Free Republic

“Trump needs you,” one fundraising email implored. “President Trump’s Legacy is in your hands,” another pleaded. Others advertised “Miss Me Yet?” T-shirts featuring Donald Trump’s smiling face. While some Republicans grapple with how fiercely to embrace the former president, the organizations charged with raising money for the party are going all in. The Republican National Committee and the party’s congressional campaign arms are eager to cash in on Trump’s lure with small donors ahead of next year’s midterm elections, when the GOP hopes to regain control of at least one chamber of Congress. But there’s a problem: Trump himself. In...

Taking the stage for the first time since leaving office, former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for GOP unity, even as he exacerbated intraparty divisions by attacking fellow Republicans and promoting lies about the election in a speech that made clear he intends to remain a dominant political force. Speaking at CPAC, where he has been hailed as a returning hero, Trump blasted his successor, President Biden, and tried to lay out a vision for the future of the GOP that revolves firmly around him, despite his loss in November. “Do you miss me yet?” Trump said after taking...

<p>WASHINGTON - A gathering of conservatives this weekend in Florida will serve as an unabashed endorsement of former President Donald Trump’s desire to remain the leader of the Republican Party — and as a forum to fan his false claim that he lost the November election only because of widespread voter fraud.</p>

WASHINGTON - The video message that plunged Washington into chaos was filmed in secret. President Donald Trump stood in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room, holiday garland and gleaming ornaments draped on the fireplace behind him, and spoke into the camera not to deliver warm Christmas wishes, but to threaten to detonate Congress’ $900 billion COVID-19 relief and year-end package. The video was released without warning Tuesday night, its recording orchestrated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and kept from all but a handful of aides. Few Republicans or even White House staffers knew Wednesday what Trump planned...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will leave the White House if the Electoral College formalizes President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory — even as he insisted such a decision would be a “mistake” — as he spent his Thanksgiving renewing baseless claims that “massive fraud” and crooked officials in battleground states caused his election defeat. “Certainly I will. But you know that,” Trump said Thursday when asked whether he would vacate the building, allowing a peaceful transition of power in January. But Trump — taking questions for the first time since Election Day — insisted that “a...

JANESVILLE, Wisconsin - President Donald Trump leaned into fear tactics Saturday as he accused the left of trying to “destroy the American way of life” in a late reelection pitch to voters in Michigan and Wisconsin - two Midwestern states that were instrumental to his 2016 victory but may now be slipping from his grasp. In back-to-back rallies, Trump accused the left of wanting to “erase American history” and “purge American values.” He claimed, with no basis, that Democratic rival Joe Biden would put communities at risk. Trump offered the dark message as he faces headwinds not only in national...

It is a basic, crucial question and one the White House refuses to answer: When was President Donald Trump’s last negative test for the coronavirus before he tested positive last week? “Yeah, I’m not going to give you a detailed readout with timestamps every time the president’s tested,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters last weekend. “I can’t reveal that at this time,” echoed Alyssa Farah, the White House director of strategic communications. “Doctors would like to keep it private.” “I don’t want to go backwards,” said Dr. Sean Conley, the president’s physician. The answer could help fill...

The White House said Friday that President Donald Trump was suffering “mild symptoms” of COVID-19, adding that he was in good spirits and working in the family quarters though the announcement of his illness threw the country deeper into uncertainty just a month before the presidential election. The revelation came in a Trump tweet about 1 a.m. after he had returned from an afternoon political fundraiser without telling the crowd he had been exposed to an aide with the disease that has killed more than 205,000 Americans and more than a million people worldwide. First lady Melania Trump also tested...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, amid fury over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in the back, which left the 29-year-old Black man paralyzed. White House spokesman Judd Deere told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday that Trump will be meeting with law enforcement officers and “surveying” some of the damage from recent protests that turned destructive. The visit is certain to exacerbate tensions in the city, where a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside a courthouse Saturday to denounce police violence. Trump has been running his reelection campaign on...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, amid fury over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in the back, which left the 29-year-old Black man paralyzed. White House spokesman Judd Deere told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday that Trump will be meeting with law enforcement officers and “surveying” some of the damage from recent protests that turned destructive. The visit is certain to exacerbate tensions in the city, where a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside a courthouse Saturday to denounce police violence.

One by one, they passed through the grand Capitol Rotunda to pay respects to the civil rights icon. It was a solemn display of unity as congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle offered praise for longtime Georgia Rep. John Lewis. There was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called Lewis the “conscience of the Congress”; and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who praised him as a model of courage. Vice President Mike Pence and former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, came as well. But missing was a man whose absence spoke volumes: President Donald Trump. “No,...

WASHINGTON - He called on the country to come together. He warned of pain to come. And he deferred to the nation’s public health experts while at least momentarily putting aside petty squabbling. After weeks of trying to play down the risk posed by the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump struck a new, more urgent tone on Monday as he delivered a sobering message to Americans grappling with a new reality that will dramatically alter their lives for months to come. Trump’s more somber tone came as he addressed the public at a White House briefing and made a direct...

WASHINGTON - It’s a “foreign” virus, he says — one that can be fought by closing the nation’s borders to dangerous foreigners carrying scary disease. President Donald Trump has turned to a familiar playbook as he tries to grapple with the spiraling coronavirus outbreak, blaming immigrants for the country’s problems and casting the global health pandemic as another case of the U.S. against the world. It’s an approach that public health officials say ignores the new reality of a situation that is fueling panic and confusion and fundamentally altering the American way of life. But it’s business as usual for...

New Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is returning to the White House for a televised appearance Monday with President Donald Trump less than a month before pivotal congressional elections. Kavanaugh will take part in an entirely ceremonial swearing-in two days after he officially became a member of the high court and following a bitter partisan fight over his nomination. The event is unusual for new justices. Only Samuel Alito and Stephen Breyer participated in a White House event after they had been sworn-in and begun work as a justice, according to the court's records on oath-taking by the current crop...

The speech was written. A cast of relatable Americans with emotional stories was standing by to reinforce the message. But President Donald Trump was in no mood to play along. “The hell with it,” Trump said, recounting the scene with his aides to a West Virginia crowd last week, Trump tossed the staff-prepared remarks on tax cuts in the air and ducked as the paper fluttered to the floor. “I said, ‘This is boring, come on.’ Tell it like it is.” This president has never been one to stick to a script, but that abandoned speech illustrates a new phase...

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) – Hispanic voters in Florida, New Mexico and California have waved Mexican flags and bashed Donald Trump piñatas — clashing with police, at times — to protest the Republican presidential contender's hard line approach to immigration. Yet far from the protests, an increasingly vocal Hispanic minority is speaking out in favor of the brash billionaire. They are backing Trump even in the face of resentment and suspicion from friends and family, who are among the overwhelming majority of non-white voters opposed to the New York businessman's candidacy. "I'm not ashamed to vote for Trump. I'd just rather...

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- Hispanic voters in Florida, New Mexico and California have waved Mexican flags and bashed Donald Trump piñatas - clashing with police, at times - to protest the Republican presidential contender's hard line approach to immigration. Yet far from the protests, an increasingly vocal Hispanic minority is speaking out in favor of the brash billionaire. They are backing Trump even in the face of resentment and suspicion from friends and family, who are among the overwhelming majority of non-white voters opposed to the New York businessman's candidacy...

As his top aides spent the week gingerly courting Republican insiders at a seaside resort in Florida, Donald Trump was busy railing against them. "The system is all rigged," Trump told supporters at a rally Friday at the Delaware State Fairgrounds ahead of the GOP primary. "That's why we have to win big. That's why on Tuesday, everyone has to go out and vote. We have to win big because the system is rigged."

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is blasting the way the country chooses presidential party nominees as “corrupt” and “crooked” as he grapples with the potential of a brokered convention that he risks losing. Speaking to thousands packed in a frigid airport hangar in western New York on Sunday, Trump ripped the byzantine fight over delegates at the heart of his party’s nominating process. He argued anew that the person who wins the most votes in the primary process should automatically be the GOP nominee. “What they’re trying to do is subvert the movement with crooked shenanigans,” said Trump, comparing his...

"It's really about asking them whether they're going to get out and vote on Tuesday and whether they support Mr. Trump," McGough said. He said he had made 1,150 calls for Trump on Wednesday alone. Kevin Bray, 51, another volunteer, said he had driven more than 20 hours in the rain from Nixa, Missouri, after seeing the results in Iowa. "Iowa happened and I woke up really irritated," he said. "I said, you know, I want to make a difference." He said he arrived on Wednesday morning and told Trump's team to put him to work. In a back room...