Anyone who has worked in Donald Trump’s administration now has a standing offer from the boss, and the condition attached to it has just been met.
President Donald Trump said he would hand out preemptive pardons to staff and allies if Democrats won control of Congress and pursued prosecutions, in a “Pod Force One” episode with New York Post columnist Miranda Devine released Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, a day before the midterm elections.
Democrats then took control of both the Senate and the House, with most of the votes counted.
Devine asked Trump whether he would grant the pardons. “I would if I needed to. Sure,” he said. The scope he floated would cover anyone who has worked in his administration, with a pardon issued before a prosecutor files a charge. He named no intended recipient, announced no completed pardons and did not specify what offenses a blanket grant would cover.
“I Did It for J6”
Devine pressed on whether the coverage would extend to everyone who had worked for him. “I’d do it. I did it for J6,” Trump said, pointing to the pardons he issued on his first day back in office in 2025 for roughly 1,500 defendants charged over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump also cited a Democratic precedent, the pardons former President Joe Biden issued in his final hours in the Oval Office. “That’s what Biden did. He gave everybody a pardon,” he said. Those recipients included Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, members and staff of the House Jan. 6 committee — which Trump called “a corrupt committee” — and several relatives, among them his son Hunter.
Arresting the World’s Richest Man
Devine raised proposals circulating on the left to investigate Elon Musk, seize his assets and nationalize pieces of his business empire, along with a suggestion that the world’s richest man be arrested. “It won’t happen. It’s talk. But if it is talk, we’ll have to protect them,” Trump said. Some on the left have also floated going after staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency, among them Edward Coristine, the aide known as “Big Balls.” Asked whether he himself would end up in Democratic crosshairs, Trump said, “Well, I don’t know about me.”
A Deterrence Message for Graduates
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., told an audience at a University of Chicago event in October 2026 that a Democratic majority should build signature cases against the people who enabled the president, not just the president himself, to deter college graduates from taking a job in his administration. “I want that deterrence message,” she said. In a post on X, Slotkin called for accountability for anyone who helped misuse taxpayer dollars to benefit the president or his family and anyone who broke the law carrying out his guidance, and she noted that the Supreme Court granted immunity to the president, not to people acting at his behest.
Slotkin went further in undercover footage recorded by Townhall, saying each committee would pursue its own cases to “hold people accountable” starting in January.
What a Pardon Cannot Reach
No president can write around the limits on clemency. A presidential pardon wipes away federal criminal exposure only, and it is no defense against a state prosecution, a civil lawsuit or impeachment. Congressional investigators keep their own tools. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has said a Democratic House could use its subpoena power to examine “pay-to-play pardons.”
The Final Pitch Before the Vote
Surveys had put Democrats within reach of flipping both chambers, and Trump called those polls “rigged,” preferring the size of his rally crowds as an indicator and arguing Republicans would outrun expectations. He delivered his final midterm message Monday at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, floated vetoes alongside the pardon talk and set his own deadline: “We’ll know on Tuesday night.” Both parties had been preparing for the arithmetic of a possible split government.
With Democrats in the majority, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is in line to become speaker when the new Congress convenes in January.