Free Republic

One of the next moves in President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s sweeping effort to fire government employees and curtail operations is using the agency that manages thousands of federal employee worksites around the country to cut down on office space. Last week, regional managers for the General Services Administration, or GSA, received a message from the agency’s Washington headquarters to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide, according to an email shared with The Associated Press by a GSA employee. The order seems to contradict Trump’s own return-to-office mandate for federal employees, adding confusion...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has expressed frustration that flags will be flying at half-staff when he takes office later this month. ...On Dec. 29, Biden ordered that U.S. flags be flown at half-staff in honor of the late former president. It's an honor that indicates that the country or a state is in mourning. The U.S. flag code lays out parameters for lowering the U.S. flag to half-staff, including a 30-day period for current or former presidents to cover flags at federal government buildings and their grounds, as well as at U.S. embassies and other facilities abroad, including military...

Donald Trump has had as many as seven private phone calls with Vladimir Putin since leaving office and secretly sent the Russian president COVID-19 test machines during the height of the pandemic, Bob Woodward reported in his new book “War.”In the famed Watergate reporter’s latest book, Woodward reports that Trump asked an aide to leave his office at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, so that the former president could have a private call with Putin in early 2024. The aide, whom Woodward doesn’t name, said there have been multiple calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left office, perhaps as many...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Democrat vying to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is facing calls from within her own party to fold her campaign, following the publication of additional leaked audio in which she appears to make disparaging remarks about her constituents. The calls for state Rep. Krystle Matthews to withdraw just two months ahead of the general election came Thursday in reaction to leaked audio published by conservative activist group Project Veritas of Matthews speaking to one of its members, without her knowledge. Sitting in a restaurant, Matthews, who is Black, is heard saying that...

OLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Democrat vying to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is facing calls from within her own party to fold her campaign, following the publication of additional leaked audio in which she appears to make disparaging remarks about her constituents. The calls for state Rep. Krystle Matthews to withdraw just two months ahead of the general election came Thursday in reaction to leaked audio published by conservative activist group Project Veritas of Matthews speaking to one of its members, without her knowledge. Sitting in a restaurant, Matthews, who is Black, is heard saying that...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — In a state known for its political shenanigans, the Senate race in South Carolina is living up to that reputation as campaigning between U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison enters its closing days. This week, Harrison has been mounting a campaign to cleave voters from Graham and steer them toward a third, more conservative candidate, although that candidate is no longer actively running. The tactic could appeal to South Carolina voters who voted Graham in but have at times critiqued him as not conservative enough for the state

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Continuing his outreach to African American voters, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg acknowledged Sunday that he needs to do more work to connect with the community, particularly in the early-voting state of South Carolina. "It shows we've got a lot of work to do," Buttigieg said after a town hall with 600 mostly white voters in North Charleston, where nearly half the population is black. Buttigieg is planning to do just that during his two-day swing in South Carolina, the first state where black votes play a major role in the presidential primaries. On Monday, he's...

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — By now, most Democratic presidential candidates have polished their stump speeches. But when they’re in South Carolina, they may need to add in a sermon. In a large and diverse primary field, White House hopefuls are angling to develop relationships with black churches. That’s because success in South Carolina, home to the nation’s first Southern presidential primary, could come down to connecting with politically influential churchgoing African Americans. “Candidates recognize that black churches are the places to be seen and heard,” said Bobby Donaldson, a professor of civil rights history at the University of South...

Several reporters found comedian Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday to be detrimental to the mission of the evening and a gift to President Donald Trump, who was not in attendance but at a political rally in Michigan. Wolf took gratuitous shots at President Trump and White House officials that journalists at the Associated Press, Politico, Yahoo News, The New York Times, and CNN found to be cruel and off-putting. Wolf laughed at the audience following the negative response of one vulgar joke. “Yeah, you shoulda done more research before you got me to do this,”...

President Trump's absence for the second year in a row from the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner may end up being the least controversial thing about Saturday night's gathering of the White House press corps. Chatter online among journalists and some in the administration's orbit after the event was full of criticism for comedian Michelle Wolf, who was the evening's headliner; criticism and soul-searching about the annual event itself; and an effort by former White House press secretary Sean Spicer to pressure the leadership of the White House Correspondents' Association into answering for Wolf's vulgar, personal jabs leveled primarily at...