Hasidic faction’s rabbinic leadership meets without publicly condemning draft exemption bill |
The Times of Israel is liveblogging Thursday’s events as they unfold.
US President Donald Trump says in an interview that his “own morality” is the only constraint on his power to order military actions around the world.
Trump’s comments to The New York Times come days after he launched a lightning operation to topple Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, and threatened a host of other countries, plus the autonomous territory Greenland.
“Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” Trump tells the newspaper when asked if there were any limits on his global powers.
“I don’t need international law,” he adds. “I’m not looking to hurt people.”
The Republican president then adds that “I do” need to abide by international law, but says “it depends what your definition of international law is.”
Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is serving a four-year prison sentence for prostitution-related crimes, has asked Donald Trump for a pardon, but the US president says he does not plan to grant clemency to the hip-hop star.
Trump, in an interview with The New York Times, also says he does not plan to issue pardons to several other high-profile individuals, including deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
The 56-year-old Combs was convicted last July of two counts of transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
A jury acquitted the music mogul of the most serious charges — sex trafficking and racketeering.
Trump tells the Times during the interview that Combs had sent him a letter asking for a pardon but he was not inclined to grant it.
Asked about pardoning Maduro, who was seized by US forces over the weekend and is facing drug trafficking charges, Trump says: “No, I don’t see that.”
In November, Trump pardoned Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 45-year sentence after being convicted of drug trafficking.
Trump also says he did not plan to issue pardons to disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence, and former Democratic senator Robert Menendez, who is serving an 11-year sentence for accepting bribes.
The Times says the Republican president was also asked whether he would consider pardoning Derek Chauvin, the white Minneapolis police officer convicted of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, whose death sparked nationwide racial justice protests.
“I haven’t been asked about it,” Trump says.
On the day of his inauguration Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who had been convicted or were facing charges for involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.
He has carried out a slew of other pardons since then of other loyalists.
Iran’s economy is facing high inflation and other challenges, partly due to US sanctions, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says, underscoring Washington’s concerns about Tehran cracking down violently on anti-regime protests.
“The Iranian economy is on the ropes,” Bessent tells the Economic Club of Minnesota, underscoring President Donald Trump’s warning to Tehran to avoid harming protesters.
“It’s a very precarious moment. He does not want them to harm more of the protesters. This is a tense moment,” the US Treasury secretary says, referring to Trump’s threat on Sunday to hit Tehran if it began killing protesters.
Bessent says it is clear that “what had been an affluent society that still maintained a high standard of........