Free Republic

With only nine months until the midterm elections, Democrats will scrutinize every move President Donald Trump takes as they fight to reclaim control of the House and the Senate. Victor Davis Hanson lays out the narrow road ahead to victory for Trump and the GOP during the 2026 midterm elections. History is not on the incumbent’s side. Messaging mistakes and unforced errors could shift key voters and hand Congress back to Democrats. Hanson explains what it will take to hold a Republican majority—and why the stakes for these midterm elections could not be higher—on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson:...

Lawmakers are not yet finished with Attorney General Pam Bondi. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) led a new charge on Friday morning, demanding Bondi testify before the House Oversight Committee while raising concern about Bondi’s appearance before the House Judiciary panel on Wednesday. During the hearing, a photographer captured an image of Bondi with a document appearing to show Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s (D-WA) searches on the Epstein Files — which she and other members of Congress were given access to two days earlier. “In the Judiciary Committee, she had a folder open, and you saw an image of a search history...

@RepThomasMassie Yesterday in @JudiciaryGOP, @AGPamBondi hurled personal insults instead of answering my legitimate questions about major gaps and serious flaws in the Epstein Files Transparency Act document production.

snip Evans' affidavit, dated Jan. 28, cited five major areas of irregularities under investigation, including that: Fulton County has admitted that it does not have scanned images of all the 528,777 ballots counted during the Original Count or the 527,925 ballots counted during the state's first recount, a major loss of evidence. Fulton County has confirmed that during the Recount of votes, some ballots were scanned multiple times. "Ballot images made available in response to public record requests show ballots with unique markings duplicated within the ballot images," the affidavit said. During the Risk Limiting Audit, auditors counting the votes...

President Donald Trump’s approval rating with Republicans has taken an eight-point hit since the fall, according to data from a national polling series. Newsweek contacted the White House via email for comment outside regular working hours. Republican National Committee (RNC) national press secretary Kiersten Pels told Newsweek that Trump has "lowered prices, secured the border, and ensured workers keep more of their hard-earned pay," adding: "With strong momentum, Republicans are united, energized, and ready to win in the midterms." Why It Matters It signals a measurable softening in GOP support over just more than three months, as overall approval numbers...

A federal appeals court delivered a victory for the Trump administration on Friday night by backing its mass detention policy that locks up most people it intends to deport. The three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas split on the ruling with two judges ruling that the Trump administration had the correct interpretation of the immigration law when it comes to the ability to detain people that will be deported, according to Politico. “That prior Administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority … does not mean they lacked the authority to do more,”...

President Donald Trump has deleted a controversial video that depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. Thursday evening, Trump posted a video with baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that included a short clip at the end of the Obamas’ faces superimposed on apes’ bodies. The video was furiously criticized by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, members of the media, and other political commentators as racist. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the post as simply sharing an “Internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of...

The Trump administration has quietly decided to allow employers to import 65,000 extra H-2B visa migrants for jobs that would otherwise pay decent wages to ordinary American who vote in the midterm elections. The visa giveaway is part of President Trump’s zig-zagging between the two sides of his coalition — the voters he needs on election day, and the business donors who provide the funds for political campaigns. Meanwhile, the national media is ignoring the visa giveaway to business because it is focused on the left-wing street groups who are trying to block the deportation of criminal and wage-cutting illegal...

Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House has been a parade of bold, daring accomplishments. Few presidents would dare to dream of matching it. Elected with a resounding mandate in 2024, Trump wasted no time implementing a transformative agenda that reshaped the nation in tangible, measurable ways. He secured the Mexican border with unprecedented rigor. He is revitalizing the economy through deregulation and tax relief. From brokering international peace deals to dismantling bureaucratic waste, Trump’s administration compiled 365 wins in 365 days. On immigration, Trump achieved negative net migration for the first time in fifty years, removing over 2.6...

The Justice Department’s latest release of the Epstein files offers fresh insights into how former President Bill Clinton’s staff communicated with Jeffrey Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, including sometimes-lewd email exchanges. The document dump comes just days before an expected House contempt vote against the Clintons after they rebuffed a subpoena to testify in a bipartisan probe into Epstein. The Republican-led House is expected to vote this week to hold both Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for failing to testify. House Oversight Republicans and even some Democrats voted in committee last month to hold the...

LIVE: President Trump Makes an Announcement from the Oval Office - 01/29/26

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said early Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has ended its enhanced immigration operation in the state of Maine. The Republican senator said she had several “direct conversations” with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem since the agency launched its operation over a week ago, which comes after she’d received no information from the agency at the start of its heightened presence. While not saying when the operation ended, Collins said in a statement, “There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here.” It is unclear how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity...

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the nation’s voting laws, a long-shot priority for President Donald Trump that would impose stricter requirements before Americans vote in the midterm elections in the fall. The package expected to be released Thursday reflects some of the party’s most sought-after election changes, including requirements for photo IDs before people can vote, proof of citizenship and prohibitions on universal vote-by-mail and ranked choice voting — two voting methods that have proved popular in some states. The legislation faces a long road ahead in the narrowly-split Congress, where Democrats have rejected similar...

At the end of this year, Gov. DeSantis will be term-limited out of his job. What better way to spend his time than by traveling the country, promoting a Balanced Budget Amendment using Article V? He wouldn’t be running against Vance, or Rubio, or Newsom or any Democrat. He’d be running against Congress. If we get five more states, for a total of 32, Congress may propose an amendment itself.

A key House Republican called on President Trump Sunday to begin yanking ICE agents out of Minneapolis — warning the chaos will only “get worse” after protester Alex Pretti was fatally shot by a federal agent a day earlier. *** James Comer (R-Ky.) suggested a de-escalation was needed after the 37-year-old ICU nurse was gunned down — especially if “there’s a chance of losing more … innocent lives.” “If I were President Trump, I would almost think about, OK, if the mayor and the governor are going to put our ICE officials in harm’s way and there’s a chance of...

YouTube video analysis of Minneapolis shooting of Alex Pretti. No transcript It is an analysis of what appears to be an accidental discharge of the Sig 320 as it is taken from Pretti and probably contagious gunfire. The video seems to show the 320 slide going back and forth as the gun discharges. It appears to be the same time as the first shot in the audio.

Donald Trump has not ruled out using force to seize Greenland from Denmark as tensions escalate between the US and NATO. The president was asked in a telephone interview on Monday if he would use military force to take Greenland if a deal could not be reached over the Danish territory. Trump gave a simple response: 'No comment.' The president ramped up pressure as he imposed tariffs on eight European nations over their support for Greenland. The tariffs will start at 10 percent next month and rise again to 25 percent in June, remaining in place until a deal is...

President Trump is restoring law and order. Transcript Summary Well, I think every day we get a murderer off the streets of Minneapolis. The public is safer, and President Trump is keeping his promise to the American people. And we literally have arrested and detained thousands of illegal criminals in Minnesota since President Trump came back into the White House. And I've never met a family that ever said, oh, I wish you would have left that rapist free. I wish you would have left that murderer on the streets. So we're just so thankful that we have a president...

SUPPORTING AMERICA’S LUMBER INDUSTRY: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Proclamation invoking Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Act) to delay increases in tariffs for upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities for another year.The United States continues to engage in productive negotiations with trade partners to address trade reciprocity and national security concerns with respect to imports of wood products. The United States will therefore delay the increase in tariff rates for upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities that was set to take place on January 1, 2026, under the September 29, 2025 Proclamation for an...