President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he’d “take a look” at fulfilling “Tiger King” star Joe Exotic’s request for a presidential pardon.
Trump was asked about it by a reporter at Wednesday’s coronavirus briefing at the White House. Trump admitted that he hadn’t seen the show and knew nothing of the exotic animal zoo owner’s situation, but he said he would “take a look.”
The exchange comes a few days after the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., jokingly said in an interview on SiriusXM’s “Jim Norton and Sam Roberts” show that he would lobby for a pardon for the exotic animal zoo owner.
Watch video of the exchange below.
A reporter just asked if Trump would pardon Joe Exotic from Tiger King and Trump said, "I will take a look." pic.twitter.com/f0c0R8QmDy
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) April 8, 2020
Joseph “Joe Exotic” Maldonado-Passage is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence for hiring a hitman to murder big cat conservationist Carole Baskin. He was recently featured in the Netflix docuseries “Tiger King,” which premiered last month and became an instant sensation, racking up more than 34 million views in its first 10 days on the platform.
In the weeks since, Maldonado-Passage has been the subject of a number of media interviews in which he’s advocated for a presidential pardon, maintaining his innocence in the case that put him in prison.