Free Republic

For 23 days, President Joe Biden insisted on pushing forward with his reelection bid in the face of calls from Democratic lawmakers and donors for him to step aside. And then, almost on a dime, things changed. Early Saturday, Biden told senior aides it was “full steam ahead” for the campaign. But by later that evening, he had changed his mind following a long discussion with his two closest aides. Steve Ricchetti, who’s been with Biden since his days in the Senate, drove to see the president at his house on the Delaware shore on Friday. Mike Donilon arrived on...

Senior House Democrats on Tuesday aggressively pushed their caucus to fall in line behind next week’s key budget vote, hoping to quell a rank-and-file rebellion that threatens to at least temporarily derail President Joe Biden’s economic agenda. “We have to hold firm. We have to stay together,” Rep. Peter said … The centrists’ threat against the budget is the latest iteration of a long-running tug of war between moderates and progressives in the Democratic Caucus. And with just a three-vote margin in the House, that rift could tank Biden’s entire domestic agenda if Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team...

As President Donald Trump beams into American homes with his daily coronavirus briefings, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided the best way to counter him is to be everywhere - even if that means doing so from her San Francisco kitchen. Almost daily, Pelosi pops up on one network or another - even cycling through the late-night talk show junket - dropping in for interviews from a computer propped up on a dining room table that sits just off her West Coast kitchen. “He has the bully pulpit and that’s a good thing for a president to have. It’s a bad...

Democrats broke into open warfare Thursday over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s surrender to the Senate’s emergency border aid package, with the caucus’s long-simmering divide between progressives and centrists playing out in dramatic fashion on the House floor. Some lawmakers even resorted to public name-calling, with progressive leader Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) accusing moderate Democrats of favoring child abuse — an exchange on Twitter that prompted a pair of freshmen centrists to confront him directly on the floor, with other lawmakers looking on in shock... ….“I think the Problem Solvers Caucus is emerging to be this tea party within our own Democratic...

Several dozen House Republicans might cross the aisle this week to vote for Democratic bills to reopen shuttered parts of the federal government, spurring the White House into a dramatic effort to stem potential GOP defections. White House officials and Republican congressional leaders worry that GOP support for the shutdown is eroding, weakening President Donald Trump’s hand as he seeks billions of dollars for a border wall that Democrats have vowed to oppose, according to GOP lawmakers and aides.

The Obama administration wants you to bring a side of healthcare politics to your family picnic this weekend. After ObamaCare’s big win at the Supreme Court last week, federal health officials are serving up some tips about talking to family members who may be less-than-enthused that ObamaCare is here to stay. “You should be prepared when Aunt Janine says something like, ‘Obamacare hasn’t helped anyone!’” a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a blog post on Thursday. For instance, if your Uncle Ted starts calling Obamacare a train wreck, you should calmly explain that he’s...