Free Republic

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing bipartisan scrutiny over his reported order to strike a boat in the Caribbean a second time, killing two survivors who were clinging to the ship’s wreckage on Sept. 2. The Washington Post reported Friday that Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” after the initial strike, the first of what is now more than 20 such attacks, did not immediately kill all 11 of the people on board the vessel, leading the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack to order a second strike. Some Democrats and a senior Republican said Sunday the strike was...

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said he'd leave the Democratic Party if it becomes the "anti-Israel party," though he signaled he had no plans to imminently depart the caucus. Why it matters: Republicans currently hold a narrow Senate majority, but with midterm elections looming, Fetterman's comments could be a blow to Democrats should they flip four seats in November and regain control. Fetterman acknowledged the Democrats' difficult Senate math when speaking Wednesday at The Hill Nation Summit: "And if we flip those four seats, then I would be 51, and ... watch what I do." He continued, "I'm the guy that...

President Donald Trump thanked Iran for a 'gesture of Goodwill' after an American woman who was 'wrongly detained' in 2024 was released from the country – while also taking a shot at the former President Biden. Trump showed gratitude for the gesture in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, adding that the woman was now outside the country and in 'good condition'. 'Iran has allowed an American Citizen, who was wrongfully detained in December of 2024 under the "presidency" of Sleepy Joe Biden, to leave the Country,' wrote the president. 'She is now safely outside of Iran, and in...

President Donald Trump reportedly held a Situation Room meeting on Tuesday to discuss new strikes on strategic targets in Iran, as well as strikes against Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz.The meeting signaled the White House is preparing for a broader military campaign aimed at forcing Tehran back to the negotiating table and ending threats to one of the world's most critical shipping lanes.Trump met with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and other...

When Apple sued OpenAI last week, claiming the company behind ChatGPT had sought to steal its trade secrets, one name was conspicuously absent from the lawsuit. Sir Jony Ive, the British designer whose collaboration with Steve Jobs led to Apple’s most creative years, was not mentioned in the 41-page document, despite his company, io Products, and co-founder Tang Tan being named as defendants. Ive has recently been working with OpenAI to develop new products and Apple’s lawyers appeared to go out of their way not to mention him by name, stating that io was founded by “former Apple leaders”. But...

CBS News reported that senior U.S. defense officials have reviewed early-stage military options for Cuba, including an Army-led air assault involving thousands of troops from the 101st Airborne Division.

Several Democrats have either been arrested, detained or charged under the Trump administration due to the White House’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin has condemned their treatment, arguing lawmakers are being assaulted without reason. “Elected officials are being arrested for doing their jobs,” Martin wrote in a Wednesday statement on social platform X. “Once again, the Trump administration is silencing people who disagree with them in broad daylight.” Here are Democrats who have been recently apprehended by law enforcement: NYC Comptroller Brad Lander Sen. Alex Padilla Rep. LaMonica McIver Judge Hannah Dugan Newark Mayor...

The bottom 50% of households in the U.S. own only $4.27 trillion of the nation's $174 trillion in available wealth. By contrast, the top 0.1% own $25.07 trillion, and the top 99 to 99.9% own a little under $30 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data. With AI now supercharging the stock market, and richer families already owning the majority of those assets, that divide is only likely to widen. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is well aware of this phenomenon. In fact, the man worth more than $3 billion according to Forbes says he understands why people are "anti-rich."...

A stable peace appears elusive, some former officials say President Trump’s new plan to wrest control of the Strait of Hormuz by resuming strikes and reimposing the blockade is his third major shift in military strategy as he searches for a way to turn the tables on Iran in the nearly five-month-old war. Trump has tried air and missile attacks, a naval quarantine and now the calibrated use of firepower to try to coerce Tehran to agree to his terms, in addition to diplomatic inducements. But Iran has exploited its proximity to a major oil export route to defy Washington...

U.S. President Donald Trump is slated to speak on Thursday about newly declassified intelligence ​on foreign nations' plans to interfere in the U.S. election in 2020, an MS ‌Now reporter said on X, citing two unidentified White House officials. The Republican president repeatedly has claimed that he lost the 2020 vote to Democrat Joe Biden ​because of massive fraud. But numerous courts, ballot audits and his ​first-term Justice Department found no evidence no evidence of widespread ⁠fraud that could have affected the outcome. Propelled by the Trump's repeated ​claims that U.S. elections are “rigged,” the administration has for more than...

President Trump on Sunday shared a video calling for “hardcore communist ********” to be deported, notably naming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D). Conservative pundit Michael Savage’s 49-minute-long video, which he posted on July 4, claims that democratic socialist candidates running as Democrats have been turning the U.S. into a socialist country through, for example, the launch of “free” programs. Savage claimed the country was turning into Cambodia under the dictator Pol Pot. “That is exactly what Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists will do to you,” Savage said. “Forget the smirks, forget the smiles, forget the bull— that it’s...

FBI director Kash Patel abandoned a planned flight to see his girlfriend perform in Chicago on the same Friday he turned up at the White House, in an episode the Trump administration insists had nothing to do with any frustration over his conduct. MS NOW reported that Patel abruptly cancelled the trip on the morning of 10 July 2026 after senior officials, who the outlet said had grown frustrated by a series of controversies, summoned him to the West Wing. The White House flatly rejected that account, telling the outlet the suggestion he was called in over frustration was 'totally...

Two American allies, Germany and Japan, already have permission to build the American interceptors, a license that President Trump says he will also grant to Kyiv. In 2022, as fears mounted over Europe’s missile defense capabilities against Russian strikes, the Biden administration granted permission for Germany to build a factory to manufacture state-of-the-art Patriot air defense interceptors. That factory has yet to produce a single Patriot — a sign of the time it can take and how difficult it can be to ramp up production of American weapons abroad, even after winning approval from the United States government to do...

President Donald Trump appeared to confuse Iran with Japan during a jaw-dropping verbal slip at the NATO summit in Ankara on Wednesday, telling reporters that the “Islamic Republic of Japan” had fired more than 100 missiles at a U.S. aircraft carrier as he touted the effectiveness of Patriot missile defense systems.

Ninety-five per cent of Americans believe the US is suffering an affordability crisis, as many report trouble with the rising cost of groceries and gas, according to a survey, conducted by Harris Poll. Despite stable employment and record-high stock markets, more Americans believe the overall economy is getting worse (57%) than in February (46%), when the poll was last conducted and before the war in the Middle East sent gas prices soaring. Fewer people today also believe the economy is getting better (16%, compared with 28% in February) and more say their financial security has gotten worse. Even rural Americans,...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday resurrected his push for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, and suggested the U.S. could pull all of its armed services members out of Europe in response to the continent’s continued pushback on the issue. The island territory “should be controlled by the United States,” Trump said shortly after he arrived in Ankara, Turkey, for a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. The 32-member alliance — which includes Denmark, of which Greenland is a part — fell into a crisis in January, as Trump demanded that the U.S. must take control of the...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A tanker traveling off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz caught on fire early Tuesday morning after being struck by a projectile, the British military said.The attack was the latest targeting a vessel moving through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed in peacetime. Iranian state television said the liquefied natural gas tanker came under attack after ignoring warnings but did not directly claim the assault. Tehran has repeatedly declared that only its approved route through the strait...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was the Trump administration’s frontman for waging war on Iran during weeks of kinetic operations aimed at decimating its nuclear threat. Since President Trump signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to end the war, without securing significant concessions on its missile or nuclear stockpiles, Hegseth has said little about the shift in strategy — as Vice President Vance takes the spotlight in defending the tenuous diplomacy. The public positioning of the top Trump advisers reflects reporting on their private counsel to the commander in chief, with Trump saying in March that Hegseth was “the...

The plan wasn’t working. Less than a year into President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration’s signature initiative — facilitating the mass deportation of “millions and millions” of immigrants, as he once put it — had become a political liability. A surge of federal agents to Minnesota proved to be the apex of a flashy, combative strategy that tried to steamroll any opposition — and failed. But now, according to The New York Times, the seeming lull in arrests that followed the winter’s chaos has given way to a renewed effort to round up as many immigrants for deportation as...

A draft report inside the Treasury Department is set to warn of the risks posed by the artificial intelligence market, likening key aspects of it to the dotcom bubble that upended the U.S. economy when it burst in the early 2000s. The document, the existence and contents of which have not been previously reported but was obtained by NOTUS, is a significant departure from the Trump administration’s public tone, which has focused on encouraging unrelenting investment to unlock exponential growth. Career Treasury analysts found that AI firms are more deeply entrenched in the U.S. economy than their dotcom predecessors and...