Free Republic

Former Attorney General Bill Barr said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom” that he will support Donald Trump in November. Barr said, “The real threat to liberty, the real threat to our system, are the excesses of the progressive left. They are perverting the system of justice and that’s where the danger lies. The corruption and subversion of our institutions by the left.” Co-host Bill Hemmer said, “I heard you call this hush money case outrageous. I also know you’ve been asked many times and had disagreements with the former president. He is the presumptive nominee and we assume...

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton claimed Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that former President Donald Trump did not have any idea what to do in the Middle East. Anchor Jake Tapper said, “Former President Trump last night at a rally in Pennsylvania, Shanksville, said that none of this would have happened if he had been president. Take a listen to what he said.”

Sylvester Stallone recently announced that he and his wife Jennifer Flavin had decided to permanently move from California to Palm Beach, Florida. As he addressed his three daughters in a scene on the reality show “The Family Stallone,” the iconic actor said: “After long, hard consideration, your mother and I have decided, time to move on and leave the state of California permanently, and we’re going to go to Florida.” The likely reasons involve three main factors: a change of scenery, a less crime-infested environment and a lowering of their state tax burden. Whatever the real motivations, what was of...

The executive director of the George W. Bush Institute, who organized a letter from presidential libraries calling for national unity, previously leaked the now-debunked Steele dossier to reporters during height of the Trump-Russia collusion investigation. David Kramer, who worked in the State Department under President George W. Bush and was an associate of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), pushed for the foundations and centers of former presidents to sign a letter about unifying the country. However, in 2016 Kramer provided the Steele dossier to BuzzFeed, which published it without corroborating its allegations that then-President-elect Donald Trump was a puppet...

When I pressed him on why DeSantis seems so publicly fixated on the MAGA wing of the GOP, Cox was charitable. “It’s a really tough party right now,” he said. “No one else has figured out how to unify and bring the party together. [DeSantis] has clearly made the calculation he needs to be a good alternative for Trump diehard voters out there.” The assumption, other top Republicans say, is that more moderate Republicans like Cox will fall in line with DeSantis because the alternative is Trump. I’m less convinced of that, at least for now. DeSantis may have to...

As Ronald Reagan might say — there they go again. The “they” this time around is the Never Trump chorus insisting that not only can’t former President Donald Trump win the 2024 election, but he shouldn’t even be trying. Whether it’s Bush-cheerleader Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal, or, in the same place, Ruth R. Wisse, a professor emerita at Harvard University, or the esteemed Andrew C. McCarthy over at National Review, or more scattered over the political landscape, the Trump naysayers are out in force, predicting, of course, that the former president’s reelection bid is dead in the...

Former President Donald Trump speaks loudly about the Republican candidates he's backing for the midterm elections. His money isn't always where his mouth is, however, at least not to the same level as Senate Minority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell. With Election Day just four days away, Republicans are fighting to flip the Senate in their favor. Many Trump-endorsed candidates are neck-and-neck in tight races against their Democratic opponents. Every dollar counts this close to the election and despite last minute fundraising pushes on both sides, many races remain tight. In the meantime, Trump is directing his attention toward McConnell, a...

George W. Bush held a video call on Thursday. During the call, Bush called Ukrainian President Zelenskyy the “Winston Churchill of our times.” What an embarrassment. George W. Bush is famous for his trust in Putin, saying, “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” Guess he was wrong about that, too?

A group of more than 100 former Republican officials have discussed the possibility of forming a "center right" party due to their unhappiness with the direction of the GOP under former President Donald Trump and the likelihood he'll be acquitted at the end of his second impeachment trial, according to Republicans who participated in the conversation. Former Republican House Rep. Charlie Dent confirmed to CNN that he and about 120 Republicans held a conversation last Friday about whether to form a new party or a new faction within the Republican Party that would operate independently from the GOP.

Staffers who worked for President George W. Bush are going all in for Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden in hopes of returning the White House back to one of their globalist allies in the political class. The group, 43 Alumni for Biden, has released two campaign ads to prop up the former vice president’s campaign. One of the ads is geared towards Hispanic Americans and claims President Trump is an “existential threat” to their community. The latest ad suggests the Bush staffers “understand the character, the experience, and frankly the empathy required for leadership because we’ve seen it first hand...

@BillKristol NEW: Republican Voters Against Trump (@RVAT2020) begins a six-figure ad buy in Nebraska's crucial 2nd Congressional District, featuring testimonials from lifelong conservative residents of the district on why they're voting for Biden. Here's one of them: https://mobile.twitter.com/BillKristol/status/1308156055042568197

Putin met the last four US presidents since he took office in the 1990s. The two leaders met again in June 2000 in Moscow after Putin became president of Russia and Clinton was in his final year in office. After Bush was sworn into office in January 2001, the two leaders met for the first time in June for a summit in Slovenia. Putin met with the recently sworn-in Obama for the first time in July 2009 in Moscow. Obama reportedly emerged from the meeting feeling confident and optimistic in resetting relations with Putin. "We think there's an excellent opportunity...

The conservative blog RedState experienced “mass firings” Friday because of what its parent company, Salem Media, characterized as a decision influenced by finances. But one writer who was laid off said she is skeptical of that characterization, adding that she believes the website is effectively trying to silence voices that are not, in their view, sufficiently supportive of President Trump and his policies... “If this is a decision just strictly made for money purposes, they would want to keep the ones who were bringing in the most [page] views,” Wright said... Indeed, Mediaite obtained RedState’s traffic report for the month...

President Donald Trump managed to endorse two different losing candidates in the same Senate race, a setback that is highlighting an experience deficit within the White House political team. […] Republicans in Washington and around the country say a bungled approach to the race — in which the president wagered his party’s moral authority with nothing to show for it — should serve as a wakeup call for the administration going into what is sure to be a challenging midterm election year. “This White House is not working on all cylinders,” said Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary to...

Former President George W. Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, both criticize President Trump in a new book to be released this month, with George W. Bush admitting that, despite Trump’s political affiliation, he’s worried “that I will be the last Republican president.” George H.W. Bush also calls Trump a “blowhard” in the book, “The Last Republicans,” by Mark K. Updegrove, which was previewed by The New York Times and CNN on Friday. "I don't like him. I don't know much about him, but I know he's a blowhard. And I'm not too excited about him being a leader,” the...

Oh, I get it. Trump wins on North Korea. But the Uniparty Establishment can't have that. They need International crises to work fear into people on a timetable of their chosing, it's not Trump's job to solve anything. So the "Left" wing of the Uniparty hires masked protesters and other crisis actors who need to make the rent to instigate racial violence, hoping the still newbie citizen-politician Trump will over-tweet himself or step in it somehow, in some way that they can trap him. They do. Then the "right" Unipartiers, the BushMittMcCainRyanGOPe and their Never-Trump FrenchMcMuffins close in on POTUS...

Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, former presidential hopeful and former loud critic of President Donald Trump, has stepped back into the political arena to call out his fellow Republicans as hypocrites — for not publicly condemning Trump. Sigh. Why, why, why do these entrenched Republicans insist on picking public fights with their fellow GOPers? It doesn’t endear them to anyone but their own dwindling bases. And we know their bases are dwindling because try as they might, their candidates — their Marco Rubios, their Mitt Romneys, their Jeb Bushes — just couldn’t win against Trump. Yet six-plus months into Trump’s...

A 112-page internal document provided to U.S. News includes more dirt on Marco Rubio, Iowa vote goals and a January advertising plan. Even before Jeb Bush's uninspiring debate performance Wednesday night, his sputtering presidential campaign was working to prevent defections. Bush's top lieutenants convened with donors in sopping wet Houston on Monday to calm their fears and retrench for the unforgiving haul ahead. After the confab, Bush's team distributed a 45-page PowerPoint presentation to select reporters, summarizing an optimistic view of the race, touting the Republican candidate's cash and organization, and assuring supporters that early polls are rarely indicative of...

nside a sleek Denver condominium, George W. Bush let a hundred donors to his brother’s campaign in on a secret. Of all the rival Republican candidates, there is one who gets under the former president’s skin, who he views as perhaps Jeb Bush’s most serious rival for the party’s nomination. It isn’t Donald Trump, whose withering insults have sought to make Jeb pay a political price for his brother’s presidency. It also isn’t Marco Rubio, Jeb’s former understudy who now poses a serious threat to his establishment support. “I just don’t like the guy,” Bush said Sunday night, according to...

The Republican Party has played Marley’s Ghost for the past half-dozen years, dragging behind it the sins of the foreign-policy utopians who persuaded George W. Bush to bet the farm on nation-building in the Middle East. Bush’s 2004 Second Inaugural, written with the help of the Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol and the Washington Post‘s Charles Krauthammer, was the high-water mark of foreign-policy overreach and the cusp of Republican fortunes. By the 2006 congressional elections, the electorate had had enough, and the public’s disgust with the pointless sacrifice of blood and treasure helped propel the junior senator from Illinois into the...