Free Republic

The editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland told readers that critical coverage of Donald Trump was necessary despite their objections. “The north star here is truth,” Chris Quinn wrote in a letter from the editor on Saturday. “We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.” “The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency,” he continued. “He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse. This is...

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) begins Wednesday, attracting conservatives at home and abroad, but the anti-Trumpers want everyone to know they are holding a counter-summit, which they claim is about “rebuilding principled leadership,” but is openly “anti-Trump.” (snip) But the Never Trumpers said they are holding a counter-event, called the Principles First Summit, which they claim will gather hundreds of “pro-democracy, anti-Trump conservatives and centrists,” starting Friday.Some of the anti-Trump figures highlighted for the counter-summit include George Conway, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Bill Kristol, failed Trump challenger Asa Hutchinson, and former Rep....

Right after Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman got a phone call. Whitman, a Republican, had endorsed Biden in the race against then-President Donald Trump. Now, the caller said, Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris wanted her cell number. No one ever called. Whitman was part of a cohort of prominent Republicans who broke with the party in 2020. Fed up with Trump, they gravitated to Biden’s campaign thinking he would be a unifying figure. Former Rep. Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, endorsed Biden in 2020 but says he is now...

Former Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that “normal people” who are “traditional Republicans” will never vote for former President Donald Trump after his indictment. Mitchell asked, “You were a governor, congressman, you know this whole landscape. How long is this going to last? What if there’s indictment on indictment? Does he build on the victimization? Does it help him with primary voters?” Kasich said, “I think in this case, there are a lot of Republicans that say, is this really a legitimate and fair charge? Frankly, no one is above the law, but it...

Ohio state Sen. Matt Dolan - the moderate Republican who lost to Trump-backed J.D. Vance in a primary - is now setting his sights on Democrat Sherrod Brown's U.S. Senate seat in 2024. 'I am unapologetically committed to putting the needs of Ohio first and delivering results as our next U.S. Senator,' Dolan said in a statement. 'With the courage of my convictions, clarity of purpose and a resolute focus on the challenges and opportunities facing our beloved state, I am ready to lead.'

Former Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) predicted Monday on CNN’s “Don Lemon Tonight” that former President Donald Trump was going down. He added that a 2024 presidential run announcement will help Democrats.Anchor Don Lemon said, “Let me ask you about the January 6 committee that will be wrapping up its current hearing, scheduled on Thursday. What do you think is going to come out of this hearing?”Kasich said, “I said a week ago that the Trump supporters, many of them, have become mushy. They aren’t defending him anymore. I think that the fact of the matter is he is like a...

Former Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) said Friday on CNN’s “Situation Room” that the hearings by the House Select Committee investigating January 6, 2021 are causing former President Donald Trump to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. Discussing Trump, anchor Wolf Blitzer asked, “Does this feel from your perspective like a potential turning point for some Republicans?”

President Joe Biden considered a Republican running mate for 2020 in secret conversations with a top donor, DailyMail.com can reveal. Walmart board chairman Greg Penner, who has donated over $640,000 to political campaigns since 1999, had back-channel talks with Hunter Biden in 2018 and 2019 to set up Joe with Republican former Ohio governor John Kasich for a bipartisan presidential ticket. The plot, revealed in text messages, emails, and a phone call recording on Hunter's abandoned laptop, gives an insight into political strategies the president considered in an attempt to win the White House.

Republicans running for the seat of Ohio’s retiring senator, Rob Portman, appear determined to bury the soft-spoken country-club bonhomie that was once a hallmark of the party in this state, and replace it with the pugilistic brand of conservatism owned by Donald J. Trump and now amplified by the new band of Buckeye bomb throwers. The race descended into a brutal slugfest as the leading candidates, the author-turned-venture capitalist J.D. Vance, the former state treasurer Josh Mandel and a self-funded businessman, Mike Gibbons, entered the final weekend before Tuesday’s primaries accusing one another of being insufficiently right-wing or disloyal to...

With the Trump family squarely in the camp of J.D. Vance, running for U.S. Senate in Ohio, Donald Trump Jr. shared a video of Vance’s main opponent lying about his involvement with “establishment Republicans.” “Ohio friends – Meet the real @JoshMandelOhio. The Club for Chinese Growth backed establishment candidate in the #OHSen race,” Trump Jr. said in a Tweet, sharing the video. In the video, Mandel is first depicted describing himself as something of a political outsider, claiming that he is standing up to the “squishy establishment” GOP. He mentions Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) as one of those “squishy” Republicans....

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he went behind a building and cried after losing the 2016 GOP presidential primary to former President Donald Trump. Kasich made the embarrassing admission on Thursday’s episode of the “​​Kasich & Klepper” podcast. The former governor said that he had stayed in the race until the bitter end because he believed people “were gonna come to their senses.” “Well, you know, I was [in the presidential race] til the bitter end. When it was over — I haven’t ever told anyone this — I was on a plane and we were going to do...

After hanging on until the "bitter end," John Kasich cried when he ended his failed presidential bid, the former governor said in a new podcast.Kasich shared insights about the end of his 2016 campaign against former President Donald Trump during a Thursday episode of Kasich & Klepper, a podcast he launched this year with comedian Jordan Klepper. The show aims to bring together people with different views to discuss politics, pop culture and more.Kasich dropped out of the GOP presidential primary in May 2016 when it became clear Trump would secure the nomination, although he had long been mathematically eliminated...

Trump Wins CPAC 2024 Straw Poll By 49 Points, DeSantis Second At 21%, Mike Pence Gets 0%Mike Pence and Greg Abbott got 0% of the vote.45th President Donald Trump easily won the CPAC straw poll asking attendees who they would prefer to win the 2024 Republican nomination for President with 70% of the vote. The only other potential candidate coming close to being competitive is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with 21% of the vote. The overwhelming number of potential 2024 opponents received 0% of the vote.Voters were asked “Thinking ahead, if the 2024 Republican Primary for President in your state...

Fresh polling from Fox News confirms an emerging trend: While his GOP rivals poll competitively or ahead of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump consistently trails her by a substantial margin. The new national survey shows Ohio Governor John Kasich -- who has no mathematical path to the nomination -- leading Clinton by a whopping 11 points (51/40), with Texas Senator Ted Cruz edging the former Secretary of State by three points (47/44). By contrast, controversial real estate tycoon Donald Trump trails Clinton by 11 points (38/49). Roughly half of registered voters say they'd be "scared" Trump wins the...

The top two Republicans in the House are behind Rep. Elise Stefanik's efforts to replace Rep. Liz Cheney as Republican conference chair as the party continues to grapple over former President Trump's future role, according to a report. Fox News confirmed Tuesday that Stefanik, R-N.Y., is making calls to members to build support for a potential challenge to Cheney. A senior GOP leadership source told Fox News earlier this week a vote to remove Cheney is "more than likely." House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., spokesperson Lauren Fine told Fox News Wednesday that "House Republicans need to be solely focused...

The Lincoln Project is falling apart. ---------- A second founder of the Lincoln Project, New Hampshire political consultant Jennifer Horn, announced that she would be leaving the organization following the exposé of a pedophile scandal implicating the group’s founder, John Weaver. “John Weaver’s grotesque and inappropriate behavior, coupled with his longstanding deceptions concerning that behavior, are sickening,” Horn said in a statement provided to the New York Times. “It is clear at this point that my views about how the Lincoln Project’s efforts are managed, and the best way to move the Lincoln Project forward into the future in the...

Former Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) said Wednesday on CNN’s “Situation Room” that the Republican Party will die if it continues to be the party of Donald Trump. While discussing if House Republicans are going to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from her committee appointments, Kasich said, “I was the chairman of the committee that balanced the federal budget. I was the one that was able to do reform inside the federal government. I did so many things down there that were conservative. And now these guys are off on some — I don’t even know where they are —...

John Weaver, a longtime G.O.P. operative who advised John McCain and John Kasich, made sexual overtures to young men, sometimes offering to help them get work in politics.John Weaver, a longtime Republican strategist and co-founder of the prominent anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project, has for years sent unsolicited and sexually provocative messages online to young men, often while suggesting he could help them get work in politics, according to interviews with 21 men who received them. His solicitations included sending messages to a 14-year-old, asking questions about his body while he was still in high school and then more pointed...

John Weaver, a veteran Republican operative who co-founded the Lincoln Project, declared in a statement to Axios on Friday that he sent “inappropriate,” sexually charged messages to multiple men. “To the men I made uncomfortable through my messages that I viewed as consensual mutual conversations at the time: I am truly sorry. They were inappropriate and it was because of my failings that this discomfort was brought on you,” Weaver said. “The truth is that I'm gay,” he added. “And that I have a wife and two kids who I love. My inability to reconcile those two truths has led...

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Wednesday on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the 17 state attorneys general who supported his lawsuit to contest the presidential election results of four battleground states were “morally and ethically bankrupt.”