Free Republic

Recently fired US Agency for International Development (USAID) staff scrawled messages on boxes full of their personal belongings Friday — and several ex-employees were seen beaming as they were cheered on by supporters on their last day in the office. “You can take the humanitarians out of USAID but you can’t take the humanity out of the humanitarians,” read one upbeat message on a former worker’s box that held a large plant among other items. “We are abandoning the world,” read another note on the container of a different ex-federal employee’s belongings. The axed employees were applauded by former USAID...

The good news: The Trump administration is still rounding up bad hombres in New York, nabbing a whopping 100 criminal migrants in the first week. The bad news: Not everyone is happy about it. Albany politicians are in a tizzy, arguing over when and how much the state should get in ICE’s way. It’s pure madness. The migrants getting scooped by the feds are kidnappers, sexual assaulters, murders and Tren de Aragua gangbangers — the worst-of-the-worst. Getting these sickos out of New York shouldn’t be controversial, it’s common sense. But while some sane-minded members of the Legislature are advocating to...

It was less than a year ago, in April 2024, that then-candidate Donald Trump went on a late-night tear against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I lived with RFK Jr. in New York and watched him convince Governor Cuomo to make Environmental moves that were outright NASTY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Upstate New York was not allowed to drill or frack as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and others ripped off New York Energy. Because of this, prices have skyrocketed all over that part of the Country.” “I’d even take Biden over Junior, because our Country would last a year or two longer...

It was less than a year ago, in April 2024, that then-candidate Donald Trump went on a late-night tear against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I lived with RFK Jr. in New York and watched him convince Governor Cuomo to make Environmental moves that were outright NASTY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Upstate New York was not allowed to drill or frack as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and others ripped off New York Energy. Because of this, prices have skyrocketed all over that part of the Country.” “I’d even take Biden over Junior, because our Country would last a year or two longer...

Melania Trump has accused the Obamas of trying to hijack her husband Donald Trump’s first term in the White House. The incoming first lady made a cutting dig while saying she feels more confident of her husband’s fast-approaching second term now former President Barack Obama is not there to make things difficult. “The first time was challenging, we didn’t have much of the information,” the incoming first lady told “Fox & Friends” of when her husband was first sworn into office in 2017. “The information was withheld from us by the previous administration,” she said of Obama — whose wife,...

President-elect Trump told The Post Saturday he supports immigration visas for highly skilled workers, appearing to side with Elon Musk in the roiling intra-MAGA debate on the issue. “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump said by phone, referring to the H-1B program, which permits companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” added Trump, who restricted access to foreign worker visas in...

President-elect Donald Trump used a “forceful hand” to get his Drug Enforcement Agency pick to drop out on Tuesday after hearing “concerns” about the Floridian’s record, sources familiar told The Post — leading outgoing Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) to make a bid for the position. Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister issued a lengthy statement indicating he was withdrawing his name for the DEA slot — but did not reveal the specific reason he was dropping out of the confirmation process after just three days. “Everyone knows President Trump calls the shots,” a well-placed source spilled. “The president heard the concerns...

Trump considered replacing Pete Hegseth with Ron Desnatos as Defense Secretary: President-elect Donald Trump is considering replacing Pete Hegseth, his controversial pick to lead the Pentagon, with one-time 2024 rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, people familiar with the discussions told The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. The move comes as Hegseth, a 44-year-old Army veteran and former Fox News personality, faces increasing scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement. Trump is reportedly weighing Ron DeSantis as secretary of defense. REUTERS Trump is reportedly weighing Ron DeSantis as secretary of defense. REUTERS Pete Hegseth has become embattled with controversy and...

Daniel McCarthy is right that President-elect Donald Trump has rewritten the electoral map, but he is incorrect in saying that it was Trump who turned Florida into a reliably red bastion (“A New Political Map,” Post­Opinion, Nov. 26). In Trump’s first midterm, 2018, Republicans won the governorship by less than one percentage point. Four years later, in 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis was re-elected by about 20 points. That happened while Trump was out of office and MAGA candidates were losing elsewhere. It is DeSantis, the most effective and principled governor in America, who turned Florida reliably red. He did so...

Graphic video Butterball is facing calls for a boycott just days before Thanksgiving after sickening footage of poultry workers allegedly sexually abusing and torturing its turkeys resurfaced on social media. The uproar unfolded after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) activists posted a decades-old clip online over the weekend that allegedly showed the company’s employees abusing live turkeys at a plant in Ozark, Arkansas. The graphic footage, which soon went viral, was captured during an undercover probe in 2006 in which workers were filmed bashing the birds against steel cages and stomping on their heads, the animal rights...

President-elect Trump’s nomination for labor secretary is a “toxic” anti-conservative RINO with cozy ties to unions, outraged critics told The Post Saturday. During her single term on the Hill, Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) has backed a laundry list of boiler-plate liberal policies at odds with longstanding Republican orthodoxies, including strengthening unions’ efforts to organize the private sector, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and championing expanding government employee unions. “The signaling effect alone from this nomination would be that the Trump administration is not serious about deregulation or economic growth,” Ken Girardin, labor expert at the conservative Empire Center for Public Policy,...

Kevin McCarthy could lead a new house soon, The Post has learned. The ousted former speaker of the House of Representatives is widely seen as a top contender to be former President Donald Trump’s first chief of staff if he retakes the White House following the Nov. 5 election, according to sources familiar with the deliberations. No final decision has been made and there is no sign that McCarthy is campaigning for the coveted role — though one person said the Californian has shown openness to being part of a second Trump administration in some capacity. “[McCarthy] knows DC better...

“Saturday Night Live” joined in the Tim Walz pile-on this weekend, mocking the Minnesota governor’s disastrous debate performance. The vice presidential debate won’t affect the election’s outcome very much, though. Indeed, it has mostly dropped from discussion owing to events at home and abroad. But that doesn’t mean it won’t have lasting impact. JD Vance’s performance was so compelling that it has immediately marked him as the next potential great force in national politics. Vance’s favorability rose more and his unfavorability dropped more among voters who watched the faceoff than Walz’s did. That’s not what most pundits predicted. Those who...

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance promised a compassionate US border approach should he be elected in November with former President Trump at the top of the ticket. “The Trump-Vance approach to the border is the way to maximize compassion, not just for our citizens, but for everybody,” the Ohio senator, 40, told a Christian forum outside Pittsburgh Saturday. “Border policy is compassionate, and I think that Republicans have to remind people that.” Vance faced questions from the audience about what the Christian approach to the migrant crisis should be — and leaned into the issue of protecting children. “Right...

Former President Trump on Saturday revealed that he is selling $100 “Trump Coins” with his face on them, calling the items a “true symbol of American greatness.” The coins are now the latest product to be sold by Trump as he seeks a second term in the White House, following the launch of Trump Sneakers and “God Bless the USA” Bibles earlier this year. “Trump Coins are designed by me and minted right here in the U.S.A. This beautiful, limited-edition coin commemorates our movement, our fight for freedom, prosperity and putting America first, we always put America first,” Trump said...

There’s bad blood between them. Former President Donald Trump lashed out at pop star Taylor Swift Sunday, declaring his disdain — days after she endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” Trump, 78, wrote on Truth Social in all caps, without elaborating further. Swift, 34, posted her endorsement of Harris just after the high-stakes ABC News debate between Trump and Harris last Tuesday. She previously backed President Biden in the 2020 election. “I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” the billionaire singer wrote on Instagram...

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are effectively dead even where it counts — the battleground states, according to a new poll. Mirroring the polling group’s findings from a separate survey released earlier this month, both presidential contenders scored 50% apiece in the battleground states, per a CBS News/YouGov survey released Sunday. Harris, 59, came away with the lead in a national head-to-head matchup between the pair 51% to 48%, which marks an uptick from her prior 50% to 49% edge over him in the prior survey. Strikingly, 36% of voters felt that they don’t know what...

With the Democratic base seemingly mobilized after replacing President Biden at the top of the ticket, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are dead even in the battleground states, a new poll revealed. Trump and Harris notched 50% apiece in the battleground state average, and the vice president scored a one-point lead over the Republican nominee in a national head-to-head matchup, a CBS News/YouGov poll found, garnering 50% to Trump’s 49%. Republicans haven’t won the national popular vote in a presidential election since 2004. In the battleground states, Michigan went 48% Harris to 48% Trump, with Pennsylvania...

According to the old cliché, opposites attract. And there may be no greater example of this than the odd, interesting, and for the country beneficial relationship between Larry Fink and Donald Trump. Yes, you read that right. Fink and Trump. A match made in heaven? No, to be more precise, made on Wall Street, with the uber-globalist BlackRock chief of ESG fame once serving as Trump’s money manager, and the GOP populist former president (and according to polling, likely future prez) still seeking out Fink for insights into the economy, The Post has learned.

“We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong but when they are weak,” declared Ronald Reagan at the 1980 Republican National Convention. “It is then that tyrants are tempted,” he added, summing up his conviction that peace could only be secured through strength. Until Donald Trump followed in Reagan’s footsteps as the GOP’s standard-bearer, this formulation was axiomatic on the American right. But Trump’s careless rhetoric — which often flirted with isolationism and flattered America’s sworn enemies in Moscow and Pyongyang — emboldened the Republican Party’s isolationist wing. In an op-ed endorsing...