Rep.-elect Anthony Constantino (R-NY) vowed to look into the damage done to imprisoned music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs’ reputation as he stood by his call for President Donald Trump to pardon him and free him.
Constantino spoke with TMZ on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, a week after using his election-night victory speech to urge President Donald Trump to “consider freeing Diddy.”
“Well, I caught attention. I’m the most talked-about person entering Congress right now because of my speech and the things I said and, you know, I’m not scared to say things,” Constantino said after TMZ reporter Jacob Wasserman said he hadn’t heard anyone argue that Combs “needs to get out.”
By Constantino’s own account, asking Trump to free Combs is part of what drew that attention. The same speech was also marked by profanity and by Constantino kicking out journalists his own team had invited, CNY Central reported.
Constantino did not back off in the TMZ interview when Wasserman pressed him on the trial that sent Combs to prison.
A federal jury convicted Combs in July 2025 on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, a charge for moving people across state lines for paid sex. The jury acquitted him of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, and he was sentenced to 50 months in prison.
“I feel like, though, his [reputation has] kind of taken a knock a little bit,” Wasserman said.
“It’s what we’re looking at. We’re gonna look at it,” Constantino replied.
Rather than dispute that the case had hurt Combs’ reputation, Constantino promised to examine the damage.
He had taken just “a quick look” at the trial, Constantino told Wasserman.
“He’s gonna be out in two years. One way or another, he’s gonna be released in two years,” Constantino answered when Wasserman asked whether he still thought the case should be reevaluated.
Combs has asked Trump for a pardon. The president told The New York Times in January that the request came in a letter and that he had denied it.
In Constantino’s telling, New York has gone downhill without Combs, and his release would help bring back the excitement and jobs the mogul once drew.
“I said I wanna make New York exciting again, and he made New York exciting,” Constantino told TMZ of his speech.
“People came there to work with him. People came there to make it exciting. New York City in particular is going down the tubes. Upstate’s going down the tubes,” Constantino said when asked what bringing Combs back would accomplish.
“All the buildings are empty. I filled up eight buildings with machinery, with jobs. I like creating jobs. He was a job creator,” Constantino continued.
Constantino also blamed the city’s troubles on Democrats, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“New York City was doing pretty good, but instead of fixing Uganda, he wants to mess up New York City,” Constantino said of Mamdani, a naturalized U.S. citizen who has kept his Ugandan citizenship, according to TMZ.
“Instead, he goes over there and he throws parties with people that like killing gays,” Constantino added.
He did not say whom he meant.
During last year’s mayoral race, Mamdani faced criticism over a photo with Rebecca Kadaga, then Uganda’s first deputy prime minister, who supported the country’s 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act. Mamdani has said he did not know who she was when they were photographed and called her anti-gay push a “horrific attack on queer Ugandans.”