Free Republic

George Simion, the leader of the right-wing Union of Romanians (AUR) party, has emerged as the frontrunner in Romania’s upcoming presidential election, polling reveals. Simion is projected to win the first round of voting on May 4 with approximately 29 percent of the vote, according to Politico’s Poll of Polls. This puts him ahead of his nearest rivals, former National Liberal Party leader Crin Antonescu at 22 percent and Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan at 20 percent. Simion’s rise to prominence comes in the wake of the controversial decision to annul the results of the previous presidential election held in December....

Sen. Ron Johnson is actively investigating 9/11. A day after the Wisconsin Republican went on a far-right podcast promoting conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, a spokesperson for Johnson said the lawmaker is currently seeking information and documentation in order to hold hearings on the event nearly 25 years later. He would do so in his capacity as chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of Congress’s most storied and powerful panels with far-reaching jurisdiction that gives its chair wide latitude to probe a diverse array of matters. It has...

SAN FRANCISCO — Former Vice President Al Gore on Monday compared President Donald Trump’s administration to Nazi Germany and issued a dire warning about Trump’s use of power in a speech devoted to climate change. Speaking at an event at the start of San Francisco’s Climate Week, Gore said the Trump administration was “trying to create their own preferred version of reality” to achieve their sweeping objectives similar to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party in the 1930s and ‘40s. “I understand very well why it is wrong to compare Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich to any other movement,” Gore said to an...

Giorgia Meloni’s interpreter has apologized for faltering during a high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump earlier this week, prompting the Italian prime minister to jump in and translate her own comments about NATO and defense spending. Valentina Maiolini-Rothbacher, who was interrupted by Meloni when providing a translation at the White House meeting on Thursday, said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the mishap was the “worst thing that can happen to an interpreter, a terrible setback.” Footage of the meeting shows President Trump asking Maiolini-Rothbacher for a translation of Meloni’s response to a question from an Italian...

The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was replaced Friday, only three days after assuming the role, as his appointment triggered a power struggle between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Elon Musk of the Department of Government Efficiency, the New York Times reported. Gary Shapley was replaced after Bessent complained to President Donald Trump that Musk circumvented Bessent’s office to secure the position for Shapley, the NYT reported. The outlet cited people who said they were familiar with the situation. Shapley was a longstanding IRS agent who accused the Biden administration’s Department of Justice of dragging out its...

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett made clear on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s 10 percent baseline tariff on imports is not going anywhere, despite ongoing negotiations with foreign nations to roll back the steeper tariffs Trump put in place last week.

Congress has seen plenty of firebrands and confrontational lawmakers — especially from Florida. But Washington still might be in for a shock when it comes to Randy Fine. Over his nine years in the Florida Legislature, he gained a reputation for his bare-knuckle style of politics and spats with local officials. Now the former gambling executive will be going national with last week’s special election win in a deep-red district on Florida’s northeast coast. Three years ago, Fine called a school-board member a “whore” in a text. During Covid, he got sanctioned by Facebook after he wrote a post alerting...

As most of the media projected doom and gloom kvetching over their predicted negative aspects of President Donald Trump's tariffs, there was a rather contrarian view on this subject from a very surprising source: Nahal Toosi, Politico's senior foreign affairs correspondent.She conceded that the tariffs could ultimately turn out to be successful as she wrote on Saturday in "Why Trump May Get Away With His Tariff Trauma."Has Toosi been somehow red-pilled? Not likely since as recently as last December she attempted via her reporting to get the incoming Trump administration hopelessly entangled in the Syria mess. However, whatever the motivation,...

President Donald Trump said he wants Elon Musk to stay on his team "as long as possible" during a conversation with reporters Thursday, adding DOGE had found something "horrible" without divulging details. The president made his remarks during a conversation with reporters on Air Force One after Trump was asked how much longer Musk would stay on as a "special government employee." The questions followed a report from Politico this week claiming Trump had told his inner circle that Musk will be leaving his role as a "special government employee" with DOGE soon. The report cited internal frustrations with Musk's...

This “scoop” is garbage.. Elon Musk and President Trump have both *publicly* stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete. ... SCOOP: Pres Trump has told his inner circle & members of his Cabinet that @elonmusk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role ➡️Trump remains pleased w/ Musk & DOGE, but both men have decided in recent days that it will soon be time for Musk to return to his businesses and take on a supporting role. ➡️Musk’s looming exit comes as...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis escalated his attacks against Randy Fine on Wednesday, blaming the representative-elect’s “unique problems” for a special election victory he said should have been won by a higher margin. Appearing at a press conference in Ocala, Florida, the day after the election, DeSantis argued that President Donald Trump’s involvement in the 6th District race pushed Fine over the line. He added voters had not wanted to support Fine, who Trump had endorsed, and that the president “really had to bail him out in the end.”

President Donald Trump has told his inner circle, including members of his Cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man. The president remains pleased with Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency initiative but both men have decided in recent days that it will soon be time for Musk to return to his businesses and take on a supporting role, according to three Trump insiders who were granted anonymity to describe the evolving relationship. Musk’s looming retreat comes as some Trump administration insiders...

Inside the White House, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been perhaps the biggest proponent of ”Liberation Day,” President Donald Trump’s promised unveiling of sweeping new tariffs on Wednesday. But as the day nears, the potential fallout from those tariffs may well liberate Lutnick from his role in the administration, according to half dozen people close to the White House. While Americans and much of the world brace for a possible season of pain following the imposition of the new tranche of tariffs, Trump’s orbit is ready to play the blame game should things go poorly for the White House. And...

U.S. presidential adviser Elon Musk has lambasted the French court verdict that blocked Marine Le Pen from a 2027 presidential run after the far-right figurehead was found guilty of embezzlement. “When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents,” Musk said Monday. “This is their standard playbook throughout the world.”Musk, a tech billionaire turned close aide to U.S. President Donald Trump, has backed far-right causes across Europe in recent months, while the White House has become increasingly critical of democracy in Europe.“This will backfire, like the legal attacks against President Trump,”...

House Republicans don’t have the votes to impeach any federal judges. But a growing number of hard-liners is discussing several other legislative options as GOP leaders search for a release valve for the MAGA fury building over recent court rulings checking President Donald Trump. Top Republicans are likely to put at least one bill, California Rep. Darrell Issa’s “No Rogue Rulings Act,” on the floor in early April, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss scheduling plans. The legislation would crack down on the ability of lower-court judges to issue far-reaching injunctions. That is seen by Speaker Mike Johnson...

If Trump decided he wanted to hold onto power past 2028, there are at least four paths he could try:

Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin is highly unlikely to embrace a United States-brokered ceasefire proposal that Ukraine has already endorsed, a former Russian diplomat warned Thursday. The Russian leader won’t see it as in his interest to accept and he will seek to bog down discussions by raising a never-ending series of modifications in order to sink it, said Boris Bondarev, who worked for the Russian permanent mission to the United Nations Office in Geneva until he resigned in opposition to Putin’s war on Ukraine. “Putin has no interest in a ceasefire,” Bondarev told POLITICO. “He thinks he can achieve his...

A federal judge on Thursday ordered federal agencies to reinstate tens of thousands of probationary employees who were fired amid President Donald Trump’s turbulent effort to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. U.S. District Judge William Alsup described the mass firings as a “sham” strategy by the government’s central human resources office to sidestep legal requirements for reducing the federal workforce. Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the Departments of Defense, Treasury, Energy, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs to “immediately” offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made...

Vaughn Hillyard, NBC News Correspondent joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with reaction to the breaking news that the Department of Education has mandated all employees out of headquarters by 6pm today, citing security concerns. Along with news that USAID is now instructing staff to shred or burn all classified documents.

Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau on Sunday blocked Russia-aligned, far-right candidate Călin Georgescu from running in May’s presidential election. The bureau said it would post the reasons for its decision later, brushing off objections from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump that the firebrand NATO skeptic should be permitted to stand. The Digi24 news service said the electoral bureau had voted against allowing Georgescu, the frontrunner, to proceed by a margin of 10 to 4. An appeal can run until Wednesday. Georgescu came out of nowhere to win the first round of the presidential vote last November, partly on the...