Free Republic

Iran will play all three of its Group G matches on American soil yet base its operations across the border in Mexico... Mehdi Taj, head of the Iranian Football Federation, announced Saturday that the team's training base would relocate from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, a border city in Baja California. He cited visa complications and security concerns stemming from the U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran that began on February 28. "We will be based in the Tijuana camp, which is near the Pacific Ocean and on the border between Mexico and the United States," Taj said in a video posted...

WASHINGTON — Construction is underway on the South Lawn of the White House as construction crews raise steel arches, lighting rigs and broadcast infrastructure to complete a temporary arena for "UFC Freedom 250." The professional fighting event tied to America's 250th anniversary celebration is scheduled for June 14, which marks Flag Day and President Donald Trump's 80th birthday. The most prominent feature currently taking shape is a star-spangled arch that will stretch over the octagon fight cage, featuring a red, white and blue color scheme and extensive lighting effects. The semicircular structure behind the octagon was manufactured in Pennsylvania and...

The best hope for ending a poorly planned war, which started with scant consultation with Congress or the American people, may be an unsatisfactory peace that leaves critical issues to be resolved later and deepens Washington strife. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said a deal to halt the conflict he chose against Iran is imminent and very close. Each time, his predictions turned out to be wishful thinking or a misreading of Iran’s true intentions. So it’s no surprise his latest claims that a framework agreement with Tehran is near have been met with skepticism and confusion — nor that...

But if Massie loses, it's not just the end of his career. (He told Mangu-Ward that if GOP primary voters send him packing, he's going back to his plow and "nobody will ever hear from me again"). It would also effectively be the end of what used to be called the Tea Party, a loose conglomeration of Republican representatives and senators who rode a wave of anti-Barack Obama and anti-George W. Bush sentiment to office in the early 2010s. Although some said that the tea in Tea Party stood for the "taxed-enough already," the rallying cry of the early Tea...

Donald Trump was for the Iran war before he was against it. His latest post on social media about the conflict indicated that he is once more calling off a sweeping military action, this time at the behest of his Gulf allies who are apparently quaking at the thought of a renewed conflict. Trump’s initial sentence was quite a mouthful: I have been asked by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to hold...

Most voters think President Trump made the wrong decision to go to war with Iran, a New York Times/Siena poll found, leaving the Republican Party on rocky political footing heading into the midterm elections as his approval rating sinks and economic concerns rise.Majorities of voters said that the war was not worth the costs and held deeply pessimistic views about the economy.Mr. Trump’s approval rating — a key historical predictor of how a president’s party will fare in an election — has sunk to a second-term low in Times/Siena polls of 37 percent amid the deeply unpopular Middle East conflict....

President Donald Trump said Monday that he is calling off an attack on Iran planned for Tuesday because regional leaders had urged him to allow negotiations to continue and that a “very acceptable” deal for the U.S. was at hand.Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates asked him “to hold off on our planned Military attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was scheduled for tomorrow, in that serious negotiations are now taking place, and that, in their opinion, as Great Leaders and Allies, a Deal...

The U.S.-brokered alliance designed to counter Iran in the Middle East is showing signs of strain amid tensions between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, an analyst says, as the possibility of a broader conflict with Tehran intensified Sunday. The friction first surfaced May 13 after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he held a "historic breakthrough" meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan during a "secret visit" to Al Ain near the Oman border. The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a swift denial following the announcement. Sachs, a senior fellow at the institute, said...

Catholic Trump voters are not a univocal group, and on many issues, they reflect the same concerns as other Americans. First, there are pro-life Catholics for whom abortion is the most important issue...Trump’s appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court allowed for the overturning of Roe v. Wade... But in politics, it does not matter what you did for me yesterday, but rather, what are you doing for me today? He has abandoned the pro-life movement, removing the anti-abortion plank from the Republican Party’s 2024 national platform... The platform now supports IVF, which pro-life advocates oppose because it results in the...

A decorated FBI official who is suing the agency for wrongful dismissal said he was asked to pledge loyalty to Donald Trump during his vetting for the role. In his first interview since leaving the FBI in 2025, Brian Driscoll, who served as the interim director of the agency under the US president, told CNN he was repeatedly asked about his personal political views while being interviewed for the role. Mr Driscoll and two other senior FBI officials are suing Kash Patel, the head of the agency, and the FBI over allegations of wrongful termination. The lawsuit accuses Mr Patel...

President Donald Trump will not control the Republican Party forever. No political figure does... History is littered with figures who seemed immovable — until they moved. The question is never whether change will come. The question is whether honorable people are ready when it does. We intend to be ready. What does that mean in practice? It means identifying and supporting candidates, at every level of government, but most importantly a candidate for President in 2028, who hold genuine conservative values rather than merely pay lip service to them. It means building a coalition of Republicans who understand that winning...

Washington — As inflation rose to its highest rate in years and CBS News polling shows high prices at the pump are causing financial strain for many Americans, President Trump told reporters Tuesday, "I don't think about Americans' financial situation" as a motivation for negotiations with Iran, and said he is only concerned with preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. When asked by a reporter how much Americans' finances are "motivating you to make a deal," Mr. Trump responded: "Not even a little bit."

Fox News contributor Mark Thiessen joined anchor John Roberts on Thursday to discuss the latest developments in President Donald Trump’s negotiations to end the conflict in Iran, which Thiessen warned risked putting the U.S. in a weaker position. Roberts introduced Thiessen and noted, “He’s got a new column out today in the Washington Post titled ‘Trump Risks Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory.’” Roberts continued: You’re offering the president some advice here, including on X, where you said: “Here’s what Iran sees after being warned not to. They hit UAE and fired on a U.S. ship, and we didn’t...

The U.S. government learned last week that it may have reached an unfortunate milestone: The size of its debt surpassed the nation’s total economic output. It was a striking imbalance, according to early estimates, one that the country has experienced only in rare circumstances — briefly during the pandemic, and in the aftermath of World War II. But the development barely seemed to register in the nation’s capital, where few policymakers bothered to acknowledge the latest warning sign about the government’s poor fiscal health. The root of the problem is well-documented and widely known. U.S. debt has soared in recent...

OK. I have been doing my best to read the Trump tea leaves, figure out the Art of the Deal, and parse all the information out there so that I can figure out Donald Trump's strategy in the Iran War. I thought I had a good handle on it, and until the past few days, Trump's behavior accorded pretty well with my overall theory. Trump's strategy appeared to have been to pressure Iran into full and complete capitulation on the issues of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles (which exist to make attacking Iran nearly impossible), and to get the Strait of...

Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment, according to a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery. The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government or previously reported. The threat of air attacks rendered some of the U.S. bases in the region too dangerous to staff at normal levels, and commanders moved most of the personnel from these sites...

Venezuela’s deposed president, Nicolás Maduro, never enjoyed the charisma or genuine popularity of his predecessor, ‘El Comandante’ Hugo Chávez. So all the murals, billboards and installations dotted around Caracas urging the release of the 63-year-old statesman – along with his wife Cilia Flores – from American captivity, don’t exactly feel like a grassroots effort. ‘Bring them home!’ reads one mural, evoking the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas. Meanwhile, a stopwatch installed in Caracas’s Bolivar Square counts how long it has been since the presidential couple were abducted by the US army in early January. Maduro currently resides in the Metropolitan...

The national retail average for a regular gallon of gas was $4.457 on Monday. That's a 1-cent increase from Sunday, according to the American Automobile Association, and 35 cents more than last Monday. At this time last year, a gallon of gas was $1.29 cheaper. The surging prices seemed to stabilize or even decrease for about two weeks, following a temporary ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran that has been indefinitely extended. However, the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route where roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes, has effectively remained closed or extremely limited to passage...

“We would not eat.” That is how disabled U.S. Navy veteran Juan Saro described a life without the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP…About 1.2 million veterans are enrolled now, according to the National Council on Aging. More than 20,000 military families, 213,000 National Guard and Reserve members, and more than 1 million veterans, rely on such benefits, according to Veteran.com. Saro survived a brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from his time in the Navy. He later worked as a sixth-grade teacher. But COVID-related health problems made it impossible to stay in the classroom. The veteran now...

The chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Service committees on Saturday expressed they are “very concerned” about the withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany amid President Trump’s feud with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump on Wednesday had announced that he was reviewing a possible reduction of U.S. troops in Germany. “We are very concerned by the decision to withdraw a U.S. brigade from Germany,” the chairs, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), said in a joint statement. “Germany has stepped up in response to President Trump’s call for greater burden sharing, significantly increasing defense spending...