Free Republic

Is Don gonna make Ron an offer he can't refuse? Or maybe just cut to the chase and have him whacked? That's what Joe Scarborough seemed to suggest on today's Morning Joe. Reacting to Trump having said that if Ron DeSantis runs against him, "we'll handle that the way I handle things," Scarborough said:"Sounds like a mob threat."Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

The George W. Bush Institute is calling on the United States and its allies increase their aid to Ukraine and address the ongoing refugee crisis. The institute released a series of policy recommendations to the Biden administration and Congress on Wednesday, including international proposals regarding the war in Ukraine and domestic recommendations about immigration laws and education. The organization recommended sending more aid to Ukraine, like tanks, fighter jets and missile and air defense systems, saying the aid the U.S. has already sent to the country is “not enough.” “Helping Ukraine push out all Russian occupying and invading forces from...

Former President Donald Trump lashed out at evangelicals for not supporting his latest presidential campaign, saying it was a “sign of disloyalty” after he appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices and made their long-held dream of overturning Roe v. Wade possible. Trump, 76, told Real America’s Voice’s “The Water Cooler” Monday that the religious bloc of voters who were key to his 2016 victory have not yet come out to back his 2024 White House bid. “That’s a sign of disloyalty,” Trump told host David Brody. “There’s great disloyalty in the world of politics, and that’s a sign of disloyalty.”

Former President Donald Trump still wields some power in public opinion polls. “Just over a year out from the Republican Party’s first presidential nominating contest, Trump remains the front-runner in a hypothetical crowded field, backed by 46% of potential Republican primary voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to launch a campaign later this year, is backed by 33% of the potential GOP electorate,” reports Eli Yokley, a Morning Consult analyst. “No. 45’s buzz is improving, but his favorability is not: Potential Republican primary voters have been increasingly likely over the past month to say they’ve heard something positive...

Democratic consultant and political commentator James Carville predicted Tuesday on the “Conversations with Bill Kristol” podcast that former President Donald Trump will not be the 2024 Republican nominee because he will be in jail soon. Carville said, “He is done. After all this obsession, of all these years of him occupying the front part of your mind, when you think about it, you just wonder how fast it’s going to be before he goes to jail. He’s not going to be the Republican nominee at all. We saw what the post-Trump Republican Party looks like. Just go back and look...

Former President Donald Trump still has a reverence for the FBI, even after the Russia collusion debacle and Mar-a-Lago raid. But he's adamant the bureau needs to be banned from meddling in elections by pressuring social media firms to censor Americans' opinions.In a wide-ranging interview Tuesday with Just the News, America's 45th president said it was "shocking to me" when Twitter released internal files showing the extent of FBI efforts to censor content during the 2020 election, including the creation of a command center in San Francisco just for that mission."You always want to love the FBI and all you...

>>> Trump posted a video of McCarthy thanking the former president on his social media platform Truth Social, captioning it: “Thank you Kevin. It was my great honor >>>

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., doesn't care that former President Donald Trump backs Kevin McCarthy for speaker of the House. "Endorsements don't matter to me," said Norman, one of 20 Republican holdouts who have blocked McCarthy, R-Calif., from winning the majority he needs on a series of deadlocked votes for House speaker. "This is our fight here." Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., another anti-McCarthy voter, took umbrage at Trump calling recalcitrants on behalf of the beleaguered House GOP leader. "Let’s stop with the campaign smears and tactics to get people to turn against us — even having my favorite president call us...

As the fight over who will be the Speaker of the House rages on, there are some interesting sub-battles going on within the Republican Party.Perhaps the most surprising dynamic is Donald Trump reiterating his full-throated endorsement of Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday, while McCarthy’s detractors remain almost universally Trump-supporting Republicans. It’s hard to get more “MAGA” than Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz, with the latter actually doing an “America First” tour during the last election season.Trump just endorsed McCarthy on Truth Social.pic.twitter.com/9eiHpJRq0Q— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) January 4, 2023Yet, here we are, with previous alliances fraying, and several members of the anti-McCarthy...

Former President Trump on Tuesday declined to say whether he will stick by House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) as his bid to become Speaker appeared to hit a wall. “We’ll see what happens,” Trump told NBC News in a phone conversation when asked if he stands by his endorsement of McCarthy. “I got everybody calling me wanting my support,” Trump told NBC. “But let’s see what happens and we’ll go — I got everybody calling, wanting my support. That’s all I can say. But we’ll see what happens. We’ll see how it all works out.”

The Hill predicted Sunday that Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will secure the 2024 GOP presidential nomination with former President Donald Trump as the runner-up contender.DeSantis was picked as the top candidate for his double-digit reelection during the midterms and what The Hill calls "his embrace of culture war issues and his opposition to COVID-19–related lockdowns." Explaining why Trump was ranked as the second most likely 2024 nominee, the outlet said: "Trump would have been the runaway favorite had these rankings been drawn up the day before the midterm elections. Since then, virtually everything the president has touched has turned...

Former President Trump has a significantly higher favorable rating than Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll found.The survey provided a list of high profile figures across the board in politics and found Trump standing at the top in terms of favorability, garnering 46 percent.That is higher than every other figure featured on the list, which includes President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and more. McConnell’s favorable figures are toward the bottom half of the list, garnering a 25 percent favorable rating — 21 points lower...

The nation's largest annual conference for Millennial and Gen-Z conservatives, AmericaFest, drew tens of thousands of attendees who seem divided on who should win the 2024 nomination—a troubling sign for the former president. As Trump acolytes, like his eldest son Donald Trump Jr. and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, sang praises for Trump's 2024 campaign, many event speakers avoided endorsing the former president and interviews with attendees revealed that many aren't prepared to commit to another Trump term just yet. The four-day event in Phoenix, Arizona, is a glaring red flag for Trump's campaign. It signals there may not be...

Donald Trump's post-presidential life has left him 'restless' in Mar-a-Lago - a 'miniature' White House where his aides allegedly pander to his shattered ego. The disgruntled former president's lifestyle in Florida, which includes playing 18 holes of golf a day, is 'sad' and he's forced to rely heavily on his aides Natalie Harp and Molly Michael, insiders claim. Harp reportedly follows Trump around his golf courses in a cart equipped with a laptop and printer to offer him uplifting news stories when he needs a morale boost, the Washington Post revealed. Michael is known to phone Trump's network of allies...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took aim at former President Donald Trump when asked about his reaction to the House Jan. 6 panel’s criminal referral of the former president to the Justice Department on Monday. “The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day. Beyond that, I don’t have any immediate observations,” McConnell told reporters when asked about the House select committee’s findings. The committee, led by Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), recommended to the DOJ that Trump, 76, be charged with inciting or assisting an insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to make...

Former President Donald Trump addressed an audience gathered at his Mar-a-Lago club and estate in Palm Beach, Fla., Thursday night for the Log Cabin Republicans’ Spirit of Lincoln gala, the conservative LGBTQ group’s flagship event. “We are fighting for the gay community, and we are fighting and fighting hard,” Trump said. “Last night, we had over 450 LGBT conservatives and our straight allies join us for another amazing Spirit of Lincoln gala,” Log Cabin Republicans President Charles Moran told the Washington Blade. “While the speakers and award honorees spanned the conservative spectrum, all of them, including President Trump, articulated a...

Decades of writing about politicians has taught me that the successful ones generally do not make big decisions on the fly. If you watch and listen, you can usually spot a deliberative process and defensible reasoning behind their positions. But now comes a major exception: the decision by the Biden administration to throw open our southern border. Two years into this national disaster, I don’t have a clue about why the president and his team are still doing this. What started as a foolish bid to undo everything Donald Trump did has become a permanent policy that undercuts national security...

I ask the question in my headline in earnest.Here’s a relative axiom, attributed in various forms to various historical figures: Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself. So, yeah — what are the Democrats thinking? They should count their lucky stars if Donald Trump wins the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination.With multiple polls showing Republican support for a 2024 Trump run collapsing, the former president beleaguered by key midterm losses by candidates he strongly backed, courtroom setbacks, and mindblowing unforced errors — blameable only on Trump — the Democrat Party would be wise to...

Even Steve Bannon and other key advisers to former President Donald Trump have had enough of his latest stunts — demanding everyone behind his wacky NFT collection be “fired today.” “I can’t do this anymore,” an exasperated-sounding Bannon said Thursday on his show, “The War Room,” when discussing the widely derided collection the 45th president launched the previous day.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis set the lockdown-loving left on its heels Tuesday when he petitioned for a grand jury investigation of “crimes and wrongdoing committed against Floridians related to the COVID-19 vaccine” AND effectively circumvented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in creating a state board to “assess” federal health recommendations and guidance.“In Florida, you know, it is against the law to mislead and misrepresent when you talk about the efficacy of the drug,” DeSantis said. “So today, I am announcing a petition with the Supreme Court of Florida to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate any and...