Free Republic

President Donald Trump has spent months touting his planned White House ballroom, but this week the public gets its first chance to formally offer him their thoughts. The verdict: They don’t like it. Members of the public sent more than 35,000 comments about the project to the National Capital Planning Commission ahead of its Thursday hearing to review the ballroom, according to a Washington Post analysis of comments posted on the commission’s website. The “vast majority” of comments came from those who oppose the plan, commission staff said. The Post found that more than 97 percent of comments were critical...

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told CBS News’ Alan He on Thursday that President Donald Trump called him after his grilling of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem the day before, and suggested that Noem’s under oath testimony had not been accurate. Noem and Kennedy tussled during a Senate hearing on Wednesday over the hundreds of millions of dollars she spent on a pro-ICE ad campaign she starred in. “The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Kennedy asked Noem during the hearing. “Yes sir, we went through...

Donald Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles is demanding action to bring gas prices down as the war with Iran sends oil skyrocketing, sources have revealed. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other top officials, including a council led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, 'are getting screamed at to find some good news', industry executives said. Iran has shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil flows, sending prices soaring more than 10 percent in a single week, with Brent crude jumping from $72 to more than $82 a barrel. The average gas price jumped 11...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued with Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul Wednesday over whether the U.S.’ capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro was an “act of war.” Paul expressed disagreement with Rubio by stating that if any country captured the U.S. president in the same kind of operation carried out in Venezuela, he would declare war. President Donald Trump’s administration, including Rubio, have repeatedly stated that Maduro’s arrest was simply a “law enforcement action” and not an act of war against Venezuela. Trump said that the move brought Maduro to “justice” and that the U.S. acted within its constitutional...

Donald Trump said in 2016 to the Republican National Convention, “We must abandon the failed policy of nation-building and regime change.” Earlier this month, after the current administration launched a war against Venezuela and ousted—one might say changed the regime of—President Nicolás Maduro, Trump said, “We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” U.S.-led regime change in Venezuela seemed to fly in the face of Trump’s prior warnings against regime change wars. But the president’s defenders said this was a different kind of military operation, unlike the Iraq,...

Trump appears on ads on Fox News flashing a "red beauty" watch.

While some dubious policies linger from the Biden administration years, even some Trump administration policy steps in the Middle East — Gaza, Iran, and Syria especially — raise questions about this administration’s and its envoys’ understanding of realities of Islam, jihad, and sharia. ...So far, so good for the Trump administration, but then:“‘No Idea’ of Threat Posed by Afghan Parole Program, Senator Warns” by Virginia Allen at the Daily Signal, January 15, 2026“The Trump Administration’s Delusional Gaza ‘Master Plan’” by Khaled Abu Toameh at the Gatestone Institute, February 3, 2026At the recent annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF)...

Sen. Thom Tillis said Friday that he will oppose President Donald Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair until the criminal probe of the current Chair Jerome Powell is “fully” resolved. “Protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve from political interference or legal intimidation is non-negotiable,” the North Carolina Republican said in a statement on X. Tillis, who is set to retire, vowed earlier this month to oppose any new nominee for the Fed until the Department of Justice’s controversial investigation of Powell is completed. Tillis is a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee,...

Gold and silver prices plunged on Friday, as President Donald Trump’s nomination for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, appeared to relieve concerns about the central bank’s independence. By 7:12 a.m. ET, spot silver was down 10.6% to settle at around $103.81 an ounce, paring back earlier losses. In the early hours of the morning, the metal had plummeted as much as 16% and dipped below the $100 milestone.

WASHINGTON — When President Donald Trump watched a live feed of the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was not in the room. Just two days earlier, she had posted photos of herself on a beach in Hawaii at sunset practicing yoga, sending out a new year’s greeting for “peace.”That she appeared to be on vacation in the run-up to such a high-stakes, ultra-sensitive military operation seemed to underscore the extent to which she has been sidelined by the administration.But there she was on Wednesday, at an election center in...

"In a big setback to Donald Trump's Ukraine peace efforts, Russia has hardened its stance on Donbas ahead of the tripartite talks in the United Arab Emirates. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reiterated Moscow's demand that Ukraine withdraw from the Donbas region. The Russian official's remark comes amid Trump saying that both Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky had agreed to a deal."

Syria’s Al Qaeda regime is massacring Kurds to free imprisoned ISIS terrorists, state sponsors of Hamas in Turkey and Qatar are being named to boards running Gaza and thousands of democracy protesters are being massacred in Iran while Al Jazeera defends the regime. This isn’t American foreign policy, but it is Qatar’s foreign policy. The White House’s foreign policy in the Muslim world is now virtually identical to Qatar’s foreign policy apart from Israel. And as thousands die in Iran after empty promises of support, there is a bigger picture here of institutional capture by a tiny and powerful Islamic...

Donald Trump has sparked fresh outrage in the UK after saying Nato troops stayed "a little off the front lines" during the war in Afghanistan. Labour MP Emily Thornberry, the chair of the foreign affairs committee, called it an "absolute insult" to the 457 British service personnel killed in the conflict, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: "How dare he question their sacrifice?" Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, who served in Afghanistan, said it was "sad to see our nation's sacrifice, and that of our Nato partners, held so cheaply". The UK was among several allies to join the...

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that she ordered her country’s top diplomat to speak with the highest levels of the U.S. government to work on improving binational coordination in order to keep U.S. forces from carrying out direct attacks against cartels inside Mexico. This appears to be her latest effort to protect the violent drug trafficking cartels that exert political influence at every level of her country. The announcement came in response to a series of comments made by U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who claimed that while his forces had been highly effective in stopping the maritime flow of...

Look, I want to prepare you for the absolute horror show that is to follow. To wit: The U.S. Border cops shot a man and a woman as they sat in their car on Thursday afternoon in Portland, Ore. As CNN's Brianna Keilar told her viewers, "Tensions are flying even higher in Portland, Oregon [after] a border patrol agent shot a married couple there." Have we so lost our humanity that "married couples" are now being targeted by our Border Patrol and ICE officers?! Brianna would have us believe that border cops in Portland are simply walking up to "married...

President Donald Trump has assured the people of Venezuela that his undertaking to restore the country’s oil infrastructure will be mutually beneficial to both them and the U.S. Ricardo Hausmann, professor of the practice of international political economy at the Harvard Kennedy School, isn’t convinced. “There’s a reason why there’s no profit motive in government,” Hausmann told Fortune, referring to the U.S. controlling the Venezuelan oil market. “Profit motive in government is what we call corruption.” Trump has unveiled lofty plans to revive Venezuela’s troubled oil industry, just days after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro over the weekend....

Longtime Greenlanders have told the Daily Mail they are furious with President Donald Trump for once again floating the possibility of taking over their country. Trump revived talk about the United States asserting formal control over Greenland on Sunday, one day after US soldiers captured Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and brought the deposed leader back to New York to face a litany of criminal charges. 'It's so strategic,' Trump told reporters on Air Force One. 'We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it. Jørgen Bay-Kastrup is the CEO...

President Trump is hitting home runs. If voters pay attention, this should result in Republican victories in the midterm elections. This is especially important because the party that holds the presidency usually loses House and Senate seats. It is therefore vital that Trump not break his winning streak with unnecessary and unjustifiable military action against Greenland. If Greenland’s 50,000 or so inhabitants believe that Denmark is not doing a good job for them, they are always free to vote to become a U.S. territory, as many other regions have done throughout our history. [SNIP] Acquire Greenland Peacefully or Not at...

President Donald Trump's military intervention in Venezuela has emerged as a flash point in the closely watched Republican primary campaign between Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a long-running Trump antagonist, and retired Navy SEAL officer Ed Gallrein, who has the president's backing. Massie, showing his non-interventionist leanings, fired off a series of social media posts criticizing the dramatic action that captured Nicolás Maduro and removed him from the South American country. “Wake up MAGA,” Massie wrote. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.” Gallrein responded that Massie had “shown...

President Donald Trump's focus on the brazen U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is frustrating some White House aides and Republican lawmakers, who want him to address economic and healthcare concerns in an election year, according to three people familiar with the matter.White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, her deputy James Blair and Vice President JD Vance are pressing Trump to prioritize domestic concerns, said two White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. Vance has been the most persistent voice in meetings, repeatedly steering conversations back to kitchen-table issues, they said....