Free Republic

Most Americans are not antisemitic, but concerns over Israel reflect “a real backlash to consensus view in American foreign policy,” United States Vice President JD Vance assessed in a Monday interview… The vice president said Fuentes serves as a “useful foil” for some pro-Israel conservatives, allowing them to avoid a substantive discussion about US policy toward Israel. Vance said that while he believes “Israel is an important ally... we’re also going to have very substantive disagreements with Israel – and that’s OK.”

What can Donald Trump do to stop morphing into Joe Biden? The two presidents could hardly be more different in most ways—but in the one that counts most with voters, Trump is in danger of resembling his predecessor. Americans rejected Biden and the Democrats last year because they were incensed at the lousy state of the economy. Right now, they’re not much happier with Trump’s economy. Inflation was the No. 1 concern on voters’ minds last year, and it’s still a top concern today. Trump’s team say they plan to tout “affordability” as a theme Republicans can win on in...

Megyn Kelly criticized Ben Shapiro and Bari Weiss at AmericaFest on Friday, accusing them of trying to dictate what qualifies as conservative during a discussion with Jack Posobiec. JACK POSOBIEC, HUMAN EVENTS: Well, Megyn, you mentioned him, and your name came up on this stage last night in regards to pretty much all of this, would you like the opportunity to respond? MEGYN KELLY: Well, I found it kind of funny that Ben thinks he has the power to decide who gets excommunicated from the conservative movement, which shows a willful blindness about his position in it. It reminded me...

Summary A few Republicans join Democrats in criticizing Epstein release as inadequate Justice Department missed deadline for full Epstein file disclosure Critics say redactions fuel conspiracy theories, erode Trump support The U.S. Justice Department released a partial, heavily redacted set of Epstein-related files on December 19-20, 2025, missing a congressional deadline for full disclosure under a bipartisan law signed by President Trump in November. The release included approximately 300,000 pages of documents, photos, and materials, with extensive redactions—including entirely blacked-out sections—and featured prominent references to former President Bill Clinton but few to Trump. Criticism came from both parties: Democrats accused...

Summary Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) ended her campaign for New York governor on December 20, 2025, weeks after launching it on November 7, despite leading in polls. She also announced she will not seek re-election to her House seat, which expires in January 2027. Sources close to Stefanik attributed the withdrawal to President Trump's refusal to fully endorse her, instead remaining neutral in the GOP primary against Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a longtime friend of Trump. Trump described both candidates as "fantastic people," hosted each separately at the White House, and expressed discomfort with their competition. New York Republican...

PHOENIX — For a second day in a row, a long-brewing internal fight among MAGA influencers spilled onto the stage of Turning Point USA's first annual conference since the September slaying of Charlie Kirk, the organization's co-founder.Podcaster Ben Shapiro, speaking on the AmericaFest convention's opening night Thursday, ripped into right-wing broadcasters Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, as well as white nationalist Nick Fuentes.At the core of his argument is a case that Owens has peddled conspiracy theories, without objection from Kelly and other prominent conservatives, about Kirk's assassination. Those theories include suggestions that foreign governments —...

Marian Morgan, for example, was sentenced in 2013 to nearly 34 years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme and was ordered to pay $17.5 million to dozens of investors, most of which remains unpaid. In 2021, she filed a statement in court saying, “I want to pay restitution to my victims so they know I am truly sorry for the damage I caused.” But in May, Trump commuted her sentence “to time served with no further fines, restitution, probation or other conditions.”

Now that Congress has passed a law – not a flimsy resolution, but a law – mandating that the Trump administration release all its files on Jeffrey Epstein, here’s what we know, and what we still need to know. The basic elements of Epstein’s crimes were established back in 2006 by the Palm Beach Police, who began investigating the previous year after a woman reported that he had paid her 14-year-old stepdaughter for a massage. Over the next 13 months, the police gathered sworn statements from dozens of witnesses, including five underage girls who said they’d been paid $200 to...

Members of the MAGA faithful gathered here Thursday to kick off Turning Point USA’s America Fest, the largest meeting for the organization since its founder, Charlie Kirk, was shot to death on a Utah college campus in September. Despite that somber backdrop, the event quickly devolved into a spectacle of MAGA infighting.

European Union leaders have struck a late-night deal to lend Ukraine €90bn (£79bn; $105bn) over the next two years, after failing to agree on using frozen Russian assets. Ukraine was set to run out of cash by next spring, and European Council chief António Costa said the loan would be paid back only when Russia paid reparations for its full-scale war. "We committed, we delivered," said Costa, while Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Svyrydenko praised the deal as "a decisive step for economic resilience". A bid to use €210bn in Russian cash frozen in the EU, mainly in Belgium, ultimately failed...

During testimony behind closed doors, former special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers he believed he could prove President Donald Trump engaged in a "criminal scheme" in order to overturn the 2020 election. NBC News' Ryan Reilly reports on Smith's investigation and what members of Congress had to say. Summary Former special counsel Jack Smith testified in a closed-door House Judiciary Committee hearing on December 17, 2025, after being subpoenaed by Republicans. He defended his investigation into President Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, stating that his team found proof beyond a reasonable doubt of Trump's involvement in a criminal...

Keir Starmer today insisted he would 'call out' Donald Trump if he heard him brand a woman 'piggy'. The PM delivered a gentle rebuke to the US president during an appearance on ITV's Loose Women this afternoon. Mr Trump faced a backlash last month after responding to a question about Jeffrey Epstein from a Bloomberg journalist by saying: 'Quiet, piggy.' Sir Keir - who was appearing to launch the government's strategy for tackling violence against women and girls - was asked by presenter Myleene Klass: 'One of our closest allies, shall we say, recently used language ''quiet piggy''. 'Would you...

Quick, get this man a copy of Return of the God Hypothesis. Elon Musk in an interview with Katie Miller:KATIE MILLER: Who do you look up to the most? ELON: The Creator. MILLER: What’s your position on God? ELON: God is the Creator. MILLER: You don’t believe in God though, do you? ELON: Well, I believe this universe came from something. People have different labels.It’s the season of the unexpected convert, isn’t it? Obviously, I have no privileged information about where if anywhere Musk has landed in any hypothetical spiritual search. But he went out on a limb in saying...

One of President Donald Trump's top aides has some thoughts on Elon Musk. In a series of interviews with Vanity Fair published on Tuesday, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles weighed in on Musk's time as the de facto leader of DOGE, her thoughts on the Musk-led shuttering of USAID, and Musk's personality quirks. "The challenge with Elon is keeping up with him," Wiles told the outlet, calling Musk an "avowed ketamine" user who "sleeps in a sleeping bag" in an office building adjacent to the White House during the daytime. "He's an odd, odd duck, as I think...

Democrat Gary Clemons, a South Louisville union leader and U.S. Army veteran, won Kentucky’s vacant Senate District 37 seat on Tuesday in a roughly 47.5‑point landslide, taking 72.6 percent of the vote to Republican Calvin Leach’s 25.1 percent, according to unofficial Jefferson County results. “State Democrats are overperforming and winning special elections across every part of the country,” said Heather Williams, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) president, in a statement shared with Newsweek. “Momentum is on our side as voters turn away from MAGA Republicans and back state Democrats who are fighting to lower costs.”

SummaryMarjorie Taylor Greene appeared on Alex Jones' show on December 16, 2025, to discuss her legislation, H.R. 3492, the Protect Children's Innocence Act, which aims to criminalize gender-affirming medical procedures (including puberty blockers, hormones, mastectomies, and genital surgeries) on minors under 18, making them felonies nationwide.She stated that the bill is scheduled for a House vote the following day after she delayed the NDAA by voting against its rule to force leadership (Steve Scalise and Mike Johnson) to schedule it. She accused Rep. Chip Roy of attempting to introduce an amendment in the Rules Committee that would limit the bill's...

President Trump defended White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in an exclusive interview with The Post Tuesday — saying she was right to tell Vanity Fair he has an “alcoholic’s personality” and that he has full faith in Wiles to continue in her role.Trump, 79, reiterated that he avoids alcohol, saying in the interview he has a “possessive and addictive type personality” and that he wasn’t offended by her word choice. “No, she meant that I’m — you see, I don’t drink alcohol. So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a...

President Donald Trump said filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner died from "Trump derangement syndrome." Reiner and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, and police are investigating the circumstances as an apparent homicide, authorities said. "A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP...

President Trump referred to the late actor and director Rob Reiner as having “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME” in a social-media post Monday less than a day after authorities said the Democratic activist and donor and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home. Trump said Reiner, a critic of the president, was “tortured and struggling” and attributed the death “to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump,...

President Donald Trump doubled down on a statement he issued on social media in response to actor-director Rob Reiner’s death, pointing out that he “wasn’t a fan of his at all.”While taking questions from the press on Monday, Trump was asked about a Truth Social post he made in which he stated Reiner had a “crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” Trump’s post came after the news broke that Reiner — who directed The Princess Bride, and When Harry Met Sally, and his wife, Michele, were found dead inside their Brentwood home.“Mr. President, a number of Republicans have denounced...