Donald Trump Says He’ll Look Into Pardoning Tiger King Star Joe Exotic

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you’re probably familiar with Netflix original docuseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness. If you’re not, though, it tells the story of the eccentric, big cat-loving Joe Exotic, his beloved zoo and his bitted feud with animal activist Carol Baskin. It’s seven hours or so of bizarre, strange and stunning real-life events well worth watching. Especially given that everyone’s locked at home right now.

And it seems folks are really enjoying it, as we learned earlier today that Tiger King had 34.3 million viewers during its first week on Netflix, which makes it one of the streaming platform’s most-watched original shows ever. Impressive, right?

But with Mr. Exotic still behind bars, the attention has now turned towards possibly freeing him, with tons of fans calling on President Trump to look into his case and maybe even given him a pardon. And as it turns out, the Commander-in-Chief isn’t totally opposed to it.

During a government briefing earlier today, the President was asked about the smash hit Netflix series and much to the surprise of everyone, said he’d look into Joe’s situation and see if he deserves to be pardoned or not. Of course, that doesn’t mean anything will happen, but the fact that he’s at least open to it is an encouraging sign.

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

Unfortunately, even if Exotic does get pardoned, it’d probably be a while before it happened. But for now, fans can rest easy that more of Tiger King is on the way, and soon.

For one, we’ve got an additional episode of the show headed to Netflix this week, while Rob Lowe has revealed that he and American Horror Story executive producer Ryan Murphy are working on an adaptation of the crazy events seen in the docuseries. And that’s not all, as SNL’s Kate McKinnon is set to play Joe’s rival, Carol Baskin, in a limited series. Suffice it to say, there’s much to look forward to for fans and with any luck, Exotic will get that pardon that so many feel he deserves.