While President Trump has spent years phoning in or farming out the presidential duties he doesn’t really want to do, the awarding of big gold medals has usually been his thing. But this year, stuck in the denial stage of grieving his electoral loss, Trump wasn’t able to fully commit to his final Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony. After giving the highest award a civilian can earn to wrestler Dan Gable — one of 11 sports figures Trump has given the medal to, out of his 19 recipients — the president bailed on the ceremony a bit early, leaving Gable alone and more than a little confused:
It wasn’t the only moment of pure, Trumpian humor to emerge from the White House on Monday. Hours after the president walked out on the former Olympian, Axios reported that Trump is considering mass pardons as he sulks his way out of office: According to one adviser, he threatened to pardon “every person who ever talked to me.” However, the offers “haven’t always been welcome,” as Axios notes. Perhaps it’s because being on an executive clemency list with Joe Arpaio, Scooter Libby, Dinesh D’Souza, Michael Milken, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, and several accused war criminals doesn’t look so great for your innocence if you haven’t actually committed a crime.
