Free Republic

Biden bombshell: Here’s one for the history books. This morning, Playbook readers can read the actual six-page memo that convinced President Joe Biden to push for an early debate with Donald Trump last June. And a quick trigger warning: Dems may prefer to read it through their fingers. With friends like these: In the ill-fated briefing document, dated April 15, 2024, Biden’s senior advisers told him not to wait for the autumn dates proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates — the first of which, they noted, was scheduled after mail-in ballots would start going out — but instead to...

A tell-all describes how the war in Gaza loomed over the 2024 campaign and strained Biden’s reelection bidJosh Shapiro’s Judaism was not a factor in Kamala Harris passing him over as a running mate, according to a 2024 election tell-all, contradicting a narrative Republicans eagerly peddled. If anything, Harris rejected Shapiro because they had too much in common — both were former attorneys general who hoped to be president. That and poor chemistry knocked Shapiro out of the running, according to How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by political reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and...

It's almost a year ago now, the Butler, Pennsylvania moment that changed history. You probably remember where you were when you heard the news—that then former president and candidate for president Donald Trump had been shot at a campaign rally. The nation had suffered trauma before; the killings of Abraham Lincoln and JFK wracked the country, and the near miss against Ronald Reagan reminded us of how tenuous our democracy can be. From that moment on, it seemed assured that he would become president again, and indeed he did. Now a new book is coming out detailing some of the...