Free Republic

The nation's largest annual conference for Millennial and Gen-Z conservatives, AmericaFest, drew tens of thousands of attendees who seem divided on who should win the 2024 nomination—a troubling sign for the former president. As Trump acolytes, like his eldest son Donald Trump Jr. and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, sang praises for Trump's 2024 campaign, many event speakers avoided endorsing the former president and interviews with attendees revealed that many aren't prepared to commit to another Trump term just yet. The four-day event in Phoenix, Arizona, is a glaring red flag for Trump's campaign. It signals there may not be...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican weighing a 2024 White House bid, said Monday he believes former President Donald Trump is “at his lowest point ever,” as the House Jan. 6 committee wrapped up its investigation into what Hogan described as “one of the darkest days in American history.”In an interview with The Associated Press shortly before the committee released its recommendations, Hogan said he believes the former president should be held accountable, after he “inflamed kind of a riotous mob to go attack the seat of our democracy.” However, the outgoing, term-limited governor was not specific...

I ask the question in my headline in earnest.Here’s a relative axiom, attributed in various forms to various historical figures: Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself. So, yeah — what are the Democrats thinking? They should count their lucky stars if Donald Trump wins the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination.With multiple polls showing Republican support for a 2024 Trump run collapsing, the former president beleaguered by key midterm losses by candidates he strongly backed, courtroom setbacks, and mindblowing unforced errors — blameable only on Trump — the Democrat Party would be wise to...

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held a hearing Thursday on finding a solution to gun violence, and the difference of opinion between Democrats and Republicans was put on full display. Passions ran high given the sensitivity of the issues involved, as liberal lawmakers focused on weapons and conservatives on the people who use them. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-La., a former judge who handled felony cases, was in the latter group and focused on the need to instill morality in people, citing Judeo-Christian principles. He went so far as to say it is the bedrock of...

A caucus of moderate House Republicans — have threatened to tank a new House rules package if Kevin McCarthy is formally challenged. A number of House Freedom Caucus members — including U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Bob Good (R-VA), among others, have mounted a significant challenge to McCarthy in recent weeks and have indicated that they will not hesitate to put forward a motion to vacate the Speaker’s chair on January 3. Of the 44 members of the self-styled “Republican Governance Group,” six voted to impeach President Trump while five were promptly voted out. A number...

Republican voters did their part. When one accumulates the popular vote for House races across the country, Republicans won by three percentage points—a margin that was once just under five points but narrowed as votes from deep-blue districts trickled in over weeks after Election Day. That kind of turnout for Republicans “would normally translate into GOP gains of 20-30 seats,” according to the Cook Political Report. But Republicans have as of early December netted only eight seats, bringing their total in the House to 220. At most, Republicans will hold 222. In races that seemed to be easy flips, Republicans...

A law signed by Gov. Tom Wolf on Nov. 3 encourages doctors to test pregnant women, and children up to 2 years old, who they believe have been exposed to lead. Act 150 is a smart move, but it doesn’t go far enough. Lead is everywhere — especially in industrial regions with older housing, which means Pittsburgh and vast swaths of Pennsylvania. Sen. Lisa Baker, R.-Luzerne, wanted Act 150 to make testing mandatory, but it was watered down in the amendment process. Now she’s reintroducing a bill to switch “encourage” back to “require,” making lead testing mandatory for all young...

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will break from the GOP if Donald Trump is the nominee in 2024Sen. Mitt Romney has unequivocally ruled out supporting 45th President Donald Trump’s third bid for the White House, even if the former president secures the Republican Party’s nomination.The establishment U.S. Senator from Utah, who once sought Trump’s support in his failed bid failed to oust 44th President Barack Obama from the White House in 2012, made the remarks during a climate change event in Washington, D.C.“Absolutely not,” Romney said, according to The Washington Examiner. He then touted his impeachment record, telling attendees,...

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said she has identified one of the "massive" reasons Republicans significantly underperformed in last month's midterm elections. McDaniel said a "massive amount" of ticket-splitting was one of the top factors that led to GOP losses in some key races this election cycle despite winning in other races on the same ballot, speaking with John Catsimatidis on Cats Roundtable on the radio station WABC 77 on Sunday. "Ticket-splitting was everywhere. We won eight races statewide in Georgia, but then Warnock wins the runoff. Ron Johnson wins in Wisconsin, but Evers holds the governorship," McDaniel said....

Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that former President Donald Trump has caused the Democrats to keep winning, not Republicans. Christie said, “Bad candidates lose. Good candidates have a chance to win. And Herschel Walker was not a good candidate. And, you know, he wasn’t a good candidate because of a whole variety of issues that we saw that came out during the campaign.”

At a Washington Post webinar on Thursday, Romney spoke about the necessity of fighting climate change. In his view, the most useful tool would be a carbon tax, which would push the private sector to innovate towards clean energy. “The folks at MIT, as you probably know, built a model saying, 'Okay, what things that we do, will actually reduce emissions, reduce temperatures or hold temperatures from going up as fast as they have it. What can we do?' And the number one thing, and frankly, the only thing that had a major impact was having a price on carbon,...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has overtaken former President Trump in a hypothetical 2024 match-up for the GOP presidential nomination, according to a new Yahoo News-YouGov poll. The nationwide poll, released Thursday, shows DeSantis with a 5-point lead over Trump, with 47 percent of registered voters backing the governor compared to 42 percent for the former president. The latest results, taken in the first few days of December, are a stark turn from a mid-October poll that found Trump ahead by 9 percentage points, with 45 percent to DeSantis’s 36 percent. Trump announced his third run for the White House...

Herschel Walker’s 100,000-vote loss in Georgia puts the exclamation point on the “Donald Trump is electoral poison” narrative. If the former president had deliberately attempted to sabotage the Republicans' chances ever since November 2020, he could not have been more destructive than he actually was. In the Senate, the Trump effect meant Republicans lost chances at a whopping 10 seats (one of them two times!) they either should have won or in which they might have been competitive. In the House, Trump’s harm was more diffused, but almost equally baleful. On Jan. 5, 2021, Republicans lost two Senate seats in...

Senate Republicans who want to move on from Donald Trump are smelling blood after a series of self-destructive errors by the former president that they think is opening the door for GOP rivals to challenge and defeat him in a 2024 presidential primary. The GOP lawmakers say Trump looks increasingly vulnerable in a primary after what they describe as his erratic behavior in recent weeks, which has raised new doubts about his ability to beat President Biden or any other Democrat in a general election. Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said Trump’s most recent self-inflicted wound — in which...

GOP Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan says that every member in his party needs to hold former President Trump “accountable” for Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-Ga.) victory in Tuesday’s runoff election. “The only way to explain this is candidate quality,” Duncan said in an interview with CNN, alluding to the controversies surrounding failed Republican challenger Herschel Walker, whom Trump had strongly encouraged to run. Duncan added that he hopes Warnock’s victory will be a wake-up call for the GOP to examine their future with Trump as the face of the party. “If we don’t take our medicine here, it’s our fault....

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Tuesday urged members of her party to stop discouraging early voting and vote by mail. “Our voters need to vote early,” McDaniel told Fox News. “I have said this over and over again. There were many in 2020 saying, ‘Don’t vote by mail, don’t vote early.’ And we have to stop that and understand that if Democrats are getting ballots in for a month, we can’t expect to get it all done in one day.” Former President Trump was among the leading voices that questioned the security and validity of early and...

Republican leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Wednesday made it clear that the forthcoming GOP majority in the U.S. House will hold the Biden administration and Democrats accountable from “day one” — from investigating the origins of the Chinese coronavirus to the Department of Justice targeting concerned parents to the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. “You deserve to know the origins of COVID. You deserve to know why the DOJ went after concerned parents. You deserve to know why we failed to keep American lives safe in Afghanistan. On day one a Republican majority will begin holding this administration accountable,” McCarthy...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said a stopgap funding deal that would fund the government until January might be necessary as talks on a long-term spending package drag on. “We’re at a pretty significant impasse,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “Time is ticking. We have not been able to agree on a top line yet, and I think it’s becoming increasingly likely that we might need to do a short-term CR into early next year,” McConnell continued, using the shorthand for continuing resolution. “We are running out of time, and that might be the only option left...

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell thanked police officers Thursday for “saving our country” by defending Congress from a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. The Kentucky Republican hailed members of the US Capitol Police and DC Metropolitan Police departments during the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal to the forces that battled rioters who disrupted certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. “Because of your bravery and professionalism, Congress finished our job that very night. Because you honor your oath to support and defend the Constitution, we were able to honor...

Impeaching DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for failing to secure the southern border does not appear to have the support of the some Republican senators. As border patrol has encountered more than 2.3 million illegal aliens at the border, with over 230,000 migrant encounters in October, establishment Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) appear averse to holding Mayorkas accountable for the southern border invasion. “Someone has to commit a high crime or misdemeanor for that to be a valid inquiry,” Romney told Politico about impeachment standards. “I haven’t seen any accusation of that nature whatsoever.”