Free Republic

Republican Senate allies of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently refused to say if they would support former President Donald Trump if a Manhattan jury convicts him. Trump faces 34 charges of improper business record entries. He could see jail time. CNN’s Manu Raju asked establishment Republican senators if they would support Trump after a potential conviction. Sen. John Thune (R-SD), who wants to replace the outgoing McConnell as minority leader, said it depends but gave no guarantee. “We’ll see how the trial comes out. I’m not weighing in on that,” he said. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who recently tried to...

Former President Donald Trump has laid out the most concrete timeline yet for when he might select his running mate for the 2024 Republican ticket. “I’ll be picking, but probably not too much before the convention, which I happen to be having in the great state of Wisconsin,” the presumptive GOP nominee told FOX 6 Milwaukee during a campaign visit to the battleground state Wednesday. The Republican National Convention will be held in Milwaukee July 15-18. Traditionally, the vice presidential nominee will address the delegates on the penultimate night of the gathering. A source familiar with the conversation previously told...

On April 13, 2024, Iran executed a large air strike against Israel. What unfolded next was a bizarre series of claims and statements with worldwide implications---and the distinct possibility that Iran intentionally set up the strikes to fail. This video covers what happened, what's next, and what viewers wanted to know about the topic. 0:00 Intrigue among Israel, Iran, and Russia 1:00 Background of the Attack 2:18 The Attack: What Happened? 4:52 Is this the End? 7:57 Russia's Awkward Geopolitical Position 10:36 Ukraine and Missile Defense 12:19 Will this Change Things in Gaza? 13:12 Where Are the Lines on Maps?...

Australia is preparing for war in order to avoid it. Their historic new increase in defense spending and China’s dependence on them for iron ore make them an important ally. Australia’s defense funding for 2024 will be $35 billion USD, just over 2% of their GDP, and up from $20 billion in 2021. They’ve signed a new trilateral security agreement with the United States and United Kingdom that will give the Australian Navy a new weapon that only 6 other nations in the entire world have. Major upgrades are being made to their northern army, air and naval bases. But...

You are “killing people,” President Biden told social media companies a couple of years ago. He sought to shame executives into censoring more Americans. Biden has lashed out at disinformation by anti-vaxxers, “election deniers” and others. This month, those words were thrown back at Biden himself as a “genocide denier” by protesters who have labeled him “Genocide Joe” over his support for Israel. After years of supporting censorship and blacklisting of people with opposing views, politicians and academics are finding themselves the subjects of the very anti-free speech tactics that they helped foster.

Former President Donald Trump has been asking allies and advisers for their thoughts about Nikki Haley as a potential vice presidential candidate, two sources familiar with the conversations tell CBS News. The feedback from the MAGA crowd regarding putting Haley on the ticket if Trump wins the GOP nomination has been overwhelmingly negative, according to these GOP sources. Politico first reported that Trump allies are working to quash the possibility of a Trump-Haley ticket.

NATO reaffirms its long-term support for Ukraine and says its members all agree the nation will join the alliance, but not while the war is ongoing, and not before it has reformed. The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg again spoke of NATO membership for Ukraine as a definite matter — despite previous dissent from within the alliance — as he spoke of a forthcoming meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council this week. “Allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of NATO”, Stoltenberg said as he said discussions this week would focus on “priority reforms”...

Allies of President Biden are stepping up calls for Democrats to rally around the president, following negative commentary and splits from inside the party over whether he should forgo reelection. Former President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod has been the most notable Democrat to cause a ruckus when he suggested earlier this month that Biden step aside and further advised that the president has a “50-50 shot” of winning in 2024.

Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations. In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his...

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is encouraging U.S. allies to “dig deep” and provide more air defense systems for Ukraine, saying that the munitions could be critical to stop Russian missile barrages. “Air defense is saving lives,” Austin said at a meeting of NATO and allied military leaders in Germany. “So I urge this group to continue to dig deep on ground-based air defense for Ukraine. We must continue to push hard to provide Ukraine with air-defense systems and interceptors.” Tuesday marked the 15th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, made up of military leaders from more than 50 nations...

Ukraine has summoned the Polish ambassador over “unacceptable” comments made about Kyiv’s gratitude — or rather, a perceived lack thereof — for the considerable military and fiscal support given to the nation to help it fight Russia. The Polish President’s international policy chief Marcin Przydacz said Monday that: “Ukraine has really received a lot of support from Poland. I think it would be worth them starting to appreciate the role that Poland has played for Ukraine in recent months and years.” According to a report in Wprost magazine, when pressed he doubled down on the point, saying in Warsaw: “…we...

French President Emmanuel Macron favors “shifting the center of European gravity towards China,” according to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. “I do not quite understand the concept of strategic autonomy if it means de facto shooting into our own knee,” Morawiecki said Thursday. “European autonomy sounds fancy, doesn't it? But it means shifting the center of European gravity towards China and severing the ties with [the] U.S.” Morawiecki did not identify Macron by name, but the reference to the French leader’s signature “strategic autonomy” concept made the rebuke unmistakable. And it punctuated a wider denunciation of traditional powers of Western...

One per cent of Western Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a worthy sacrifice to defeat Russia and is dwarfed by what America spent to beat Nazi Germany, says a Ukraine spokesman. Ukraine very much appreciates the near-$37 billion the United States is already giving in military aid but more — much more, in fact — is needed, a Ukrainian diplomat now working as a full-time procurer of military equipment has said. Andrij Melnyk, who is becoming well known beyond the borders of Ukraine for his persistent campaigning to push the envelope on military donations to Ukraine and being one of...

Secret Service Director Randolph Alles has reportedly been fired by President Trump after a Chinese woman carrying malware and hard drives made her way into Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago. BREAKING: White House says Secret Service Director Randolph Alles to leave post shortly pic.twitter.com/02EAOJZBGu— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) April 8, 2019 More on the breach from CBS Miami:  A Chinese woman accused of illegally entering President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club with a flash drive containing malware, also had numerous electronic devices and thousands in cash stashed in her hotel room. That from federal prosecutors Monday at Yujing Zhang’s detention hearing in...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused the West of sabotaging Russia-built natural gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea to Germany, a charge vehemently denied by the United States and its allies. Nordic nations said the undersea blasts that damaged the pipelines this week and have led to huge methane leaks involved several hundred pounds of explosives. The U.S.-Russia clashes continued later at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York called by Russia on the attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, and as Norwegian researchers published a map projecting...

New footage shows a forensics team working for allies of former President Trump spent hours handling voting equipment in a Georgia county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, two months after the 2020 presidential election and the day after riots at the U.S. Capitol over the results. According to reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times, the videos show the Trump contractors copying data from voting machines in rural Coffee County, Georgia, as they handled poll pads with sensitive voter data.

Tucker Carlson and Lisa Gallagher. (Credit: Columbia Bugle)We’ve been reporting on the efforts of the federal law enforcement bureaucracy to harass and target Trump allies with reported FBI raids on the homes of supporters to execute search warrants, and the DOJ dropping subpoenas on people.Now one New Jersey woman, Lisa Gallagher, has come forward saying that the FBI showed up on her doorstep the morning after Joe Biden delivered his “anti-MAGA” speech. Gallagher is not a “Trump ally” — she’s just a regular person and Trump supporter. She appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Monday to share the story.Tucker...

Steve Bannon was indicted on Thursday in relation to charges concerning the “We Build the Wall” effort by the New York Attorney General’s office.But Bannon appeared on the Charlie Kirk show on Friday and he made some concerning remarks about efforts by the Biden FBI against Trump allies. Bannon said that we saw from Biden’s “demonic” anti-MAGA speech that this was the “primal scream” of a “dying regime.” Bannon claimed there were “35 FBI raids” on senior MAGA/Trump allies.BREAKING: Steve Bannon drops BOMBSHELL revealing 35 senior Trump allies were raided by Regime FBI yesterdaypic.twitter.com/BEHPlUBmue— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 9, 2022Bannon...

Mary Trump predicted Saturday on MSNBC’s “The Katie Phang Show” that her uncle, former President Donald Trump, will call for political violence as his allies turn on him. Trump said, “It is quite something to see the consistency with this man unraveling as the pressure builds. It was inevitable because it is not a mistake that the worst things get for him. The worst things are lashing out for him. We are now talk about the fact that this guy is embracing the far-right extremists. He knows that he is losing allies, and so he’s doubling down on the worst...

This week on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” former Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen weighed in on former Vice President Mike Pence considering meeting with the January 6 committee amid its ongoing investigation into former President Donald Trump. Cohen predicted that all of Trump’s allies from his time in the White House would flip on the former president because “none of them want to go to prison.”