Free Republic

***Marco Rubio insisted Tuesday that he was misunderstood one day prior when he said the US attacked Iran on Saturday because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” that would “precipitate an attack against American forces.” Rubio walked back his prior statements after President Trump flatly denied that Israel chose the timing of the attack — maintaining in an Oval Office pool spray hours earlier, as he had in interviews, that he chose to attack after unsuccessful US-Iran talks Thursday in Geneva. “This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a...

President Trump announced the US is going to “cut off all trade with Spain” over Madrid’s lack of support for the attack on Iran. “We were going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain,” he said during an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump spent several minutes complaining about the NATO allies’ refusal to allow the US to use their military bases to attack Iran and argued that they don’t spend enough on defense. “Spain has been terrible,” he said. “Spain actually said that we can’t use their bases.”...

No sooner had President Donald Trump completed his State of the Union address Tuesday night than four much-respected historians offered Newsmax some provocative analysis of the 100-minute speech*** ***” President Trump's State of the Union had elements of the usual annual address to Congress but also some surprises," said*** Luke Nichter*** Portions of it, Nichter said, "took the usual grab bag approach to listing past achievements and suggesting a few new proposals — ending sanctuary cities, the SAVE America Act, and a new 'war on fraud' to be led by Vice President [JD] Vance. Otherwise, the biggest portion was celebrating...

Disruptive Rep. Al Green was ejected from the House chamber for the second year in a row during President Trump’s State of the Union on Tuesday. Green (D-Texas), 78, had waved around a sign that said “Black people aren’t apes” as he was escorted out of the chamber. He also declined to sit as Trump began speaking. The sign was in response to Trump posting a since-deleted video on his Truth Social that raised doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 election and ended with a clip depicting former President Barack Obama as an ape. It appears that the post...

Corey Lewandowski fired a Coast Guard pilot for leaving Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s blanket on a plane — but was forced to rehire them upon realizing there was nobody else to fly the plane, according to a stunning new report.Lewandowski, an unpaid special government employee who unofficially acts as chief of staff for Noem — with whom he’s had a years-long affair — has overseen a reign of terror over department staff since President Trump took office last year.According to the Wall Street Journal, Noem had to switch planes during an official trip due to a maintenance issue, but...

President Donald Trump has pardoned five former NFL players convicted of various offenses ranging from counterfeiting to drug trafficking*** Johnson revealed on social media Thursday that Trump has granted clemency to former New York Jets defensive lineman Joe Klecko, former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Nate Newton, former Baltimore Ravens running back Jamal Lewis, former Buffalo Bills running back Travis Henry and the late Billy Cannon. “As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace, and the courage to rise again,” she wrote and added, “So is our nation.” Johnson also credited Cowboys owner Jerry Jones with relaying the news...

***U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled the government must pay to fly back or accept at a port of entry any of the men who are now in countries other than Venezuela. Upon arrival in the U.S., they will be detained as they fight accusations they are Tren de Aragua gang members. The judge previously ruled the government violated the due process rights of the 137 Venezuelan men, and they were entitled to a hearing. But Boasberg had left the door open for a legal process that didn’t entail their physical return. “Apparently not interested in participating in this process,...

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration's attempt to force Michigan to hand over its full, unredacted voter registration rolls. The judge ruled that federal law does not require the state to disclose voters' private information. U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou of the Western District of Michigan dismissed a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice after Michigan refused to provide a complete voter list containing personally identifiable details. Jarbou, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, granted the state's request to toss out the case. The dispute began last year as the Justice Department...

Representative Jamie Raskin has said unredacted copies of certain documents in the Epstein files appear to contradict President Donald Trump’s longstanding assertion that he barred the late sex offender from his Florida club. *** the Maryland Democrat said one of the documents he reviewed at the Justice Department’s new satellite office in Washington, D.C., was an email from Jeffrey Epstein to his co‑conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. He said the email included details relayed by Epstein’s lawyers about a conversation with Trump’s attorneys around 2009. Raskin*** said Trump was quoted as saying that while Epstein was never a member of his Mar-a-Lago...

In an age of rage, it is often difficult to stand out in the mob as so many pander to the perpetually irate. However, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie has found a way to win the race to the bottom. In a posting on Bluesky, Bouie mocked the account of the addiction of the mother of Vice President J.D. Vance, saying that she should have sold her son for drugs. Bouie used Bluesky (the digital safe zone for the viewpoint intolerant on the left) to post one of the most reprehensible attacks on Vance. Bouie wrote that “this is...

The Department of Justice will “pursue charges” against the anti-ICE agitators who invaded a Sunday church service in St. Paul, including disgraced former CNN reporter Don Lemon, who feebly attempted to cloak his participation in the chaos as an “act of journalism.” Assistant attorney general for civil rights Harmeet Dhillon told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that the department “will pursue charges” related to the incident in which families and children were terrorized by a screaming mob of protesters at Cities Church. Lemon “went into the facility, and then he began, quote, unquote ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s a sort of...

The Catholic archbishop for the U.S. military services said it “would be morally acceptable to disobey” orders if troops considered them against their conscience as the Trump administration intervenes in Venezuela, readies troops for a possible deployment to Minnesota and threatens to seize Greenland.Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio is the latest public figure to suggest that U.S. soldiers could disobey their orders. His comments also underscored the mounting concern being voiced by the first American pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, as well as his top cardinals in the United States, over the Trump administration’s foreign policy.“Greenland is a territory of Denmark,” Broglio...

Gov. Gavin Newsom told world leaders to “stand up” to President Donald Trump and show “backbone” during the Democrat’s visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.“It’s time to buck up, it’s time to get serious and stop being complicit,” Newsom told a reporter when asked if he had any message for Europeans concerned about the White House’s comments on acquiring Greenland. “It’s time to stand tall and firm and have a backbone. I can’t take this complicity, people rolling over. I should have brought a bunch of kneepads for all the world leaders.” *** “I mean, handing out...

The headmaster of Chicago’s tony Latin School will resign less than two weeks after it was revealed that students were rehearsing Nazi marching themes for the second year in a row. Dr. Thomas Hagerman revealed his plans to leave his job in a Jan. 14 email to the Latin School community which cited health issues as the reason for his exit. “This decision comes after a great deal of thoughtful deliberation. I have been repeatedly reminded about the importance of attending more intentionally to my health and overall sustainability,” Hagerman wrote*** The surprise resignation comes two weeks after middle schoolers...

It seems Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford has found a Trump administration policy he agrees with: Those darn potheads can’t be trusted with constitutional rights. Nevada is one of 19 states joining the administration in urging the Supreme Court to uphold a federal ban on gun possession by users of cannabis products — including those users who reside in states where medical and recreational use of the drug has been legalized. On March 2, the court will hear a case involving the federal government’s efforts to prosecute a Texas man for violating a federal statute that prohibits gun possession by...

Iran issued a grisly threat against President Trump on Wednesday, broadcasting a picture of the commander-in-chief during the 2024 Butler, Pa., rally assassination attempt — with the words “This time it will not miss the target. The ominous warning was aired on Iranian state-run TV, Agence France-Presse reported. It marks Tehran’s most direct threat yet against Trump, following his repeated threats that the US will strike the country if it continues its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro denounced right-wing podcast titan Tucker Carlson as “an opponent of conservatism” who “has trafficked in nearly every conspiracy theory under the sun” in a speech*** Shapiro appeared at the largest conservative think tank in DC ostensibly to discuss his book, “Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America (and Her Critics).” Instead, he took advantage of the platform to address what he called “the elephant in the room.” “If we care about conservatism, if, as Heritage Foundation proclaims, our goal ought to be to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of...

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., suggested Tuesday that President Donald Trump was a bigger threat to the American way of life than radical Islamic jihad. Schultz brought up the president when NewsNation host Leland Vittert asked her on “On Balance” whether she believed that Islamophobia or jihad was a bigger threat to American life and values after a deadly attack against Australian Jews Sunday. “I think we have to focus, quite frankly, on, if we’re worried about the threat to American values, on the person who’s in the White House. I mean, we have a president …,” Schultz began. Vittert...

President Trump defended White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in an exclusive interview with The Post Tuesday — saying she was right to tell Vanity Fair he has an “alcoholic’s personality” and that he has full faith in Wiles to continue in her role.Trump, 79, reiterated that he avoids alcohol, saying in the interview he has a “possessive and addictive type personality” and that he wasn’t offended by her word choice. “No, she meant that I’m — you see, I don’t drink alcohol. So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a...

President Trump lodged an eye-watering $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC on Monday, accusing the British broadcaster of defaming him through a deceptive edit of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech at the White House Ellipse. The lawsuit took aim at a 2024 documentary by the BBC, which spliced different sections of Trump’s comments before his supporters ransacked the Capitol to make it appear as though he explicitly encouraged the riot. “I’m suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth, literally,” Trump grumbled to reporters earlier in the day, Monday. “They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to...