Free Republic

Subtraction, not addition, is emerging as the central threat to Republicans in the 2026 election. The subtraction risk for Republicans is the prospect that President Donald Trump’s slipping approval rating among his 2024 voters will cause meaningful components of the coalition that elected him to sit out November’s midterms. Polls suggest that’s a greater danger for the GOP than the possibility that Democrats will add a big cache of new votes — either by turning out many people who did not participate in 2024, or by convincing a significant share of 2024 Trump supporters to vote blue.

Vice President JD Vance hit back at critics on Friday over what the Trump administration claims is an emerging deal with Iran to end the war. Vance blasted critics who “say you can’t trust a word said” by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, just over an hour after Trump declared “there is no such thing as dealing in good faith” with Iran. Iranian state media published what it claimed were details from the potential agreement, which showed heavy concessions from the U.S. in the form of a $300 billion payment for reconstruction, the removal of U.S. troops from the region,...