Free Republic

The former chief of staff to ex-President Donald Trump on Saturday pushed back against his former boss' recent attempt to whitewash the history of the January 6 Capitol riot. Mick Mulvaney, who stepped down as Trump's special envoy to Northern Ireland after the insurrection, called Trump's comments that his supporters were "hugging and kissing" police officers and posed "zero threat," despite widespread violence, "manifestly false." "I was surprised to hear the President say that. Clearly there were people who were behaving themselves, and then there were people who absolutely were not, but to come out and say that everyone was...

President Biden’s unraveling of the Trump administration’s Middle East policy already is well underway, but a prominent elder statesmen is advising him to uphold his predecessor’s “brilliant” realignment of the region’s politics.Henry Kissinger, who was secretary of state under the Nixon and Ford administrations, praised Trump administration’s strategy of pitting major Sunni Muslim countries against Iran’s Shiite mullah-led regime, the Washington Free Beacon reported.“I think that one of the great successes of the previous administration was that they had lined up, that they had achieved two things in the Middle East,” Kissinger said Tuesday during the first seminar of a...

Barack Obama warned his successor against hiring Michael Flynn. It was Nov. 10, 2016, just two days after Donald Trump upset Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States. Trump told aide Hope Hicks that he was bewildered by the president’s warning. Of all the important things Obama could have discussed with him, the outgoing commander in chief wanted to talk about Michael Flynn. The question of why Obama was so focused on Flynn is especially revealing now. The Department of Justice recently filed to withdraw charges against the retired three-star general for making false statements to...

The following is the English language version of a speech that was delivered by Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger in Mandarin Chinese. Click here for Mandarin version.Good morning everyone.  I’m Matt Pottinger, the Deputy National Security Advisor, speaking to you from the White House.  I bring warm greetings from the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.We gather today online, from a thousand different places, because a pandemic still prohibits us from meeting in person.  But through the marvel of the Internet, we have managed to come together as an even bigger group than if there...

Washington veteran Michael Pillsbury has quietly become a key figure behind Trump's confrontational China policy, to the dismay of Beijing — and some fellow China experts. -- A day before President Donald Trump departed for the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, several top officials gathered in the Oval Office to strategize about Trump's highly anticipated meeting there with China's president. Seated around Trump's Resolute Desk were Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. On couches a few feet away were White House chief of staff John Kelly, Trump's son...