Free Republic

Donald Trump’s tariff policies remain a lightning rod for debate. Democrats are sounding the alarm, warning of dire economic fallout and painting a picture of looming catastrophe. Batya Ungar-Sargon, deputy opinion editor of Newsweek, made one of the strongest, most effective cases yet for former President Donald Trump’s tariffs during the latest episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.” She broke down exactly why these tariffs are necessary, and by the end, she left Bill Maher flustered. Ungar-Sargon’s explanation couldn’t have been clearer: manufacturing jobs and economic nationalism are crucial for the American middle class. When the conversation turned to...

Hunter Biden fled last week to South Africa for a luxury vacation — with round-the-clock Secret Service protection — avoiding a grueling deposition scheduled for this week in a California lawsuit. California District Court Judge Herman Vera granted Hunter’s motion to dismiss the case Thursday after the former first son claimed he was too broke to continue suing former Trump staffer Garrett Ziegler and his nonprofit Marco Polo. But photographs show Hunter was already in Cape Town the day the case was dismissed, staying in a $500-a-night beachfront villa described on its website as an “ultra-luxurious designer home with spectacular...

In recent days, the Trump administration has announced two high-profile and controversial policy changes it says are meant to combat waste and fraud in Social Security. First, the agency said it would resume garnishing entire benefit checks from Americans who receive overpayments, undoing a reform that had capped clawbacks at a smaller amount. Social Security officials claim the change will help the government recover an additional $7 billion over 10 years. Later, the agency announced that enrollees would no longer be allowed to change their direct deposit information over the phone but would instead be required to use an online...

Joe Biden received information about Obama Briefings, Situation Room meetings, policy memos about foreign nations, including Iraq, all sent to his personal email address while he was Vice-President. Our friends at “Just the News” received thousand of emails sent by White House staffers to Joe Biden’s RobinWare45@gmail.com address. Every federal agency forbids the use of personal email addresses, yet Joe Biden determined he was above the law. Many of the emails are redacted, suggesting they contain classified information. This Podcast exposes the security risk, some of what was written and why these emails may have compromised National Security. Also Real...

WTH, Great Britain?President Trump is working to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student who has been an organizer of pro-Hamas rallies and who has been committing crimes, recruiting others to commit crimes, and illegally supporting a terrorist organization as an alien. John has been doing yeoman's work covering this case. Immigration law is explicit about the last: you may not have, may not now, nor may you at any point as a visa or green card holder support terrorists. It is black letter law. The Left is going crazy, because, well, the Left. If it is bad, they support...

Democrat Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) this week blocked a border reform bill introduced by freshman Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), despite his plea to Democrats to unite on something so common sense. “I know that my Democrat colleagues are in a mode where they want to fight everything that we’re doing, Mr. President, but we should at least come together on this,” Moreno said on the floor. “As I look over at my democratic colleague, there’s only two of us — two of us as entire chamber — that are naturalized U.S. citizens,” he said of himself and Hirono. “We know...

The Social Security Administration (SSA) said it is reinstating a plan to recover 100% of overpayments to beneficiaries, a policy the agency had abandoned last year after an outcry over cases in which the practice led some Americans to receive shock bills amounting to thousands of dollars. In a statement, SSA said late Friday that it will increase the default overpayment withholding rate for Social Security recipients to 100% of a person's monthly benefit, the same level that it had in place before last year's reform. The agency is required by law to claw back overpaid benefits. Because of public...

U.S. President Donald Trump complained Thursday that his country's bilateral security arrangement with Japan, signed in 1960, was one-sided. In response, Japan pointed out the cooperative nature of the agreement. “I love Japan. We have a great relationship with Japan. But we have an interesting deal with Japan where we have to protect them but they don't have to protect us,” Trump told reporters. “That's the way the deal reads. We have to protect Japan. Under no circumstances do they have to protect us,” the president said, adding that Japan was making a fortune off the U.S. economically. The Japanese...

President Donald Trump on Saturday signed two executive orders that call for immediately expanding American lumber production and addressing lumber imports' threat to national security. The orders aim to update guidance on production, streamline permitting, and assess possible risks that imports pose to national security. A White House official told Fox News the president identified a crisis in both supply and demand in an industry the U.S. should be entirely self-sufficient in. The executive order notes that the production of timber, lumber, paper, bioenergy, and other wood products is crucial for Americans in construction and energy production. Recent disasters, the...

The Social Security Administration closed two offices this week after the former acting head of the agency resisted the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) attempt to probe SSA’s books. The closure of SSA’s Office of Transformation and the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity comes as DOGE staffers are now embedded within the agency, following the resignation of former acting commissioner Michelle King, a career federal worker who resigned last week over a disagreement with DOGE’s efforts to access sensitive government records. “President Trump has mandated the Federal government eliminate wasteful and inefficient offices and the Office of Transformation...

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told FOX News host Jesse Watters that over 100 people in the intelligence committee who were involved in the "secret sex chats" have been terminated and had their security clearances removed.JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS: Good to see you too. Not so good to see some of these transgender sex chats among the intel officials. What are we going to do about that? DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE TULSI GABBARD: Well, Jesse, what we're going to do has already been done. There are over a hundred people from across the intelligence community that contributed to and...

Behind the shocking revelations of incompetence and unprofessionalism that rocked the Secret Service this week is a longtime reporter who has been diligently uncovering the agency's secrets for years. Carol Leonnig, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who has worked at The Washington Post for nearly 15 years, has broken almost every single story on the agency, a series of shocking reports that on Wednesday resulted in the abrupt resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson. (Pierson called the resignation “painful.”) In less than a week, Leonnig uncovered three scandals that pushed the agency’s first female leader out the door. First,...

CNN — The US Marshals Service has deputized members of Elon Musk’s private security detail, giving them certain rights and protections of federal law enforcement agents, three law enforcement officials familiar with the matter told CNN. It was not immediately clear how many members of Musk’s security team were made special deputies. Musk, the tech billionaire and ally of President Donald Trump, is not eligible to have a US Secret Service detail – meaning members of his personal security detail were limited in what they could do in Washington, DC.

Elon Musk, the Trump administration’s head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), claimed that he has discovered what could be the “biggest fraud in history.” If this is true, it could be one of the country’s biggest and most damaging frauds, along with COVID-19. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was established by Trump to streamline federal operations and cut $2 trillion from federal spending by 2026. Musk has acknowledged that up to $1 trillion in federal government cuts could be feasible. A cursory review of Social Security records by Musk’s department has revealed that the social security safety...

The Social Security system just took a massive hit—thanks to DOGE uncovering what could be one of the largest frauds in American history. With over 395 million Social Security numbers on file, you’d think there was some sort of miracle happening. But the U.S. population? Around 334 million. That’s a discrepancy you can’t just ignore. This isn’t a technical glitch—this is fraud. DOGE’s investigation uncovered 3.5 million Social Security recipients listed as being over 140 years old, with some records showing ages as absurd as 360-369 years old. This isn’t a glitch—this is outright fraud. Even more shocking, over 25...

New York -- When a suspicious video of ballots being ripped up in Pennsylvania gained attention on social media last October, federal agencies responded quickly and called it out as Russian disinformation. On Election Day in November, bomb threats to polling places in numerous states caused relatively few disruptions to voting. It’s one of the many scenarios covered by the nation’s cybersecurity agency in its outreach to state and local officials.The Trump administration’s downsizing and disbanding of federal agencies has hit efforts that improve election security and monitor foreign influence. That could create gaps for America’s enemies to exploit the...

Safety is the new luxury in Gotham. A new app called Protector will offer New Yorkers on-demand access to armed ex-military and law enforcement to chauffeur them around town. “Ultra high-profile individuals like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have dedicated full-time protection teams in place, but for most people, navigating security options is more challenging than it should be,” Protector app founder and CEO Nick Sarath told The Post this week. The app, which launches Tuesday in NYC and Los Angeles, costs $200 an hour for a Protector and a driver. But the price can skyrocket depending on the client’s...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the formation of an “Armed Forces of Europe” in a speech delivered before the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday. While the Trump administration has drawn feigned outrage throughout European capitals for daring to suggest that they meet their NATO defence spending obligations, President Zelensky was hailed with applause at the Munich Security Conference as he called for an international European army. Zelensky argued that a European army would be necessary for Europe to take back its own destiny and to ensure its safety if America refused to come to its rescue.

"Vance Wields Threat of Sanctions, Military Action to Push Putin Into Ukraine Deal," blared the headline of the news report, which was accompanied on X with the caption: "Exclusive: Vance pledged to hit Russia with sanctions and potentially military action if Putin won't agree to a peace deal that guarantees Ukraine's independence." The headline that characterized Vance as threatening Russia---including with American military force---was condemned by the Vice-President on Friday. Vance reiterated that President Donald Trump would bring peace to the region, and said the newspaper had "twisted my words." - - - - - Vance went on to outline...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned Europeans this week that "realities" prevent the U.S. from being its security guarantor, and to expect a drawdown of U.S. forces in the region. "We are focusing on security of our own borders. We also face a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific," Hegseth told a meeting of a Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Belgium on Wednesday. "The U.S. is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific. Recognizing the reality of scarcity and making the resourcing trade-offs to...