Free Republic

For about 30 hours, the illusion of transatlantic unity over Ukraine was maintained. Europe and Ukraine had demanded a deal on the 30-day unconditional ceasefire the Trump administration proposed two months earlier. European leaders said US President Donald Trump had personally backed their plan – and threat of sanctions if Russia declined to sign up by Monday – in a Saturday phone call, a picture of which they posted online from Kyiv. Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, even joined a chorus of US allies demanding Russia adhere to the ceasefire demand. But then Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke,...

Air traffic controllers who lost communication with aircraft at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, leading to hundreds of delays for more than a week, are taking special government leave for traumatic situations to recover from the stress. The controllers in Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control, which coordinates planes arriving at Newark, “temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control, unable to see, hear, or talk to them,” on Monday April 28, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a statement shared with CNN. The connectivity between Federal Aviation Administration radar and the frequencies that...

US President Donald Trump has signaled a potential U-turn on his trade war with China amid continued market volatility, saying the high tariffs on Chinese goods will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero.” Trump’s remarks, made at a White House news event Tuesday, appear to mark a rhetorical climbdown after weeks of tough posturing and tit-for-tat retaliation that sent tariffs on China beyond a staggering 145%. “145% is very high and it won’t be that high,” Trump said in a question-and-answer session with reporters in the Oval Office. “It won’t be anywhere near that high. It’ll come down...

Trump's tariff announcement introduced uncertainty to the markets. Leading to the worst April performance in a long long time for stocks. The media believe this is a threat to Trump's support, but is it?

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared detailed plans about a military operation against the Houthis in Yemen on a second Signal group chat that included his wife, lawyer and brother, three people familiar with the chat told CNN.The revelation comes as some of Hegseth’s closest advisers have begun sounding the alarm about the secretary’s judgment, including his former press secretary, John Ullyot, and three former senior officials Hegseth fired last week — his top adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, who served as chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense.

CNN anchor Dana Bash cut away from President Donald Trump’s Oval Office remarks on Monday to protest his claim that CNN “hates our country.” Trump made the comment during an Oval Office meeting with Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele, jabbing at the network over coverage of illegal immigration, particularly at the southern border, and saying that CNN “didn’t like putting out good numbers” that reflected well on his presidency. “We’re a great country, but we had stupid people running this country. And I can say what they’ve done to us at the border should never and can never be forgotten. It’s...

In private discussions hours before China announced new retaliatory tariffs, the Trump administration warned Chinese officials against such a move, according to a source familiar with the discussions. The Chinese were also told – once again – that Chinese President Xi Jinping should request a call with US President Donald Trump. Instead, US officials woke up to news of increased Chinese tariffs and no request for a leader level call. Xi also made comments that only dug him in further. “For over 70 years, China’s development has relied on self-reliance and hard work — never on handouts from others, and...

As Wall Street heads into a new quarter, a flurry of President Donald Trump’s tariffs are set to go into effect. That has traders on edge and has helped put US stocks in their worst first-quarter slump in years.Wall Street has been rocked with volatility this year as Trump’s tariff proposals have kept investors in a cloud of uncertainty. The benchmark S&P 500 index is down 4.9% for the year, its worst start since 2022.US stocks were mixed Monday as traders tried to stage an afternoon rally. The Dow was up by around 430 points, or 1%, reversing course after...

President Donald Trump is using the power of the federal government to intimidate or neuter potential sources of opposition to him: The legal establishment, academia and prominent cultural institutions, the media, the judiciary, the Democratic Party, Congress and independent government oversight. The unprecedented breadth of the actions Trump and his allies inside the government have taken against his perceived political and ideological opponents in his first two months back in office is stunning – both in the president’s willingness to test the limits of his powers and the extent to which his foes have struggled to respond or even bent...

The medical staff looking after Pope Francis considered stopping his treatment so he could die, according to the lead doctor, while the 88-year-old pontiff was hospitalized with a drawn-out respiratory illness. Professor Sergio Alfieri told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera the most critical moment came on February 28 when the pope had a breathing crisis and inhaled his own vomit. “We had to choose whether to stop and let him go or force it and try with all the drugs and therapies possible, running the very high risk of damaging other organs. And in the end, we took this path,”...

Former Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) called Elon Musk a “thief” and a “Nazi” during a fiery CNN segment Thursday night. After Joe Borelli, the ex-Republican leader on the New York City Council, argued that much of the discontent at Republican congressmen’s town hall events were protests organized by Democrats, Bowman interrupted to insist that “that’s not true.” “That’s not true. And this shows, again, the American people do not trust Elon Musk,” began Bowman. “And Elon Musk is incompetent in his position. And how do we know? Because they fired tens of thousands of people, it was challenged in...

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russian forces since the early days of the war, could be restored and protected by US ownership – at least according to the Americans. But it’s unclear how the operation would work in practice, experts say, especially as the plant is on the front line, in territory controlled by Russia. As part of ongoing talks to inch toward a partial ceasefire, US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky “discussed Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants” during a Wednesday phone call, according to the US readout of the call. On Thursday,...

SNIPPresident Donald Trump’s public animosity towards Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, his willingness to embrace Russia’s Vladimir Putin and recent comments casting doubt over whether he would defend NATO allies “if they don’t pay” have all forced European leaders to start thinking the previously unthinkable - is the US a reliable security partner at a time when the continent is being rocked by its biggest war since the 1940s?But NATO without the US is far from impotent, with more than a million troops and modern weaponry at its disposal from the 31 other countries in the alliance. It also has the wealth...

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating why multiple commercial flights about to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport, near Washington DC, repeatedly received midair collision alerts over the weekend when there were no other aircraft nearby.The alerts occurred only miles from the site of the deadly January 29 midair collision of American Eagle 5342 and a US Army Blackhawk helicopter.Several flight crews reported the mystery alerts on their Traffic Collision Avoidance System, known as TCAS, on Saturday “indicating another aircraft was nearby when no other aircraft were in the area,” the FAA said in a statement on Monday.“We were about...

The American public’s view of Donald Trump’s presidency and the direction he’s leading the country is more negative than positive just ahead of his first formal address to Congress since returning to office, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. The survey finds that across three basic measures of Trump’s performance on the job – his approval rating, whether he has the right priorities and whether his policies are taking the country in the right direction – the negative side outpaces the positive. Overall, 52% disapprove of Trump’s performance in office, with 48% approving, about the same as...

During a remarkably combative Oval Office meeting on Friday, both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he was insufficiently thankful. “You have to be thankful. You don’t have the cards,” Trump said, adding a bit later, “You gotta be more thankful.” “Have you said thank you once this entire meeting?” Vance asked. Trump might have been referring to Zelensky’s posture toward Trump in particular, as Vance appeared to be. But as their heated exchange with Zelensky reverberates around the world, it’s worth noting that Zelensky has thanked the United States on numerous...

Elon Musk, wielding a chainsaw, is overseeing a rapid shrinking of the nation’s largest employer: the federal government. There’s no doubt the federal government’s 3.02 million-person civilian workforce is massive. Yet some economists are confident the widespread terminations spearheaded by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will likely not devastate the national economy or even topple the historically strong jobs market. “It’s not going to tip the economy into recession by itself,” said Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research. That’s in part because the federal layoffs are expected to affect a small fraction of the much larger US labor...

In an unprecedented purge of the military’s senior leadership Friday night, President Donald Trump fired the top US general just moments before his defense secretary fired the chief of the US Navy and the vice chief of the Air Force. Trump announced he was dismissing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown and replacing him with Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan “Razin” Caine – an extraordinary move since Caine is retired, according to an Air Force official, and is not a four-star general.SNIP“Finally, I have also directed Secretary [of Defense Pete] Hegseth to solicit nominations for...

Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons. An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.” The agency began rescinding the terminations Friday morning. Some...

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) claimed Thursday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” that the Republican Party has become the “corruption party” with Elon Musk being the leading agent. Raskin said, “Whoever is left within the vague hemisphere of Trump world who believes in the rule of law will not be able to last because they put corruption first. They are the corruption party at this point. You know, they wiped out the inspectors general. They fired 17 of them illegally without notifying Congress. They have to come to us 30 days before they have to specifically set forth the rationale for...