President Donald Trump's staggering comments, which he made during a wide-ranging, two-hour interview with The New York Times, sparked outrage on Thursday.
Trump sat for an interview with four Times reporters this week without any White House public relations professionals in the room with him. During the interview, Trump commented on the limits of his powers, which outraged some political analysts and observers.
When the Times asked if there are any limits to Trump's global powers, he said, "Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
Trump made the comments at a politically sensitive time for his administration. Members of Congress recently passed a bill that limits Trump's ability to invade Venezuela after the administration conducted a middle-of-the-night raid to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
The administration is also facing considerable pushback after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent named Jonathan Ross shot and killed a 37-year-old mother named Renee Good on Wednesday.
Analysts and observers reacted to the comments online.
"This is what dictators say," journalist Mehdi Hasan, founder of Zeteo News, posted on X.
"Yikes. He’s a man with no morals so we’re all in trouble," Savan Kotecha, a Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter, posted on X.
"He didn’t say 'Congress' or 'SCOTUS,' he thinks his authority is absolute," professor and investor Adam Cochran posted on X. "This alone is disqualifying for the President."