Since taking office, President Donald Trump has pardoned and granted clemency to many high profile individuals — and "potential petitioners have taken notice," Politico reports.

Per Politico, "white-collar defendants [are] jolting to attention" and "casting themselves as victims of a crooked justice system" in a bid for Trump's lenience.

“A Democratic District of Columbia Council member facing federal bribery charges has lavished public praise on Trump’s pick to lead the FBI; a Bitcoin entrepreneur fighting extradition from Spain on tax charges has sat down with Tucker Carlson to plead his case," Politico reports.

READ MORE: 'You don’t have the votes': Fox News reporter counters Mike Johnson blaming Dems for possible shutdown

Sam Mangel, a consultant for incarcerated individuals, told Politico "everybody that is in prison now is keenly aware of the environment."

"It’s become a very hot topic within the low- and minimum-security inmate communities,” Mangel said.

"People intimately familiar with the current parameters" told Mangel there are "limits" to Trump's leniency, Politico reports.

Per Politico, "Undocumented immigrants and people convicted of sexual, drug-related or violent crimes, [Mangel] said, need not apply. A White House spokesperson, Elizabeth Huston, declined to comment.”

READ MORE: 'He should be primaried': Trump vows to 'lead the charge' against GOP lawmaker

Mangel told Politico he's receiving two to four inquiries a day and has had to hire extra paralegals to handle the surge. “The level of interest is unheard of," he said.

As Politico notes, "crypto entrepreneurs" are at the top of trump's pardon list.

Bitcoin miner Joby Weeks is one such entrepreneur vying for the president's attention.

"Weeks pleaded guilty to tax evasion and an unregistered securities offering related to his crypto activities, and he has been awaiting sentencing ever since, as the Justice Department continues to pursue a broader conspiracy case against other defendants." Politico reports.

READ MORE: Pronatalists 'ascendant': How a 'key ideological plank' found home in 'Trump’s incoherent coalition'

According to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, the business community is expressing concern over President Donald Trump’s tariffs, economic policy and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts — even as it largely continues to support the president's administration.

Scarborough on Monday asked where "the investing class [is] on President Donald Trump?"

“Steve Rattner last week wrote a piece in the New York Times saying while they're concerned about some of the chaos, most of his business friends still are supportive of Trump,” Scarborough said. “But when you look at the front page of the Wall Street Journal, the investors are starting to play defense.”

The MSNBC panel agreed investors are "concerned about the growing chaos.”

“I think there's absolutely a weariness," MSNBC reporter Andrew Sorkin said. "I mean, the question is, is this a temporary situation, as the president has tried to describe, or is this a longer term issue where we could, as Zanny Minton Beddoes, Economist editor-in-chief, said, ‘move into a recession.'"

As CNBC reported Monday, Trump is rejecting push back from business.

“I think it's almost impossible to see this not turn down if things reverse themselves,” Beddoes said. “And maybe — you know Trump. Things could go the other way. So I don't think people necessarily know.”

“That is certainly true," Scarborough replied.

"I think everything we've seen in the last few weeks of how he behaves is that he can't resist the tariffs ... as tools of threats, and he believes in them," Beddoes said. "So I think there's going to be uncertainty."

“The uncertainty is [a] sword about the U.S. economy,” Beddoes added. “So that's one of the reasons why people are taking their money out.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

In February, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) made a startling announcement on the House floor, accusing several men of photographing and raping her. She presented photos, names, and personal information, claiming to have over 10,000 pictures as evidence. The main accusation was against her ex-fiancé Patrick Bryant, with three other men also implicated.

Mace has previously spoken about experiencing rape, including as a teenager. In 2019, she shared her story with the Post and Courier.

Protected by Congressional immunity, Mace spent 53 minutes detailing alleged horrendous acts without legal risk. However, no proof of these accusations has been presented.

This unprecedented address in the chamber's history began with Mace stating, "Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call out the cowards who think they can prey on women and get away with it. Today, I'm going scorched earth."

One of the accused, Brian Musgrave, recently told CNN he was "out buying bird seed" when he learned he would be mentioned in Mace's speech. He and his wife expressed shock at the allegations, describing the impact as "catastrophic" for their lives and business.

Eric Bland, Musgrave's lawyer, criticized the use of the House floor "as a bullhorn to destroy people," stating their aim to restore Musgrave's reputation.

All accused parties have strongly denied the allegations. Eric Bowman, another accused, stated that "no wrongdoing has been committed."

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is investigating the matter, focusing on Bryant. CNN reported the existence of videos but has not reviewed them. The House General Counsel directed all evidence requests to SLED.

NOW READ: Here's Trump's next target — according to the tyrant's playbook

On Friday, Newsweek reported that American executives and CEOs from some of the largest and most influential businesses – including supporters of President Donald Trump – have concerns about the United States’ economic future.

As Newsweek reports, “Trump's campaign promises to roll back regulations and foster innovation, garnered him support from many in the business world, including major industry leaders. The CEOs of Apple, Google and Amazon were front row at the president's inauguration, and a key part of his administration has been the heavy involvement of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.”

While layoffs continue on the federal level, recent stock market turmoil shows the private sector likewise has doubts about the president’s economic plans As CNBC reports, the overall health of the American economy remains in doubt – especially when it comes to “hiring and spending.”

Some CEOs are pointed in their concerns.

“Struggling to adapt to announcements regarding trade, and whether to treat them as threats that may not evolve into policy, has frustrated Hassane El-Khoury, CEO of ON Semiconductor,” Khoury told Semafor . “You can't move a factory overnight. It takes four years to build a [semiconductor fabrication] plant."

Many of these concerns come from uncertainty within tariff policy changes and sector exceptions.

Newsweek reports, “On the real impact of tariffs on foreign imports, Ford CEO Jim Farley said that 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico would ‘blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we have never seen,’ and that what he had witnessed from the administration so far had been ‘a lot of costs and a lot of chaos.’”

“His comments, made during a recent conference in New York and shared with the New York Times, echo those made by Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors,” Newsweek added.

Per Newsweek:

“With respect to possible tariffs, we are working across our supply chain, logistics network and assembly plants so that we are prepared to mitigate near-term impacts. Many of these actions are no cost or low cost," Barra said during the company's most recent earnings call in January. "What we won't do is spend large amounts of capital without clarity."

But there is still some optimism.

Newsweek reports, “During the Bloomberg Invest conference this week, Cathie Wood, CEO of global asset management firm Ark Invest, said that Trump's policies would usher in a business boom similar to the "golden age" experienced during Ronald Reagan's administration.”

CNN senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak on Friday discussed President Donald Trump’s meeting with Cabinet members Thursday, where he outlined how they ultimately will have the final decision when it comes to hiring and firing, not Elon Musk – but insisted the billionaire SpaceX founder still has his support.

Liptak said, “What Trump is trying to do here is he's trying to clarify exactly who has the power in the federal government to cut the government down to size,” Liptak reported. “What he's saying here is, yes, he still supports Musk, but it will be the Cabinet officials, the Senate confirmed heads of these agencies and departments, who will have the ultimate say.”

“[He’s] trying to reel in Musk to temper some of how he has gone about what has, so far, been this indiscriminate attempt to cut the federal government down to size,” the reporter added.

READ MORE: 'The worst generation': DC insider blasts today's 'morally grotesque' GOP

Liptak told CNN Musk’s approach “has been causing so much concern among Republicans, who have been facing heat from their own constituents, but also from these Cabinet members who, by and large, do support the overall mission but had some real questions about how Musk was going about it.”

“They certainly had begun voicing some of those concerns to some senior officials here in the White House,” the reporter continued. “That all culminated Thursday in this 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet room. Trump said, with Musk sitting there nearby, that it would be these Cabinet officials who had the ultimate decision making power on the staffing within their own government,” the reported noted.

Liptak said, “Trump was quoted on social media saying ‘We say the scalpel rather than the hatchet.’ Now, how this works in practice, I think, remains to be seen. We heard president Trump in the oval office shortly after this, saying that Musk would still be making recommendations.”

As Politico reports, Trump told reporters he wants his Cabinet secretaries to “keep all the people you want, everybody that you need.”

READ MORE: 'We gotta be smart': Republicans warn 'we’re in uncharted waters' as Trump flip-flops on tariffs

"We're going to be watching them and Musk and the group are going to be watching them," Trump said. "And if they can cut, it's better, and if they don't cut, then Musk will do the cutting.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Negative world': How an evangelical theory became Christian fundamentalism’s 'dominant framework'

Thursday morning, Newsweek reported that economist Larry Kudlow, former director of the National Economic Council (NEC) during President Donald Trump's first term, spoke on his Fox Business show Kudlow, acknowledging “bad news for the economy ahead” as consumer prices and goods remain high.

There is bad news for the economy ahead, but that has nothing to do with Trump,” Kudlow said as he jumped to blame former President Joe Biden for “poor economic projections for February.”

On Tuesday, Newsweek reported the recent tariffs levied against Canada, Mexico and China, along with the ongoing bird flu epidemic, are likely behind a substantial portion of the rising costs among goods and products.

READ MORE: Economic analyst details 'negative numbers' DOGE layoffs may create for US economy

“While Trump has claimed that tariffs will ensure that goods are made in America again, in the short-term they are projected to make goods significantly more expensive across the country,” Newsweek reports.

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) “cost-cutting measures and the mass-firing of federal employees are said to be contributing factors as to why the job market is predicted to be flat,” Newsweek added.

The Hill on Tuesday said an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll reported that “46 percent of Americans believe that Trump is changing the economy for the worse, while 42 percent of people think he's changing it for the better.” Eleven percent think “he has not provided any real change yet.”

The market reacted after Trump’s speech to Congress on Tuesday, as shares in U.S. companies including Ford and GM dropped.

READ MORE: 'Dead on arrival': GOP lawmakers blast Trump’s call for CHIPS Act repeal

Feedback has been pointed across the aisle.

"Trump promised a better economy, but all he's delivering is higher prices and chaos. He promised to stand up to foreign adversaries, but all he's done is bow to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. He promised to drain the swamp, but it's overflowing with billionaires cashing in." Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, wrote on X.

READ MORE: Bolton: Reagan 'turning over in his grave' as Trump declares 'peace through strength' foreign policy

CNN’s John Berman on Thursday spoke with John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the UN and former national security advisor to President Donald Trump, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European Union (EU) leaders met in Brussels to discuss Ukrainian security.

“The summit comes after President Trump put the brakes not only on military aid for Ukraine, but also key intelligence sharing," Berman reported, noting the White House is calling the president's Ukraine strategy "Peace Through Strength" — a nod to former President Ronald Reagan.

"What do you think of using that phrase to describe President Trump's policy toward Ukraine?” Berman asked Bolton.

READ MORE: Trump’s 'American empire' goals are impossible without the 'very institutions' he’s destroying: author

“I think Ronald Reagan would be turning over in his grave,” Bolton said. “This isn't peace through strength. This is going over to the other side. Give Trump credit, he knows a good slogan when he hears it, but he's not pursuing it. He has made one concession after another to the Kremlin. I see this as weakness."

Berman also addressed the intelligence sharing pause.

“This takes a real toll, both on defensive operations and in terms of any offensive operations that Ukraine wants to pursue,” Bolton said.

READ MORE: GOP lawmakers finally move to wrest control over Elon Musk and DOGE: report

“But I think the biggest casualty here is trust,” Bolton continued. “I think Zelenskyy has tried to make up with Trump but he will find there's no limit to kissing the ring that's required.”

Berman later asked Bolton about the “message to the international community” Trump is sending by imposing tariffs on major U.S. trading partners.

“I think it shows erratic, nearly irrational decision making on the president's part, ” Bolton replied.

Watch the interview below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Rollercoaster': Senate Republicans frustrated by Trump’s 'continuous back-and-forth on tariffs'

CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz on Thursday spoke with fourth-generation farmer John Boyd Jr., founder of the National Black Farmers Association in Boydton, Virginia, and Kim Barnes, CFO of Pawnee County Cooperative Association, based in Larned, Kansas, about how a combination of Trump’s USAID funding freeze and subsequent tariffs are impacting their livelihood.

“The consequences of President Trump and Elon Musk's decision to gut USAID is hitting home,” Prokupecz reported. “The Supreme Court yesterday rejected the funding freeze but when the money flows again, no one knows.”

“[Boyd] grows wheat, corn and soybeans here on his thousand-acre farm in southern Virginia,” Prokupecz said. “He also founded the National Black Farmers Association, and he's no fan of President Donald Trump.”

READ MORE: 'Not what she said': CNN host fact-checks GOP analyst Scott Jennings over Trump cuts

Boyd made it clear, ”The president casts a net of uncertainty every time he makes one of these wild announcements that people are saying, ‘yay!’ Tariffs to China, tariffs to Mexico, tariffs to Canada. USAID – It's over. It's done. Every time he makes those types of drastic announcements, he effects America’s farmers.

“We take it totally, totally for granted, and what we're doing in this country right now, we're gambling with all that,” Boyd said. “Gambling with farmers’ lives, gambling with my life, gambling with my livelihood, man,”

As Prokupecz reported, Boyd, like many farmers, “[relies] on loans to plant for the upcoming season, with the hope that the harvest will pay it off and bring home some profit.”

Boyd noted a glaring challenge with receiving loans.

READ MORE: Social Security head: I’m 'receiving decisions' from DOGE 'outsiders' that 'are made without my input'

“They want you to show them on paper how you're good for that operating loan and how you're going to pay it back,” he said. “I can't pay it back with $8 beans and $6 beans and $3 corn.”

Prokupecz also met with Kim Barnes, CFO of the Pawnee County Cooperative Association, who manages grain elevators in Kansas “where farmers will bring their grain that they've harvested.”

“All these bins are full and they're full of milo,” Barnes said. “That's $5 million worth of grain … but we don't have any market for it. There's nobody wanting to buy it.”

“Five months ago, Barnes says USAID bought over 200 million metric tons of milo from American farmers,” Prokupecz explained. “Today, with no market for that grain, he's desperate. One potential lifeline is a proposal in Washington for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to continue the USAID food distribution program.”

READ MORE: 'Make the VA fail': DOGE puts PTSD research and veterans’ cancer care on the chopping block

Barnes however isn’t optimistic.

“Yeah, I have four children and I know that my kids have watched me scuffle, you know, throughout my career, and they're not going to want to do this if this administration continues to make it more difficult than it is,” he said.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Republicans are lying': Top Dem says government report confirms fears about Medicaid cuts

Now that Elon Musk, the engineer behind DOGE, has executed over 30,000 government layoffs, firings and/or buyouts, he’s set his sights on the Federal Aviation Administration — and wants to offer "his own SpaceX technology as the future of flight-safety," Bloomberg reports.

There are a multitude of questions unanswered about Musk's directive, most notable that the FAA signed a 15-year contract with Verizon to essentially do the same thing Space X is proposing.

"Two weeks ago, SpaceX engineer Ted Malaska showed up at the Federal Aviation Administration’s headquarters in Washington to deliver what he described as a directive from his boss Elon Musk: The agency will immediately start work on a program to deploy thousands of the company’s Starlink satellite terminals to support the national airspace system," Blomberg reports.

Vice News Deputy DC Bureau Chief Todd Zwillich called Musk's effort “open corruption."

Critics, such as the former head of the agency, Michael Whitaker, have been swift in condemning the move, and it’s not a secret that Musk himself has had the FAA on his target list.

Bloomberg reports:

Views inside the FAA on Musk’s arrival are mixed. Some FAA officials and air traffic controllers present at the Starlink meetings privately bristled at the idea of the agency working with Musk’s company while also regulating SpaceX. Others raised concerns that the rush to deploy Starlink terminals could come at the cost of safety and could leave the system vulnerable to cyberattacks, according to three people familiar with the matter.

“You have to be slow and careful to make sure you are not introducing new risk into the system,” Katie Thomson, former deputy administrator for the FAA told Bloomberg. “You don’t just flip a switch and say, ‘go full speed.’”

Tuesday, the 25 percent tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico went into effect. However, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday hinted there is likely to be exceptions. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, a compromise may be looming.

"My thinking is it's going to be somewhere in the middle," Lutnick said on Bloomberg TV. "So not 100 percent of all products and not none."

As noted by AP however, Canada has been firm in its position on tariffs.

READ MORE: 'Massive personnel cuts': MAGA threatens to topple Social Security

“We’re not interested in meeting in the middle and having some reduced tariff," Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "Canada wants the tariffs removed."

Both Mexico and Canada have already quickly taken retaliatory measures that could change Trump's assessment on tariffs come April 2.,

"The ability to grant exceptions gives Trump massive personal and political leverage over business," Atlantic reporter Jonathan Chait wrote Wednesday. "It's the most important part of the exercise."

READ MORE: Ex-Treasury official warns Trump’s tariffs will make consumer confidence even worse