Free Republic

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has voted repeatedly for resolutions to withdraw U.S. troops from the military conflict with Iran, told reporters Wednesday that the United States is “worse off” than it was before President Trump launched the war in late February. “I think the Iran war has not been a success. I’ve been opposed to the Iran war from the beginning. I think by any objective measure we’re worse off than we were before the war,” Paul said on Capitol Hill. “If you look at the militarization of the Strait of Hormuz, that’s never happened before,” he said. “There’s...

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday that Republicans would “welcome” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) into their conference if he decides to leave the Democratic Party over growing hostility to Isreal among progressive Democrats. “Yes, we would welcome him,” Thune said when asked whether Republicans would roll out the red carpet for Fetterman if he ever decides to leave the Democratic Party. Thune said he’s had “conversations” with the maverick Democratic senator — as have several other GOP colleagues – about a potential party switch. “I have had conversations with him in the past as have many of my...

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) late Thursday called on Congress to impeach President Trump after the president claimed during a primetime address that forces that stole the 2020 presidential election are still at work and threaten the integrity of the 2026 midterm elections. Trump used words such as “rigged and stolen,” “corrupt” and “cover-up” and cited some recently declassified documents to support his alarming claims, though critics in both parties say he still failed to substantiate his central contention that U.S. elections are marred by widespread fraud. “Trump must be impeached for undermining and subverting our free and fair elections,” Markey...

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) didn’t mince any words Tuesday in calling out what he characterized as the “bulls—” arguments of fellow Republican Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) on social media, revealing the tensions within the Senate Republican Conference over how to push forward on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act. Tillis said Lee’s push for Republicans to force Democrats to actively hold the floor in continuous debate to block the bill — in other words, to force Democrats to employ a talking filibuster — is “goofy.” “I think it’s silly. All of it’s just goofy stuff,” he said. “It’s...

Senate Republicans on Tuesday vented their frustration and disappointment over President Trump’s decision to endorse state Attorney General Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn (R) in the Texas Senate Republican primary, a move that deals a crushing blow to Cornyn’s hopes of winning the May 26 runoff. “I don’t understand. He is an ethically challenged individual,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said of Paxton, who was charged with defrauding investors in a Dallas-area tech startup before he completed a pretrial diversion program. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she was “supremely disappointed” in Trump’s endorsement of Paxton over Cornyn. “I don’t understand...

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) broke ranks Thursday morning and voted against a budget resolution that could set the stage for ending the two-month shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. Murkowski, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, opposed the budget resolution because it would lay the groundwork for passing a budget reconciliation package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol for 3 1/2 years — effectively taking those two key agencies out of the annual congressional appropriations process. Murkowski supports funding those critical immigration enforcement agencies, but she didn’t like that...

President Trump’s allies are planning to take over the Senate floor this week in a bid to pass the SAVE America Act, setting up a major test for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) who is under pressure from Trump and the MAGA base to extend the debate over voting reform for as long as possible. GOP senators are playing their cards close to the vest ahead of this week’s marathon debate over the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which would require people registering to vote to show documented proof of citizenship. But they’re bracing for long hours...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he does not support President Trump’s proposal for Republicans to “take over” voting procedures in more than a dozen states and “nationalize” the midterm elections, declaring Trump’s call to action as blatantly unconstitutional.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he “saw no evidence” to back the claims of senior Trump administration officials that Alex Pretti was attempting to assault law enforcement officers and instead “saw a man that was retreating” when he was shot and killed by federal officers in Minneapolis. “I saw no evidence — I saw a man that was retreating. He went to the middle of the street, he didn’t even obstruct traffic, he let a car go through. As the agents advanced on him, he retreated to the side of the street. A woman is violently...

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has sent letters to the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to testify before his committee amid growing public controversy over immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis and other communities. Paul informed the leaders of President Trump’s immigration agencies in a tersely worded letter that “Congress has an obligation to conduct oversight” of what he called the “exceptional amount of funding” the Republican Congress has allocated to secure the borders and enforce immigration laws. “Congress has an obligation to conduct...

The move by the five GOP senators to curtail Trump’s powers as commander in chief represents one of the biggest schisms between the Senate Republican Conference and the White House during the president’s first year of his second term. The votes enraged Trump, who lashed out at Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), one of the five Republicans, in a “profanity-laced” phone call after she supported the measure, reading her the riot act, according to one source. The Senate will vote this week on a motion to proceed to the war powers resolution and spend a chunk of the week debating it....

Republican senators are warning Attorney General Pam Bondi not to slow-walk the public release of records and documents related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein following votes by the House and Senate demanding the documents. The calls come amid speculation that the Justice Department may cite ongoing investigations or other reasons to hold back material. Bondi said Wednesday that “new information” obtained by investigators had spurred the Justice Department to reverse its earlier decision to close investigations related to Epstein. Democrats are warning that new investigations into high-profile associates of Epstein, such as former President Clinton and former Treasury...

At least eight moderate Senate Democrats are meeting in hopes of finding a deal to end the monthlong government shutdown, but sources familiar with the closely held conversations say they will need strong assurances from the GOP before voting to reopen the government. The eight Democrats, who include Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) and Jon Ossoff (Ga.), the latter a top Republican target in 2026, will need to feel comfortable with whatever is offered by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), and they may need to hear from President Trump himself, sources told The Hill. The group huddled in the Capitol...

Republican senators are increasingly uneasy about President Trump’s standoff with Democratic governors over deploying National Guard troops from other states to Portland, Ore., and Chicago. The conflict between federal and state authorities escalated dramatically over the weekend when Trump moved to send National Guard soldiers to Oregon and Illinois despite opposition from their respective governors, Tina Kotek and JB Pritzker. Trump’s use of military forces was all the more controversial because a Trump-appointed federal judge for the District of Oregon ruled Saturday that the administration could not federalize Oregon’s National Guard to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in...

Senate Republicans are growing increasingly exasperated over President Trump’s refusal to give them permission to move tough bipartisan sanctions legislation against Russia and countries that buy its oil. Trump pressed European allies over the weekend to levy harsher sanctions against Russia, but he has dragged his feet on the bipartisan sanctions bill, which Republican senators were hoping to get done in July. The failure to act is fueling growing disillusionment among some Senate Republicans that Trump is not serious about helping Ukraine. One Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment candidly on the stalemate over the sanctions legislation questioned whether...

Republican senators were appalled by President Trump’s rough treatment of 91-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the Senate’s most senior Republican, on social media and are pushing back on Trump’s attempts to squeeze the senator into abolishing an arcane procedure known as the Senate blue slip. GOP senators were not pleased that Trump piled so much pressure on Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to get rid of a long-established Senate tradition. Trump piled on by reposting on Truth Social posts accusing Grassley of being a “RINO” and “sneaky” and standing in the way of Trump’s agenda. Sen. Thom...

Republican senators aren’t happy about how President Trump treated Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), whom the president blasted last week on social media after Tillis said he wouldn’t vote for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Tillis is highly regarded among colleagues as a team player focused on getting results, and many Republicans thought he would have had the best chance of keeping the North Carolina Senate seat in GOP hands.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has unveiled a plan to override Homeland Security Committee Chair Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) proposal to fund border security and immigration enforcement activities at roughly half the amount favored by Senate and House Republican leaders. Paul created an uproar two weeks ago when he unveiled his portion of the Trump agenda megabill that would spend $6.5 billion on completing President Trump’s border wall and $22.5 billion on expanding detention facilities for migrants. Now Graham has answered with a move of his own, unveiling a proposal to restore funding for the border wall and Immigration...

The Senate parliamentarian has rejected several more provisions in the Republican megabill to enact President Trump’s agenda, including language authorizing states to conduct border security and immigration enforcement, which traditionally have been duties of the federal government. Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough also ruled against language in the bill that would increase the Federal Employees Retirement Systems contribution rate for new civil servants if they do not agree to give up civil service protections to become at-will employees. Additionally, the parliamentarian advised against a section of the bill that would allow the executive branch to reorganize federal government agencies — or eliminate...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is using President Trump’s legislative agenda to “secretly explode” the Pentagon’s budget by adding $150 billion in military spending onto the national debt. “This bill is going to spend $300 billion in the first two years … $300 billion on military and border,” Paul, a critic of the House-passed version of the GOP mega bill, told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow in an interview on Wednesday. Paul said the spending cuts in the bill amount to $1.5 trillion over 10 years or about $150 billion per year. “In the first year...