Free Republic

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday that he believes President Trump and his lawyers are "terrified" at the prospect of what former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort could tell prosecutors as part of a new cooperation agreement. "They may think they know what Manafort has to say because he was part of that joint defense agreement, but they have to know that he may not have told them the full truth," Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They’re terrified of what he has to say," he continued. "I’m surprised that we...

WASHINGTON — As Democrats enter the fall midterm campaign with palpable confidence about reclaiming the House and perhaps even the Senate, tensions are rising between the White House and congressional Republicans over who is to blame for political difficulties facing the party, with President Trump’s advisers pointing to the high number of G.O.P. retirements and lawmakers placing the blame squarely on the president’s divisive style. Yet Republican leaders do agree on one surprising element in the battle for Congress: They cannot rely on the booming economy to win over undecided voters. To the dismay of party leaders, the healthy economy...

A source who said they were briefed on the contents of the letter said it described an incident involving Kavanaugh and a woman that took place when both were 17 years old and at a party. According to the source, Kavanaugh and a male friend had locked her in a room against her will, making her feel threatened, but she was able to get out of the room. The Guardian has not verified the apparent claims in the letter. It is not yet clear who wrote it.

Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) former campaign spokesperson said that it’s “possible” for Cruz to lose his reelection bid to Democrat Beto O’Rourke. Rick Tyler, who served as Cruz’s former communications director during his 2016 presidential run, appeared on MSNBC Sunday and admitted that Cruz could lose in the red state. “As the former Cruz strategist, it does seem as though the signs are that Ted Cruz might actually lose this race?” MSNBC host Kasie Hunt asked. Tyler said that even in a predominately Republican state, O’Rourke is posing a real challenge for the senator. “It’s possible

An attorney for Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, is backing away from confident assertions he made that Cohen has information to share with investigators that shows Trump knew in 2016 of Russian efforts to undermine Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Lanny Davis, a spokesman and attorney for Cohen, said in an interview this weekend that he is no longer certain about claims he made to reporters on background and on the record in recent weeks about what Cohen knows about Trump’s awareness of the Russian efforts. Davis did not rule out that his claims were correct but expressed regret that...

Democratic enthusiasm and a GOP malaise surrounding President Trump have set the stage for a potentially devastating midterm election for the House Republican majority. In a series of special elections mostly in reliably GOP districts, Democratic candidates have routinely outperformed Hillary Clinton’s share of the vote from 2016. At the same time, Republican candidates have underperformed President Trump's vote share in all but two special elections. If that pattern holds in November, the worst-case scenario for the GOP is a truly historic wipeout of as many as 72 House seats, according to The Hill’s analysis of special election results and...

More than 300 news outlets have launched a campaign to counter US President Donald Trump's attacks and promote a free press. The Boston Globe made the call last week for a nationwide denouncement of the president's "dirty war" against the media, using the hashtag #EnemyOfNone. Mr Trump has derided media reports as "fake news" and attacked journalists as "enemies of the people". And he tweeted on Thursday: "The fake news media is the opposition party." "It is very bad for our great country... But we are winning!" https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1030074380397752320 UN experts have warned that Mr Trump's comments about the media raise...

For years, Omarosa Manigault Newman stood at Donald Trump's side, making her deeply unpopular with African-Americans who see her as a sellout for aligning herself with a president who has hurled one insult after another at black people. Her falling out with Trump and her decision to call him a racist as she sells her new book — and in turn, his calling her a "dog" — have not been enough for many African-Americans to invite her back to the family picnic. Too little, too late, many said. "Her tell-all mea culpa won't win her any brownie points with most...

Vox and ProPublica take aim at President Trump’s heightened concern for gangs in the United States in a recently published video, claiming his harsh characterizations of MS-13 are unfair. The gang, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, numbers in the tens of thousands and is composed primarily of outlaws from El Salvador, Honduras, and other Central American countries. Trump’s hardline stance on crime and border security has made MS-13 a more widely recognized public menace. But instead of acknowledging the rising violent threat that MS-13 poses to the American people, progressive media outlets like Vox and ProPublica are casting the Trump...

Tariffs are taxes, which distort investment and limit growth. And like taxes, when tariffs are high they create a political incentive for exemptions and favoritism. Behold the Commerce Department’s new and tortuous process for reviewing exemptions to steel and aluminum tariffs. This is everything Republicans typically claim to hate. *** First, companies must submit a request attesting that their imports aren’t made in the U.S. in “a satisfactory quality” or “sufficient and reasonably available amount.” Companies must state the uses for their steel product, their average annual consumption of the product, as well as the number of days required to...

President Trump’s repeated cries of “fake news” and attacks on journalists as “enemies of the American people” have resonated with his base, with 43 percent of Republicans saying he “should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior.” The results — suggesting that a plurality of Republicans would have no problem trashing the First Amendment — came from a stunning new poll conducted by Ipsos and reported Tuesday by the Daily Beast. The survey also showed that just 36 percent of GOP voters disagreed with that statement. When asked if Trump should close down specific news organizations,...

Rick Gates took the stand in former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s trial on Monday, where he testified that the two men committed crimes while working together. Gates, a longtime business associate of Manafort's, was indicted on fraud charges in October, but later pleaded guilty to reduced charges as part of a plea deal. According to multiple news outlets, Gates was asked on Monday if he was involved in criminal activity when working with Manafort. “Yes,” Gates reportedly responded. “Did you commit a crime?” the prosecution asked. “Yes,” Gates replied again. Manafort is on trial in Virginia for various financial...

Conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin tore into White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Sunday, saying she should be shunned from her next job for her false and misleading claims. “Sarah Huckabee Sanders is so concerned that people aren’t nice to her,” Rubin told MSNBC’s Joy Reid on "AM Joy." “And people like me think that — not that she should be harassed — but that she should be shunned. The reason is that she lies.” “She attacks our free press and no respectable employer should hire her after this term,” Rubin continued. “Also, no university and no...

"Enemy of the people" is an incendiary phrase. It's been uttered by some of history's most vicious thugs — Robespierre, Goebbels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao — to vilify their opponents ... who were often murdered. President Trump must know that history by now when he calls the press "the enemy of the people." As he must also know the anti-Semitic and racist history of the America First slogan, by which the president describes many of his policies. But Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, pointedly declined the chance this week to say, as Ivanka Tump did, "I do not feel...

In private, President Trump spent much of the past week brooding, as he often does. He has been anxious about the Russia ­investigation’s widening fallout, with his former campaign chairman standing trial. And he has fretted that he is failing to accrue enough political credit for what he claims as triumphs. At rare moments of introspection for the famously self-centered president, Trump has also expressed to confidants lingering unease about how some in his orbit — including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. — are ensnared in the Russia probe, in his assessment simply because of their ­connection to him.

If you blinked, you might have missed it. At a speech in Kansas City to the VFW annual convention on Tuesday, President Donald Trump -- amid one of his trademark anti-media rants -- said this (emphasis mine): "Stick with us. Don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. ... What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."I know I keep saying this, BUT: That is an absolutely remarkable thing for any elected leader to say -- especially when that leader is the most powerful person in the country. And I know I keep...

(CNN)Presidential candidate Donald Trump is heard on tape discussing with his attorney Michael Cohen how they would buy the rights to a Playboy model's story about an alleged affair Trump had with her years earlier, according to the audio recording of the conversation aired exclusively on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time." The recording offers the public a glimpse at the confidential discussions between Trump and Cohen, and it confirms the man who now occupies the Oval Office had contemporaneous knowledge of a proposal to buy the rights to the story of Karen McDougal, a woman who has alleged she had an...

An Ohio State wrestler is calling Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) a “phony” in an interview with CNN for saying he was not aware of allegations of inappropriate touching and sexual abuse by a former doctor on the wrestling team. The person who spoke to CNN requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the allegations and out of concern for his family’s well-being. CNN says he is the fifth wrestler from the program to allege that Jordan knew of the actions of Richard Strauss, the former team doctor who killed himself in 2005. "Jordan is denying this because obviously it would...

I can smell Donald Trump’s fear from here. His panic. His anxiety. And yet, I don’t have a full picture of what is causing it. The only people who know what has been discovered in the Russian election meddling probe are Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team, and they aren’t talking. But President Trump no doubt knows far more about it than the rest of us, and what he knows — or what he fears — appears to be a consuming preoccupation. He tweets about the investigation constantly. Part of this is an overt play to bend public opinion,...

On June 14, 2016, the Washington Post reported that Russian hackers had broken into the Democratic National Committee’s files and gained access to its research on Donald Trump. A political world already numbed by Trump’s astonishing rise barely took notice. News reports quoted experts who suggested the Russians merely wanted more information about Trump to inform their foreign-policy dealings. By that point, Russia was already broadcasting its strong preference for Trump through the media. Yet when news of the hacking broke, nobody raised the faintest suspicions that Russia wished to alter the outcome of the election, let alone that Trump...