Free Republic

DeSantis is on the field, avoiding being in the booth with Trump, Thune, Johnson, Vance, Musk and Hegseth. Is DeSantis upset that he isn't SecDef pick? Is he too socially awkward to be around politically powerful people? DeSantis needs to learn how to interact with powerful people, even those he doesn't like.

Donald Trump may have mastered the art of the deal once again, with rumors he will replace Pete Hegseth with Ron DeSantis as his pick to head Defense in exchange for Trump's daughter-in-law Lara getting Florida's open Senate seat. The Florida governor and Trump have reportedly had one-on-one discussions about the move. A GOP source told The Bulwark: 'These discussions are real. It's serious. I can't say it's definitely going to happen, but the governor is receptive and Trump is serious, too.'

Daniel McCarthy is right that President-elect Donald Trump has rewritten the electoral map, but he is incorrect in saying that it was Trump who turned Florida into a reliably red bastion (“A New Political Map,” Post­Opinion, Nov. 26). In Trump’s first midterm, 2018, Republicans won the governorship by less than one percentage point. Four years later, in 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis was re-elected by about 20 points. That happened while Trump was out of office and MAGA candidates were losing elsewhere. It is DeSantis, the most effective and principled governor in America, who turned Florida reliably red. He did so...

Former President Donald Trump played a much different tone than previously on the topic of abortion and women’s rights, saying his administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.” After delivering on his promise to anti-abortion groups to pick justices on the Supreme Court who would get Roe v. Wade overturned, the former president has sought to establish a middle ground on the topic of abortion. Following a series of devastating Republican electoral defeats that were largely over abortion rights, he has sought to distance himself from the topic altogether, culminating in him adopting vastly different rhetoric on...

A Bold Vision for America’s Future. The Tuesday theme will focus on Democrats’ platform to push America forward. In a press release, party leadership accused former President Donald Trump of believing the country’s best days are behind it, and that he and Sen. JD Vance will implement a “Project 2025 agenda” to pull the country backward. Speakers:The early list is short and will likely updated later today around gavel time. Second gentleman Doug EmhoffIllinois Gov. J.B. PritzkerFormer first lady Michelle ObamaFormer President Barack ObamaProtests... No specific list today, but others beyond yesterday's Islamic Palestinian HAMAS supporters. Schedule:DNC events start at...

J. D. Vance voted for independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin in November 2016. He said this in 2021 in an interview with Time Magazine. McMullin was on the ballot in 2016 in Kentucky. In Ohio he was a declared write-in candidate and he was credited with 12,574 votes. It is not clear which state Vance lived in at the time. The mention of his 2016 vote is under “Vance’s Political Turn” in the first paragraph.

Representative Chip Roy (R-Texas), who has previously endorsed Florida Governor Ron Desantis, is now seemingly attempting to undermine his own party by proposing a resolution urging Kamala Harris to initiate proceedings under the 25th Amendment to declare Joe Biden unfit for office. .... Snip.... Rep. Roy appears to be on a mission to rescue the Democrat party from what he perceives as a leadership crisis. His proposed resolution seeks to use the 25th Amendment as a tool to declare President Biden unable to perform his duties, a move that some critics are calling the “dumbest thing” to do.

People will see…. it might take a little more time than I would prefer, but the truth will come out and people will see. A judge in Florida is starting to take apart the secrecy operation that Ron DeSantis and his DC Bush clan constructed during their block Trump operation. DeSantis moved from Congress to the Florida Governor position in 2018; the intent was always to run for President in 2024 and take apart the Trump constructs returning the Republican apparatus to traditional corporate controls. Part of their lengthy approach was to import some of the Washington DC silo/secrecy functions...

Contrary to what many political pundits, including this one, thought would happen as soon as Donald Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee, the former president has maintained a slim but steady polling lead over President Joe Biden. As of today, the RCP Average has Trump with a 1.1% overall advantage, with Quinnipiac being the only May poll showing Biden leading, albeit by a mere 1%. By contrast, Biden enjoyed a 5.6% advantage this time in 2020, an election in which Trump never actually took the average polling lead.Still, are there signs that Trump's lead might be softer than we think?...

Former First Lady Melania Trump is helping the homosexual ‘conservative’ group Log Cabin Republicans kick off its ‘Road to Victory’ campaign at her and her husband’s Florida resort home on April 20. ... PALM BEACH, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — After an extended absence from public view, former First Lady Melania Trump is reportedly set to return to the campaign trail for her husband starting with a fundraiser for homosexual “conservative” group Log Cabin Republicans at her and husband Donald’s resort home of Mar-a-Lago. The news puts to rest unsubstantiated rumors that Mrs. Trump was distancing herself from the former president’s 2024...

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro announced last week to the more than 15 million monthly listeners of his eponymous podcast that he wouldn’t just vote for Donald Trump, he would also co-host a fundraiser for the former president.Because the choices for president are identical to 2020, Shapiro said he would “walk over broken glass” to support Trump. Almost immediately, he had an opportunity. Trump said Monday that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” comments that the White House quickly condemned as “vile and unhinged antisemitic rhetoric.”Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew and outspoken ally of Israel, provided a quick...

DeSantis began 2023 as the best positioned Republican candidate to challenge Trump for the party's presidential nomination, according to polling tracked by 538. But he begins 2024 as another name on the growing list of rivals who failed to shake the former president's popularity among the GOP --- DeSantis' early actions since leaving the race have already sparked speculation that the governor, who is only 45, could make another White House run in the future. A source close to him said that he has privately expressed interest in running again as early as 2028 and has brought it up as...

The 2024 Republican primary is over. Donald Trump will be the nominee, so all attention turns to his running mate. Who will it be? Earlier this month, Trump heavily insinuated that he’d already made his decision but will reveal it later. Like The Apprentice, it’s all about the show, but there are some concerns that he might pick Nikki Haley, who still hasn’t dropped out of her quixotic campaign for the Republican nomination. Trump seems to have ruled her out, calling her a person not made of “presidential timber.”The media has their list, including Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, Elise Stefanik,...

In his first interview since dropping out of the presidential race, DeSantis told Blaze TV’s Steve Deace that the blame is on Iowa caucusgoers who rallied behind front-runner Donald Trump even though many didn’t like him. “They did not want to see Trump nominated again, but they had basically been told that it was inevitable, that it was over,” DeSantis told Deace on Tuesday. DeSantis, who lost to Trump in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month, added that those voters were “checked out” and had “just totally dropped out of the process.” The Florida governor told Deace he’d consider running...

Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), a surrogate for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that former President Donald Trump’s multiple indictments would “ripen into convictions.” Massie said, “You know, the main thing I hear from people back home is there mad that nobody’s held accountable in Washington DC. I think we need to hold Trump accountable. snip The lawsuit itself is ridiculous, but the underlying facts aren’t disputed, and I think people are going to kind of recoil from that when all that stuff starts coming out this summer. And the polls that show...

Iowa was supposed to be make-or-break for Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor essentially moved his campaign there late last year, and Never Back Down, his allied super PAC, spent tens of millions of dollars knocking on doors in the state. “We’re going to win Iowa,” DeSantis declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Dec. 2. But in the week before the all-important caucuses, Scott Wagner, the recently installed head of the super PAC, was doing something that aides found puzzling: He was literally doing a puzzle. In the headquarters of Never Back Down in West Des Moines, Iowa, Wagner was,...

"I noticed that he threw -- um -- Vivek under the bus. I've seen a candidate run for an office and basically campaign for another candidate in the same race before, but that's what's happened. And the minute he wasn't useful they dropped the hammer on him. That's just the way they are. We're going to go forward as a party. We can go forward in a way that's focused on peoples' issues and a great agenda for America, or we can go forward with Trump, which will be focused, the 2024 election, on legal issues, criminal trials, convictions, on...

At any rate, this is the Iowa caucus, the Hawkeye Cauci, and it has been fascinating all morning and during the day yesterday to watch the media. My gosh, they are so excited. They are ten times as excited as anybody else is about this. It’s funny to watch. Now, to put this in a little more perspective — and this is not to disparage the Hawkeye Cauci — but there’s not a single delegate chosen tonight. Nothing that happens tonight really leads to votes in terms of delegates at a convention. It’s a glorified straw poll. And I’m not...

There is a reason for all the Capitol Hill endorsements coming out at the moment. I didn't want to publish what my S. Florida contact told me earlier last week because I didn't want to dishearten anyone. With Rubio's endorsement, it looks like what my source said may be accurate. Essentially, The Trump/Haley ticket is a done deal. Both sides behind the scenes have discussed & hashed out the agreement. The expected announcement will supposedly take place sometime after the NH Primary but before the SC Primary.Here's how it has gone down: Internal polling has Haley finishing a distant 3rd...

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has used a 'burner' account on X to secretly post and re-post anti-Donald Trump content on the social media app ahead of her state's first-in-the-nation caucus, according to a report. Reynolds, who endorsed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary, is not the first anti-Trump heavy hitter to get caught with a burner, after Mitt Romney's infamous 'Pierre Delecto' account was unearthed in 2019. But, the Reynolds revelation came just four days before voters will begin to caucus for both candidates, as well as former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. 'The contrast...