Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Many Republican lawmakers lie low when they have differences with President Trump. Sen. Rand Paul has taken the opposite approach. “Congress needs to grow a spine, and Congress needs to stand up for its prerogatives,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters, complaining that Trump relied on a national-emergency law to impose tariffs that Paul believes should be controlled by lawmakers. His comments came just days after he was one of only two GOP senators to vote against the party’s budget framework that is key to Trump’s tax cuts, saying it didn’t do enough to reduce the deficit. The libertarian...

Summary European markets open higher and major Asian markets make gains following days of losses in the wake of Donald Trump's tariffs The UK's FTSE 100 opens 1% up, with France's Cac 40 index up 1.8% and Germany's Dax opening 1.3% higher China says it will "fight to the end" after Trump threatened to hit Beijing with an extra 50% tariff if it doesn't withdraw its retaliatory levy on Tuesday Beijing's commerce ministry accuses the Trump administration of blackmail and says his tariffs are "a typical unilateral bullying practice" The new tariffs could leave some US companies bringing in certain...

Republicans who are evidently not too comfortable with President Donald Trump’s decision to announce large new global tariffs have tried plenty of hints to push him in a different direction. And one of Trump’s most vocal tariff critics on the GOP side, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, tried a relatively novel one on Wednesday. He pointed to electoral peril for the GOP. “Tariffs have also led to political decimation,” Paul told reporters. “When [William] McKinley most famously put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50 percent of their seats in the next election. When [Sens. Reed Smoot and Willis C....

@CollinRugg NEW: Jim Cramer warns of a 1987 "Black Monday" style stock market crash on Monday, says he is about to be super mad. "Black Monday" was a global stock market crash where the Dow Jones tanked almost 23% in a single day. "If the president doesn't try to reach out and reward these countries and companies that play by the rules then the 1987 scenario..." "The one where we went down three days and then down 22% on Monday, has the most cogency." "I will contain my anger... and if Europe moves against our fabulous tech companies next week,...

If you think eggs are expensive, just wait until the new tariffs hit cars. Goldman Sachs estimates tariffs on imported vehicles could raise prices by $5,000 to $15,000. That’s because tariffs are taxes on foreign imports that are paid by American consumers. These tariffs apply to almost every conceivable product. As a result, energy will be more expensive, and gas prices in some parts of the country could see as much as a 70-cent increase in the cost per gallon. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the building of a single-family home could become up to $10,000 more...

A bipartisan pair of senators is warning the White House that recent US strikes on the Houthis in Yemen risk “emboldening” the Iranian-backed group and flouted the law regarding congressional oversight of military operations. The letter from Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., shared first with Semafor, concerns the strikes that have made headlines recently.... “Neither the U.S. strikes since October 2023 ordered by President Joe Biden, nor the previous years-long campaign against the Houthis conducted by Saudi Arabia were successful in establishing deterrence against the Houthis,” Merkley and Paul wrote in the letter sent to President Donald...

@YALiberty “One person is not allowed to raise taxes—the constitution forbids it.” @SenRandPaul slams Trump’s tariffs as unconstitutional, calling them a tax on Americans— and he’s right.