Free Republic

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that America was stuck with a “madman” in the Oval Office because Democrats did not force then-President Joe Biden to step down. Murphy said, “The president should have gotten out of the race earlier, there’s no doubt the Democratic Party would have been better served by having the ability to have a primary, Kamala Harris probably would have done very well in the process but in retrospect, we lost so we can’t defend the way in which our politics played out.”

President Donald Trump elicited laughter in the Oval Office on Wednesday after asking a wounded veteran about his "Let's Go Brandon" sticker. While meeting with wounded veterans, the president appeared to notice the sticker, asking: "Who is that picture on there?" "That is Joe Biden," the veteran replied. "And it says, ‘Let’s go, Brandon.’" Attendees inside the iconic office erupted with laughter. "I'm saying, ‘what was that picture?'" Trump said through laughter. "That's great." **SNIP** Trump's lighthearted Oval Office moment took a heartfelt turn following the sticker exchange. Trump then addressed the group of veterans and their families, many of...

Washington -- The infighting and backstabbing that plagued President Donald Trump’s first term have returned as a threat to his second, with deepening fissures over trade, national security and questions of personal loyalty. The latest turmoil threatens to engulf the Pentagon, where Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed out top advisers and faces fresh controversy over sharing sensitive information about airstrikes in Yemen outside of classified channels. A former Pentagon spokesperson who was ousted last week wrote in Politico that Trump should fire Hegseth for presiding over a “full-blown meltdown.” The interpersonal drama is not - at least yet -...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday he was ready to come to the negotiating table to begin peace talks and expressed regret over last week’s meeting at the White House where he sparred with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance and blew a minerals deal with the U.S. Zelensky wrote on X: I would like to reiterate Ukraine’s commitment to peace. None of us wants an endless war. Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready...

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during their Oval Office meeting last week. Partial transcript as follows: KLOBUCHAR: We stand with our friends, not our enemies. We go into negotiations — the great country of America goes into negotiations with strength, not surrender. And I was appalled by what happened in the Oval Office. I was with President Zelensky with a number of Republican and Democratic senators before he left for the White House. He was in great spirits. He was excited to go and sign...

A common criticism of Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous Friday performance in the Oval Office is that he failed to read the room. Actually, the Ukrainian president did read a room — but it was the wrong room. Before meeting Trump, Zelensky met with anti-Trump Democrats who advised him to reject the terms of the mineral deal the president was offering, according to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements...

KYIV — President Trump’s special envoy to the Ukraine War urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign the now-deferred mineral rights deal with Washington during the envoy’s visit to Kyiv last week, but Zelensky’s chief of staff insisted on the Friday Oval Office signing that went badly awry, a senior US official involved with the talks told The Post. After three days of intense negotiations, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg secured the long-sought agreement with Ukraine that would have provided Washington with 50% of all future proceeds from the European country’s lucrative critical and rare-earth minerals.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky departed from the United States for Britain on Saturday, landing in London ahead of talks with European leaders earlier than expected after a dressing down in the Oval Office by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Following a sensational White House meeting on Friday, which devolved into a public sparring match, with the Ukrainian leader being accused of acting “disrespectful” to President Trump and the American people, Zelesnky quickly jetted off to the United Kingdom in the early hours of Saturday morning ahead of Downing Street talks with European allies. He is expected to...

President Trump has lined the West Wing with the front pages of The Post that chronicle his stunning political comeback. The snapshots of history, in the form of commemorative plaques featuring The Post’s distinctive covers, are prominently displayed in Trump’s Oval Office dining room. Photographs of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s Feb. 21 swearing-in ceremony released by the White House earlier this week show several of The Post front pages sitting on the mantle above the fireplace in the Oval Office dining room, which is one of a suite of rooms accessed via a private internal corridor from the Oval Office....

Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that former President Donald Trump should never be president again because he was “at war with the rule of law.”

When Barack Obama was inaugurated, a Republican president had taken the peace, prosperity, and budget surpluses of the Clinton years and given us two wars, a devastated economy, and an almost trillion-dollar deficit. Obama was going to be our Franklin Roosevelt, our Winston Churchill—a visionary leader who would give America hope again. Instead, he has turned out to be the Neville Chamberlain of American politics, drifting toward national catastrophe, one compromise at a time. In the 1930s, desperate to keep the peace, Chamberlain caved in to every German demand. And he got war anyway. Let me be clear: the right-wing...

WASHINGTON — No need for a rewrite — or a reweave — of the new rug in the Oval Office. President Barack Obama's spokesman said Tuesday the White House was correct to attribute a famous quotation in the rug's pattern to Martin Luther King Jr., even though the civil rights leader acknowledged being inspired by a 19th-century abolitionist, Thomas Parker. "It was not us that thought he said it, it was many people that believed — rightly so — that he said it," press secretary Robert Gibbs said. The wheat, cream and blue rug, which debuted in the Oval Office...

Washington - The makeover of the Oval Office has been widely panned in press reports and on the blogosphere for being too casual and for its bland color palate but White House press secretary Robert Gibbs doesn't expect President Obama to weigh in anytime soon. (Snip) In an apparent effort to head off criticism, the White House pointed out that all of the materials and furniture came from U.S.-based companies, and that taxpayers won't foot the bill. These kinds of projects have always been funded by the White House Historical Association, with money from the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

WASHINGTON - President Obama's Oval Office has had a face-lift with a New York accent. The office has undergone a top-to-bottom makeover, highlighted by handmade striped wallpaper from Amagansett in the Hamptons. The President's brown leather desk chair, coffee table made of American walnut and mica, custom-made couches and two new table lamps with blue ceramic bases were all crafted by New York manufacturers. The White House treated the identities of the Empire State companies who produced the furnishings like state secrets, declining to further identify them. The price tag for the redo also was not disclosed, but interior design...

Chicago style comes to the White House- who's the designer anyway... Al Bundy? What else to expect from an insolent community organizer who can't even keep his feet off the (Resolute) desk... much like our Narcissist-in-Chief hates himself, he also often finds it difficult to conceal irrepressible contempt for his own office and country. The changes wrought in an Oval Office makeover while the Obamas went on a extravagant vacation on Martha's Vineyard are hard to understand outside of the context of intentionally demeaning the Office of President. Odd and informal -with suburban den furniture- you have to wonder just...

Link only - Show of togetherness in the Oval Office

The other real power in the Oval Office Condoleezza Rice takes the softly softly approach but it belies a gritty determination Matthew Engel in Washington Saturday January 25, 2003 The Guardian There is a standard conversation in Washington, at every level of the power structure except the very top, and it always goes something like: "Powell thinks this; Rumsfeld thinks that; Cheney thinks that, only more so. And Condy? Well, she's, um, somewhere in the middle." Everyone now knows who Condy is. As President George Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice is, beyond any question, the most talked-about woman in...