After granting unconditional pardons to 1,500 people who participated in the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack at the start of his presidency, Donald Trump has signalled there could be more to come.
“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval [Office],” the president reportedly said in a recent meeting, garnering laughs from the room, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing an anonymous source.
In response to the report, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said: “The Wall Street Journal should learn to take a joke. However, the president’s pardon power is absolute.”
Meanwhile in Islamabad, vice-president JD Vance announced that the US and Iran had failed to reach a deal after historic peace talks, before boarding Air Force Two and departing Pakistan. Vance said he spoke with Trump at least half a dozen times during the talks, and that one of the most significant points of difference between the two sides had been around the development of nuclear weapons.
“The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America,” Vance said.
Here are the latest key stories at a glance:
Trump reportedly says he’ll issue mass pardons at end of his presidential term
Donald Trump has reportedly said he will issue pardons en masse to his closest advisers at the end of his second presidency, promising them in casual conversations over the last year. Since starting his second presidency, Trump has granted clemency to more than 1,800 people.
JD Vance and US delegation leave Pakistan after failing to reach deal with Iran
US vice-president JD Vance left Islamabad on Sunday local time after failing to reach a deal with Iran after a marathon 21 hours of negotiations.
Vance cited shortcomings in the talks, saying that Iran had chosen not to accept American terms, including to not build nuclear weapons.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said that “excessive” US demands had hindered reaching an agreement and that negotiations had ended.
Manhattan DA’s office to investigate Eric Swalwell over sexual assault allegations
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Saturday that it is investigating a sexual assault allegation against Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman from California running to be the state’s governor, who on Friday denied claims by an unnamed woman that he sexually assaulted her twice.
US state department revokes green cards of three Iranian nationals it links to regime
United States federal agents arrested three Iranian nationals – including the son of a revolutionary at the center of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis – after the US state department terminated their green cards, the department announced on Saturday.
Pope says ‘enough of war’ and decries ‘delusion of omnipotence’ at peace vigil
Pope Leo XIV stepped into the international political arena at evening prayers in St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City on Saturday, saying prayer for peace is “a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive.”
The first US-born pope said: “Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death.”
What else happened today:
Louisiana Republicans are moving to eliminate a court office won by an exonerated man.
Washington officials say 21 dead canines that washed ashore were foxes, solving a local mystery.
Catching up? Here’s what happened 0n Friday 10 April.
