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The Chinese Communist Party has aggressively built up its military, expanding its arsenal of both conventional and nuclear capabilities. The growth was largely funded by its rival, the United States.That is one of the arguments made by James Fanell, a retired U.S. Navy captain, and Bradley Thayer, a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, a Washington-based think tank, during a recent interview with EpochTV’s “American Though Leaders“ program.“The Chinese Navy now is over 150 naval combatants greater than the U.S. Navy. They are now the largest navy in terms of numbers of hulls and tonnage,” said Mr. Fanell,...

Former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel has come out against former President Trump’s promise to free the January 6 prisoners. McDaniel voiced her opposition during a Sunday interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” — the network where she is now a paid contributor. “I want to be very clear. The violence that happened on January 6 is unacceptable. It doesn’t represent our country. It certainly does not represent my party,” McDaniel told interviewer and co-worker Kristen Welker. “If you attacked our Capitol and you have been abused and you’ve been convicted, then that should stay,” McDaniel continued. McDaniel said...

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 turmoil continues within the House Republican caucus, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime” and weighed in on that turmoil and the decisions his successor, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), is facing. According to the former California lawmaker, the beginning of the end for Republicans came when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) led his ouster last year.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who announced last month he would not run for re-election, will resign from Congress early, he confirmed in a statement Friday. Gallagher’s departure before the end of his term in January is another blow to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Republicans, who have been struggling to govern and demonstrate stability this Congress. Two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News of Gallagher's plan to resign early on Friday. The Wisconsin Republican then released a statement announcing that he will depart on April 19. The speaker's office confirmed that Gallagher informed Johnson of...

Outgoing Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) said Thursday on CNN’s “OutFront” that the Republican-led House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden’s possible involvement with his son Hunter’s business deals was a “sideshow” that needed to end. Buck said, “I think the investigation is warranted in terms of looking at what Hunter Biden did. I think that we may want to look at laws that restrict the family members of the president and vice president in terms of outside of influences.”

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...

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination this year, says he won’t back former President Trump in 2024, but also won’t vote for President Biden. “I get asked a lot if I believe Trump is a threat to our democracy,” he writes in a USA Today op-ed. “I am not good at predicting the future, but we can learn from history and we should take heed when politicians tell us what they are going to do.” Hutchinson says in the piece that he voted for Trump twice, but that insight gleaned from former Rep. Liz...

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...

The former chair of the Florida Republican Party compared the bloodbath of firings at the Republican National Committee under new chair Lara Trump is like 'a funeral' and leading the party the wrong way. Al Cardenas, who runs the GOP in the Sunshine State and is the husband of prominent anti-Trump 'The View' co-host Ana Navarro, told MSNBC Friday that this is being done in order to use the national party's funds to fight former President Trump's election grievances. 'This is nonsense, I mean, it's only spending millions to perpetuate the fallacy that there was election fraud in 2020,' he...

Former Vice President Mike Pence was on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning. He told moderator Margaret Brennan that the use of the term hostages for January 6th defendants was “unacceptable.” “What do you think when you hear him refer to those people facing charges as hostages and patriots?” Brennan asked Pence. “Well, I think it’s unfortunate at a time that there are American hostages being held in Gaza that the President or any other leaders who would refer to people that are moving through our justice system as hostages and it’s just, it’s just unacceptable,” Pence responded.

Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) SAID Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he will support the Republican nomination when asked about endorsing former President Donald Trump. Anchor Dana Bash said, “We saw that the former president earned enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination this past week, you have not endorsed him yet. Will you?”

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...

Together with my good friend and occasional courtroom adversary David Boies, I am attempting to persuade a federal court to invalidate California's Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California's constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.... Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation. At its best, it is a stable bond between two individuals who work to create a loving household and a social...

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said Tuesday he will resign from Congress later this month rather than serve out the remainder of his term through 2024. Why it matters: The surprise announcement will cause House Republicans' already razor thin majority to dwindle even further

Retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) endorsed Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) for vice president Sunday, contending the “media overreaction” she received following her highly scrutinized and oddly delivered State of the Union rebuttal “tells us who liberals most fear as VP nominee.” The failed 2012 Republican presidential nominee took to X to defend Britt following a wave of criticism over her rebuttal, which was described by some as “cringe.”

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) took to social media to tell former President Trump to “eat dirt” after Trump called the United States a third-world country in his Super Tuesday victory speech. “Trump just called America a ‘third world’ country.’ With all due respect (which is none), eat dirt scumbag,” Kinzinger posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “This is the best country on earth. You, are our biggest embarrassment and stain. But you’ll be over in a year. In a roughly 20-minute speech from his Mar-a-Lago estate after winning more than 10 primary contests, Trump highlighted a...

Fox News host and former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) urged former President Trump not to take a victory lap after the Supreme Court ruled Monday that states cannot bar him from the ballot in this fall’s presidential election. “I would encourage him to do something that he doesn’t often do, which is show humility because there are other decisions that are coming that he may not agree with,” Gowdy said on Fox. “I don’t think he’s going to win the presidential immunity case before the court.” Gowdy’s comments were first highlighted by Mediaite.The court voted Monday, by unanimous decision, to...

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said he is not “going to lie” on behalf of the Republican Party when asked why he decided to not seek reelection. Buck, who announced last November that he will not be running for reelection, said on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday” that while his goals for the country have not changed, the world around him “has changed dramatically.” “We’ve gone from a time when the Tea Party stood for conservative principles, for constitutional principles, to a time where the [populists] have taken over the Republican Party and are really advocating things that I believe are very...

Congress unveiled the first six appropriations bills on Sunday to fund the government for most of 2024. The rollout of the appropriations bills follows Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other congressional leaders striking a deal to avert a government shutdown and fund the government for most of 2024. The six appropriations bills would fund the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, Justice, Commerce, and Energy. The bipartisan package amounts to 1,050-pages and includes more than $450 billion in funding for the fiscal year 2024.