Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The video shared by former President Donald Trump features horror movie music and footage of migrants purportedly entering the U.S. from countries including Cameroon, Afghanistan and China. Shots of men with tattoos and videos of violent crime are set against close-ups of people waving and wrapping themselves in American flags. “They’re coming by the thousands,” Trump says in the video, posted on his social media site. “We will secure our borders. And we will restore sovereignty.” In his speeches and online posts, Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric as he seeks the White House a third time,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Joe Biden visited five cities in a multiday trip last week, former President Donald Trump was hardly seen in public, spending most of his time in South Florida. Trump has held just a single public campaign event since he locked up the Republican presidential nomination on March 12: a rally in Ohio funded not by his campaign but by backers of a Senate candidate whom he had endorsed. The events page on his campaign website has had nothing listed. Biden, meanwhile, has been barnstorming the country. After a trip to North Carolina on Tuesday, the...

As Donald Trump was being arraigned in Washington on yet another round of criminal charges, his running mate-turned-rival Mike Pence hurried to capitalize on the news. Pence’s campaign unveiled new T-shirts and baseball caps for sale featuring the phrase “Too Honest” in big red letters — a reference to an episode in the indictment in which the former president called Pence to berate him over his refusal to go along with Trump’s scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “You’re too honest,” Trump allegedly scoffed at his second-in-command on New Year’s Day. Pence’s decision to seize on the...

Last Tuesday, President Trump had lunch with hip-hop mogul Kanye West. That might have produced headlines on its own, but it wasn’t enough. West brought along with him alleged white supremacist and anti-Semite Nick Fuentes and now-I’m-gay-now-I’m-not provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Former Trump campaign staffer Karen Giorno provided the transportation.

WARREN, Mich. – Paige Cole is one of the “Anons.” The mother of three from Eastpointe, Michigan, says Joe Biden is a sham president and believes Donald Trump will soon be reinstated to the White House to finish the remainder of Biden’s term. “His whole inauguration was fake. He didn’t have real military people. He had, like, fake badges, fake people. And Trump is actually our president,” she said while waiting in line for his latest rally on Saturday at Macomb Community College. Wearing a pink “Trump 2024” hat and draped in a large “TRUMP WON” flag, Cole — a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Tuesday it had uncovered efforts to obstruct its investigation into the discovery of classified documents at Donald Trump’s Florida estate, saying “government records were likely concealed and removed” from a storage room even after the former president’s representatives had assured officials that they’d thoroughly searched the property. The FBI also seized 33 boxes containing more than 100 classified records during its Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and found three classified documents stashed in office drawers, according to a filing that lays out the most detailed chronology to date of stained interactions between Justice...

ATLANTA — Prosecutors in Atlanta on Monday told lawyers for Rudy Giuliani that he’s a target of their criminal investigation into possible illegal attempts by then-President Donald Trump and others to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia, one of Giuliani’s lawyers said Monday. Special prosecutor Nathan Wade alerted Giuliani’s local attorney in Atlanta that the former New York City mayor could face criminal charges, another Giuliani attorney, Bob Costello said. News of the disclosure was first reported by The New York Times. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the investigation last year, and a special grand jury...

After Donald Trump was caught on video bragging about sexually assaulting women, Mike Pence stayed on his ticket. As the coronavirus ravaged the U.S., the then-vice president praised the administration’s response. And after a violent mob threatened his life during an attack on the U.S. Capitol, Pence rejected entreaties to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. But after years of being a subservient sidekick, Pence is beginning to distance himself from Trump as he takes increasingly overt steps toward a White House bid of his own. Last month, Pence called out Trump by name, saying his former...

WASHINGTON (AP) — From the earliest days of his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump aggressively challenged the pillars of Republican foreign policy that defined the party since World War II.He mocked John McCain's capture during the Vietnam War, validated autocrats with his platitudes, questioned longtime military and security alliances and embraced an isolationist worldview. And to the horror of many GOP leaders at the time, it worked, resonating with voters who believed, in part, that a bipartisan establishment in Washington had brokered trade deals that hurt American workers and recklessly stumbled into so-called “forever wars.”But Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine...

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Mike Pence urged Republicans to move on from the 2020 election and declared that "there is no room in this party for apologists for Putin" as he further cemented his break from former President Donald Trump.

WASHINGTON (AP) — From the earliest days of his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump aggressively challenged the pillars of Republican foreign policy that defined the party since World War II. He mocked John McCain's capture during the Vietnam War, validated autocrats with his platitudes, questioned longtime military and security alliances and embraced an isolationist worldview. And to the horror of many GOP leaders at the time, it worked, resonating with voters who believed, in part, that a bipartisan establishment in Washington had brokered trade deals that hurt American workers and recklessly stumbled into so-called “forever wars.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday directly rebutted Donald Trump’s false claims that he somehow could have overturned the results of the 2020 election, saying that the former president was simply “wrong.” In a speech to a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society in Florida, Pence addressed Trump’s intensifying efforts this week to advance the false narrative that, as vice president, he had the unilateral power to prevent President Joe Biden from taking office. “President Trump is wrong,” Pence said. “I had no right to overturn the election.” In a statement Tuesday, Trump said the committee investigating the deadly...

Former President Donald Trump is stepping up his election-year effort to dominate the Republican Party with a Saturday rally in Arizona in which he plans to castigate anyone who dares to question his lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, likely including the state’s GOP governor, Doug Ducey. But 2,000 miles to the east in Washington, there are small signs that some Republicans are tiring of the charade. Mike Rounds, the generally unassuming senator from South Dakota, was perhaps the boldest in acknowledging the reality that the election was in fact fair. Instead of being shunned, he was supported...

NEW YORK (AP) — Chris Christie is everywhere. The former New Jersey governor and onetime Republican presidential candidate denounced “conspiracy theorists” during a September appearance at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. He followed up with a speech this month to influential Republicans in Las Vegas, warning that the party will only succeed if it offers a “plan for tomorrow, not a grievance about yesterday.”

Stephanie Grisham, White House press secretary to first lady Melania Trump, is out with a book that paints a deeply unflattering picture of Donald Trump — a man with a “terrifying” temper who ogled a young aide and tried to impress dictators while president, she writes. Grisham describes Melania as a Marie Antoinette figure who refused to condemn the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as Trump's supporters stormed the building to halt certification of 2020 election results. Grisham writes she texted Melania Trump as the scene unfolded. “Do you want to tweet that peaceful protests are the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican politicians are under increasing pressure to speak out to persuade COVID-19 vaccine skeptics to roll up their sleeves and take the shots as a new, more contagious variant sends caseloads soaring. But after months of ignoring — and, in some cases, stoking — misinformation about the virus, experts warn it may be too late to change the minds of many who are refusing. In recent news conferences and statements, some prominent Republicans have been imploring their constituents to lay lingering doubts aside. In Washington, the so-called Doctors Caucus gathered at the Capitol for an event to...

NEW RICHMOND, Wisconsin - For a few hours last weekend, thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters came together in a field under the blazing Wisconsin sun to live in an alternate reality where the former president was still in office — or would soon return. Clad in red MAGA hats and holding “Trump 2021” signs, they cheered in approval as Mike Lindell, the My Pillow creator-turned-conspiracy peddler, introduced “our real president.” Then Trump appeared via Jumbotron to repeat the lie that has become his central talking point since losing to Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes: “The election was...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are accusing President Joe Biden of being weak on Russia after his summit with Vladimir Putin, conveniently ignoring four years of Putin flattery from former President Donald Trump. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Biden had given Putin a “pass” at their summit in Switzerland Wednesday, while Trump said the U.S. “didn’t get anything” from the meeting. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a potential 2024 contender, declared, “America today is weaker than it was on the world stage just 48 hours ago.” It’s a curious line of attack from a party that largely turned a...

WASHINGTON - Dr. Anthony Fauci has been a political lightning rod since the early days of the pandemic, lionized by the left as a beacon of truth in an administration that badly mismanaged the pandemic and villainized by the right as a misguided, spotlight-seeking bureaucrat seeking to undermine former President Donald Trump. But with the release of a trove of Fauci’s emails this week, Republicans’ attacks on the nation’s top government infectious-diseases expert have gone into overdrive. On conservative news channels, Fauci — who now serves as President Joe Biden’s pandemic adviser — has been pilloried as a liar who...

WASHINGTON (AP) — When former President Donald Trump was asked to list those he considers the future leaders of the Republican Party, he quickly rattled off names including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Conspicuously absent from the list: Mike Pence. The former vice president is steadily reentering public life as he eyes a potential run for the White House in 2024. He’s joining conservative organizations, writing op-eds, delivering speeches and launching an advocacy group that will focus on promoting the Trump administration’s accomplishments.