Free Republic

A leader of the "Never Trump" movement has no plans to let President Trump run for re-election without first facing a primary opponent. Bill Kristol told CNBC in an interview published Friday that his nonprofit Defending Democracy Together is seeking a Republican to challenge Trump in 2020. "People aren't going to say they will run against Trump unless they have the infrastructure, but I've been trying to persuade people that it may not be that difficult,” he said.

Conservative commentator and outspoken "Never Trump" critic Bill Kristol says he is building a "war machine" within the Republican party to challenge President Trump's 2020 reelection campaign, according to CNBC. Kristol told the network that he's preparing "for a primary run against Trump," adding that Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is on his shortlist of possible candidates. Kasich was unsuccessful in his 2016 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, only managing to beat Trump in his home state. Kristol also said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) are also being considered. “We are thinking of and...

House Speaker Paul Ryan is rejecting President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the Justice Department shouldn’t prosecute two GOP congressmen because it will hurt the party’s election prospects in November. Ryan tells reporters Wednesday, “Justice is blind. Justice should be blind.” The Wisconsin Republican says political party should have no impact on how the department works. […] Ryan adds that “the process is working its way as it should.” …

Two former friends of Sen. John McCain say his daughter Meghan McCain's pointed criticism of President Donald Trump in her speech at the Arizona Republican's memorial service on Saturday reflected the character of her late father. "She is her father's daughter," South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "If you say something bad about her dad, you will know it, whether you're the janitor or the President of the United States. She is grieving for the father she adored. I think most Americans understand that." Former independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who joined...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said at a press briefing on Tuesday that Sen. Ted Kennedy’s “career was eerily similar” to Sen. John McCain’s. Addressing the question of what the Senate would do to honor the late senator, McConnell said: “That’s the way we handled Senator Kennedy, whose career was eerily similar to Senator McCain’s in terms of their time here and their reputations for being lions of the Senate and for operating on a bipartisan basis.” […] “With regard to the appropriate way to honor Senator McCain, I’ll be appointing a group on a bipartisan basis to convene after...

Tuesday Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters on Capitol Hill that he had “total confidence,” in his former U.S. Senate colleague Attorney General Jeff Sessions. McConnell said, “I have total confidence in the attorney general. I think he ought to stay exactly where he is.”

The Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday voted to pass an appropriations bill funding the Department of Health and Human Services that—if adopted by the House and signed by President Trump—will not only permit the continued federal funding of Planned Parenthood but will also allow the continued federal funding of scientific research that creates “humanized mice” using organs taken from aborted babies. After some maneuvering on Thursday afternoon, the leadership allowed a floor vote on an amendment offered by Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) that would have prohibited all federal funding of Planned Parenthood. That amendment was only brought up for a vote...

Mitt Romney (R) said the "last 24 hours" have confirmed his "faith" in the U.S. justice system after President Trump's former campaign chairman was convicted on eight felony counts while his former personal lawyer pleaded guilty to various counts including campaign finance law violations. "The events of the last 24 hours confirm that conduct by highly-placed individuals was both dishonorable and illegal," Romney, who is running for the Senate in Utah, wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. "Also confirmed is my faith in our justice system and my conviction that we are a nation committed to the rule of law."...

In Thursday’s Washington Post, columnist Max Boot provides a call to arms for those who seek to oust the sitting president of the United States. His column claims that the presidency has now been shown to be illegitimate because of this week’s allegations and that Congress should have already acted on impeachment. None of this is surprising, Trump’s has been the photo on Boot’s dartboard for some time now, but in his zesty finale, Boot may have revealed a bit too much. He writes: The voters of the United States must now say to this Congress what Oliver Cromwell said...

President Donald Trump bragged to a crowd in Ohio that he could “destroy” the careers of Republican politicians who didn’t support him.Speaking at a rally in Ohio on Saturday, ahead of Tuesday’s special election in the state’s 12th congressional district, the president’s message to Republicans to line up behind his agenda was clear.“How do you get 100 percent of anything? We always have somebody who says ‘I don’t like Trump, I don’t like our president, he destroyed my career,'” the president told the crowd, The Hill reported.“I only destroy their career because they said bad things about me and you...

As trade tensions escalate between Washington and Beijing, the U.S. Senate quietly passed legislation on Thursday that would lower trade barriers on hundreds of items made in China. With no debate, Senate unanimously passed a bill that would cut or eliminate tariffs on toasters, chemicals and roughly 1,660 other items made outside United States. Nearly half of those items are produced in China, according to a Reuters analysis of government records. The United States and China, the world's two largest economies, are increasingly at loggerheads over trade. U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a series of punitive tariffs on Chinese...

As the editors of The Weekly Standard suggested last week, Congress could pass a resolution of censure for the president’s conduct and his subsequent comments. Congress can also take steps with concrete consequences: • Pass legislation imposing new sanctions on Russia in the event of any future attacks on our democratic process. Dare President Trump to veto it. Override him if he does. • Hold hearings that would include in-depth testimony from the national security team on the Russian attacks, putting the case on the record (again), while putting pressure on members of the administration to correct the president’s comments....

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is saying that more members of the Republican Party need to be willing to stand up to President Trump. “It’s been pretty lonely out here," Kasich told The Guardian in an interview published on Friday, alluding to how he is one of the few members of the GOP to consistently criticize the president. “Not that I mind walking a lonely road, I’ve done it most of my career, but always would be good if you had more people who are willing to stand up and say that’s the wrong direction,” Kasich added.

USA has dropped columnist Cheri Jacobus after the the political strategist and frequent TV pundit insulted Republican consultant and Trump ally Michael Caputo’s daughters and suggested that they be used at “parties” by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “Our editors in the opinion section became aware of the tweet by freelance columnist Cheri Jacobus just after noon today,” a spokesperson for the company told TheWrap Thursday evening. “An hour later after researching the issue, our editors let Jacobus know that she would no longer be writing for USA TODAY,” the spokesperson added. “We have asked her to remove the USA...

Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) is renewing his call for President Trump to release his tax returns after the president's controversial press conference with Russian leader Vladimir Putin this week. Sanford told The Washington Post’s Robert Costa on Tuesday that he doesn’t know if Putin has any compromising information on Trump, but said he wants more information about Trump’s finances in light of the president's comments while standing alongside Putin the previous day. Trump's remarks during a joint press conference with Putin in Helsinki were widely panned by U.S. lawmakers, with many Republicans and Democrats condemning his comments siding with Putin's...

The federal government collected a record $1,305,490,000,000 in individual income taxes through the first nine months of fiscal 2018 (October 2017 through June 2018), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today. Despite the record individual income tax collections, the federal government still ran a deficit of $607,099,000,000 over those same nine months, according to the Treasury statement. The approximately $1,305,490,000,000 in individual income taxes that the Treasury collected in October through June of this fiscal year was $71,815,310,000 more (in constant June 2018 dollars) than the $1,233,674,690,000 (in constant June 2018 dollars) in individual income taxes that the Treasury...

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has sharpened his opposition to the federal government’s separation of children from adults who attempt to illegally enter the U.S., specifically linking the policy to President Donald Trump and declaring in a letter late Tuesday that “This practice needs to stop now.” Scott expressed his position in a letter to Health and Human Services Sec. Alex Azar seeking information about an HHS-run facility in Homestead that is housing 94 minors who were separated from their parents.

The conservative commentators who absolutely despise President Trump are in a box. During the campaign, many loudly proclaimed that they could never vote for Trump. But they said they didn't want Hillary Clinton to win either. So some opted for fringe candidates or third-party candidates or write-in candidates or told people to make up their own minds. This was something of a charade. Either Trump or Clinton was going to be the next president. So by refusing to back Trump, they were increasing the chances that Hillary would win. Now, with the midterms approaching, some of those on the right...

Just hours after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, media legal analysts and commentators began forecasting what this will mean for women’s reproductive freedom. On CNN: “Roe v. Wade is doomed.” Huffington Post: “It’s time to prepare for life without nationwide legal abortion.” Reuters: “a death knell for Roe v. Wade.” Or, as one commenter remarked, invoking Dylan, “looks like it’s all over now, baby blue.” I share the despair, but have we forgotten something? Republicans have a one-vote majority in the Senate. Their number includes two female moderates, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, both of whom support...

Mitt Romney said it is "too early" to say he will support President Trump in 2020. The Utah candidate for U.S. senator further explained to MSNBC's Kasie Hunt, in an interview that aired Sunday evening, that his prior prediction that Trump will get re-elected was not an endorsement. "I also think Gavin Newsom will get elected [as governor] in California. That's not something I want to see, it's just something that's probably going to happen," Romney added. Romney was also prompted to speak about whether he wants a Republican to challenge Trump in a 2020 primary. "There will be people...