Free Republic

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that former President Donald Trump had “simple-minded ideas about how the world works.” Bolton said, “I think it’s important to understand, and this is especially important for Trump critics to understand, he doesn’t have a philosophy. He doesn’t think in policy terms, as that’s conventionally understood in Washington. He thinks in anecdotal, ad hoc, transactional terms, seeing through the prism of how does this benefit Donald Trump.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence blasted former President Trump on Monday for embracing the position that abortion policy should be determined by states and avoiding taking a stance on whether the federal government should enforce a national ban at a certain cutoff point. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Pence — who was Trump’s running mate in 2016 and 2020 —said Trump’s newly announced position on abortion was a “slap in the face” to opponents of abortion rights who voted for their ticket. “President Trump’s retreat on the Right to Life is a slap in the face to the...

NEW YORK (AP) — The No Labels group said Thursday it will not field a presidential candidate in November after strategists for the bipartisan organization failed to attract a high-profile centrist willing to seize on the widespread dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden and Donald Trump. “No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House,” Nancy Jacobson, the group's CEO, said in a statement sent out to allies. “No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us...

Party machinery, underway since 2021, will make it easier for the “next Trump” to emerge. But what will actually propel such a figure into the White House is the transformation of the GOP base. The increasingly reactionary views of grassroots Republicans virtually guarantee that the movement will maintain its dominant influence on the party for the foreseeable future. A yard sign I saw in rural Pennsylvania during the 2020 presidential campaign tells the story. Planted in front of a house was a homemade poster with the words “RONALD REAGAN IS A LOSER.” President Reagan’s face was crossed out with an...

TOKYO ROVE SPEAKS: "Every one of those sons of bitches who did that, we ought to find them, try them, and send them to jail.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell struck an ominous tone about the state of world affairs Monday while promising that he will serve out the remainder of his current term in the upper chamber. McConnell (R-Ky.) didn’t reveal whether he plans to pursue an eighth term in 2026, but told Louisville’s NewsRadio 840 that his chief mission is pushing back against “isolationists” within the GOP. “I’m not leaving the Senate. And I’m particularly involved in fighting back against the isolationist movement,” the 82-year-old said.

There is nothing remotely normal or conventional about this presidential election. Alice in Wonderland would feel right at home bouncing about between the fantastical issues plaguing the Biden and Trump campaigns. For the current president, voters worry about Biden’s age, perceived cognitive issues, his son Hunter’s legal and perception problems, growing policy failures, and a country and world going more sideways by the day. For the previous president, it’s hard for some voters to unsee the FBI raid on Trump’s home in Florida, his mug shot, multiple indictments by Democratic prosecutors and district attorneys, trial dates and the greater “lawfare”...

After changing his stance and reversing course multiple times in the past week on how he plans to ensure section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not expire at the end of the year, Johnson settled on including a clean short-term extension of the tool until April 19, 2024, in the National Defense Authorization Act, something he said he would not do just days prior,” the report continued. However, the Examiner noted that the most conservative members of the party as well as the centrist Republicans are against that.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) took aim at former President Trump for launching an initiative to sell Bibles on Tuesday and encouraged him to read what the Bible says about adultery. “Happy Holy Week, Donald. Instead of selling Bibles, you should probably buy one,” Cheney wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, in response to a screenshot of Trump’s Bible pitch on Truth Social. “And read it, including Exodus 20:14,” Cheney added, referring to the verse that commands, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” In his latest effort to raise funds, Trump pitched his “God Bless...

Liz Cheney spoke at the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University last weekend. It was another opportunity for Liz to slam and smear her former party. Liz Cheney left Congress after suffering the worst defeat by a sitting lawmaker in US history in her Wyoming primary. Not even Democrats could bail out the old Trump-hater. In her most memorable speech to date, Cheney compared herself to Abe Lincoln after getting trounced by 28 points. Last weekend, Liz was back on her soapbox. This time Liz took on the entire Republican Party. Her new line is how dangerous Republicans have...

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Michael Steele criticized the New York appeals court’s decision to pause enforcement of the multimillion-dollar judgment against former President Trump and his company over deceitful business practices. In a terse order on Monday, a five-judge state appeals court panel said it would delay the enforcement of the $464 million judgment against Trump, the Trump Organization and top executives, plus interest, if they post bond within 10 days. The bond amount was also slashed by more than half. “Yet again, @realDonaldTrump gets special treatment with his own private system of justice,” Steele, a regular critic...

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has threatened to leave the Republican Party over the nomination of Donald Trump. Murkowski, who has long sought to undermine Trump and the wider conservative agenda, bemoaned the fact that he was once again the party’s nominee. “I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski said in an interview with CNN. “I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”

As they vet candidates for a potential third-party presidential ticket, No Labels is reaching out to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. A source in the two-time Republican presidential candidate's political orbit told Fox News on Thursday that the centrist group has made outreach to Christie in recent days. Christie, who ended his 2024 GOP nomination campaign in mid-January, appeared to leave the door open to a possible third party run in an interview with former Obama adviser David Axelrod that was released earlier in the day. Asked on Axelrod's popular podcast if he's considering a third-party presidential bid, Christie...

RINO Representative Mike Gallagher (WI) will exit the House as early as next month. Gallagher, who is currently serving as the chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, last month announced that he will not seek reelection. Instead of serving out the rest of his term, Gallagher will retire early leaving the GOP with a one-vote majority! But it’s worse than that. Gallagher announced he will leave in mid-April. If Gallagher would have left before April 9th he would have triggered a special election in his district. Because he is leaving after April 9th but still in...

Jake Sherman @JakeSherman 🚨BREAKING NEWS -- MTG chatting with the floor staff, just handed a piece of paper with a resolution to the parliamentarian staff. She threatened earlier to file a motion to vacate.... @bresreports and I just witnessed it. 10:07 AM · Mar 22, 2024 · 320.5K Views

Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) will not vote for his own party’s nominee for president, he said Tuesday. The establishment politician’s statement that he will not vote for Donald Trump comes days after the former president locked up the party’s nomination. Young had indicated earlier he would not endorse Trump, but Tuesday is the first time he admitted publicly he will not even vote for his party’s standard bearer. “At some point, principled conservatives need to incentivize our party, the Republican Party, to nominate somebody that principled conservatives can actually believe in,” Young told a local Indiana outlet. “Stated differently, I’m...

Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that former President Donald Trump’s “bloodbath” comments were concerning for some voters. Saturday, at a rally in Dayton, OH, Trump said, “If you’re listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends — but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re going to get that, you’re going to not hire Americans, and you’re going to sell the cars as now we’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that...

Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy on Sunday criticized his party’s presumptive presidential nominee, saying that former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about illegal immigrants “reflected poorly” and that he’s spoken about migrants in a “dehumanizing fashion.” Asked about Trump’s recent comments that not all undocumented immigrants are people, Cassidy told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” “The president’s rhetoric has reflected poorly ... regarding folks who are coming here illegally — illegally — and they shouldn’t be, but in a dehumanizing fashion. And that’s why again, many people continue to have reservations.” “The best thing going for Donald Trump running for president...

Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would vote for a Republican when repeatedly asked if he would endorse former President Donald Trump. Anchor Kristen Welker said, “Let me ask you about former Vice President Mike Pence. As you know he made a lot of headlines at the end of this week when he said he would not endorse his former boss Donald Trump. It comes as a number of trump critics from Mitch McConnell to Chris Sununu and Brian Kemp said they are going to endorse Donald Trump. I know you’ve gotten this...

Organizers of an effort to oust Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos announced on March 10 that their petition had collected enough signatures to trigger a recall election. Mr. Vos’s response to certain election integrity efforts in the wake of the 2020 election drew the ire of supporters of former President Donald Trump who maintain that the election was stolen. Campaign organizer Matt Snorek of Racine County now says the petition has collected more than the necessary 6,850 signatures from voters in Mr. Vos’s southeast Wisconsin district. “With more than 10,000 signatures on our recall petition, they’ve said it loud...