Free Republic

Senior military figures last night urged Sir Keir Starmer to put national security first and let Donald Trump use British bases for an attack on Iran. Downing Street has refused the US permission to launch air strikes from bases in the UK and overseas. That message was reiterated by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper last night when she met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington D.C. She told her counterpart that Britain favoured ‘diplomatic and economic pressure’ on Iran. With Tehran saying it will have a nuclear deal draft ready in a few days, former top brass last night...

Drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders in multiple countries, this exclusive account details how the US and Britain uncovered Vladimir Putin’s plans to invade, and why most of Europe – including the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy – dismissed them. As the fourth anniversary of the invasion approaches and the world enters a new period of geopolitical uncertainty, Europe’s politicians and spy services continue to draw lessons from the failures of 2022. The phone call William Burns had travelled halfway around the world to speak with Vladimir Putin, but in the end he had...

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger will deliver the official Democratic response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Feb. 24. The high-profile speaking slot has proved to be a mixed blessing in recent years, providing both a national platform for a rising star and the peril of being the follow-up act to a president who has just been wrapped in the trappings of a speech to a joint session of Congress. Most of the response speeches, whether given from a quiet television studio in Washington, a Lousiana living room or a Kentucky diner, have been largely forgettable —...

The Ukrainian public would not accept Kyiv simply handing over the country’s Donbas region to Russia in a peace deal, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday — advising US envoys against continually pushing a version of peace the war’s victims would see as an “unsuccessful story.” “Emotionally, people will never forgive this. Never. They will not forgive … me, they will not forgive [the US],” Zelensky told Axios, speaking as US, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Geneva. “This is part of our country, all these citizens, the flag, the land.” The president said it was “not fair” that President Trump...

Elon Musk has thrown his support behind a former Reform UK MP and his new political party, which is promising to 'reverse' migration and 'do things the [British] way'. Rupert Lowe, now an independent MP representing Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, has announced the launch of Restore Britain. He originally set it up as a 'political movement' after being suspended from Nigel Farage's Reform UK party last March, amid allegations he physically threatened then party chairman Zia Yusuf. The Crown Prosecution Service subsequently dropped the case, stating there was insufficient evidence to proceed. Restore Britain has established itself as an umbrella...

The Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Latin trap artist Bad Bunny was the subject of immense criticism from Americans on Sunday night. President Donald Trump called it "one of the worst ever." The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World," Trump wrote on...

Bend skier Hunter Hess is feeling "mixed emotions" about representing the U.S. at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Hess spoke during a news conference in Milan on Friday with the Team USA freeski halfpipe squad. He was reportedly asked what it means to wear Team USA gear and the American flag amid the Trump administration's immigration arrests. "It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now I think," Hess said. "It's a little hard. There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of and I think a lot of people aren't. I think...

A January survey from Harvard University and The Harris Poll found that a slight majority of respondents believe that former President Biden was more effective than President Trump. The poll, released Monday, found that 51 percent of respondents said Trump is doing a worse job than Biden, while 49 percent said the president is doing a better job than his predecessor. The same survey conducted in December found that 53 percent of respondents said Trump is faring better than Biden did. The latest results also mark a stark reversal from February 2025, when 58 percent of respondents to the Harvard-Harris...

Births in Türkiye fell again in 2025, continuing a decline that has put NATO's youngest population on a course President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called a "demographic disaster." For decades, the country of 85 million and rising military power had the bloc’s highest total fertility rate (TFR). In 2016, it stood at 2.1 births per woman, the level needed to sustain a population naturally. By the end of last year, the Turkish Statistical Institute reported it had fallen to 1.48, driven by prolonged economic downturn, rising cost of living and changing social norms among young people. It’s a familiar pattern...

Hundreds of Danish protesters, many of whom are military veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, staged a demonstration in Copenhagen on Saturday outside the U.S. Embassy. The group was protesting President Donald Trump’s push that the U.S. acquire Greenland from Denmark and his remarks at Davos that NATO forces "stayed a little back" when they fought alongside the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. "They have a feeling that they’ve been betrayed," Carsten Rasmussen, president of the Danish Veterans Association, told The Associated Press. "And of course, they are angered by this. They deployed. They fought with the Americans. They...

Leaked Signal chats allegedly link Minnesota officials to a coordinated anti-ICE network accused of obstructing federal enforcement, sparking calls for investigations as evidence spreads nationwide.

Germany currently has no capacity to deliver additional Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, citing limits on the country’s own military readiness, according to Deutsche Welle on January 26. Pistorius said Germany has already made a “disproportionately large contribution” by transferring more than one-third of its Patriot systems to Ukraine, leaving Berlin unable to commit further units at this stage. He explained that additional deliveries are not possible because the Bundeswehr is still waiting for replacement systems and must preserve its ability to train personnel and maintain operational readiness for Patriot air defense operations....

Encrypted Signal messages show 'rapid responders' mobilized demonstrators to harass federal agents, then socialist groups capitalized on killing to foment protests. The skirmish that led to Saturday's fatal shooting of an agitator by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis and the response that followed were driven by a complex network of far-left organizations with a wide range of causes, a Fox News Digital investigation found. A coordinated web of encrypted chats, street alerts and tracking of ICE "Abductors" in a sophisticated database reviewed by Fox News Digital shows that agitators were already mobilized at the scene where 37-year-old Alex Pretti was...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday he told U.S. President Donald Trump that he meant what he said in his speech at Davos, and told him Canada plans to diversify away from the United States with a dozen new trade deals. Carney rolled his eyes and rejected U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s contention to Fox News that he aggressively walked back his comments at the World Economic Forum during a phone call with Trump on Monday. “To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the president, I meant what I said in Davos,” Carney said to reporters as...

Playing off the severe winter weather, Jimmy Fallon on Monday aimed a few “It’s so cold ...” jokes at the Trumps before a surprise guest butted in to continue the monologue. “It is so cold, I watched the ‘Melania’ movie just to warm my heart,” the “Tonight Show” host cracked. “It’s so cold, President Trump got a space heater installed in his MRI machine.” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani then stepped onstage. “Hey, Jimmy, let me try one,” he said to wild applause. “It’s so cold in New York City the rent froze itself,” Mamdani said. The city leader...

Eight additional Democrats signed on to an impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti, bringing the total number of co-sponsors to 120, according to a spokesperson for the office of Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois. Kelly’s impeachment resolution against Noem had garnered 100 co-sponsors as of Jan. 20, according to a press release, but the number spiked in recent days amid outcry over immigration enforcement practices as thousands of federal officers were deployed to Minnesota in what the administration has dubbed Operation Metro Surge. “IMPEACH KRISTI NOEM,” the Democratic Party...

A fresh MAGA civil war has erupted ahead of the midterm elections, with one of President Donald Trump’s most vocal allies lashing out at Vice President JD Vance over abortion and accusing him of being “friends with degenerates.” The scorched-earth tirade by MAGA acolyte Laura Loomer took place shortly after Vance appeared at the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., where he touted Trump as the most pro-life president in history and encouraged anti-abortion activists to “take heart in how far we’ve come.” But Loomer questioned his presence at the event, asking her 1.8 million followers on X:...

Prince Harry criticized President Donald Trump over downplaying the role of NATO allies in the Afghanistan War. Trump had told Fox News in an interview that the U.S. had "never really asked anything of" its NATO allies and questioned if they would come to America's aid if called. The U.S. is the only NATO member ever to have invoked Article 5, which it did in response to the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, and allies sent troops to support the resultant war in Afghanistan. "They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan," Trump said in the interview. "And they did,...

Online conservative figures are throwing a fit over newly inaugurated Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger implementing her policies. The online right has been lamenting Spanberger’s first week as governor, claiming she was just acting as a moderate while running for office and has now taken a far-left turn. In her first few days as governor, Spanberger signed several executive orders, one of which ended state and local cooperation with federal immigration agents, a policy proposal that she said she would enact if elected. Conservatives are expressing outrage over Spanberger’s first moves, equating her to a villain, a witch, and one of...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer went after President Trump on Wednesday for reversing position on a deal surrounding the Chagos Islands, suggesting the president did so because of tensions over his plan to acquire Greenland. “I made out my position on Greenland absolutely clear on Monday and a moment ago. President Trump deployed words on Chagos yesterday that were different to his previous words of welcome and support when I met him in the White House,” Starmer said in the House of Commons. “He deployed those words yesterday for the express purpose of putting pressure on me and Britain in...