Free Republic

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was close to a deal with Democratic congressional leaders on protections for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children, a development that alarmed some of his conservative supporters. Trump, who met with the top Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, at the White House on Wednesday evening, said any final agreement must include significant measures to protect border security. The Republican president added that funding for his planned wall along the U.S.-Mexican border - a centerpiece of his 2016 presidential campaign - would "come...

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Democrats might be resisting Republican efforts to get information about a dossier on President Donald Trump because they are worried it might contain falsehoods. Democrats have claimed that Gowdy and other Republicans want to help the president by discrediting the dossier, according to Gowdy in an interview with The Daily Caller. "I don't know why anyone — from (California Democratic Rep.) Adam Schiff, to Vanity Fair, to Rachel Maddow — would not be curious whether or not the world's premier law enforcement agency relied upon a dossier in connection with an investigation without vetting it,"...

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and his allies are preparing primary challenges against Republican senators, a source close to Bannon confirmed to CNN. The target list includes Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, Alabama Sen. Luther Strange, Nevada Sen. Dean Heller and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, the source said. Flake, a strong critic of Trump, has not backed down from the President in the wake of Trump's public attacks against him. Politico first reported the developments. The news comes as Bannon claimed "the Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election" in an interview that...

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Sunday said he can’t guess why some fellow Republicans deny the scientific consensus that climate change exists and is affected by human activity. “I don’t know because I can’t divine their motives,” McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There is things happening with the climate in the world that is unprecedented,” he added. “We have to understand that the climate may be changing and we can take commonsense measures which will not harm the American people.” McCain also said an agreement President Donald Trump came to with Democrats for a short-term increase in...

The quarterback’s future has become a political cause over the last year. When the top black lawmakers and operatives in America meet later this month at an annual, days-long conference in Washington, they want Colin Kaepernick there, too. The chatter in the lead up to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference in two weeks is that there's a plan in place for Kaepernick to be involved somehow, a half-dozen independent sources told BuzzFeed News. Both Kaepernick and the CBC find themselves in an entirely different position than just a year ago: The now former NFL quarterback has become...

Only one poll number to remember this week: WSJ/NBC finds that Trump has 98% approval with Republicans who voted for him in both the primary and the general. Be smart: Don't underestimate Trump's power to do whatever the hell he wants and still keep his base voters. If they stayed with him through Charlottesville and "Access Hollywood," they're not going anywhere over a Beltway deal. Trump has an almost magical hold on his voters. He makes regular deposits in the Bank of Base, and has a nice balance.

Next week, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce his long-awaited single-payer health care bill with a cadre of the Democratic 2020 prospects expected to sign on as co-sponsors. Not long afterward, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, another potential 2020 candidate, will propose an alternative: Allowing individuals and businesses to buy into Medicare. Both ideas have, at times, been labeled "Medicare for all." But their differences also offer a glimpse at what's likely to be a defining debate within the Democratic Party in its next nominating contest: A full shift to a government health insurance system versus a partial step away from...

Democrats have been bashing President Trump's every move since long before he stepped into the Oval Office. But this week something strange happened: Democratic leadership cut a sweeping deal with the president, spoke openly about their phone conversations with him, and made multiple visits to the White House. Although most Democrats in Washington are still celebrating that Trump sided with their leadership Wednesday on a deal to fund the government, provide hurricane relief funds, and raise the debt ceiling, the new — and seemingly sudden — productive relationship with the president is making some Democratic lawmakers and activists uncomfortable. Some...

DACA, the “mini-DREAM Act” enacted by executive order under President Obama, is about to be killed by President Trump. Politico reports: President Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. Senior White House aides huddled Sunday afternoon to discuss the rollout of a decision likely to ignite a political firestorm — and fulfill one of the president’s core campaign promises. The administration’s deliberations on the issue have been fluid and fast moving, and the president has faced...

As Democrats survey the political landscape and focus on rebuilding the party after the disastrous 2016 election, there’s no denying that a change in leadership is desperately needed. One of the primary complaints leveled by Democratic supporters during and after the 2016 election was the lack of diverse faces in leadership positions. A party once led by Barack Obama and his picturesque first family is now scrambling to find candidates that can excite millennials and invigorate the base. It should come as no surprise to anyone well versed in Washington politics that managing to do both is no easy task....

Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona disparaged President Donald Trump’s promise to erect a physical border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, arguing “nobody ought to support” the idea. “Obviously all of us believe in border security. It depends what he means by the wall and we still really haven’t seen what he means by the wall,” Flake said on CNN’s State of the Union. “If that’s a metaphor for border security we can support that but if he’s talking about a solitary, brick and mortar two thousand mile edifice on the border, then no, nobody ought to support that.” Immigration has...

For many Democrats, when it comes to the most divisive and unpopular president in modern history, there is only one word they want to see uttered in the context of Donald Trump's future, and as California Senator Dianne Feinstein has found out in recent days, painfully, that word is “impeachment” and certainly not “patience.” “Look, this man is going to be president, most likely for the rest of this term,” Feinstein said at an event at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco earlier this week. “I think we have to have some patience—it’s eight months into the tenure...

Sen. John McCain issued a plea for bipartisan cooperation as Congress returns from its extended summer recess, saying pragmatism, compromise and mutual respect are more critical than ever given what he considers the lack of experience emanating from the White House. "That has never been truer than today, when Congress must govern with a president who has no experience of public office, is often poorly informed and can be impulsive in his speech and conduct," McCain wrote Thursday in a Washington Post op-ed. "We must respect his authority and constitutional responsibilities," the Arizona Republican said of President Donald Trump. "We...

The White House has reportedly told Republican lawmakers that it won’t shut down the government if the wall on the southern border is not funded in the upcoming short-term budget deal — a position seemingly at odds with the promise President Trump made last month to supporters in Arizona. Congress is set to run out of money at the end of September, setting up a now not-uncommon scenario where the lawmakers must come up with a short-term deal or shut down the government. At an August 22 rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump pushed a hard line on funding for the...

Kid Rock teased a potential U.S. Senate run on Thursday, tweeting that '[t]he 2018 Political Revolution is nearing.' The musician, who was born Robert Ritchie and lives in suburban Detroit, has already said on social media that a website touting his Senate candidacy against Democrat Debbie Stabenow is real. He said in July that he would make a 'major announcement in the near future.' Ritchie wrote on a Kid Rock for US Senate website that '[t]he democrats are "shattin’ in their pantaloons" right now…and rightfully so!' 'We will be scheduling a press conference in the next 6 weeks or so...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — As the White House is backing off ardent support for Luther Strange in next month’s U.S. Senate primary runoff, Strange has resorted to falsified direct attacks on his surging opponent, former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Judge Roy Moore. On Twitter Thursday afternoon, the flailing Strange tweeted out a snippet of Moore’s Thursday morning interview with nationally syndicated radio host Laura Ingraham falsely claiming that Moore attacked President Donald J. Trump. In his tweet, Strange called for Moore to apologize to Trump. The only problem with Strange’s latest phony attack? The interview, and Moore’s comments, were anything...

SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein was booed by some constituents Tuesday night when she said President Donald Trump could be a good president if he changed his approach to the job and brought the nation together. “I just hope he has the ability to learn and change — and if he can he can be a good president,” she said at a Commonwealth Club forum at the historic Herbst Theater, surprising San Franciscans used to hearing their politicians decry Trump. “Oh, come on!” a few people shouted. “No, no!” screamed others. While Feinstein was welcomed with a standing...

Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) is stepping up his call for an investigation into President Trump's former special assistant Sebastian Gorka's alleged ties to a neo-Nazis. "Sebastian Gorka should never have been an advisor to POTUS. He should still be investigated for concealing neo-nazi ties," Durbin said in a tweet on Saturday, just one day after Gorka left his White House post....

Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain decried President Trump's Friday order for the Pentagon to ban transgender people from entering the military. "It would be a step in the wrong direction to force currently serving transgender individuals to leave the military solely on the basis of their gender identity rather than medical and readiness standards that should always be at the heart of Department of Defense personnel policy," McCain, R-Ariz., said in a statement late Friday. "The Pentagon's ongoing study on this issue should be completed before any decisions are made with regard to accession. The Senate Armed Services Committee...

In further evidence that tensions are rising between President Trump and Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Flake just criticized Trump's signature proposal to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. "This notion of a 2,000-mile wall has always been just — for anybody who spends time on the border — just a bit, you know, out there," Flake said in an interview Thursday with ABC15 in Arizona. He offered to show Trump the landscape of the Arizona-Mexico border to prove a wall isn't necessary. Flake's criticism came two days after Trump worked hard to avoid calling the Republican senator out...