Free Republic

It’s not Ronald Reagan’s GOP anymore. The Republican Party’s shift from Russia hawk to something softer is straining the GOP at a crucial juncture, highlighting the ascendency of former President Trump’s “America First” approach and exasperating old-guard conservatives who long for a return to the assertive foreign policy championed by the party through generations prior. It’s created nothing short of an identity crisis for those Republicans who still identify with the party of former President Reagan, a Cold War president long lionized within the GOP ranks for his aggressive confrontations with the Soviet Union. “Ronald Reagan would not recognize today’s...

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee said Wednesday that the Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden has been demolished by new revelations that Russia might have played a role in drumming up false allegations about the president’s finances. “The impeachment investigation essentially ended yesterday, in substance if not in form, with the explosive revelation that Mr. Smirnov’s allegations about Ukrainian Burisma payments to Joe Biden were concocted along with Russian intelligence agents,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told reporters in Washington. Republicans have leaned heavily on the declarations of Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant who alleged that Biden...

Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas) on Tuesday revealed more details about the GOP effort to have him jump parties, saying a handful of Republicans — including a sitting member of Congress — were part of the pressure campaign to have him join the GOP following his easy victory in last week’s midterm elections. They did not offer him anything specific, such as a committee chairmanship, Cuellar said, but instead extended him an open-ended enticement. “They just said, ‘Name your price,'” Cuellar told reporters in the Capitol. His response was simple. “No, thank you,” he said. Cuellar is among the most...

Rep. G.K. Butterfield was proud to be in Congress. Some years ago, the veteran Democrat installed a vanity message on his congressional license plate, broadcasting the district he represents: North Carolina 1. In recent years, the number of menacing threats against sitting members of Congress has ballooned, forcing the Capitol Police to launch thousands of investigations; prompting a flood of new funding for lawmaker security back home and in Washington; and impelling lawmakers to take remarkable precautions to ensure they don’t become the next target of political violence.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) didn’t make any new friends in the GOP with her star turn bashing former President Trump in prime time on Thursday night. It doesn’t bother her a bit. Cheney, a dynastic figure who sits in the House seat once held by her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, used her high perch on the Jan. 6 select committee to accuse Trump of abusing the powers of the presidency to orchestrate nothing short of an attempted coup — explosive charges that have reinforced her status as Public Enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the MAGA faithful....

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Tuesday lamented the lack of Senate support for tougher gun laws following a mass shooting in Texas hours earlier but rejected the notion of eliminating the filibuster for the purpose of passing such a bill. Manchin noted that he has three grandchildren similar in age to the victims at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where at least 14 kids and one teacher were shot and killed.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that Democrats are within striking distance of winning a long-sought agreement on President Biden's sweeping domestic agenda. Returning to the Capitol from a White House breakfast with the president, the Speaker said there are "a couple outstanding issues" to iron out in the health care arena, but the environmental aspects of the bill "are resolved" and she's "optimistic" that a deal is close. "We're in good shape. We're moving along," Pelosi said.

Pelosi leaves room to delay infrastructure vote © Getty Images Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday said the stonewalling by Senate centrists has "completely" disrupted the Democrats' timeline for moving President Biden's domestic agenda, leaving open the possibility that the House will punt once again on an infrastructure vote scheduled for Thursday. Pelosi said she still intends to stage the infrastructure vote on Thursday, but acknowledged her power as Speaker to delay it, if need be. "We take it one step at a time," Pelosi told reporters after huddling with members of her caucus in the basement of the Capitol,...

The public spotlight around the investigation into the Capitol attack of Jan. 6 has shifted squarely onto Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), the GOP leader who has emerged as the face of defiant opposition to the congressional probe into the deadly riot. McCarthy has long been a figure of interest to the select committee given his phone call with then-President Trump amid the insurrection, in which the president allegedly suggested the pro-Trump rioters were more patriotic than the lawmakers under siege. McCarthy has acknowledged the call occurred but has repeatedly declined to discuss specific details. The focus on his role, and...

A defiant Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) says he has no plans to resign from Congress amid a federal investigation into whether he paid women — and a 17-year-old girl — for sexual favors. Yet behind the scenes, a growing number of Gaetz’s Republican colleagues are predicting his days on Capitol Hill are growing short. “In reality, yes, he won’t last long,” one member told The Hill on Friday. The forecasts seem to be based on some combination of political pragmatism and wishful thinking. Gaetz, who stands among the fiercest defenders of former President Trump, is no stranger to controversy, but...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday refused to accept an apology from Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) delivered just hours earlier, framing it as an insincere gesture following a tense exchange between the pair on the steps of the Capitol two days earlier. "I will not teach my nieces and young people watching that this an apology, and what they should learn to accept," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "Yoho is refusing responsibility." - Does not apologize or name any action he did - Does not accept responsibility - Lies (this was not a “conversation,” it was verbal assault) - Distracts by making it...

A reserved Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday called on President Trump to tone down his combative approach to the national protests for racial justice that have followed the death of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis last week. Clutching a Bible in the Capitol, Pelosi urged Trump to reach across the divides of race, party, region and religion to help the country heal instead. "We would hope that the president of the United States would follow the lead of so many other presidents before him to be a healer-in-chief, and not a fanner of the flame," she said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday she was delivering a simple message to President Trump as she stood and departed a contentious White House meeting the previous day: "At that moment, I was probably saying, 'All roads lead to Putin.'" The picture of Pelosi standing opposite the president as she prepared to leave the Wednesday meeting quickly went viral, after Trump tweeted it out and Pelosi's office later made it the cover photo of her own Twitter account. In the picture, Pelosi is the only woman at the table, the only person standing opposite a seated row of men....

House Democratic leaders scrambled Monday night to rally support for their border funding bill amid a liberal outcry over the Trump administration's treatment of migrant children — and questions over whether the Democrats' proposal would do enough to protect them. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other top leaders huddled in Pelosi's Capitol office late into the night with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and the senior appropriators who have championed the border bill. Lawmakers leaving the meeting said they expected changes to the $4.5 billion package to ensure stricter standards for the facilities...

House Democratic leaders facing liberal calls for impeaching President Trump are confronting increasing pressure from an unlikely faction: Republicans who appear eager to goad them into it. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her leadership team have repeatedly sought to defuse the appeals for impeachment hearings, deeming them premature, and some Democrats sense the Republicans are setting a political trap to boost their ally in the White House. But recent stonewalling actions by the administration have only fueled the liberal push to oust the president, complicating leadership efforts to keep a lid on the campaign.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on Thursday began calling members of Congress informing them he is running for president and is quietly making overtures to members for support, three congressional sources told The Hill. "Yes, he is reaching out to members for their support,” said a former Democratic aide with direct knowledge of Booker’s intentions. "He's going to do it during Black History Month,” which starts on Friday. “I don't know if it's going to be tomorrow, I just know it's going to be soon." Among those who received a call Thursday were senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC),...

Democrats on Wednesday strongly suggested they are open to a compromise with President Trump even as they unveiled an initial proposal for securing the border that includes no physical barriers. Democratic leaders emerged from a bipartisan budget meeting on border security taking a hard line on Trump’s proposed border wall, while hinting they were open to a deal. “We will expand on the $1.6 billion for border security-related programs that House Democrats have already passed,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) said at a conference committee meeting. She said smart border security would not be overly reliant on physical...

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said Thursday that Democrats are closely monitoring fraud allegations in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District but said they would only call for a new election if it’s impossible to determine the winner. “The House Administration Committee will have full investigative authority to determine the winner of the election,” Pelosi said. “And … only if it’s impossible to determine who the winner is, would we take the extraordinary step of calling for a new election.” The midterm results in North Carolina’s 9th District have been embroiled in controversy since a number of voters have emerged...

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said Wednesday that a congresswoman besides Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should be the House Speaker. “There’s plenty of really competent females that we can replace her with,” Ryan told reporters, before listing people such as Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) as potential candidates, The New York Times reported Thursday. His comments come as the battle for Democratic leadership in the House intensifies. Pelosi, who held the Speaker position from 2007 to 2011, expressed confidence on Thursday that she had enough support to be voted into the role. But many lawmakers are insistent about the idea of having...

Rep. Marcia Fudge is in a serious bind as she faces mounting pressure to challenge Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the Speaker’s gavel — a move that could divide the Ohio Democrat's allegiances between the insurgency she supports and the Black Caucus she once led. A group of anti-Pelosi insurgents has been ramping up efforts to recruit Fudge, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), amid criticism that the majority-male cohort is trying to oust the top-ranking female Democrat in the “Year of the Woman.” Pelosi allies have been deriding the rebels as “five white guys,” a...