Free Republic

President Donald Trump called into Fox News’s Fox & Friends on Thursday morning and told the hosts that he has always wanted to invade Iran’s Kharg Island, one of the country’s key energy infrastructure sites. Trump ranted at the media coverage of the war in Iran and fumed, “The Wall Street Journal, they did an editorial today about we’re not hitting them hard enough.” “I mean, it is just, ‘not hitting them hard enough.’ We dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night. The whole thing is crazy. And they’re really in submission. They just don’t know it...

JD Vance suggested Israel may not be on board with a US-Iran peace deal as he was grilled over bombshell intelligence reports claiming Benjamin Netanyahu's spy agencies have been eavesdropping on American negotiators. US intelligence officials are alarmed by Israel's eavesdropping on American diplomats negotiating with Iran. The Pentagon now ranks Israel as a bigger counterintelligence threat than some of America's enemies, according to The New York Times.The report details concerns that Israel has been spying on senior Trump officials, including the President's top negotiator Steve Witkoff and Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, along with other American military and government...

Recent U.S. intelligence reports raised alarms about Israel spying on American officials to gain insight into the Trump administration’s approach to the Iran War, according to separate reports from the New York Times and NBC News. The Times reported Saturday that U.S. intelligence offices discern an elevated threat of Israeli espionage operations targeting Steve Witkoff, the top American negotiator with Iran, Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defense for policy, and Michael DiMino, one of Colby’s top deputies. Colby and DiMino are widely perceived to be part of an America First faction that is skeptical of military intervention in...

Thomas Massie isn’t acting like a defeated man. After losing the most expensive primary race in American history last month, largely thanks to pro-Israel figures and groups spending millions to defeat him (according to the Federal Election Commission, Massie received donations from 1,119 individuals actually living in Kentucky, compared to only 98 for his opponent Ed Gallrein), Massie announced just days later, “I filed with FEC for the 2028 House race.” He explained, “This allows me to raise funds to continue my political operations supporting my position as a current office holder and as a potential candidate for federal office.”...

Once again silliness returns! Today's episode: The Zot!The dreaded Viking kitty!

Candice Owens revealed that the US leader called her from Mar-a-Lago and told her about the French president's demandsMOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. Journalist Candice Owens told TASS that French President Emmanuel Macron informed US leader Donald Trump that he’s fed up with stories that his wife, Brigitte Macron, is a man, going so far as to say he wouldn’t sign a certain deal on Ukraine if the hate didn’t stop. "President Trump called me. That was not a tale, it's a true story. I have the phone records. And he called me from Mar-a-Lago, actually. So he says, well, you...

@mtgreenee We just said goodbye to our good friends Thomas and Carolyn Massie. The civil war in the Republican Party is successfully gutting the true America Firsters, like myself, Thomas and others. But I don’t think most Americans realize the extent of what’s happening, how bad it is, and what it’s going to produce. After taking the hard principled stand against war with Iran in June 2025 and releasing the Epstein files, the neocon controlled Republican establishment now backed by the President set out to destroy us. Thomas and I took two different routes but ended up in the same...

It was the kind of sweeping, last-minute demand that would have torpedoed most diplomatic talks: President Donald Trump insisting this week that in exchange for him ending the war with Iran, several Arab and Muslim countries should sign on to his Abraham Accords to normalize their diplomatic relations with Israel. But there’s been almost no response from any of the countries that Trump mentioned by name — more than half of whom already have diplomatic relations with Israel — and no statement of support from an Israeli government that would reap enormous benefits from such a deal. Analysts said Trump’s...

The best hope for ending a poorly planned war, which started with scant consultation with Congress or the American people, may be an unsatisfactory peace that leaves critical issues to be resolved later and deepens Washington strife. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said a deal to halt the conflict he chose against Iran is imminent and very close. Each time, his predictions turned out to be wishful thinking or a misreading of Iran’s true intentions. So it’s no surprise his latest claims that a framework agreement with Tehran is near have been met with skepticism and confusion — nor that...

Donald Trump was for the Iran war before he was against it. His latest post on social media about the conflict indicated that he is once more calling off a sweeping military action, this time at the behest of his Gulf allies who are apparently quaking at the thought of a renewed conflict. Trump’s initial sentence was quite a mouthful: I have been asked by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to hold...

Most voters think President Trump made the wrong decision to go to war with Iran, a New York Times/Siena poll found, leaving the Republican Party on rocky political footing heading into the midterm elections as his approval rating sinks and economic concerns rise.Majorities of voters said that the war was not worth the costs and held deeply pessimistic views about the economy.Mr. Trump’s approval rating — a key historical predictor of how a president’s party will fare in an election — has sunk to a second-term low in Times/Siena polls of 37 percent amid the deeply unpopular Middle East conflict....

Venezuela’s deposed president, Nicolás Maduro, never enjoyed the charisma or genuine popularity of his predecessor, ‘El Comandante’ Hugo Chávez. So all the murals, billboards and installations dotted around Caracas urging the release of the 63-year-old statesman – along with his wife Cilia Flores – from American captivity, don’t exactly feel like a grassroots effort. ‘Bring them home!’ reads one mural, evoking the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas. Meanwhile, a stopwatch installed in Caracas’s Bolivar Square counts how long it has been since the presidential couple were abducted by the US army in early January. Maduro currently resides in the Metropolitan...

President Donald Trump has slipped underwater with one of the most important blocs in his political coalition, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, which found his net approval among white working-class voters turned negative for the first time in his second term. The survey, conducted March 26 to March 30 among 1,201 adults, showed Trump at 49% approval and 50% disapproval with white non-college voters, a narrow but politically notable reversal for a group that helped drive his return to the White House. The shift matters because white working-class voters have long been central to Trump's electoral...

Americans have increasingly negative views of Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. * 60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% last year. * 59% have little or no confidence in Netanyahu to do the right thing regarding world affairs – up from 52% last year. * In both political parties, majorities of adults under the age of 50 now rate Israel and Netanyahu negatively. The survey was conducted March 23-29 among 3,507 U.S. adults. It was fielded about a month into the U.S.- and Israeli-led...

...It is worth recalling St. Paul’s words that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Thus, the Church is truly universal and eternal and favors no state or nation over another out of principle... I recall visiting Rome’s Great Synagogue... The synagogue’s museum exhibit details the two-thousand-year history of the Eternal City’s Jewish community; we learn, for instance, that it was not Hitler nor Mussolini but Pope Paul IV who established Rome’s first ghetto. Yet the exhibit features...

With Passover poised to begin Wednesday at sundown, a new poll shows a majority of American Jews oppose the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, even as 90% of them say they oppose the Iranian regime. The poll, commissioned by J Street, the liberal Zionist advocacy and lobby group, found that 60% of U.S. Jews oppose the war and 77% do not believe “President Trump has a clear plan and mission for the war.” Another poll of U.S. Jews, by the Jewish Electorate Institute, released Monday, showed similar results, with 55% of American Jews opposing military action against Iran. The two...

Israel approves death penalty law for Palestinians onlyDeath by hanging within 90 days is now the default punishment of Palestinians for offenses related to ‘terrorism,’ even as escalating Jewish settler terrorism continues with impunity.On Monday, Israel’s Knesset approved legislation requiring the death penalty for Palestinians found guilty of fatalities due to “terrorist” attacks. The measure was championed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the Jewish Power party, who marked the occasion by celebrating with champagne.The new “Death Penalty for Terrorists Law” specifically targets Palestinians calling for capital punishment in cases where a “terrorist” is convicted of deliberately killing...

Donald Trump said he was willing to end the Iran war without a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The US president, with no concrete signs of a diplomatic breakthrough, suggested that if negotiations collapsed, he would “obliterate” Iran’s energy and water facilities, but leave the vital waterway under Iranian control. He wrote on his Truth Social platform: “Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business’, we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by...

I listened to Mark Levin’s radio broadcast last week and was reminded of two things. First, Levin is one of the most knowledgeable, clever, sincere, and passionate personalities in America’s conservative political movement. Second, other than sharing a love for America, we have radically different world views. I’m not criticizing Mr. Levin; I am thankful for the good he has done for America--he and every other “conservative.” I’m only singling him out insofar as he represents the most zealous, thoughtful, practical side of political conservatives. My point is that regardless of what we have in common about America, we have...

President Donald Trump said his preference is to “take the oil” from Iran — despite whatever gripes his critics would have about it — during an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday. “To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran but some stupid people back in the U.S. say: ‘why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” Trump told the outlet. The outlet noted “such a move would involve seizing Kharg Island through which most of Iran’s oil is exported.” Trump has been calling for the U.S. to take the island...