Trump says pardon for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is ‘more difficult’ after Combs’s ‘hostile’ statements post-2016 campaign, despite his ‘half-innocent’ verdict.
Donald Trump said on Friday that a presidential pardon for Sean “Diddy” Combs has become “more difficult to do” since the hip-hop mogul publicly turned against him.
Speaking with Newsmax host Rob Finnerty, the former president described his long relationship with Combs as having “started out fine” in the 1990s, only to become strained after Combs criticized Trump’s political career.
“Well, he was essentially, I guess, sort of half-innocent,” Trump told Finnerty, referring to Combs’s mixed verdict in federal court.
While Combs was acquitted on July 2 of the more serious sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges, he was convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution and is scheduled to be sentenced on October 3—exposures that carry a statutory maximum of up to ten years in prison. “He’s still in jail or something, but he was celebrating a victory. But I guess it wasn’t as good of a victory,” Trump quipped.
Trump and Combs’s friendship dates back to New York City social scenes in the 1990s. The real-estate magnate attended Combs’s legendary Bad Boy birthday bashes and called him “a good friend” during a 2012 episode of The Apprentice. Combs reciprocated, referring to Trump as “a friend of mine” in the early days of Trump’s first presidential bid in 2015.
But that camaraderie unraveled in the 2016 campaign cycle. In a 2017 interview with The Daily Beast, Combs declared that Black Americans “don’t really give a fuck about Trump” and dismissed him outright. In a 2020 sit-down with Charlamagne tha God, Combs went further, saying “White men like Trump need to be banished” and accusing the then-president of threatening the safety of Black voters.
Q: Sean Diddy Combs. Would you consider pardoning him?
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 2, 2025
Well, he was essentially, I guess, sort of half innocent. Probably— I was very friendly with him but when I ran for office he was very hostile and it’s hard. So, I don't know, it's more difficult.
Q: More likely a no?… pic.twitter.com/FrrzquR6qs
Asked about a potential pardon back in May, Trump acknowledged that he had not spoken with Combs in years and lamented that their relationship “busted up” over “nasty statements.” He nevertheless indicated some openness to reviewing Combs’s case, saying he “would certainly look at the facts.”
Since Combs’s election loss to President Biden last November, the mogul’s allies have quietly lobbied Trump administration officials for clemency. Rolling Stone reported in May that Combs’s associates reached out to people close to the president during the transition and early months of the second Trump administration.
In recent weeks, those overtures have intensified: friends and political operatives with ties to Washington were offered mid-six-figure sums to help secure a pardon or commutation.
Yet senior Trump advisers have expressed deep reservations. They warn that pardoning a high-profile figure convicted of prostitution-related offenses while the administration remains under scrutiny for its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation would send the wrong message.
Survivor advocates are also mobilizing: a draft letter reviewed by Rolling Stone urges Trump to reject any clemency bid, arguing that a pardon would “rewrite history” and undermine the experiences of trafficking survivors.
Combs’s legal team, meanwhile, has filed fresh motions in federal court seeking to vacate his prostitution convictions or obtain bail pending sentencing.
As the debate over his fate continues behind closed doors, Trump’s latest comments make clear that personal animus may now weigh as heavily as legal considerations in any decision on clemency.
