Free Republic

Newt Gingrich has a message for the GOP in Washington: Start taking Donald Trump seriously. Appearing on Fox News after Trump's Saturday win in South Carolina, the former speaker of the House argued that nobody in the Washington Republican political class should kid themselves about Trump's chances any longer. It is a huge night for Donald Trump and nobody should kid themselves. Here's a guy who seven months ago for the first time entered electoral politics, has learned at an extraordinary rate, Gingrich said, pointing to his second-place finish in Iowa and victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina. By...

For months and months, Donald Trump has been exclaiming, “The evangelicals love me and I love them.” Well folks, tonight that love affair paved his way to victory in the all-important South Carolina Primary. 72% of the voters in South Carolina Saturday night with evangelical. Trump won 33 percent, of them. Ted Cruz won 27 percent, and Rubio won 22 percent. So let’s not kid ourselves here: Donald Trump is on his way to the GOP nomination and if he wins it, it will be because of evangelicals. Plain and simple. Let’s have this thought sink in for a moment....

Republican primary front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday said he does not know what he was trying to say during a 2002 interview in which he supported the Iraq invasion. Asked if he was in favor of invading Iraq by radio show host Howard Stern, Trump responded: "Yeah, I guess so. You know, I wish it was - I wish the first time it was done correctly." Asked Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" to clarify the comment, Trump said he doesn't know what he meant. "Well, what I mean by that is it almost shouldn't have been done, and, you...

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 26m26 minutes ago I was asked about healthcare by Anderson Cooper & have been consistent- I will repeal all of #ObamaCare, including the mandate, period. I was referring to a backstop for pre-existing conditions. I will eliminate the law, in its entirety, & replace it w/ something much better. I will replace it with private plans, health savings accounts, & allow purchasing across state lines. Maximum choice & freedom for consumer. I'm self-funding and I am going to take care of the people – not the special interests and insurance companies like the other candidates. Remember,...

At a Wednesday morning campaign event in Bluffton, SC, Donald Trump takes his relitigation of the Bush administration's record on 9/11 and Iraq to the next level, seeming to imply that we don't currently know who "really" committed the 9/11 attacks. Trump says if he is elected: "you will find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center." "It wasn't the Iraqis," he explained. "You may find it's the Saudis." "They have papers in there that are very secret," he also said, referencing the 28 still-classified pages of the 9/11 commission report. "But you will find out."

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Wednesday refused to pick sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. "You know, I don’t want to get into it," he told hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski during a MSNBC town hall in Charleston, S.C.

Trump's crafty move on Iraq: His war comments allow conservatives to move past the Bush years while saving face Most of Saturday night's Republican debate held by CBS in South Carolina was more of the same stuff we've seen in the previous eight debates, with Donald Trump insulting people and lots competitive right-wing posturing. But there was one moment that was unexpected, when Trump went after Jeb Bush by attacking his brother, former President George W. Bush. Trump accused the former president of lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and called the war "a big, fat mistake." Trump...

It was weird that an angry Code Pink-style protester interrupted last night's Republican presidential debate with a barrage of familiar Democratic talking points about George W. Bush - that he lied the country into a disastrous war in Iraq, failed to prevent the September 11 attacks, and even whiffed on an opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden. It was especially weird that the protestor was one Donald J. Trump, who happens to be the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Trump didn't just call the Iraq war a mistake. He called it "a big fat mistake." And he didn't call it...

There's nothing irrational about Donald Trump's appeal to the white working class, writes Charles Murray: they have every reason to be angry If you are dismayed by Trumpism, don't kid yourself that it will fade away if Donald Trump fails to win the Republican nomination. Trumpism is an expression of the legitimate anger that many Americans feel about the course that the country has taken, and its appearance was predictable. It is the endgame of a process that has been going on for a half-century: America's divestment of its historic national identity. For the eminent political scientist Samuel Huntington, writing...