Free Republic

A group of Republican members of U.S. Congress hoisted the American flags outside Union Station in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night after anti-Israel protesters replaced them with Palestinian flags earlier in the day. "Earlier today, pro-Hamas protesters took down the American flags at Union Station, burned them and raised Palestinian flags. Tonight, we righted their wrong. American flags are once again flying over Union Station. We will not let the terrorist mob win," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., tweeted, along with a video of the lawmakers saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Earlier today, pro-Hamas protesters took down the American flags...

CNN contributor Van Jones said Tuesday on CNN’s “Situation Room” that if the Republican Party attacks Vice President Kamala Harris on race, people will “crawl through broken glass to vote against” them. Jones said, “Here’s reality the Republican Party is going to have to resist its worst impulses to make this a racial, gender trash truck of insult and innuendo against this candidate. I don’t want to hear it. She checked a box by winning at the local level. I voted for her the local level in San Francisco when she was my district attorney, voted for her when she...

A National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) document contends that having Kamala Harris as the Democrat presidential nominee spells doom for down-ballot Democrats due to her “extreme agenda” and poor campaigning skills. Jason Thielman, the executive director of the NRSC, wrote a memo on Monday, detailing how Harris as the Democrat presidential nominee creates a “strong down-ballot opportunity” for Republicans. “The case against Joe Biden relied in part on the fact that he was mentally unfit to hold office, which was difficult to translate down-ballot. Kamala Harris owns the Biden Administration’s baggage and is an avowed radical,” Thielman explained in the...

Congressman David Joyce (R-OH) is a member of the House Ethics Committee, which is probing Gaetz. The American Conservative found financial disclosures that reveal Rep. Joyce’s campaign and his leadership PAC donated a combined $7,000 to Gaetz’s primary challenger, Aaron Dimmock. For his part, Gaetz told TAC: “It is no surprise to see Mr. Joyce, a stock-trading member of the ethics committee, funding my opponent. The ethics committee was hand picked by McCarthy and they will do his bidding in elections and in their witch hunt coming after me.” There is evidence here of a $2,000 transaction from Friends of...

Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that former President Donald Trump and Republicans are trying to turn the United States back to Jim Crow days. Clyburn said, “If you want to know how 45 will perform in the future, look at what he tried to do to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. What would that have done to our children and our senior citizens and others? We know what’s in his Project 2025 for his future. He can claim all he wants to they didn’t know what’s in it. He didn’t know...

Can Trumpism outlast Donald Trump? The selection of Senator JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate suggests that the answer is yes.Even the most successful political parties are coalitions of odd bedfellows and competing interests. But parties risk decline if they cannot attract new voters or if they suppress internal debates. The Republican Party Mr. Trump inherited in 2016 had been defined by free market ideology and neoconservative foreign policy for a generation: From Ronald Reagan through both Bushes to Mitt Romney, mainstream conservatism pursued a narrow agenda of tax and entitlement cuts at home and wars of regime...

With the Republican National Convention wrapped up, it’s clear the GOP is unquestionably the party of Donald J. Trump. There is no real dissent from MAGA in the party ranks. Bitter primary rivals took the stage to pay obeisance to the nominee. The crowd booed Mitch McConnell and other Republicans who have run afoul of Trump. On the other hand, the crowd went nuts for Tucker Carlson and Hulk Hogan. Throughout the week, Trump was treated as a conquering king, watching the festivities from his perch and relishing the adoration of the entire convention. It was a full-on MAGA fest....

The one thing Trump barely mentioned says it allIt’s been decades since the contrast between the parties has been so great.Milwaukee, Wis. — Former President Donald Trump only named his campaign opponent a single time during his Thursday-night nomination acceptance speech. In fact, President Joe Biden barely appeared at all in any of the dozen-plus speeches given on the final night of the Republican National Convention. The decision makes sense on the surface. Trump might not even be running against Biden in November. In the hours before Trump spoke, rumors swirled about the president’s imminent withdrawal as the Biden and...

During an interview on Tuesday for Wednesday’s BET News interview special “Black America Votes: The Biden Interview,” President Joe Biden said that his economic policies haven’t resonated with people “because the Republican Party and the MAGA Republicans have been opposed to it, and they’ve been beating up on it.” And because “it’s just taking time for people to see it. And the other thing is, there’s not been a very good job done about saying, this new billion-dollar bridge going over there is brought to you by Joe Biden.” But some of his policy agenda has “resonated for those who...

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) appeared to call Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) a “little b‑‑‑‑” after an awkward exchange with former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) at the Republican National Convention. Gaetz taunted McCarthy on the floor of the convention on Tuesday night, telling the former speaker that he would “get booed off the stage” if he were to speak at the event. Van Orden reacted to a clip of the exchange on social media platform X, where he pushed back on a description of the incident that said Gaetz needed to be “physically held back” by security. “I just saw...

Republican candidates owe it to voters — and the unborn — to be artful, clear, and convincing in defense of the pro-life cause.Make no mistake. Donald Trump is right that Republicans should be worried about abortion attacks in the 2024 election. His efforts to frame himself as moderate on abortion in the presidential debate, along with the significant reduction of pro-life language in the Republican platform, have made his perspective clear. And Trump’s instincts on how to handle the question in a debate are not terrible. But it can be done better.And it must.The uncomfortable fact about the next four...

Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), who was at the rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday in which former President Trump faced an assassination attempt, said Tuesday that Republican National Convention speakers should “tone it down” following the events at the rally. In an interview on “CNN News Central,” the outlet’s Boris Sanchez said there were speakers the previous night at the convention that had called Democrats “dangerous” and President Biden “senile.”

With a weaker pro-life Republican platform than many pro-life Americans would have preferred, the Republican Party has come under some criticism for not having strong enough language condemning abortion. As a result, one pro-life group is heading to Milwaukee, Wisconsin today to remind Republicans to “defend babies” from abortions and to support pregnant moms who need help. The Pro-Life Action League has a message for attendees of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee this week and pro-life advocates affiliated with the organization will take to a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 94/43 on Monday, July 15, the first day of...

As the 2024 Republican National Convention kicked off in downtown Milwaukee, a group of anti-Trump and anti-GOP organizers began a showing conservatives how unwelcome they really are. The self-proclaimed anti-fascists, pro-Palestinians protestors, LBGTQ advocates, communists and more gathered blocks away from the RNC HQ at Fiserv Forum for the 'March on RNC 2024,' Monday afternoon. **SNIP** ‘I hate the Republican party, I’ll say that,’ Anthony, an attendee from the Milwaukee area, exclusively told DailyMail.com. When pressed on what he hates most, Anthony said how the party champions capitalism, adding, ‘Most of the people in the country aren't on your side,...

The Republican National Committee’s 2024 stance on abortion is the worst platform plank he’s ever seen, pro-life advocate Tom McClusky said Wednesday at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington. McClusky, principal at public affairs firm Greenlight Strategies LLC, said that this week was a dark one for the pro-life movement in a panel discussion, “Beyond Dobbs.” That’s a reference to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the June 2022 Supreme Court abortion decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. The RNC’s 2024 platform betrays the pro-life founders of the Republican Party, he said. “If the Republican Party weakens, I’m standing on...

The more conservatives digest what happened in Milwaukee on Monday, the more unsettled pro-lifers seem to be. Apart from the communist-like tactics the RNC used to ram the platform through the process, there’s deep dismay at the territory Republicans surrendered to Donald Trump — territory, some worry, Republicans won’t get back. A few days removed from the shocking treatment of delegates, which they’ve characterized as everything from “demoralizing” to “dismissive” and “insulting,” more leaders are sounding the alarm that Republicans are betting their longtime principles on short-term gain. This document, former Congressman Keith Rothfus laments, is “an abandonment of GOP...

Vigorous discussion erupted between voters on both sides of the aisle as they speculate whether there’s been a notable shift in political party affiliation — specifically among young people. According to the National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS), and as emphasized by Newsweek, “Young people appear to be flocking to the Republican Party.” It seems these sources provide an outline for how the statistics have changed in recent years to reveal people under the age of 30 are now significantly more inclined to the GOP. It does not, however, give a reason for why this may be the case.

The Republican National Committee adopted a softened party platform on abortion that aligns with President Donald Trump’s position that the issue should be left to the states and the GOP should not pursue a national abortion ban. The 2024 Republican convention platform committee voted 84 to 18 on Monday in favor of the proposed platform during a closed-door session. The proposed party platform, backed by Trump, softened the GOP’s language on abortion and same-sex marriage. According to a copy of the document obtained by The Washington Post, the platform proposal states: "After 51 years, because of us, that power has...

By the time the Trump campaign blasted out the GOP’s 2024 platform early Monday afternoon, most people in Milwaukee had to ask themselves: what just happened? For the delegates, who were sideswiped by the unconventional, fast-tracked, secret process, the entire morning felt surreal. The outcome was so pre-determined, so tightly controlled that most of the men and women who traveled from the furthest corners of the country wondered what they were even doing there. While the RNC’s team and the Trump camp cheered the adoption of a platform they vowed would Make America Great Again, the mood on the ground...

U.S. — With campaigning for November's elections running at full speed and polls showing GOP candidates building sizeable leads, the Republican Party rushed to implement an emergency platform change after seeing how close they were to winning a landslide victory. Struggles on the Democratic side of the ticket, including the growing scandal surrounding President Joe Biden's cognitive ability, led to Republicans gaining tremendous momentum in recent weeks, causing leaders to shift gears and push for changes to the GOP platform in hopes of avoiding any decisive wins in November. "We were just getting way too close to winning big," said...