Free Republic

Rep. Thomas Massie, the renegade Kentucky Republican who fiercely guards his political independence, doesn’t love being on President Trump’s bad side. He would prefer not to have the president’s allies spend millions to defeat him in a primary. In fact, if Massie had his way, he’d be working for Trump right now. In his telling, in the weeks after the 2024 presidential election, the two men talked about Massie, a farmer who champions raw milk, becoming Trump’s agriculture secretary. Massie had formally endorsed Trump late in the campaign, offering to help him win over libertarians who might be tempted to...

President Trump has told confidants that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is "begging" for a job in Trump's administration — including attorney general — Axios has learned. •DeSantis also has expressed interest in being secretary of defense and even a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court, according to six sources briefed on the discussions.

ArchivedCLIFFORD KUPCHAN is a director at Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm.IRAN’S KEY ALLY in the current nuclear crisis is not Russia or China. It’s oil. Tehran can easily drive up prices and is already beginning to do so to rattle the West. As the crisis escalates, Washington’s diplomatic partners will become gravely worried about their energy supplies. In the end, Iran’s petro power will probably trump Western diplomacy. Just look at what’s happening: Tehran’s bravado announcement April 11 that it had mastered key nuclear technology drew censure from world capitals. But it also drove oil prices to more...

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and her top aides and family members routinely sent personal messages and requests to young staff members that are now under review by the department’s inspector general. Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her former deputy chief of staff sent texts asking employees to bring wine to them during trips for the department. Sometimes the requests came in the middle of the workday. Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s husband exchanged text messages with young female staff members, as did her father. Some of the young women were instructed by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and the former deputy chief of staff to “pay attention” to...

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore torched the US as the “bad guys” in the war with Iran – while hailing the Middle Eastern nation as one of the world’s “greatest civilizations” in a deranged online tirade. The documentarian unleashed the frenzied rant on Tuesday, calling President Trump a “terrorist” for threatening a “holocaust” after the commander in chief warned Iran that its “whole civilization” would be wiped out if the nation failed to cut a ceasefire deal to open the Strait of Hormuz and end the six-week conflict. He also accused the US of “meddling” in Iran’s internal affairs for the...

In 1991, American officials flew to Israel to keep the country from retaliating against Scud missile attacks and joining the Gulf War. In 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned it would be “in Israel’s overwhelming best interests not to get involved” in the looming invasion of Iraq. In 2026, the United States went to war alongside Israel. “It’s the first time,” said Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, “that Israel is going to war together with a superpower.” The United States has been the Jewish state’s most important backer for decades, providing it with weaponry and working...

For around 15 years, many American leaders — including all three presidents in that period — believed that the country was too deeply entangled in trying to reorder the societies of the Middle East. They felt the more pressing challenges included rebuilding America’s industrial base and confronting the rise of China. Yet here America is, once again, fighting a war to reorder a society in the greater Middle East. And like in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, this war seems unlikely to turn out quite as its proponents may hope. Why does this keep happening? To understand the present, look at...

The sons of US President Donald Trump, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., have invested in the startup Powerus, which plans to acquire Ukrainian drone manufacturers. The company intends to license Ukrainian technologies to produce drones in the United States, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Former President Barack Obama told Brian Tyler Cohen in an interview this weekend that aliens are "real." "They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Obama said. "And they're not being kept in Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the president of the United States." Obama said the first question he had when he became president was: "Where are the aliens?" He previously said during an interview a few years ago with James Corden: "There's footage and records of objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what they are....

Paul addressed federal officials’ claims that Pretti posed a threat to ICE officers.... I saw no evidence of him assaulting the police,” Paul said. “The president’s advisor, Stephen Miller, called Pretti an assassin. That’s a lot of people–not telling the truth,” Pelley added. Paul shook his head at Miller’s statement and added, “It sounds like terrible judgment. I mean, terrible conclusions, incorrect conclusions, stating things that no one else believes.

Jeannine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, on Monday threatened jail time for anyone who enters the capital with a gun. In remarks on Fox News that could deepen a growing rift between gun owners and the Trump administration, Ms. Pirro declared that if anyone brings “a gun into the District, you mark my words, you’re going to jail. I don’t care if you have a license in another district and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else.” Her remarks prompted swift pushback from the Republican Party’s pro-Second Amendment wing, which was thrown...

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department crossed a new threshold with its criminal investigation of top Democratic elected officials in Minnesota, targeting vocal critics during a moment of crisis in which protesters and federal agents are clashing on icy city streets.The Twin Cities have been a tinderbox for more than a week since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a woman in her vehicle, with residents confronting ICE agents. Trump has raised the prospect of sending U.S. troops into the state, and the Justice Department escalated tensions Friday as it prepared to send subpoenas to Gov. Tim Walz and...

Recent polling has shown young voters overwhelmingly disapproving of Trump and the GOP amid increasing anxiety over the state of the economy, while young people played a big role in helping Democrats win in 2025’s off-year races. “If you’re 29 and you’re paying out the nose for health care, and you can’t own your own home and groceries are killing you, you don’t really care about the conversations about tariffs. That’s not where you’re living. You’re living at, ‘Hey, I need the price of eggs to drop,’” said Brett Loyd, a longtime Republican pollster who now works with an independent...

More than 100 people were killed during the U.S. military operation in Venezuela that captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife, the country's Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said Wednesday...Cuba revealed on Monday that 32 of its citizens were killed during the operation...Seven U.S. service members were injured

VIDEOWatch the CNN pretend "journalist" Whitney Wild decide it is her mission in life to "debunk" REAL journalist Nick Shirley. Her efforts are so over the top obvious to the extent that EVERYBODY sees what she is trying to do. The result is overwhelming condemnation of her on X (Twitter). To make matters even WORSE, take a look at who she recommends as a supposedly credible journalist. A dirtbag by the name of Lou Raguse whose idea idea of investigating child care center fraud it to slam those exposing it as racists.Unfortunately, the sad reality our our times is that...

NEW YORK (AP) — By nearly any measure, 2025 has been a rough year for anyone concerned about freedom of the press. It’s likely to be the deadliest year on record for journalists and media workers. The number of assaults on reporters in the U.S. nearly equals the last three years combined. The president of the United States berates many who ask him questions, calling one woman “piggy.” And the ranks of those doing the job continues to thin. It’s hard to think of a darker time for journalists. So say many, including Tim Richardson, a former Washington Post reporter...

The 2026 midterms are coming, and Republicans have work to do if they want to hold Congress. Yet the nation’s MAGA minds are still looking back at 2020 and stretching to justify President Trump’s delusion of a stolen election. The latest involves the embarrassing news that Fulton County, Ga., failed to have its poll workers sign many of the tabulator tapes for early voting. “I have not seen the tapes myself, but we do not dispute that the tapes were not signed,” an attorney for Fulton County told the Georgia State Election Board during a December hearing. “It was a...

Top FBI Whistleblower Kyle Seraphin shares exclusive intel on FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, his staff & the future of the Trump Administration: Breaking Exclusive! Dan Bongino's Staff Has Quit, His Office Is Empty And He Is Set To Officially Resign Within The Next 48 HoursTop FBI Whistleblower Kyle Seraphin Breaks Down The Latest Developments And Makes Major New Predictions On The Future Of The FBI, DOJ and Trump… pic.twitter.com/0nH2cEkD89— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) December 17, 2025

After several bruising weeks for Speaker Mike Johnson, a soft-focus podcast interview alongside his wife, conducted by Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s top advisers, had all the ingredients for a flattering reset. What emerged from the interview instead was a portrait of a Republican leader barely keeping his head above water in a job to which he does not appear particularly well suited, a conversation full of tragically revealing details packaged as rueful humor but with the biting sting of truth. “We have this joke that I’m not really a speaker of the House,”...