During a lengthy interview on the most recent broadcast of ABC’s Sunday political affairs show This Week, host Jon Karl tried to press Speaker Mike Johnson on the issue of presidential clemencies. Johnson instead took Karl to school, reminding him about other, more inconvenient recent presidential abuses of the clemency power.
Watch the exchange below, centered around the commutation granted to former U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-NY), as aired on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, October 19th, 2025:
JON KARL: Let me ask you about the president’s pardon of George Santos. What do you make of that?
MIKE JOHNSON: The president has the right under the Constitution for pardon and commutation, of course.
KARL: For sure.
JOHNSON: We believe in redemption. This is a personal belief of mine. And — and I — you know, I hope Mr. Santos makes the most of his second chance. I mean —
KARL: But how about the fact that the president, in issuing the pardon, or it’s clemency, I’m sorry, the clemency, he said, “at least Santos had the courage, conviction, and intelligence to always vote Republican.” I looked through this. There have now, I think, we have a — a list of them, ten former Republican members of Congress who the president has either pardoned or issued clemency for. Ten.
JOHNSON: OK, you want to talk about what Joe Biden did with that power?
KARL: No, I want to talk about what —
JOHNSON: He pardoned his own family. The only thing he signed, by the way, with his own pen. Everything else was autopen.
KARL: Yes, but —
JOHNSON: But categories of hardened criminals that they just released from prison. At least President Trump is fully transparent. He goes out and explains his rational to the —
KARL: Is it OK for him to say the — essentially I’m pardoning somebody because they always had the courage —
JOHNSON: That’s not the reason he pardoned him.
KARL: Conviction and intelligence to always vote Republican. I mean, he said that.
JOHNSON: That’s one statement (ph) of what he said among many things about George Santos and other —
KARL: But should that be a factor in pardoning somebody, that they voted Republican, or clemency?
JOHNSON: No, and I don’t think it — I don’t think it was. No, I don’t think it was. I just think he’s talking about this individual and — and his past. And at least he’s open and transparent about it. Joe Biden never told us anything. And, frankly, we’re not even sure he knew who he was pardoning on any of those things.
The most telling part of the whole exchange is Karl quickly responding “no” when asked if he wanted to talk about Joe Biden’s commutations. They only did when faced with the need to save face. More importantly, they refused to talk about- or cover- the underlying reasons for those pardons. There was never any substantial coverage of the various crimes Hunter Biden was charged with, or of the evidence of countless other crimes found on the Laptop from Hell.
Conversely, there was never any coverage of the IRS whistleblower testimony given to Congress, or of any of the other deals done by Biden’s family in furtherance of their apparent influence peddling scheme. Biden’s pardon, which Johnson rightly notes was probably one of the only ones not done by autopen. Rather than scrutinize these schemes, the media covered the pardons as a necessary hedge against Trump’s upcoming campaign of “retribution.”
As we’ve learned from Congressional hearings also not covered on ABC or anywhere else within the legacy media, it is highly unlikely that Biden knew who the individuals were that benefitted from the mass clemencies granted towards the end of his presidency.
Johnson rightly points this out while checking Karl’s interrogations of the Santos clemency, which he tried to frame as this uniquely horrible abuse of the presidential pardon power. Johnson made crystal clear that this was not the case, exposing a clear double standard that enabled years of omissive coverage.
