Free Republic

The Washington Post proclaimed that President Trump attempted to “resuscitate his troubled reelection campaign by galvanizing white supporters” during Friday’s patriotic Mount Rushmore speech and asserted that he moved to secure the “legacy of white domination.” The Post’s Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, in a July 4 screed not labeled opinion, unloaded on President Trump’s July 3 speech and asserted that Trump is alienating Republicans who are apparently “unnerved” by his “unyielding push to preserve Confederate symbols and the legacy of white domination,” which was “crystallized by his harsh denunciation of the racial justice movement” during Friday’s speech:

President Trump’s unyielding push to preserve Confederate symbols and the legacy of white domination, crystallized by his harsh denunciation of the racial justice movement Friday night at Mount Rushmore, has unnerved Republicans who have long enabled him but now fear losing power and forever associating their party with his racial animus. Although amplifying racism and stoking culture wars have been mainstays of Trump’s public identity for decades, they have been particularly pronounced this summer as the president has reacted to the national reckoning over systemic discrimination by seeking to weaponize the anger and resentment of some white Americans for his...

President Donald Trump ripped Washington Post reporter Philip Rucker on Thursday after Rucker questioned the president about encouraging people to go outside. After the White House released a study showing that warm weather and sunlight can significantly reduce the risk of the coronavirus, Rucker asked the president if it was “dangerous” for him to encourage people to go outside. (RELATED: Democrats Plan To Censure Michigan State Rep. Karen Whitsett Who Credited Trump With Saving Her Life) “Here we go. The new headline is Trump asks people to go outside, that’s dangerous,” the president said. “I hope people enjoy the sun,...

President Trump had a contentious exchange with Washington Post journalist Philip Rucker at Thursday's coronavirus task force briefing. Following the task force's presentation about the virus's vulnerability to sunlight and humidity, Rucker asked the president if it's "dangerous" for him to suggest that it's safe for people to go outside, pointing to the death counts in places with warmer climates like Florida and Singapore. "Here we go, here we go -- the new headline is 'Trump asks people to go outside -- that's dangerous,'" Trump mocked Rucker. "You ready? I hope people enjoy the sun and if it has an...

People close to Robert Mueller believe "something happened" to the former special counsel over the course of his two-year Russia investigation, according to a reporter. The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig, who is the co-author of the new book A Very Stable Genius about President Trump, described on Tuesday how difficult it was for some of Mueller's close family friends to watch his shaky testimony before Congress last summer.“Phil [Rucker] and I, my co-author, we are not medical professionals, but over and over again, John, we heard from people who are very close to Bob Mueller who found him a different...

There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters. Its more common name is “the Tank.” The Tank resembles a small corporate boardroom, with a gleaming golden oak table, leather swivel armchairs and other mid-century stylings. Inside its walls, flag officers observe a reverence and decorum for the wrenching decisions that have been made there. Hanging prominently on one of the walls is The Peacemakers, a painting that depicts an 1865 Civil War strategy session with President...

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump struck a stance of defiance Wednesday, proclaiming his innocence and leveling distortions and falsehoods after the publicly released notes of his phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart turbocharged the push on Capitol Hill for his impeachment. The five pages of a rough transcript of Trump's call asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to work with Attorney General William Barr and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden landed like a hand grenade on Capitol Hill and led House Democrats to recalibrate their strategy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her fellow Democratic...

When the July 24 congressional testimony of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III deflated the impeachment hopes of Democrats, President Trump crowed “no collusion” and claimed vindication from accusations that he had conspired with Russia in the 2016 election. Then, the very next day, Trump allegedly sought to collude with another foreign country in the coming election — pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up what he believed would be damaging information about one of his leading Democratic challengers, former vice president Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the conversation. The push by Trump and his personal attorney,...

Now that the halfway point of Donald Trump’s first term in office has officially come and gone, the Washington media crew has been scrambling to find some way to commemorate the occasion, define the results of the first two years and make projections as to the next two. In nearly all cases, this means identifying some catchphrase to cast the administration in the worst light possible. That’s the theme we’re seeing from Philip Rucker at the Washington Post (among others) in what apparently passes for clever commentary these days. Trump ran for office on the premise that he would...

Two of the president’s longest-serving advisers allege in a new book that scores of officials inside the White House, Congress, the Justice Department and intelligence agencies are “embedded enemies of President Trump” working to stymie his agenda and delegitimize his presidency. The authors, Corey R. Lewandowski and David N. Bossie, are both Republican operatives who do not work in the administration but are close to Trump and fashion themselves as his outside protectors. They portray the president as victim to disloyalty on his staff and “swamp creatures” intent on extinguishing his political movement. Their book, “Trump’s Enemies: How the Deep...

President Trump’s disapproval rating has hit a high point of 60 percent, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that also finds that clear majorities of Americans support the special counsel’s Russia investigation and say the president should not fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions. At the dawn of the fall campaign sprint to the midterm elections, which will determine whether Democrats retake control of Congress, the poll finds a majority of the public has turned against Trump and is on guard against his efforts to influence the Justice Department and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s wide-ranging probe. Nearly...

President Donald Trump is driving to execute the same playbook in selecting a new Supreme Court nominee that last year delivered swift confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch, following a methodical course in hopes of avoiding the lurching disorder that so often engulfs his White House. As Trump looks to reorient the nation's high court with a replacement for retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, he has left himself little room for improvisation - in part because he has delegated and outsourced much of the spadework. Using Gorsuch as a model, the president has said his next nominee will be chosen from a...

President Trump on Monday put the brakes on a preliminary plan to impose additional economic sanctions on Russia, walking back a Sunday announcement by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley that the Kremlin had swiftly denounced as “international economic raiding.” Preparations to punish Russia anew for its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government over the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria caused consternation at the White House. Haley had said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that sanctions on Russian companies behind the equipment related to Assad’s alleged chemical weapons attack would be announced Monday by Treasury...

In his decision Friday to pardon a former Bush administration official convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, President Trump telegraphed his open hostility to the criminal justice system and his desire to use the power of the presidency as a personal political tool. As with his controversial pardon last year of a former Arizona county sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who had been held in contempt of court, Trump effectively thumbed his nose at the judiciary by pardoning I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. The Justice Department was not involved in either case, officials said.

John Sexton at Hot Air pinpointed an obnoxious Washington Post article on President Trump visiting the victims of the Parkland school shooting. Trump made a point of not bringing reporters with him as he visited victims, so he could milk the publicity out of it. We can predict reporters might have either (a) found it crass for Trump to be politicking in the hospital so soon or (b) found some gaffe in what he said to victims. Post reporter Josh Dawsey openly editorialized that Trump doesn't care about victims as much as he wants to praise cops and first responders,...

A band of exasperated Republicans — including 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a handful of veteran consultants and members of the conservative intelligentsia — is actively plotting to draft an independent presidential candidate who could keep Donald Trump from the White House. Those involved concede that an independent campaign at this late stage is probably futile, and they think they have only a couple of weeks to launch a credible bid. But these Republicans — including commentators William Kristol and Erick Erickson and strategists Mike Murphy, Stuart Stevens and Rick Wilson — are so repulsed by the prospect of Trump...

A band of exasperated Republicans — including 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a handful of veteran consultants and members of the conservative intelligentsia — is actively plotting to draft an independent presidential candidate who could keep Donald Trump from the White House. These GOP figures are commissioning private polling, lining up major funding sources­ and courting potential contenders, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republicans involved in the discussions. The effort has been sporadic all spring but has intensified significantly in the 10 days since Trump effectively locked up the Republican nomination. Those involved concede that an independent...

Greg Nash Mitt Romney, the GOP’s 2012 nominee, is among those courting prospects for a possible third-party bid to keep Donald Trump from the White House, according to a Washington Post report . Among those prospects are Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), one of Trump’s most vocal Republican critics, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who suspended his presidential campaign in early May. Kasich’s chief strategist John Weaver said the governor isn’t interested in running an an independent. A Sasse spokesman declined to comment. But it’s not looking to good for a late in the game third-party bid, according to the...

“Our target date is June 7, but our goal is in the middle of May to be the presumptive nominee,” Paul Manafort, Trump’s newly installed convention manager, who has been given broad authority to shape the campaign, said in a wide-ranging interview here.

Throughout the Republican Party, from New Hampshire to Florida to California, many leaders, operatives, donors and activists arrived this week at the conclusion they had been hoping to thwart or at least delay: Donald Trump will be their presidential nominee. An aura of inevitability is now forming around the controversial mogul. Trump smothered his opponents in six straight primaries in the Northeast and vacuumed up more delegates than even the most generous predictions foresaw. He is gaining high-profile ­endorsements by the day — a legendary Indiana basketball coach Wednesday, two House committee chairmen Thursday. And his ­rivals, Sen. Ted Cruz...