Free Republic

A federal judge has ruled that President Donald Trump acted illegally when he seized control of California’s National Guard during ICE-related riots in Los Angeles. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer issued the decision Thursday, siding with Governor Gavin Newsom and ordering Trump to return control of the Guard to the state "forthwith." "His actions were illegal—both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution," Breyer wrote. "He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith." "Federalism is not optional," the...

President Trump has ordered the California National Guard to secure Los Angeles from the anti-ICE rioters, despite the vocal objections of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass. It’s the first time in 60 years that the commander-in-chief deployed a state’s National Guard without the governor’s blessing, and members of the Trump administration are saying the move is justified because the protests represent a “violent insurrection” against the country. “This is a violent insurrection,” White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller posted Saturday night. Vice President JD Vance also used the word in describing the riots: “Insurrectionists carrying...

Musk and Gor disliked each other since before Trump reclaimed power on Jan. 20 — with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO describing Gor as “sleazy” during the transition and questioning his staffing picks. But the world’s richest man had the president’s ear and friendship through last week. Simmering behind the scenes was a grudge nursed by Gor over a March 6 Cabinet meeting, during which Musk “humiliated” him by slamming the pace of staffing the administration, said the sources, each of whom have interacted closely with Gor. “He was bragging to other people that he was going to get one...

*** Driving the news: In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel first obtained by Axios, Reps. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) asked that they "immediately clarify whether this allegation is true." The lawmakers asked for a timeline of the DOJ's declassification and publication of the Epstein files, an explanation for why they haven't turned over any new documents since February. And they requested a description of Trump's role in reviewing the files, a list of personnel involved in their release and an answer for why files previously released to Congress contained "significant...

Elon Musk on Thursday said that his company SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft “immediately” because of threats by President Donald Trump to cancel government contracts with Musk’s businesses. Musk’s announcement, on his social media site X, came amid an escalating war of words with Trump that began after the Tesla CEO criticized the major tax bill being pushed by the Republican president. “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk wrote. Dragon is the only U.S. option for delivering crew to and from the International...

Elon Musk went nuclear on President Trump Thursday, accusing him of withholding information from the public about Jeffrey Epstein because it would implicate him. “Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk posted on X after a multi-hour tirade against the president. “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files.” That is the real reason they have not been made public,” he claimed. “Have a nice day, DJT!” The disgraced financier’s association with Trump has been known for years as the two were videotaped and photographed together at parties in the 1990s.

The open acrimony between the two men comes after the billionaire denounced President Trump’s signature domestic policy bill as an “abomination.” President Trump and Elon Musk’s alliance dissolved into open acrimony on Thursday, as the two men hurled personal attacks at each other after the billionaire had unleashed broadsides against the president’s signature domestic policy bill. While meeting with Friedrich Merz, Germany’s new chancellor, in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump broke days of uncharacteristic silence and unloaded on Mr. Musk, who until last week was a top presidential adviser. “I’m very disappointed in Elon,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ve helped Elon...

Arguably no show on cable news provides a better window into President Donald Trump’s thinking than Fox & Friends. And on Wednesday, one of the hosts revealed the president — though he may not be saying it publicly — is seeing red over Elon Musk trashing his “Big, Beautiful” budget bill. During a discussion about Musk in the 7 a.m. ET hour on Wednesday, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade shed some light on Trump’s current feelings about the man he tapped to oversee DOGE. “I think the Elon Musk thing really caught the president by surprise,” Kilmeade said. “And...

President Donald Trump is lashing out on social media. Jerome Powell is on the receiving end of today's ire. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair who is slowly cutting back interest rates to minimize the risk of continued inflation, is caught in the President's crosshairs after a paltry jobs report. US private payrolls increased far less than expected in May, the ADP National Employment Report showed on Wednesday. Private payrolls increased by only 37,000 jobs last month, a far cry from analyst projections and the worst private job hiring slump since March 2023. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private employment...

A senior official who dismantled the US government’s Russian disinformation unit is married to a Russian woman with links to the Kremlin, The Telegraph can reveal. Darren Beattie has provoked alarm within the State Department since being appointed in February for his ardent pro-Russian views. He has been noted for his focus on destroying the agency tasked with tackling Kremlin propaganda. Mr Beattie, the acting under-secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, is married to a woman whose uncle has taken several roles in Russian politics and once received a personal “thank you” message from Vladimir Putin.

President Trump rounded on Sen. Rand Paul Tuesday over the Republican lawmaker’s opposition to the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act due to its impact on the debt. “Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas,” Trump groused on Truth Social. “His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him. This is a BIG GROWTH BILL!” In an earlier post, Trump, 78, had complained that Paul “has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting ‘NO’ on everything, he thinks it’s good politics,...

President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., he would be “playing right into the hands of the Democrats” if he votes against Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.” “If Senator Rand Paul votes against our Great, Big, Beautiful Bill, he is voting for, along with the Radical Left Democrats, a 68% Tax Increase and, perhaps even more importantly, a first time ever default on US Debt,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday afternoon. “Rand will be playing right into the hands of the Democrats, and the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him! The GROWTH we are experiencing,...

If the judicial branch won’t adhere to the Constitution, then Trump must.The leftist-backed effort to effectively nullify the results of the 2024 presidential election via a judicial coup is destroying the country’s constitutional order. But according to the White House, President Trump doesn’t have any actual plans to stop it. During Thursday’s White House press briefing, Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway had the opportunity to ask Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about how the administration intends to rein in “rogue lower court judges” grinding the administration’s policies to a halt with overreaching injunctions and temporary restraining orders. After noting the Supreme Court...

In a ruling heard ’round the world, the U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday blocked President Trump’s sweeping tariffs. This is an important moment for the rule of law as much as for the economy, proving again that America doesn’t have a king who can rule by decree. The Trump tariffs have created enormous costs and uncertainty, but now we know they’re illegal. As the three-judge panel explains in its detailed 52-page ruling, the President exceeded his emergency powers and bypassed discrete tariff authorities delegated to him by Congress. The ruling erases his April 2 tariffs as well as...

We have been frequent critics of Donald Trump’s tariffs, but we understand that there is a case to be made for reconsidering some of our trade policies. The place to make that case is Congress — not by unilateral presidential declaration of open-ended worldwide “emergencies.” The Founders rebelled against taxation without representation; they did not mean for the executive to control the duties on all imports by daily whim. It is Congress that was granted power by the Constitution to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” and to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,” and for good reason. It...

During a press conference today, Governor DeSantis addressed the failure of Congress to enact one DOGE suggested cut. Elon Musk and his DOGE team found over 900 billion dollars in cuts. Congress has not followed up on even one. Protect Your Retirement... BUT Beware of Gold IRA Dealer Lies This is the key section of Governor De Santis’s comments which also spoke to successes in Florida: “Trillion dollar deficit is a tax on you. It works its way through the economy. There’s no free lunch, and that’s what ends up happening. And it’s a little frustrating. “You know, Elon Musk...

Seattle's police union has hit out at city officials after mass arrests took place in a park when counter-protesters gathered to demonstrate against a rally being held there. The Seattle Police Officers Guild said it welcomed a mayoral review of the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department's decision to allow the rally to be held in Cal Anderson Park on Saturday. "What we are struggling to understand is, why was this park chosen and authorized, especially when this park is commonly known as the heart of ANTIFA land," the police union said in a statement on Sunday. The park and surrounding...

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that there were “enough” Republican senators who would not vote for the so-called “big, beautiful” spending bill without significant changes. Host Jake Tapper said, “How determined are you to be that guy if it actually means telling President Trump you are going to vote against the bill and you’re going to try to get other Republican senators to join you, unless there are major, major changes?” Johnson said, “Well, in 2010, I sprang out of the Tea Party movement and as I did parades I would shout, this...

[Judge Allison Burroughs] has temporarily paused the Trump administration's move to cancel Harvard's student visa program. Harvard filed suit against the Trump administration over the policy, and a judge granted its request for a temporary restraining order to preserve status quo while the case plays out in court. Judge Allison Burroughs, a 2014 Obama appointee, set a hearing for 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday in Boston federal court. Harvard said the policy will affect more than 7,000 visa holders — nearly a quarter of the student body — and is a "blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause,...

In a reversal, President Trump appears to have backed off joining a European push for new sanctions on Russia, seemingly eager to move on to doing business deals with it.For months, President Trump has been threatening to simply walk away from the frustrating negotiations for a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine.After a phone call on Monday between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, that appears to be exactly what the American president is doing. The deeper question now is whether he is also abandoning America’s three-year-long project to support Ukraine, a nascent democracy that he has frequently...