Free Republic

In a stunning departure from decades of established US foreign policy, President Donald Trump revealed that a forthcoming peace agreement with Iran will likely allow the regime to retain its conventional ballistic missiles. Standing before reporters at the G7 meeting in France, the President argued that a complete ban is unrealistic because 'they got to have some.' 'What am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them?' Trump said during the briefing. 'Missiles aren't the problem. They hurt a little location, but they don't blow up the planet.' A reporter...

A sheriff's deputy has been fired after allegedly shooting an unarmed Texas freshman dead in his car. Brazoria County deputy Kevin Tippit was sacked this week following an investigation into the death of John Mendoza Jr, 18, on June 1. Protests erupted at Texas State University after it was claimed that Tippit fired at the student following a routine traffic stop near Lake Jackson, around 55 miles south of Houston. Police said Tippit tried to pull Mendoza over when he left a park, but the freshman allegedly tried to flee the scene and led the deputy on a mile-long pursuit....

Republicans on Capitol Hill are seething that Donald Trump is not more focused on the economy as this year's midterm elections approach, warning it could obliterate the narrow GOP congressional majority. Polling indicates that voters are souring on Trump and his Republican allies in Congress ahead of his November's elections that will prove fateful for the President's agenda. In addition to the lack of attention to fixing the economy, senior aides also identified the nomination of Federal Housing Finance Director Bill Pulte, a close ally of the President, to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as an...

Donald Trump has agreed to a major concession to end the war in Iran: allowing the Islamic Republic to retain some of its civilian nuclear program. 'Now, on the civilian nuclear program, I think that we have to be very careful and very precise here,' a senior White House official discussing the pending memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran told reporters on a call Friday afternoon. 'We're not bothered at all by the idea of civilian power plants in Iran; what we're bothered by is the type of infrastructure that would allow them to jump from civilian power...

King Charles III 'viscerally despises' Donald Trump privately, royal author Tina Brown has claimed ahead of the four-day US state visit next week. The former Vanity Fair editor said a royal adviser had also told her that the monarch was 'especially pained' by the President's attacks on Pope Leo XIV. Charles and Camilla's trip comes amid a worsening UK-US relationship after verbal attacks by Mr Trump on the British military, its Nato allies and Sir Keir Starmer. The King's first visit to the US as monarch is intended to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence and herald the start...

Donald Trump has deleted a viral post comparing himself to Jesus Christ after it drew accusations of blasphemy from some of his most vocal right-wing supporters. The President's Truth Social account removed an AI generated image showing him draped in white with a red shawl, placing his hands, glowing with a divine light, on a sick patient in a hospital bed as a soldier, a nurse and others look on in adoration. The post was shared Sunday evening and, by the following morning, had sparked outrage among many of Trump's own supporters, who objected to his use of Christ's image...

The exact terms have not been agreed but Iran wants to charge tolls of up to $1 million on ships that pass through the Strait during the two-week period, an unnamed Middle East official told the Associated Press. Trump welcomed the idea on Wednesday, telling ABC: 'We're thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It's a way of securing it - also securing it from lots of other people. 'It's a beautiful thing.' The Strait, through which a fifth of the world's oil flows, has now become known as the 'Tehran Tollbooth', according to Bloomberg. Ship owners go through...

Vladimir Putin is facing mutiny from his biggest war Ukraine backers amid fears of an impending coup. An unprecedented wave of defeatism over the war has gripped the “toxic” Kremlin dictator’s most ardent supporters. This follows a wave of crippling Ukrainian drone and missile strikes which have paralysed Putin’s oil exports and savaged his key military factories. Russian gains on the frontline have ground to a virtual halt, with some reversals, amid catastrophic losses of 8,000 or more soldiers a week.

he war in Iran has emphatically demonstrated American military might on the world stage. There is only one superpower in the world today, and it isn’t headquartered in Moscow, Beijing or London. Alongside Israel, the United States has decimated much of Iran’s defenses, air force, navy, ballistic missile sites, nuclear infrastructure, and its political leadership. All in the space of just three weeks. The Iran war has also sharply exposed simmering deep-seated tensions in the transatlantic alliance, as well as the open cowardice, petulance and weakness of European leaders, including among its increasingly diminished major powers—principally the UK, France and...

Missiles caused 'extensive damage' in Qatar hours after Iran threatened to wage a 'full scale economic war' by attacking energy facilities across the Middle East. Video showed huge explosions in Ras Laffan - the world's biggest natural gas plant - as well as Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh.Energy sites in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar were evacuated after Tehran warned it would hit them with strikes in 'the coming hours'. Abu Dhabi authorities suspended operations at two of its sites, the Habshan gas facility and at the Bab oil field, after being hit with fallen debris from successful...

The grieving wife of a woman shot dead by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota broke down in tears and blamed herself for the tragedy. Harrowing footage from the scene showed the unidentified woman in tears over the shooting death of 37-year-old poet Renee Nicole Good, as she admitted encouraging Good to confront agents. 'I made her come down here, it’s my fault,' she could be heard saying at one point, through tears. 'They just shot my wife.' Witnesses have claimed Good and her wife were acting as legal observers and filming the protest when she was shot three...

Mayor Jacob Frey demanded that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents leave Minneapolis in an explicit tirade just hours after a woman who was allegedly filming an anti-raid protest was shot dead inside a car by federal agents. The democratic politician told Donald Trump's ICE agents to 'get the f**k out of Minneapolis' after a woman, 37, was killed at a protest Wednesday. Witnesses claimed the woman and her wife were acting as legal observers and filming the protest when she was shot. But ICE insisted the woman tried to use the SUV as a deadly weapon. Frey reiterated, after...

A woman claiming to be the wife of a protester shot dead in her car by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent screamed in anguish moments after watching her die. The 37-year-old woman was shot three times in the face at a protest in Minneapolis on Wednesday after she ignored ICE agents' demands to get out of her car, reversed it and tried to drive off. ICE claimed she deliberately drove her burgundy SUV at agents but witnesses dispute that and Mayor Jacob Frey called it 'bulls**t'. Video shared online captured a witness speaking to a woman who claimed she...

President Donald Trump appeared to give nonchalant confirmation of the first US land strike in Venezuela during a radio interview last week that received little attention. The president said that the Christmas Eve strike was on a facility 'where the ship comes from' – seemingly referencing the origination location of the alleged drug vessels that the US military has been targeting in the Caribbean and Atlantic over the last three months. Speaking to radio host and billionaire John Catsimatidis on WABC, Trump made the bombshell suggestion that US forces have already started conducting land operations in Venezuela. 'I don't know...

Elon Musk's much heralded chainsaw couldn't make the cut. Despite the Trump administration's efforts to slash government spending through the Department of Government Efficiency, federal expenditures actually increased in fiscal year 2025. A new investigative report from the New York Times released this week showcased that many of the contracts cut by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by tech billionaire Musk for the start of Trump's term, were already winding down, or were not on track to reach their maximum spending allotment. The findings were stark: Of the top 13 contract cancellations in DOGE's database all 13...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to dash to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate for an urgent meeting, just days after declaring in a Christmas message that he hoped Vladimir Putin would perish. It comes as the Russian dictator suffered a humiliating Christmas Day defeat after Ukrainian forces took back full control of a city the Kremlin had claimed two months ago. Ukrainian media reports suggest the high-stakes meeting with Trump could take place as soon as December 28, if final arrangements are agreed. The Kyiv leader confirmed that preparations are underway after receiving an update from his chief negotiator, Rustem...

TWO Russian airfields housing Putin's nuke bombers have reportedly been blitzed in an extraordinary drone strike - wiping out at least 40 aircraft. A Ukrainian security official told Reuters that the SBU conducted a large drone attack on Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers - which Russia uses to fire long-range missiles at Ukraine. The source did not specify where the drone attack took place, but Ukrainian media said that Olenya airbase - home to Russia’s Tu-95 strategic bombers - had been targeted. The second base under fire is understood to be the Belaya nuclear airbase in eastern Siberia’s Irkutsk region...

A phenomenon that Elon Musk has called 'the greatest risk to the future of civilization' just got worse, according to a new study. Musk - who has 14 children with four women - has for years warned about population collapse caused by baby bust in America and the West. The consensus was that countries needed a fertility rate of 2.1 children per one woman to continue growing - a concern given that the US's is at 1.62. But now researchers say that fertility target may be too low. A new study found populations may need a fertility rate of 2.7...

Donald Trump has broken his silence after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky at Pope Francis' funeral - and turned on Vladimir Putin. In a rant on his social media platform Truth Social he accused the Russian President of stringing him along and at the same time blamed Democrat Presidents Obama and Biden for a "mess". He wrote: "I’m just trying to clean up the mess that was left to me by Obama and Biden, and what a mess it is. With all of that being said, there was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities...

Donald Trump is holding a gun to the head of Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding huge reparations payments and laying claim to half of Ukraine’s oil, gas, and hydrocarbon resources as well as almost all its metals and much of its infrastructure. The latest version of his “minerals deal”, obtained by The Telegraph, is unprecedented in the history of modern diplomacy and state relations. “It is an expropriation document,” said Alan Riley, an expert on energy law at the Atlantic Council. “There are no guarantees, no defence clauses, the US puts up nothing. “The Americans can walk away, the Ukrainians can’t. I’ve...