Free Republic

Justice Department prosecutors would launch criminal investigations of those Trump views as enemies. IRS workers would likely be ordered to audit prominent Democrats’ tax returns. WASHINGTON — If former President Trump wins the November election, he says one of his actions on “Day One,” right after he begins deporting millions of undocumented migrants, will be enacting a radical plan to force the federal bureaucracy to bow to his demands.Like any president, Trump would undoubtedly stock the top levels of the government with loyal appointees. But he also intends to enforce his will by making it possible to fire lower-ranking federal...

Campaign officials are weighing a potential visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to the US-Mexico border while in Arizona on Friday as the campaign tries to close the gap with former President Donald Trump on the issue of immigration, according to two sources familiar with the discussions. Immigration has featured prominently in the 2024 presidential election. Democrats, grappling with years of border crises, have tried to flip the script on Republicans after the GOP blocked a bipartisan border measure earlier this year. Some Harris campaign officials remain concerned about the gap in polling, which shows Trump holding a lead on...

In 2024, the deep state that defeats Donald Trump might be his own.That, after all, is what Project 2025 was actually meant to be. The 900-page tome that Democrats hoist in front of the cameras is a festival of policy options, detailed down to the sub-agency level. But options for whom? Not for Trump himself. Even the most wonkish of presidents can only engage on a small fraction of what the executive branch does. And Donald Trump was not the most wonkish of presidents. When he said, during his debate with Kamala Harris, that he hadn’t read Project 2025 and...

A double-digit increase in popularity, rising Democratic enthusiasm and an early edge for representing “change” have vaulted Vice President Kamala Harris forward and reshuffled the 2024 presidential contest, according to a new national NBC News poll. With just over six weeks until Election Day, the poll finds Harris with a 5-point lead over former President Donald Trump among registered voters, 49% to 44%. While that result is within the margin of error, it’s a clear shift from July’s poll, when Trump was ahead by 2 points before President Joe Biden’s exit. But the transformation in the presidential contest goes well...

“God has now spared my life,” Donald Trump told an arena full of supporters in suburban New York last night. He waited a beat while more than 15,000 members of the MAGA faithful began to hoot and applaud inside Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Then he completed his thought: “Not once but twice.” The assassination attempts—one near-fatal shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania; one foiled attack at his golf course in Florida—have emboldened the former president. “These encounters with death have not broken my will,” Trump said. “They have really given me a much bigger and stronger mission.” Judging...

It was the spring of 2018 and President Donald J. Trump, faced with an accelerating inquiry into his campaign’s ties to Russia, was furious that the Justice Department was reluctant to strike back at those he saw as his enemies.In an Oval Office meeting, Mr. Trump told startled aides that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions would not order the department to go after Hillary Clinton and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump would prosecute them himself.Recognizing the extraordinary dangers of a president seeking not just to weaponize the criminal justice system for political ends but trying as...

Donald Trump faces a biblical battle to hang on to evangelical voters, as some stray from the Republican base to cast a ballot for Kamala Harris despite her liberal views. Surveys suggest about 8 in 10 white evangelical voters cast a ballot for him in the 2020 election, with two in 10 voting for Joe Biden. However, Biden performed better with evangelicals of all faiths, winning about a third of those voters. Now, groups like evangelicals for Harris have run advertisements and Zoom calls in an attempt to argue she is the better choice this election despite serious policy disagreements....

New data from the Howard University Initiative on Public Opinion offers insight into Black voters' support heading into the 2024 presidential election. The Howard University poll shows an overwhelming majority of Black voters in the seven swing states support Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Trump. A whopping 82% of respondents told pollsters that they supported Harris compared to just 12% that backed Trump. Approximately 5% of respondents indicated they are undecided and the final 1% said they intend to vote for a candidate other than Harris or Trump. The data shows a significant difference between age groups. Approximately...

Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday that the death of a young Georgia mother who died after waiting 20 hours for a hospital to treat her complications from an abortion pill shows the consequences of Donald Trump's actions. Amber Thurman's death, first reported Monday by ProPublica, occurred just two weeks after Georgia's strict abortion ban was enacted in 2022 following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn nationwide abortion rights. Trump appointed three of the justices who made that decision and has repeatedly said he believes states should decide abortion laws. "This young mother should be alive, raising her son,...

Donald J. Trump has made his revisionist account of the Capitol attack the foundation of this campaign, even when there is little political advantage.When a moderator asked Donald J. Trump about Jan. 6, 2021, at the presidential debate, the former president slipped immediately into a now-familiar revisionist history of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. He falsely claimed that he had nothing to do with the assault, blaming it on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the police officers who protected the building that day against a mob of his supporters. But then Mr. Trump made a brief but telling...

Trump over the weekend threatened to prosecute donors, lawyers and elections officials who he claimed “cheated” in the 2020 election or who engaged in behavior he deemed “unscrupulous” in November. And he elevated a dubious claim about fraud involving mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, echoing rhetoric he used to cast doubt on the 2020 results. Republicans have long argued Trump’s fixation on the 2020 election and his claims of widespread fraud are unhelpful politically, but critics viewed Trump’s most recent posts as a blaring warning sign about how Trump may react to November’s results, win or lose. “As we head into...

Democratic political pundit James Carville argued the recent endorsements Vice President Kamala Harris has received could net her support from Republican voters, including those who have never voted for a Democrat before. The past week saw Harris net two more endorsements ahead of Tuesday’s presidential debate, with the first from former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and the second from her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney. When asked what kinds of voters these two endorsements appeal to, Carville contended the endorsements could push voters hesitant to support Democrats to finally take the plunge, especially those who dislike former President...

The assassination attempt has pitted Democrats and Republicans against each other in a way that one historian calls “outright frightening.”BUTLER, Pa. — One of the city’s most famous artists has created a 400-pound sculpture of Donald Trump raising his fist in the air, capturing the moment that split this Pennsylvania community in two. Digital billboards blaming Democrats and the media for the assassination attempt still flash around town. And supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris say they’re routinely heckled.The long-simmering tensions in Butler that erupted after a gunman shot Trump in the ear at a rally have yet to cool...

Liberals have hit out at Donald Trump after he vowed to prosecute election 'cheaters' if he wins in November. The former president threatened to target, 'lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters and corrupt election officials' in a rant on Truth Social. It came as he reiterated his false claims about election fraud during his unsuccessful run for office in 2020. His remarks enraged left wing commentators, who accused the presidential hopeful of 'publicly promising to lock up his political enemies'. 'I together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because...

Donald Trump has warned Kamala Harris's campaign donors that they will not escape his retribution if they play a role in a 2024 election 'steal'. The GOP candidate promised he would not allow a repeat of the 'rampant Cheating and Skullduggery' he claims cost him the White House in 2020, and threatened unprecedented legal action against those who try. Posting on X and his own Truth Social channel under the heading 'cease and desist' he said 'lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, and corrupt election officials' would all find themselves targeted. The swipe at donors came as Trump's Democrat rival...

Donald Trump is stuck. He is a brutally transactional politician who represents a coalition of ideologues. His instinct is to promise the moon, and he’ll say anything to get a vote — or just to get out of a room. He also knows, however, that he has no choice but to dance with the date that brought him. He can’t abandon the groups, interested parties and constituencies that put him in the White House to execute their agenda — to exercise their will. The problem comes when most voters don’t want what your partners hope to do with the power...

Former President Donald Trump is facing backlash for holding rallies in places described as "sundown towns." A TikTok user pointed out a "troubling pattern" in the locations of Trump's recent rallies in a video that has gone viral on social media. It was also shared on X, formerly Twitter, where it amassed millions of views. "Howell, Michigan; La Crosse, Wisconsin; Johnstown, Pennsylvania," the man said in the video. "What do these places have in common? They're all sundown towns." He added: "This is where Donald Trump is choosing to hold his rallies... You got a presidential candidate for the GOP...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in an interview published Monday said he believes Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will be remembered “poorly,” while noting he could save some of his reputation by getting “the old Republican Party back.” Schumer told Punchbowl News that he has recently been “more friendly” with McConnell in light of the Republican’s efforts to shore up GOP votes for bipartisan legislation under President Biden, including the most recent aid package for Ukraine. This, however, may not have been enough to change McConnell’s legacy, Schumer added.

As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I find myself asking out loud a question I’ve whispered to myself often since the Twin Towers came down: Is the U.S. relationship with Israel worth it? This was a lot easier to answer during the Cold War, when the U.S. supported Israel in order to counterbalance Soviet influence in the region. But, that was a long time ago, and though the Russians are still active in the Middle East, it’s not on the same scale. Stable oil markets are also a longtime reason we have supported Israel, but that situation is changing too,...

Attitudes on abortion are deeply entrenched and have motivated voters across the American political landscape for decades. But in a post-Roe world, with abortion access sharply limited or at stake in several states, voters who want to protect abortion rights are increasingly energized. Although the economy remains the No. 1 issue for voters, a growing share of voters in swing states now say abortion is central to their decision this fall, according to New York Times/Siena College polls earlier this month. This represents an increase since May, when President Joe Biden was still the Democratic presidential nominee. And by a...