Free Republic

Eager to move a message that focuses on things like minimum wage hikes and health care premiums, [Democrats] have been overtaken by a steady stream of stories of Russian meddling, porn star payoffs, and shady Trump-world figures. Ultimately, many offices and aides have come to the conclusion that they should simply give up on trying to break through on cable news at all. “It’s impossible,” said one Senate aide, “unless you want to talk about Russia.” … [N]umerous other aides echoed this point, sharing stories of fruitless calls and emails to bookers and abrupt cancellations on pre-existing bookings. Jessica Post,...

Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway has been vocal in denouncing White House leakers over the past few days — following the controversy over the comments made by aide Kelly Sadler about Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in a closed-door meeting. Conway has told Martha MacCallum that she expects the leaks will result in personnel changes. And now, Conway says she’s getting close to identifying those responsible. Thursday on the Fox & Friends morning program, guest host Abby Huntsman asked Conway if she’s pinpointed the leakers. “Somewhat, yes,” Conway said. The White House counselor went on to say that some higher-ups...

The political schism in the Democratic Party is playing out in the confirmation vote for Gina Haspel as CIA director, as support from red-state senators facing re-election bumps up against a more liberal flank eyeing potential 2020 presidential bids and rejecting the nominee over the agency’s clouded history of torture. Haspel’s confirmation became all but certain with a favorable 10-5 vote Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Yet the division in the Senate is set in large part by the election calendar, home-state geography and personal views — and it may define Democrats for years to come. On one side...

Democrats, the mainstream media, and left-wing reporters are twisting President Trump’s words in calling MS-13 illegal alien gang members “animals.” During a roundtable discussion of California’s sanctuary state laws, Fresno Sheriff Margaret Mims mentioned to Trump the difficulty of working with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to notify them of an illegal alien MS-13 gang member. In response, Trump called the MS-13 gang members “animals,” as he’s done in the past MIMS: There could be an MS-13 gang member, I know about, if they don’t reach a threshold, I cannot tell ICE about them. [Emphasis added] TRUMP: We...

If you want to understand why Donald Trump is president today (and why he could very well win a second term), look to the Democrats' hysterical response to two of Trump's major foreign policy achievements over the past week. Last Thursday, the president traveled to Joint Base Andrews to greet three American hostages whose release he had secured from North Korea. Unlike his predecessor, Trump did it without sending the offending regime an unmarked plane loaded with hundreds of millions in hard currency. The return of these American captives should have been a moment of celebration and bipartisan unity.No matter...

Of all the grotesque ooze to come out of Washington since Donald Trump began his great unmasking of our impudent elite, the most repulsive is the sanctimony and phony piety of the media and its friends. The latest display of this defining characteristic of the Beltway swamp is the assault on a White House staffer for an off-color remark in a private conversation. As reports have stated, Kelly Sadler, who works in communications at the White House, attempted humour about Arizona Senator John McCain’s illness and mortality. The comment fell flat in the meeting, joining the thousands of similar such...

Democrats should stop trying to win over white Republican voters, according to several prominent liberal writers. That was the point of a column Washington Post writer Paul Waldman wrote on Tuesday, which liberal journalists approvingly circulated on social media, adding their agreement. Waldman blamed Fox News and conservative media for the fact blue-collar Trump voters don’t vote Democrat. “In the endless search for the magic key that Democrats can use to unlock the hearts of white people who vote Republican, the hot new candidate is ‘respect,'” Waldman snarked. “If only they cast off their snooty liberal elitism and show respect...

The Tea Party is back — for President Donald J. Trump. A decade after the anti-government, anti-tax, and anti-Obama insurgency emerged, and eight years after the movement fueled the midterm elections that gave the Republican Party control of the House of Representatives and sent conservatives like Rand Paul, Michele Bachmann, and Mark Meadows to Congress, Tea Party activists are getting active again in midterm races. This time they’re not trying to blow up the system or fight big government. They’re here to support President Trump, no matter that he’s the biggest big-government Republican of them all. And in 2018, they’re...

The Times is out with a story detailing how a) Vice President Mike Pence and his advisers are operating as a sort of de facto political unit within the White House and b) allies of President Donald Trump are none too happy about that fact. Here’s the key paragraph: “Republican officials now see Mr. Pence as seeking to exercise expansive control over a political party ostensibly helmed by Mr. Trump, tending to his own allies and interests even when the president’s instincts lean in another direction. Mr. Pence and his influential chief of staff, Nick Ayers, are unsettling a group...

Within the past few days, never-Trumper David Brooks praised President Trump. "Saturday Night Live" admitted that he'd had a good week. Willie Brown told Democrats to "stop bashing" Trump. And party officials bemoaned the liberal media's obsession with Trump scandals. It must seem to Democrats as if they woke up in Superman's Bizarro World. Meanwhile, the latest CNN poll shows Democrats with a meager 3-point advantage on the generic ballot question. The Reuters/Ipsos poll has Democrats up by only one point, and the Real Clear Politics average is +5, down from +13 in December. Trump's approval rating has been steadily,...

Fox News host Laura Ingraham fired off a warning shot to President Trump Monday evening about an effort in the House to push through mass amnesty all supported by Speaker Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is on his way out so he’s on a kamikaze mission to push through mass amnesty. Laura Ingraham warned the President Monday. Ingraham tweeted: Warning to @realDonaldTrump: An effort is underway by liberal Repubs (+Dems) on a mass amnesty in the House thru a “discharge petition,” supported by @SpeakerRyan. Total travesty & mid-term turn-out killer. Warning to @realDonaldTrump: An effort is underway by liberal Repubs (+Dems)...

Mainstream media is at it again, promulgating fake news. I woke up this morning to a slew of stories about “Palestinian Protestors Killed in Gaza Protests.” The imagery of a man holding up a cardboard sign while getting shot comes to mind, from such a headline, doesn’t it? I became concerned, read further. Turns out, it’s the same ‘ol anti-Israeli fake news. Mainstream media at it again. Headlines:CNN: “37 Palestinians killed in Gaza protests ahead of US embassy opening”ABC News: “Death toll in massive Palestinian protests climbs to at least 41, bloodiest day in Gaza since 2014 war”Washington Post: “Israelis kill dozens of...

First lady Melania Trump underwent kidney surgery Monday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington, DC, according to a statement from her office. Trump had been experiencing an issue with her kidney that her office described as benign but requiring medical attention. "This morning, first lady Melania Trump underwent an embolization procedure to treat a benign kidney condition. The procedure was successful and there were no complications," the first lady's communications director, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement. "Mrs. Trump is at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and will likely remain there for the duration of the...

After months of confidence that public discontent with President Trump would lift Democrats back to power in Congress, some party leaders are fretting that their advantages in this year’s midterms are eroding amid a shifting political landscape. Driving their concerns are Trump’s approval rating, which has ticked upward in recent weeks, and high Republican turnout in some recent primaries, suggesting the GOP base remains energized. What’s more, Republicans stand to benefit politically from a thriving economy and are choosing formidable candidates to take on vulnerable Democratic senators. One of their biggest sources of anxiety is the Senate race in Florida,...

Democrats routinely express outrage over claims of collusion with a foreign power to undermine our democracy. So where is the outrage over revelations that former secretary of state John Kerry held not one but two secret meetings with Iran’s foreign minister to strategize over how to undermine President Trump’s plans to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal? An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed the meetings after the Boston Globe broke the news, declaring , “We don’t see the U.S. just as Mr. Trump; the United States is not just the current ruling administration.” Think about what this means. Iran is...

mass shooting of congressional Republicans... many lawmakers are mad, or frustrated, or saddened, at how quickly the story disappeared from the headlines given that the shooter, James T. Hodgkinson, targeted Republicans... Hodgkinson carried a list of names of lawmakers in his pocket: ... The list included their office numbers and short physical descriptions. He’d recorded video of the field in April of of that year — a sign, the prosecutor wrote in his official report, that Hodgkinson “had already selected Simpson field as a potential target as early as April 2017.” His social media was filled with Bernie and anti-Republican...

In a bygone age, during the days of Chief-of-Staff Reince Priebus Press Secretary Sean Spicer, President Donald Trump was someone very different – someone who watched (gasp!) CNN and MSNBC. At least, that’s according to new reporting from New York Magazine‘s Olivia Nuzzi, who writes that White House officials concocted a plan to keep the volatile president on track by changing his diet – his television diet, that is. Trump would reportedly work himself into a tizzy watching Morning Joe and New Day, tweeting all manner of disgruntled miscellany before an 11 A.M. briefing, in which he would review the...

Donald Trump has just enjoyed the best week of his presidency. His detractors, whose mood swings remain inversely proportional to the president’s popularity, suffered through a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. Instead of a path to war, the president’s words persuaded the North Koreans to release three Americans held in captivity, formally end their war with South Korea, and agree to June talks with the United States on neutral ground. Talk of a Nobel Peace Prize abounds. Domestically, tranquility ensues. April’s jobs report indicates a 3.9 unemployment rate. This marks the first time in the new millennium that...

A new bombshell report reveals that the FBI may have had a mole embedded in the Trump campaign. In an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Kimberly Strassel unpacked some stunning developments in the battle between the Department of Justice and House Intelligence Committee members. House Intel Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, D-Calif., and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., received a classified briefing at the DOJ on Thursday, viewing classified documents about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI probe of the Trump campaign. According to Strassel’s Wall Street Journal piece: The...

Still struggling to come to terms with the results of the 2016 election, former first lady Michelle Obama recently said she’s concerned for women and “how we think.” “In light of this last election, I’m concerned about us as women and how we think,” she said at the United State of Women Summit in Los Angeles. “What is going on in our heads where we let that happen, you know?” Obama referred to Clinton as “the most qualified” candidate running for president in 2016, and said voting against her “says something about where we are.” That’s despite the multiple investigations,...