Free Republic

President Trump’s visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week was a bigger triumph than anyone could possibly have imagined a year ago. First, the counter-staging of President Trump landing at Davos while the Senate began the trial over his phony impeachment was a Reagan-quality move. Television is 80 percent visual. People standing around in the Senate make for boring television. Even people paid to watch the proceedings have complained about how boring they are. On the other hand, Air Force One landing in Switzerland – and then Marine One flying into Davos – makes for great...

It took a while for me to understand the nagging feeling I got from the Democratic debate in Iowa Tuesday night. I kept grappling with my dissatisfaction and could not find the right words. Then I saw a USA Today article that captured my response perfectly – and my feeling was reinforced, because it was articulated by a friend with whom I have worked on criminal justice reform, Van Jones. Before noting that he wanted a Democrat in the White House, Jones told USA Today: “Democrats have to do better than what we saw tonight. There was nothing I saw...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Monday praised President Trump for supporting anti-government protests erupting at Iranian universities across the country. He said Trump is demonstrating a clear contrast between himself and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., noting the president's tweet in Farsi -- the language spoken in Iran -- showing solidarity with the demonstrators. “You have Pelosi over here on the side of an impeachment nobody wants, defending an Iranian dictatorship nobody wants,” Gingrich told “Fox & Friends.” The protests erupted on Saturday following Iran's claim that it unintentionally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane with surface-to-air missiles, killing...

President Trump on Wednesday gave the most honest, direct speech about Iran's dictatorship that has ever given by an American president. It was a refreshing break from the lies and self-deception that have characterized much of the American establishment’s efforts to avoid thinking about it. Watching the various reactions to the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, I have been struck by how historically ignorant most politicians and commentators are – and how our political-diplomatic language and mindset block us from reality. The reality is: Iran's dictatorship has been waging war against the United States for more than 40 years....

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Monday blasted Nancy Pelosi's decision to sit on the articles of impeachment against President Trump. “He ought to send her a beautiful ‘thank you’ note saying that no one has done more to finance my campaign than you have Nancy, please spend the next months convincing people your party is brain-dead,” Gingrich told “Fox & Friends.” Gingrich’s comments came after Trump’s campaign raked in a whopping $46 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, fueled in part by a backlash from his base against House Democrats’ impeachment efforts and blowing past any of his...

House Democrats do not seem very confident in the evidence they have gathered for an impeachment trial in the Senate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday. Gingrich was referring to current Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to sit on the articles of impeachment passed last week accusing President Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for his dealings with Ukraine. Pelosi said she stopped the clock in order to pressure the Senate into agreeing to certain terms for a trial. In an unusual press conference last Thursday, Pelosi, D-Calif., defended her decision to hold off, calling McConnell a...

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said Friday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's temporary hold on two articles of impeachment is "absurd" and that she looks "foolish." Appearing on "America's Newsroom" with host Sandra Smith, Gingrich explained that Pelosi, D-Calif., is in a "world that's out of control." "Why would you start a fight in the House knowing you are going to lose control of it to the people who are very capable of making you look very foolish?" he asked. "And yet, that's the dance they began." Gingrich predicted that an impeachment trial would eventually make it to...

Watching recent developments in the House Democratic Party, it is clear that the effort to impeach President Trump has nothing to do with facts or a normal process of investigation and evidence-based prosecution. We are living through a process defined by a pro-Trump universe and an anti-Trump universe. The great economy, record-low unemployment, the conservative judges, the achievements in renewing the Space program, and a host of other positive things are occurring in the pro-Trump universe. However, the willful avoidance of facts and evidence by left-wing media and left-wing Democrats is a sign that there is an alternative anti-Trump universe....

Historians may look back and mark this week as a remarkable turning point in the Trump presidency. While the liberal media was mesmerized by the dull Judiciary Committee meetings (so boring that at least one Democrat was caught watching a golf match while seated in the committee), big things were happening. However, they are the kind of big things which the adversarial media has a hard time covering intelligently. In fact, several of the big events of this past week will further discredit the news media and force it even more toward the defensive. (Already, more than half of Americans...

I recently received a fundraising email from former Vice President Joe Biden that captured the profound difference in the approach to foreign policy between Democrats and President Trump. Biden wrote: “Did you see the video of our friends and allies in London this week? World leaders were LAUGHING at the President of the United States, after he once again embarrassed himself and tarnished the reputation of the United States at a summit.” The Democrats’ desperate desire to be loved by foreigners runs through the entire email. In effect, Biden is promising to have policies that would lead President Emmanuel Macron...

Anyone watching mainstream news this week might not know that a major bipartisan effort is moving through Congress, aimed at protecting freedom and democracy while holding totalitarianism at bay. That’s because the liberal media have an intentionally myopic focus on the completely partisan effort in the House of Representatives to attack, smear and impeach the president of the United States. According to the mainstream networks, the impeachment hearings are the only newsworthy events happening in Washington. And yet on Tuesday, the Senate unanimously passed legislation to help protect the people of Hong Kong battling the oppression of the Chinese Communist...

Full title: Newt Gingrich: Pelosi announces Trump impeachment inquiry vote – Here's what I am on the lookout for nowSenator Lindsey Graham has created a new reality for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Graham has written a powerful resolution which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell joined in co-sponsoring. Together they have attracted 50 co-sponsors – which means with Vice President Pence supporting them they would win a vote to dismiss any phony impeachment from the House that failed to meet a key standard of fairness. The resolution: “calls on the House of Representatives, prior to proceeding any further with its impeachment...

The newly rebellious senator has become an outspoken dissident in Trump’s Republican Party, just in time for the president’s impeachment trial..... Mitt Romney is leaning forward in his chair, his eyes flashing, his voice sharp. It’s a strange look for the 72-year-old senator, who typically affects a measured, somber tone when discussing Donald Trump’s various moral deficiencies. But after weeks of escalating combat with the president—over Ukraine, and China, and Syria, and impeachment—the gentleman from Utah suddenly appears ready to unload.

NAGOYA, Japan — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who led the last impeachment of a president, said President Trump can help himself by taming his frustration over the Democrats’ partisan inquiry and staying focused on highlighting his economic achievements for middle-class voters. Mr. Gingrich points to the example of former President Bill Clinton, the man he helped impeach in 1998, as someone who successfully navigated that difficult path. “Go back and look at Clinton — he compartmentalized,” Mr. Gingrich said in an exclusive interview. “Clinton was very disciplined about saying, ‘I’m working on the American people’s problems, and I’m not...

Full title: Newt Gingrich: Pelosi's rigged game far cry from truth-seeking impeachment inquiries into Nixon, ClintonIf you want proof that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats are creating a rigged game that sets up a coup to destroy the president, simply look at the last two legitimate impeachment efforts — in 1973 and 1998. Both Democratic Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino in 1973 and Republican Judicial Committee Chairman Henry Hyde in 1998 set a standard for fairness and operated with a judicial temperament of seeking the truth rather than maximizing partisan advantage. In 1973, Rodino set the gold standard...

It has been amazing to watch the national media’s coverage of the 2020 congressional elections so far. Virtually all the coverage has contained the same message: Republicans are retiring in droves, and this must mean 2020 will be a tough election for the GOP. Headlines, such as CNN’s “Here's why members of the House GOP keep abandoning ship” and USA Today’s “More than a dozen Republicans are leaving Congress. Here are the lawmakers who aren't running again in 2020” are prefect examples of the national media narrative. The problem with this narrative is it’s misleading and incomplete. What the trivia-focused,...

Full title: Newt Gingrich: Dem presidential candidates doing a great job showing voters why Trump should be reelectedRemember the exciting, unpredictable and entertaining 2015-16 Republican presidential debates? Who would candidate Donald Trump take down this week? How would he dominate media questioners yet again? Whether you were for Trump, appalled by him or just curious, each debate was worth watching. Trump was so different – and so cheerfully direct and aggressive – that people began to see the debates as a sort of reality TV (which is what they should be). Our country is better when more people want to...

One of the great debates of the 2020 campaign will be whether the key date in defining America is 1619 or 1776. The left will assert that America is a terrible country and that its defining moment was the introduction of slavery. Most Americans will see that as a racist definition of history in its own right and will continue to believe in the exceptionalism created in 1776 by the Declaration of Independence and implemented in 1787 by the Constitution. This debate is being created by The New York Times’ determination to replace its failed crusade about President Trump and...

Over the past two months, the world has seen the people of Hong Kong bravely stand up to the growing threat of totalitarianism. What began as a protest against a bill that would allow prisoners to be extradited to mainland China has evolved into a movement to demand that the Hong Kong government (largely now controlled by China’s Communist Party) adhere to the promises of freedom and autonomy it made when Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997. Protesters have flooded the streets since June – despite the threat of being arrested, smothered with tear gas, pelted with rubber...

As I watched the Democratic presidential candidate debates this week, something struck me that I believe will prove important in 2020: The candidates have nothing they can defend and nothing tangible to attack. The American economy is in great shape. Unemployment remains incredibly low – historically low for African-Americans and Latinos, in fact. And despite clear hurdles, Republicans have been taking proactive steps to fix the biggest problems in health care – consistently the No. 1 issue on the minds of Americans. So the Democrats have been aggressively on offense and pulling from the radical left’s playbook. What they seem...