Free Republic

Salem Radio Network, whose parent Salem Media Group also owns Hot Air, has had perhaps the most stable national network line-up in the business — but big changes are now afoot. My friend and mentor Hugh Hewitt, who has had his national profile skyrocket during the 2016 Republican presidential primary cycle, will move from his long-ensconced position on afternoon/evening drive to mornings, giving Hugh a head start on the news cycle. Bill Bennett, who had served in two Cabinet-level positions in the Ronald Reagan administration, will move into a “host emeritus” position focusing on special interviews and in-depth analysis.

Senator Ted Cruz On The Planned Parenthood Attacks, The Freedom Act, 2016, Illegal Immigration And More Senator Ted Cruz, surging in Iowa, joined me on today's show: ...

Donald Trump joined me today top discuss the Benghazi hearing with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the state of the 2016 GOP race for the nomination to face her in the general election: ... Transcript: HH: On a day of huge headlines from Capitol Hill and from polling around the country, Donald Trump has surged to a commanding lead in the Washington Post/ABC poll. He’s ahead in the Bowling Green University poll in Ohio, and in fact, he leads every poll I’ve seen except one with Iowa. We’ll talk about that, but Donald Trump, welcome back to the...

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Sunday slammed Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) and the House Freedom Caucus for "holding the House hostage" and blocking Republicans from electing a successor to outgoing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who wants to resign at the end of the month. Hewitt said on NBC's "Meet The Press" that he hopes Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) — who has said he doesn't want to be Speaker — will change his mind. Hewitt then criticized Brat, who was on the roundtable, and the conservative House Freedom Caucus for giving Ryan a tepid response. "There's like 15 of you...

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Donald Trump today. The interview took place during the first two segments (about 22 minutes including commercials) of Hugh's show. It was friendly and covered several subjects. You can listen to the replay here tonight. Click "LISTEN LIVE". 6 Pacific / 7 Mountain / 8 Central / 9 Eastern

Talk radio host Hugh Hewitt has said in the wake of last week's controversial foreign policy interview with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump that "I deplore 'gotcha questions,'" yet he's repeatedly defended asking them in the past and even says on his website that there's no such thing as a "gotcha question."

Sarah Palin appeared on CNN this morning and defended Donald Trump after his less-than-stellar interview with Hugh Hewitt.Trump’s foreign policy-focused interview was pretty widely panned for The Donald’s loose grasp on the issues. On State of the Union this morning, Tapper asked Palin if she thought Trump got “gotcha” questions.Palin said, “I’d rather have a president who is tough and puts America first than can win a game of Trivial Pursuit.”She added that the public doesn’t “give a flying flip” which specific leaders are overseeing specific regions anyway. Palin suggested a good metric to judge candidates by might be...

Donald Trump trashed conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Twitter early Saturday morning, a day after Hewitt denied asking Trump "gotcha questions" during an appearance on his show. ... "Why would a very low ratings radio talk show host like Hugh Hewitt be doing the next debate on @CNN. He is just a third-rate "gotcha guy! A producer for Hewitt's radio show responded by posting a handwritten note Trump left for the host telling him it was a "great honor" to appear on his show. ...

...Thus two weeks ago we dispatched a warning about Hugh Hewitt specifically:Politics as an industry – Salem Communications [radio talk show (Hewitt), Red State (Erickson), now also Twitchy (Malkin), Hot Air (McCain), NRO, Townhall, Human Events, Bearing Arms etc.] has the same general ideological world view as Jeb Bush, George Will, Rupert Murdoch, Wall Street Journal, etc. UPDATE: As if on cue – Salem Communications, Via Hot Air, publishes a “compare and contrast” article pushing the GOPe Carly Fiorina – as savior angle. LINK HERE Salem Communications owns both Hot Air and Hugh Hewitt. See how they roll? Shorter: “the...

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt said Friday that Donald Trump’s dismissal of him as a “third-rate radio announcer” won’t affect his plans for the Sept. 16 Republican debate on CNN. “His critique won't change my debate questions or prep,” Hewitt told The Huffington Post. The Trump-Hewitt spat offers another subplot for the much-anticipated debate and comes on the heels of the real estate developer’s quarrel with the previous debate’s co-moderator, Fox News host Megyn Kelly.

Donald Trump slammed conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt as a "third rate radio announcer" on Friday, one day after an interview with Hewitt exposed major gaps in Trump's foreign policy knowledge. "It was like gotcha, gotcha," Trump said on MSNBC's Morning Joe. "Every question was do I know this one and that one? It was like he worked hard on that." On Thursday, Hewitt asked Trump on his radio program about Quds Force commander Ghasem Soleimani. Trump responded an his oft-repeated line about how Kurds have been "mistreated." "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you said Kurds," he added when corrected. But...

The apple does not fall far from the libertarian tree. The one thing that is the biggest negative in ever considering Rand Paul as PotUS is that he shares the same isolationist/non-interventionist scrawny foreign policy beliefs as his father. Is Rand purposely trying to alienate a segment of the Republican base before primaries by commenting on Dick Cheney's foreign policy in wake of the release of a new book: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) criticized former Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday, calling nearly all of his foreign policy decisions spanning the last three decades a "disaster for this country." "I...

When conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt spoke to Donald Trump earlier this evening, he asked a question about Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani that led to a comical exchange in which the GOP frontrunner thought they were talking about Iraqi Kurds before finally giving up and accusing Hewitt of asking “gotcha” questions. So, as an experiment, Hewitt invited Republican candidate Carly Fiorina to answer the same question — without any preparation — to see if she had a similar amount of trouble.

CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen argued that talk radio host Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump did have “gotcha questions” on Thursday’s broadcast of “AC360.”

In an interview with nationally-syndicated radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, Republican candidate for president Donald Trump addressed criticism of his temperament made by the host, the truth about his phone call with Bill Clinton, and the U.S. being the "policemen of the world."

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Billionaire real estate magnate Donald Trump is the 2016 GOP frontrunner despite the efforts of the Fox News Channel to target him in the first debate here in the city in which a year from now the Republican National Committee (RNC) will host the 2016 GOP convention.

Wednesday on the “Hugh Hewitt Show,” Republican presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) responded to President Barack Obama saying earlier in the day Iranian hardliners chanting “death to America” are “making common cause” with Republicans.”

iCarly and the RNC Pseudo-candidates I hope people realize iCarly is full on GOPe RNC and her role is to aid GOPe candidates.  As RNC talent, she is better than most. She is articulate,  concise, intelligent.  But don't think we can trust her long term any more than we can trust Prince Rebus, Boner or Mitchie-poo.  iCarly is not the only strategic pseudo-candidate.  Why would Huckabee run other than to dilute support for Ted Cruz.  It's win win win for GOPe, Huckabee and Fox  Huckabee gets to help Cruz lose and then gets to go back to Fox as a...

Before Hugh Hewitt would answer my questions, he had a condition: Through the producer of The Hugh Hewitt Show—his 15-year-old radio program that touts 2 million weekly listeners—he informed me that I would need to first answer his questions, on air. Hours later, I was live on his show. "I got a note from my producer today, associate producer Marlon, saying you want to meet up with me and do a profile on me, which I think is about as dull as possible," Hewitt said, "but is that true?"

When George W. Bush and the GOP got "thumped" over the conduct of the war in Iraq in November 2006, 43 responded to the will of the people, made changes, announced the Surge, and graciously welcomed Nancy Pelosi as the first woman Speaker at the start of his 2007 State of the Union Address. Not much else is remembered from the next two years, except victory in Iraq and a market panic in the fall of 2008 brought about by the popping of the housing bubble. That panic brought us President Obama.Tonight President Obama will give a speech few Americans...