Free Republic

CLEVELAND — Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur slated to help oversee President-elect Donald Trump’s effort to cut government spending, is in discussions about filling Vice President-elect JD Vance’s Senate seat in Ohio, two people briefed on the process told NBC News.The development is a reversal for Ramaswamy, who in November said his work alongside billionaire Elon Musk at Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency would remove him from consideration for the Senate job.But Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who will appoint an interim successor to take over Vance's seat, chatted with Ramaswamy about the Senate vacancy during a meeting last weekend at...

Donald Trump compared [Pedo Pete's] administration to the secret police force of Nazi Germany in remarks at a private, closed-door donor retreat on Saturday afternoon. The former president’s comments came as he was talking...

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has won re-election in Alaska, dealing former President Donald Trump another loss in what has largely been a miserable midterm cycle for his hand-picked candidates in competitive Senate races. Murkowski, one of only seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, survived a challenge from Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, a former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner, in the state’s first Senate election to be decided by ranked-choice voting. Rather than limiting voters to one choice, the format allows for candidates to be ranked in order of preference. Neither Murkowski nor Tshibaka, the top two-vote...

Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for governor, putting a last-minute seal of approval on the far-right front-runner who has embraced his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. "There is no one in Pennsylvania who has done more, or fought harder, for Election Integrity than State Senator Doug Mastriano," Trump said in a statement Saturday. Trump’s backing comes just days before a Tuesday primary where Mastriano has solidified himself as the leading candidate. Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state’s attorney general who is unopposed in his party’s primary for governor, has...

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., apologized Friday after video emerged of her suggesting that fellow Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was mistaken for a terrorist in an elevator both were riding in the U.S. Capitol. Omar, who is Muslim and wears a hijab, immediately criticized the video Thursday as "bigotry," adding that Boebert's description of the two members of Congress riding an elevator together never occurred. Boebert said she and a staffer were in an open elevator and noticed an alarmed Capitol police officer sprinting for the door as it closed. “What's happening? I look to my left, and there she is:...

It’s unusual for a former president to endorse in races so deep down the ballot, especially nearly nine months before the Republican primary. But Trump has backed seven candidates for state House or Senate seats in Michigan, an electoral battleground that he lost narrowly to Joe Biden last year — more than anywhere else. Most of the endorsements, including Rocha’s, were announced in recent weeks. All of the candidates have one thing in common: They’ve made election administration and investigating last year’s vote central to their platforms. Trump’s focus on the state illuminates just how driven he is to exact...

But by the standards of the Trump era — where style and identity overshadow ideology and policy, and where the lengths you go to to present yourself as a Trump loyalist often matter more than your voting record — there are sharp differences between Anthony Gonzalez and Christina Hagan. Gonzalez, 33, was a star wide receiver at Ohio State and a first-round draft pick in the NFL, where he caught passes from Peyton Manning. He later earned an MBA from Stanford and worked as a top executive with an education technology company in Silicon Valley. His first television ad? Packed...