President Donald Trump, in a Tuesday night tweet, called the $900 billion Covid relief bill passed by Congress an unsuitable "disgrace" and urged lawmakers to make a number of changes to the measure, including bigger direct payments to individuals and families.

The president’s tweet, which included a video of him discussing what he considers the bill’s many flaws, came less than 24 hours after the Senate passed the measure.

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In a pre-Christmas round of pardons, President Trump granted clemency on Tuesday to two people convicted in the special counsel’s Russia inquiry, four Blackwater guards convicted in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians, and three former Republican members of Congress convicted of corruption.

Among those pardoned was George Papadopoulos, who was a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and pleaded guilty in 2017 to making false statements to federal officials as part of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

Also pardoned was Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who pleaded guilty to the same charge in 2018 in connection with the special counsel’s inquiry. Both men served short prison sentences.

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