden, to not pardon himself before leaving office.

In an interview with Fox News host, Sean Hannity, Trump said:

This guy went around giving everybody pardons. And you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn’t give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him.”

It came as Trump told Hannity that he was given the option to pardon himself in 2021 when he was departing the White House, but declined because he believed he had done nothing wrong.

Donald Trump’s interview with Sean Hannity.

In the interview – his first one-on-one interview since returning to the White House for his second term – Trump said that Biden had been given “very bad advice”. He said:

Joe Biden has very bad advisers. Somebody advised Joe Biden to give pardons to everybody but him.”

Additionally, in the same interview, Trump said he may withhold aid to California until the state adjusts how it manages its scarce water resources. He falsely claimed that California’s fish conservation efforts in the northern part of the state are responsible for fire hydrants running dry in urban areas.

“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let the water run down,” Trump told Hannity.

More on that in a moment. Here are some other developments:

Donald Trump has described attacks on police officers at the US Capitol on January 6 2021 as “very minor incidents” as he sought to defend his decision to pardon the insurrectionists. Those pardoned include more than 250 people who were convicted of assault charges, some having attacked police with makeshift weapons such as flagpoles, a hockey stick and a crutch.
Trump also used the prime-time Fox News interview to discuss his barrage of executive orders, dismiss security concerns over Chinese-owned app TikTok (“Is it that important for China to be spying on young people, on young kids watching crazy videos?”) and discuss the possibility of cutting off federal funds to so-called “sanctuary cities” that shield undocumented immigrants from federal detention requests.
On Thursday, Trump will speak remotely at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, delivering his first major speech to global business and political leaders. He is due to give a speech and engage in a dialogue at 11am US Eastern Time (4pm GMT), according to the meeting schedule. It is not clear what he will discuss.
The new US presidential envoy for special missions has pushed back against Nato chief, Mark Rutte’s talk at the World Economic Forum about Ukraine joining Nato, pointing out many members of the alliance aren’t paying their “fair share” already. Richard Grenell, appointed by Trump in December, said it is “pretty shocking” that so many foreign ministers in Europe, and so many US politicians, did not try to stop the Russia-Ukraine war, and criticised Biden’s handling of the situation.

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The International criminal court’s governing body said on Thursday it regretted any attempts to undermine the ICC’s independence after US moves to sanction it in protest at its arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister over the Gaza war.

The US House of Representatives voted for the sanctions this month after the ICC issued the arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. Israel rejects the allegations.

On his first day in office this week, US president Donald Trump signed an executive order which reinstated an earlier executive order that could serve as a legal basis for future sanctions against the ICC and its personnel. No specific sanctions have been announced yet.

According to Reuters, in a statement, the ICC’s governing body said that sanctions against the court and its personnel – and anyone assisting them – could severely hamper ongoing investigations. It said it “regrets any attempts to undermine the court’s independence, integrity and impartiality.”

The ICC is a permanent court that can prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression of the territory of member states or by their nationals.

The court has said its decision to pursue warrants against the Israeli officials was in line with its approach in all cases, based on an assessment by the prosecutor that there was enough evidence to proceed, and the view that seeking arrest warrants immediately could prevent ongoing crimes.

US president Donald Trump’s administration has shut down the White House’s Spanish language page, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

As of this week, visitors to whitehouse.gov/es now see an error message and the words “page not found” beneath an image of the White House. Below that, visitors can click on “go to homepage” which directs to whitehouse.gov, where a video montage plays featuring Trump.

The move was immediately met with criticism, according to AFP.

“Put this back,” Democratic senator Chuck Schumer posted on X. “Deleting this resource makes it harder for fellow Americans to access essential information, and does nada to lower the costs of groceries for Americans,” he said, referencing the wave of inflation that some voters said was their reason for voting for Trump.

According to the Hispanic Council thinktank, 43 million people in the US speak Spanish fluently.

The shuttering of the page comes as Trump leads a crackdown on immigration that heavily targets Spanish speakers from neighbouring countries.

While his Democratic opponent in the November election, former vice-president Kamala Harris, carried the overall Hispanic vote, a majority of Latino men (54%) voted for Trump, according to NBC exit polls.

As part of a sweeping crackdown on both undocumented and legal immigrants, Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday trying to end the right to citizenship for some children born in the United States.

In a country where birthright citizenship regardless of lineage is a deeply held value, the president’s attempt to cut off that right for future generations could create a permanent underclass, through policy change that would specifically target communities of color.

His executive order faces court challenges from civil rights organizations, which have favorable constitutional language and over a century of legal precedent on their side. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) late on Monday led a group of organizations in filing a lawsuit challenging Trump’s order.

Here’s more on the right to birthright citizenship and its future under the Trump administration:

Four Democratic-led states will urge a federal judge in Seattle on Thursday to block US president Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing the Republican’s executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the US.

Reuters reports that senior US district judge, John Coughenour, is scheduled to hear arguments on a request by Democratic state attorneys general from Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon for a temporary restraining order that would prevent Trump’s administration from carrying out a key component of his immigration crackdown.

That executive order, which Trump signed on Monday after taking office, directs US agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the US if neither their mother nor father is a US citizen or legal permanent resident.

The executive order has already become the subject of five lawsuits, with civil rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 22 states calling it flagrantly unconstitutional.

The White House did not respond to requests by Reuters for comment.

Among the lawsuits was the case filed in Seattle, which has been progressing the fastest of the five cases. It has been assigned to Coughenour, an appointee of Republican former president Ronald Reagan.

Absent judicial intervention, any children born after 19 February whose mothers or fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents would be subject to deportation and would be prevented from obtaining social security numbers, various government benefits and the ability as they get older to work lawfully.

More than 150,000 newborn children would be denied citizenship annually if Trump’s order if it is allowed to stand, the Democratic-led states argue.

The lawsuits argue that Trump’s executive order violates the right enshrined in the citizenship clause of the US constitution’s 14th amendment that provides that anyone born in the US is considered a citizen.

Democratic state attorneys general say that understanding of the citizenship clause was cemented 127 years ago when the US supreme court held that children born in the US to non-citizen parents are entitled to US citizenship.

Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, defended on Thursday what he described as an “innocent” hand salute made by US billionaire Elon Musk this week, as he criticised “woke ideology” in a fiery speech to the World Economic Forum.

Musk ignited controversy with two fascist-style salutes during Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, with critics accusing him of giving the Nazi salute.

Milei told the WEF in Davos, Switzerland, that his “dear friend Musk” has been “unfairly vilified by wokeism in recent hours for an innocent gesture that only means … his gratitude to the people”.

President of Argentina, Javier Milei, speaks at the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. Photograph: Michael Buholzer/EPA

The libertarian leader praised Musk and other likeminded leaders such as Trump, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele.

“Slowly an international alliance has been formed of all those nations that want to be free and that believe in the ideas of freedom,” he said. Milei then turned his sights on the WEF itself.

“I must say, forums like this one have been protagonists and promoters of the sinister agenda of ‘wokeism’ that is doing so much harm to the west,” Milei told the audience of global business and political leaders.

He claimed “the mental virus of woke ideology” was “the great epidemic of our time that must be cured. It is the cancer that must be removed”.

Social networking company Meta has denied complaints from some users that they are being forced to follow accounts belonging to the new administration of US president Donald Trump.

Accounts belonging to Trump, first lady Melania Trump and vice-president, JD Vance, “are managed by the White House so with a new administration, the content on those pages changes,” Meta spokesperson, Andy Stone, posted on X on Wednesday.

“People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts” around the change in government, Stone added. The same process had happened during the last presidential transition in 2021, he said.

“It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands,” he added in response to some users’ complaints they were unable to stop following the new administration.

The complaints follow sustained efforts by Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg to stay in Trump’s good graces since his November election victory.

Zuckerberg, who attended Trump’s inauguration ceremony Monday, has dined with the new president, named several of his allies to key roles and ended programmes targeted by conservatives, including shutting off Meta’s factchecking efforts in the US.

The United Nations said on Thursday that refugee resettlement is “life-saving”, after a decision by US president Donald Trump to suspend all refugee admissions, including of those already approved for entry, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In an executive order signed on Monday, just hours after taking office, Trump said he was suspending refugee admissions as of 27 January.

A state department email to groups working with new arrivals later explained that this meant “all previously scheduled travel of refugees to the United States is being cancelled”.

Asked for comment, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said it was “currently analysing the announced executive order in relation to admissions”.

“Refugee resettlement is a life-saving measure for those most at risk, including survivors of violence or torture, women and children at risk, and individuals with legal or physical protection needs,” it noted in an email to AFP.

The agency added that it stood “ready to continue our work with the new administration to find solutions for refugees in need of safety, including through resettlement”.

Trump in each of his presidential campaigns has run on promises to crack down on undocumented immigration. But the refugee move also targets a legal pathway for people fleeing wars, persecution or disasters.

The state department memo asked the UN International Organization for Migration not to move refugees to transit centres and said that all processing on cases has also been suspended. Refugees already resettled in the United States will continue to receive services as planned, it said.

The order included a call for a report on how to change the programme, in part by giving “greater involvement” to states and local jurisdictions, which he said were being “inundated”. It also revoked his predecessor, Joe Biden’s decision to consider the impact of climate change in refugee admissions.

Biden had embraced the refugee programme as a way to support people in need through legal means. In the 2024 fiscal year, more than 100,000 refugees were resettled in the US, the most in three decades, reports AFP.

Donald Trump has repeatedly complained about the Panama Canal and the fees being charged, calling the vital transport corridor a “foolish gift [to Panama] that should never have been made” and threatening to take it back.

But he has also repeatedly accused China of being in control of it. At his inauguration Trump claimed without providing evidence that “China is operating the Panama Canal and we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama and we’re taking it back.”

So what is the extent of China-linked operations along the Panama Canal? My colleague, Helen Davidson, runs through the facts in this explainer:

The Kremlin said on Thursday it saw nothing new in US president Donald Trump’s latest remarks on the Ukraine conflict, but that Moscow was ready for “mutually respectful” dialogue with him.

Trump on Wednesday threatened fresh sanctions on Moscow if it did not strike a deal to end its nearly three-year offensive on Ukraine.

“We do not see any particularly new elements,” Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters, when asked about Trump’s comments.

Peskov said it was clear from Trump’s first presidency that he “liked” sanctions and that Moscow was “closely following” his statements. “We remain ready for dialogue, for equal, mutually respectful dialogue,” Peskov said, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Expectations are high that Russian president Vladimir Putin and Trump will soon hold a phone call on the conflict in the coming days.

Nato allies must pay their “fair share” on defence before considering enlarging the alliance, US envoy Richard Grenell said on Thursday, in a retort to the Nato secretary-general during an event in Davos, Switzerland.

“You’re going to run into a big buzzsaw in America if we have the Nato secretary general talking about adding Ukraine to Nato,” Grenell said by video link at an event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

“You cannot ask the American people to expand the umbrella of Nato when the current members aren’t paying their fair share, and that includes the Dutch who need to step up,” Grenell said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He was speaking after Nato secretary general and former Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said minutes earlier that “full Nato membership is then the easiest outcome” for Ukraine if a “sustainable” peace is secured.

Grenell also echoed US president Donald Trump’s call on Nato members to spend more on defence. “We need to make sure that those leaders are spending the right amount of money. We need to be able to avoid war. And that means a credible threat from Nato,” Grenell said.

Nato secretary-general, Mark Rutte, arrives at the annual meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. Photograph: Markus Schreiber/AP

The envoy blasted Trump’s predecessor for not speaking to Russian president Vladimir Putin, saying the new US president was pressuring Ukraine and Russia “to the table”.

“There’s a huge frustration from Americans that we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and our leaders aren’t speaking to each other to try to solve problems,” Grenell said.

The transatlantic alliance’s 32 countries in 2023 set a minimum level for defence spending of 2% of gross domestic product, but Trump has suggested raising this to 5%. Rutte acknowledged that the share had to increase.

“We have collectively to move up and we will decide on the exact number later this year, but it will be considerably more than two [percent],” Rutte said.

He also said Europe would have to pay more for continued US defence support.

“We have to be willing to do that, because at this moment, they are paying more than the Europeans. And here Trump is right,” Rutte said.

After Grenell’s remarks, Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo reminded the audience that Putin was “the enemy”, adding: “I see a lot of finger pointing between partners. And that’s not helpful.”

Nato secretary-general, Mark Rutte, on Thursday called for the US to continue supplying Ukraine and said Europe would pay the bill, reports Reuters.

Speaking at an event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Rutte said the alliance must invest more in defence, ramp up defence industrial production and take on a bigger share of spending on help for Ukraine.

“On Ukraine, we need US also to stay involved,” Rutte said. “If this new Trump administration is willing to keep on supplying Ukraine from its defence industrial base, the bill will be paid by the Europeans, I’m absolutely convinced of this, we have to be willing to do that,” he added.

The secretary general’s comments came after US president Donald Trump said earlier this week that the European Union should be doing more to support Ukraine.

In Davos, Rutte also said it was vital Russia did not win as it could result in Russian president Vladimir Putin ‘high fiving’ the leaders of North Korea and China.

“We really have to step up and not scale back our support for Ukraine,” Rutte said. “The frontline is moving in the wrong direction.”

David Smith

Those pardoned by Donald Trump include more than 250 people who were convicted of assault charges, some having attacked police during the US Capitol riots with makeshift weapons such as flagpoles, a hockey stick and a crutch. Many of the attacks were captured on surveillance or body camera footage that showed rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police as officers desperately fought to beat back the angry crowd.

Yet in his interview with Sean Hannity, a longtime friend and Fox News host, Trump claimed:

Some of those people with the police – true – but they were very minor incidents, OK, you know, they get built up by that couple of fake guys that are on CNN all the time. They were very minor incidents and it was time.”

He then pivoted without providing context to assert:

You have murderers in Philadelphia. You have murderers in Los Angeles that don’t even get any time. They don’t even collect them and they know they’re there to be collected. And then they go on television and act holier than thou about this one or that one. You had 1,500 people that suffered. That’s a lot of people.”

Trump’s sweeping pardons have provided an early loyalty test for the Republican party. While a handful of senators including former leader Mitch McConnell have condemned the move, most have backed the president or performed verbal contortions. Two major police unions said they are “deeply discouraged” by the pardons and commutations.

On Wednesday night the president went on:

This was a political hoax. And you know what? Those people – and I’m not saying in every single case – but there was a lot of patriotism with those people.”

Trump then boasted that he provided a voiceover for “Justice for All”, a version of the Star-Spangled Banner sung by a group of January 6 defendants over a prison phone line. “It was the number one selling song, number one on Billboard, number one on everything for so long. People get it. They wanted to see those people.”

David Smith

Donald Trump has described attacks on police officers at the US Capitol on January 6 2021 as “very minor incidents” as he sought to defend his decision to pardon the insurrectionists.

The US president hinted that those who put him through “four years of hell” via criminal prosecutions should themselves be investigated, adding ominously that his predecessor, Joe Biden, made a mistake by not pardoning himself.

Trump was giving the first televised interview of his second term to Sean Hannity, a longtime friend and Fox News host, in the Oval Office at the White House on Wednesday.

Among the topics was Trump’s move on Monday to pardon, commute the prison sentences or dismiss the cases of all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Hannity asked why people who were violent towards police were included.

Trump claimed that they had suffered unduly harsh prison conditions then falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen despite courts, officials and his own attorney general finding otherwise. “They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote and you should be allowed to protest the vote,” he said.

Often criticised as a Trump sycophant and propagandist, Hannity nevertheless objected that protesters should not be able to invade the Capitol building.

The president responded:

Most of the people were absolutely innocent. OK. But forgetting all about that, these people have served, horribly, a long time. It would be very, very cumbersome to go and look – you know how many people we’re talking about? 1,500 people.”

Vice-president JD Vance has previously stated that those who committed violence on January 6 “obviously” should not receive pardons. But media accounts suggest that Trump lost patience with the idea of going through the cases individually and wanted maximum impact on his first day in office. The Axios website reported: “Trump just said: ‘F–k it: Release ’em all,’” an adviser familiar with the discussions said.”