Free Republic

For years, President Donald Trump blamed “communists” for his legal and political troubles. Now, the second Trump administration is deploying that same historically loaded label to cast his opponents — from judges to educators — as threats to American identity, culture and values.Why? Trump himself explained the strategy last year when he described how he planned to defeat his Democratic opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, in the White House election.“All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody who is going to destroy our country,” he told reporters at his New...

It got “60 Minutes” sued by the man who became president of the United States. Now it’s up for a major award — for precisely the same aspect of it that so enraged Donald Trump. Last fall’s “60 Minutes” story on Kamala Harris — the subject of Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS — was nominated for an Emmy Award Thursday for “outstanding edited interview.” Trump, in his lawsuit, complained that the interview was deceptively edited to make his Democratic election opponent look good. The annual News & Documentary Emmys will be awarded in late June. “60 Minutes” is competing...

President Donald Trump on Thursday offered rare criticism of Vladimir Putin, urging the Russian leader to “STOP!” after a deadly barrage of attacks on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Joe Biden returns to the national stage Tuesday to elevate liberal concerns that President Donald Trump's agenda is threatening the health of Social Security. The 82-year-old Democrat has largely avoided speaking publicly since leaving the White House in January, which is typically the tradition for immediate past presidents. That's even as Trump frequently blames Biden for many of the nation's problems, often attacking his predecessor by name. Biden is expected to fight back in an early evening speech to the national conference of Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled in Chicago. While Biden has...

WASHINGTON (AP) — "Democratic officials in 19 states filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s attempt to reshape elections across the U.S., calling it an unconstitutional invasion of states’ clear authority to run their own elections. Thursday’s lawsuit is the fourth against the executive order issued just a week ago. It seeks to block key aspects of it, including new requirements that people provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a demand that all mail ballots be received by Election Day." “The President has no power to do any of this,” the state attorneys general wrote in...

Opponents of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk plan to rally across the U.S. on Saturday to protest the administration's actions on government downsizing, the economy, human rights and other issues. More than 1,200 “Hands Off!” demonstrations have been planned by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists. The protests are planned for the National Mall in Washington, D.C., state capitols and other locations in all 50 states. Protesters are assailing the Trump administration's moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge accused the Justice Department on Wednesday of attacking her character in an effort to undermine the integrity of the judicial system, forcefully pushing back against the Trump administration's criticism of the courts for rulings that blocked parts of the president's agenda. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell’s comments came in an order denying the Justice Department’s bid to remove her from a case over an executive order punishing a prominent law firm. The Trump administration had asked for the case to be moved to another judge in Washington’s federal court, accusing Howell of demonstrating “a...

In two congressional districts and vastly different political environments, two Republicans in the U.S. House were met with far different reactions at public meetings they held late last week. Against the suggestion of their leader, House Speaker Mike Johnson, to refrain from holding public meetings with constituents, second-term Reps. Chuck Edwards and Harriet Hageman went ahead with their evening sessions. In Asheville, North Carolina, chants of opposition greeted Edwards on Thursday as opponents hooted at almost every answer he gave and chanted outside. In Evanston, Wyoming, at the southwestern corner of a sparsely populated and heavily Republican state, it was...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine won’t enter peace talks with Russia until it has security guarantees against another offensive. Zelenskyy added Friday’s contentious spat with President Donald Trump was “not good for both sides.” But Zelenskyy said that Trump — who insists Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to end the three-year grinding war — needs to understand that Ukraine can’t change attitudes toward Russia on a dime.

U.S. consumers cut back sharply on spending last month, the most since February 2021, even as inflation declined, though stiff tariffs threatened by the White House could disrupt that progress. Americans cut their spending by 0.2% in January from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Friday, likely in part because of unseasonably cold weather. Yet the retreat may be hinting at more caution by consumers amid rising economic uncertainty. Inflation declined to 2.5% in January compared with a year earlier, down from 2.6% in December, the government said. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices dropped to...

BERLIN (AP) — Exit polls show opposition leader Friedrich Merz’s conservatives leading in Germany’s national election. They indicate that Alternative for Germany is heading for the strongest showing for a far-right party since World War II. The exit polls for ARD and ZDF public television show Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats on track for their worst postwar result in a national parliamentary election, and expected to be in third place. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. BERLIN (AP) — German voters are choosing a new government in an election Sunday dominated by worries about...

WASHINGTON (AP) — His group spent nearly $1 million on ads opposing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s health agencies. He’s delivering speeches urging the president to stand with longstanding foreign allies and lobbying members of Congress while aides write letters and opinion columns. This weekend, he posted an article he penned more than a decade ago on the limits of presidential power after Trump claimed that, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Mike Pence is emerging as one of the last Republicans in Washington willing to publicly criticize the new...

A journalist with The Associated Press thought she had a big scoop. Little did she know she would have to be scooped off the ground after being obliterated in a fact-check by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.FAA staff fired over the weekend included personnel that worked radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, among others. Hundreds were fired, just weeks after a fatal mid-air collision in DC killed 67. One employee said they were harassed on Facebook by @DOGE… — Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) February 17, 2025 More fake news from the @AP 1. DOGE doesn’t even have a Facebook page...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has ordered President Donald Trump's administration to temporarily lift a funding freeze that has shut down U.S. humanitarian aid and development work around the world, and he has set a five-day deadline for the administration to prove it's complying. The judge's ruling late Thursday cited the financial devastation that the near-overnight cutoff of payments has caused suppliers and nonprofits that carry out much of U.S. aid overseas. The ruling was the first to challenge the Republican administration's funding freeze. It comes amid a growing number of lawsuits by government employees' groups, aid groups and...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Four days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing almost all U.S. foreign aid, an email landed in Claris Madhuku’s inbox in rural Zimbabwe. Stop all activities immediately, it said. The message confirmed Madhuku’s fears that Trump’s return to office might affect his organization’s efforts to save African girls from child marriages.

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he’s revoking former President Joe Biden’s access to government secrets and ending the daily intelligence briefings he’s receiving in payback for Biden doing the same to him in 2021. Trump announced his decision in a post on his social media platform shortly after he arrived at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club in Palm Beach for the weekend. “There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” Trump wrote....

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s given his advisers instructions to obliterate Iran if it assassinates him. “If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters while signing an executive order calling for the U.S. government to impose maximum pressure on Tehran. “I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump will start implementing a far-reaching agenda when he takes office for the second time on Monday, but a poll finds that despite his claims of an “unprecedented and powerful mandate,” the incoming Republican president lacks broad support for some of his top priorities. Just over half of U.S. adults favor eliminating taxes on earnings from tips, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, but some of his other pledges — like pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, increasing oil drilling on federal lands and imposing new tariffs —...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he will again withdraw the United States, a top carbon polluting nation, from the landmark Paris climate agreement, dealing a blow to worldwide efforts to combat global warming and once again distancing the U.S. from its closest allies.The White House announcement, which came as Trump was sworn in Monday to a second term, echoed Trump’s actions in 2017, when he announced that the U.S. would abandon the global Paris accord. The pact is aimed at limiting long-term global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels or, failing that, keeping...

WASHINGTON (AP) — At the top of his first speech as her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz turned to Vice President Kamala Harris and declared, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.” The next day, Harris took the theme a step further, branding the Democratic ticket “joyful warriors.” Contrast that with former President Donald Trump, who opened a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida a few days later by saying, “We have a lot of bad things coming up,” and predicting the U.S. could fall into an economic depression unseen since the dark days of 1929 or...