Free Republic

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Wednesday said Texas Republicans are “going to have a tough time” holding onto their majority in the state House this fall, the latest and perhaps most notable sign yet of GOP unease about the midterm elections. Speaking at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s annual conference in Austin, Patrick said it is imperative for the loser of Republicans’ rancorous Senate primary runoff — whether it’s U.S. Sen. John Cornyn or Attorney General Ken Paxton — to support the winner against Democratic candidate James Talarico. The Austin state representative locked up his party’s nomination in March and...

A new report on the goings-on within President Donald Trump's close circle of advisors revealed that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has allegedly urged the group to be "more forthright with the boss" about the realities of his war with Israel against Iran. Wiles was concerned that the president's aides were offering him a rose-colored outlook on how the war was being perceived among Americans, too often telling Trump what he wanted to hear, according to TIME Magazine, which cited several White House sources and a senior administration official. According to the official, Trump has begun many recent...

Donald Trump has privately asked cabinet members in recent weeks whether he should replace his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, venting frustration that she shielded a former deputy who undercut his rationale for war with Iran, according to two people briefed on the discussions. It is not clear that Trump will actually fire Gabbard over the episode. Currently, there is no standout candidate to take the job, and advisers have cautioned that creating a high-profile vacancy before a successor is ready could cause unhelpful political distractions. But Trump’s discussions mark an ominous development for Gabbard, given the president tends...

Oil surged 10% Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump warned of further military aggression against Iran in the next two to three weeks, dampening hopes for an imminent de-escalation in the conflict. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures for May were up 10% at $110.21 a barrel as of 8:13 a.m. ET. June futures for international benchmark Brent crude rose 8% to $109.25 per barrel. Trump in his speech attributed the increase in oil prices to the “Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict.” He said...

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering firing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in recent days but publicly praised her performance after the report surfaced, as congressional scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein case files intensifies, according to The New York Times. Trump has floated Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin as a possible replacement but has not made a final decision, the Times reports. The deliberations over Bondi’s future intersect with mounting bipartisan pressure on the Justice Department to fully release materials related to the sex offender Epstein, placing the attorney general at the center of an...

White House officials have privately discussed their concerns about recent internal and public polling on the economy and President Trump and have been trying to drum up new strategies to prevent GOP losses in the midterm elections, sources briefed on the conversations told CBS News. Senior aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief of staff James Blair, regularly brief the president on the latest polling on voter sentiment. A central focus is the dissatisfaction of independent voters, whose economic angst has risen since the president's tariffs triggered global economic uncertainty and gas prices began to spike as...

The IDF could soon collapse if there is no solution to the shortage of manpower, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir warned in remarks during a security cabinet meeting held on Wednesday. “I am raising 10 red flags before the IDF collapses into itself,” Zamir said during the cabinet meeting, The Jerusalem Post confirmed. IDF sources also told the Post that there is tremendous concern due to the severe manpower shortage, especially amid the ongoing war. Even in peacetime, Israel would still need more soldiers – not fewer – on the border in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West...

Kristi Noem kept her lover Corey Lewandowski close at hand as she made her first appearance in her new job after she was booted from the Department of Homeland Security. Noem and Lewandowski sat side-by-side across from Guyanese President Irfaan Ali during a meeting in the South American country on Tuesday. She was all smiles during the meeting, which came just weeks after she was grilled over the supposed affair in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier in March. Noem dodged questions about the affair as her husband sat behind her at that hearing. That disastrous hearing resulted in her...

Netanyahu seeks to pass the Budget by March 31 to avoid snap elections, which polls suggest he would likely lose. The war in Iran has shifted focus from Gaza, but polls remain unchanged since Oct 7, showing weak support for Netanyahu. To secure the Budget, Netanyahu's coalition allocated funds to allies, like ultra-Orthodox parties, ensuring their support. Polls consistently show around 40 per cent of voters sticking with Mr Netanyahu’s coalition of nationalist and religious parties, 40 per cent backing opposition parties, and a swing vote so far not moving to Mr Netanyahu, said Professor Gideon Rahat, a political scientist...

In the nearly three weeks since President Donald Trump struck Iran, conventional wisdom has set in that his base is sticking with him on the war. It’s true that Trump’s base hasn’t ditched him in huge numbers — and an overwhelming number of MAGA supporters, especially, say they support the war. The opposition from the likes of Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Megyn Kelly and other influencers hasn’t translated to wide swaths of the GOP base itself. But Trump has alienated some significant portions of his base, and he’s risking alienating more. A fresh batch of polling in recent days...

Political analyst Dick Morris warned Saturday that escalating conflict with Iran could damage President Donald Trump politically if U.S. war aims expand beyond limiting Tehran's ability to threaten the global economy. Speaking on Newsmax's "Saturday Report," Morris said Trump's core supporters remain loyal but cautioned that the broader American public may not tolerate the economic pain that could accompany a prolonged confrontation. "I think the MAGA base has long patience with Donald Trump," Morris said. "But the American people are probably not willing to accept the level of pain economically in the world that is commensurate with what Iran is...

President Trump on Friday said he knows the U.S. military operation in Iran will come to an end when he can “feel it in my bones,” a remark that comes almost two weeks after joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on the Middle Eastern country began. Trump spoke with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on his podcast “The Brian Kilmeade Show” and told him, “When it’s over –– and I don’t think it’s going to be long –– when it’s over, this is going to bounce back so fast.” “When are you going to know when it’s over?” Kilmeade asked. “When...

Some of the first polling of the general election race for U.S. Senate in Texas showed that the Democratic candidate has the lead over both Republicans vying for the seat. Texas state Rep. James Talarico won the Democratic Party’s nomination during last week’s primary. However, the Republicans running for the office – incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – are preparing for a May runoff after neither of them cracked the 50% threshold during the primary. The poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling between March 4 and 5 and asked respondents questions ranging from the...

Global oil prices could breach the $100 (£74) a barrel mark within days, and reach $150 a barrel by the end of the month, without a solution ​to the severe disruption in crude flows through the strait ‌of Hormuz, Goldman Sachs has warned. Oil exports via the vital trade route linking the world’s biggest oil producers to buyers in the global market have fallen further than the US investment bank had initially expected after the US-Israeli attack on Iran a little over a week ago. Goldman Sachs had anticipated that flows of crude through the strait would fall to 15%...

U.S. and Israeli airstrikes alone are unlikely to result in the ouster of the Iranian government, according to an expert in air campaigns, who said that the risks are growing for a more drawn-out war that could spread beyond the Middle East. Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who has studied air power for three decades, told CBS News 24/7 that history does not support the idea that bombing alone can unseat a regime and install a more friendly leader. "The fact of the matter is, for over a century, states have been trying...

A federal appeals court said on Monday that Alina Habba had been serving unlawfully as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, dealing a blow to the Trump administration and most likely setting up a showdown at the Supreme Court. In its ruling, the three-judge panel, based in Philadelphia, affirmed an earlier ruling by a Federal District Court judge, shooting down each of the government’s arguments for why Ms. Habba could continue to serve. In their opinion, the judges wrote that the Trump administration appeared to have become frustrated by the legal and political barriers that have prevented its preferred U.S....

Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) issued a statement Saturday vowing to conduct “vigorous oversight” on Caribbean strikes after a report surfaced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. military to “kill everybody” aboard an alleged drug vessel. “The Committee is aware of recent news reports — and the Department of Defense’s initial response — regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” the senators wrote in a joint statement. “The Committee has directed inquires to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to...

Consumers soured on the current economy and their prospects for the future, with worries growing over the ability to find a job, according to a Conference Board survey released Tuesday. The board’s Consumer Confidence Index for November slumped to 88.7, a drop of 6.8 points from the prior month for its lowest reading since April. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones were looking for a reading of 93.2. In addition, the expectations index tumbled 8.6 points to 63.2 while the present situation index slipped to 126.9, a decline of 4.3 points. “Consumers were notably more pessimistic about business conditions six months...

Infighting. Bad polls. Party divisions. Midterm fears. It’s all back. President Donald Trump’s administration has been embroiled in scandal and sloppiness. His own party has defied his political pressure. His senior staff has been beset by infighting. He has sparred with reporters and offered over-the-top praise to an authoritarian with a dire human-rights record. A signature hard-line immigration policy has polled poorly. And Republicans have begun to brace themselves for a disastrous midterm election. That was 2017. But it’s also 2025. Ten months into the president’s second term, Trump 2.0 is for the first time starting to resemble the chaotic...

As Trump’s downward spiral starts producing harsher media coverage, a writer who regularly dissects MAGA and political media explains why he’s entering a tailspin that will be very hard to reverse. Suddenly, media outlets seem to have figured out that President Donald Trump is really, really unpopular. There’s been a palpable shift in the discourse: The New York Times reports that Republicans are quietly looking beyond Trump, suggesting he’s losing his grip on the party. Axios claims that it’s “red alert” time for Trump and the GOP. Politico describes how Republicans are getting routed in school board races, a sign...