Free Republic

Frustrated by the loss of his Twitter account and forced to accept that he soon must leave office, President Trump has effectively stopped doing his job, delegating daily responsibilities to Vice President Mike Pence while hunkering down with a shrinking group of acquiescent aides and contemplating additional presidential pardons. Trump had considered leaving the White House before his final day in office Wednesday, even as early as this weekend, but he has opted to depart on the morning of President-elect Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day, according to two people familiar with discussions who cautioned that, with Trump, plans are always subject...

However unlikely it may seem, Trump has good cause to worry about a primary brawl. Since 1968, four presidents have faced serious opponents who sought to wrestle away their party’s nomination: Democrats Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter and Republicans Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush. Each was gravely wounded by the fratricidal fighting and all failed to win another term. By contrast, the presidents who avoided strenuous primary opposition — Republicans Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — all won reelection.

On Thursday afternoon, Wall Street Journal reporter and MSNBC contributor Eli Stokols ripped into President Trump for not demanding the death penalty for already dead Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock.

When the world awoke to news of terrorist attacks in Brussels, the only two remaining Republican presidential candidates with any chance of winning the nomination outright responded by stoking public fear and calling for action against Muslims. Donald Trump didn’t wait to consult with the foreign-policy advisors he announced less than 24 hours earlier, instead dialing into the morning shows to condemn the attacks that, he said, serve as further rationale for some of his most controversial ideas, from closing America’s borders to allowing the greater use torture in the war on terrorists. [snip]Not to be outdone, Ted Cruz, called...

The collective reluctance to engage crystalized the state of the GOP nomination fight with five days left until winner-take-all primaries in Ohio and Florida that are must-win contests for native sons John Kasich and Rubio, respectively. They're fighting to survive, as is Cruz. But they're also looking to preserve their own dignity. As the nomination fight approaches what could be a climactic moment where Trump becomes the GOP’s presumptive nominee, his rivals are ditching the personal insults that only Trump seems capable of executing. No one, in fact, is eager to attack him at all—even on these issues of real...

Jeb Bush is having a rough day. Fighting for his political life in the final days of this primary battle, Bush took the stage intent on showing toughness and drawing a sharp contrast between himself and Marco Rubio. Just moments earlier, he'd gotten devastating news: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, whose endorsement he'd sought, was backing Rubio, who poses the biggest threat to his own chances of political survival. "Disappointed," Bush told reporters, summing up his feelings about Haley's endorsement as he was leaving the town hall here. "She's a very good governor and should I win the nomination, there'll...

Jeb Bush took a tough but nuanced foreign policy stance during an appearance here Friday morning, calling for reversing the ban on concealed weapons at military installations and calling out his Republican rivals for hollow promises to repeal the Iran nuclear agreement on their first day in office. Bush, looking to position himself as an electable conservative in a sprawling primary field thrown into turmoil by the unexpected rise of Donald Trump, reiterated his opposition to the Iran agreement, which will ease economic sanctions on the country in exchange for a decade of limitations to its nuclear program. But he...

There’s Jeb, and then there’s everybody else. It came as no surprise that Jeb Bush is the uncontested Sultan of Super PACs with his independent expenditure arm, Right to Rise, pulling in a jaw-dropping $103 million during its inaugural reporting period, more than double its closest competitor. That tally was huge but it might have been less impressive than another metric: 1,656 – that was the number of pages of the Right to Rise report filed with the Federal Election Commission on document-dump Friday, astonishing both for the breadth and depth of the contributions listed therein. Bush is getting his...

His appeal was on full display as GOP rivals prepare debate assault.LOS ANGELES — Master showman and Republican poll leader Donald Trump strode across a stage aboard a retired battleship on Tuesday night, reveling in the cheers and chants of “Trump, Trump, Trump!” “I am with the veterans 100 percent,” Trump declared when he took the podium on the USS Iowa, having just been endorsed by the group hosting the event, Veterans for a Strong America. Dubbed “the battleship of the presidents” for having hosted Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the Iowa offered a useful backdrop...

The front-runner has been rewarded for his insults but this time he's gone too far for conservative women. Donald Trump, in seemingly suggesting that Carly Fiorina isn’t attractive enough to be president, crossed the line of general decency. Again. Trump, of course, has proven thus far that, for him, there is no line at all. But the reactions of outraged conservative women show that the GOP's front-runner may have reached the outer boundaries of what even he can get away with. “Who the hell cares what she looks like? If you want to quibble with her on policy, or quibble...

Suddenly, the gloves are off between Scott Walker and Jeb Bush. Surprisingly, Bush threw the first punch, sparking a back-and-forth between the two leading Republican candidates in early-state polls, both eager to highlight what they see as the other’s fatal flaw — Bush as the establishment shill and Walker as the foreign policy lightweight. It started during a town hall in Nevada Friday, when Bush took an unprovoked shot at Walker, portraying him as unserious and unsophisticated over a promise he made in his announcement speech last Monday to repeal the nuclear deal with Iran “on the very first day...

Jared Polis really doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. If you saw the Colorado congressman speaking on the House floor last month wearing a clip-on bowtie with a polo shirt under his blazer, you know what I’m talking about. He’s been this way since he first emerged on the scene. About 10 years ago, when he was just 28, Polis was one of four wealthy Colorado Democrats who pooled their considerable personal resources to create a state-of-the-art political machine that was ruthlessly effective in turning this once-red heartland state a stunning shade of blue. But Polis wouldn’t run with that...