Free Republic

On Sunday, The Atlantic magazine published a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory by David Frum based not on fact, but entirely on the speculation of a fervid liberal imagination.In "For Trump, This Is a Dress Rehearsal," Frum provides his theory that former President Donald Trump called out the National Guard during the immigration riots in Los Angeles to prepare for a military takeover of the 2026 midterms.

Amid the growing battle between President Donald Trump and the courts, a once-unthinkable question is harder to shrug off: Will the administration deliberately defy federal judges if it doesn’t get what it wants? The issue has come into sharp relief in the challenge to the administration’s deportation of Venezuelan nationals under the purported authority of the Alien Enemies Act. The presiding judge — James Boasberg, chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, D.C. — directed the government from the bench to turn the planes around carrying the deportees. That did not happen, though the administration claims it did...

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow stated that after “President Trump and his top campaign donor and the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, all started threatening Americans who don’t support Elon Musk’s car company, they started threatening people that they’d be hit with terrorism charges” people still engaged in protests at Tesla dealerships. Maddow said, “Even after President Trump and his top campaign donor and the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, all started threatening Americans who don’t support Elon Musk’s car company, they started threatening people that they’d be hit with terrorism charges or that these —...

Republican strategist Karl Rove said President Trump’s claims that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has discovered “hundreds of billions” in government “fraud” will backfire when Democrats spotlight a lack of prosecutions of those involved. During an appearance on Fox News’s “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy,” Rove echoed Democratic strategist James Carville’s sentiment that Democrats should “allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight.” In his joint address to Congress last week, Trump criticized the “appalling waste” in government spending, while praising DOGE head and tech billionaire Elon Musk for discovering “hundreds of billions of dollars of...

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said Wednesday on “Deadline” that Republican senators who voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) were both “sick and “pathetic.” Wallace said, “Gabbard was confirmed by a vote of 52 to 48, with all 47 Democrats, as well as Mitch McConnell voting against her, a little bit of irony for the man who used to control the Republican Party now finding himself casting what is basically an ineffective dissent to oppose a nominee who Russia is cheering for within an hour of Gabbard’s confirmation, Donald Trump announced that he and Vladimir...

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said Monday on “Deadline” that it is important to study MAGA to expose “the movement’s vulnerability” and defeat it. Wallace said, “I think the study of MAGA is essential to defeat MAGA. Right? And if you want to go to the country in four years with the political movement that defeats MAGA, you have to understand MAGA. And so to me this is a story that is, the personalities in conflict, you just can’t look away, right? But the idea that one figure, and I think it’s Bannon in this case, is trying to preserve something...

Republican strategist Karl Rove said President-elect Trump will pay a price over the “chaos” he’s caused by picking controversial Cabinet members. In a Wednesday op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Rove said Trump’s nominations started “so quickly and so promisingly” with the first female White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles. As the other choices came rolling in over the next several days, Rove argued that while the choice of former “Fox & Friends Weekend” personality Pete Hegseth “raised questions,” generally the nominations were coming across as “purposeful, focused and energetic.”

Donald Trump has won, and will become president for the second time. Those who voted for him will now celebrate their victory. The rest of us need to prepare to live in a different America: a country where millions of our fellow citizens voted for a president who knowingly promotes hatred and division; who lies—blatantly, shamelessly—every time he appears in public; who plotted to overturn an election in 2020 and, had he not won, was planning to try again in 2024. Above all, we must learn to live in an America where an overwhelming number of our fellow citizens have...

[snip] Frum sees Harris as the candidate now pulling away. Frum was, in essence, predicting a Kamala victory. And he wondered what lesson the Trump campaign, and by extension Republicans at large, would learn from the loss. Would they conclude that Trump lost because he was older and didn't work hard enough, and that the party simply needs to find a younger, harder-working version of Trump? Or will they realize that, according to Frum: "[Trump's] kind of authoritarian, racist, corrupt style of politics doesn't work. It doesn't work in North Carolina. It doesn't work for Donald Trump. And it doesn't...

Donald Trump on Fox News this morning: “I don't know that I want to do another debate." She crushed him.

The Trump = Hitler analogy is getting old. We've been in desperate need of some fresh material! Unsurprisingly, Trump-loathing journalist David Frum appeared on CNN This Morning today to supply it. Frum dug up, and approvingly quoted, this line from Republican consultant Mike Murphy -- or to be completely up to date, "Republican Voters Against Trump" consultant Mike Murphy. "Asking Donald Trump to talk about policy, it's like teaching Charles Manson to foxtrot. He can manage a step or two, but then he's going to put a pencil in your eye, because he's Charles Manson. And Donald Trump is Donald...

If you’ve frequented RedState for a while, you likely know I’m not a fan of the Republican National Committee. In fact, several writers on the site expressed open opposition to the re-election of Ronna McDaniel as its chairwoman. That coverage included a report on the wasteful spending of the RNC that became somewhat controversial, though not because it wasn’t completely truthful.(See: Analysis of RNC Spending Since 2017 Shows Millions Were Spent on Private Jets, Limousines, Luxury Retreats, Broadway Shows)Personally, I’ve been disgusted with how the RNC operates for a long time. I tend to be less than impressed by an...

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) had a plan to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) for his role in perpetuating the Russia hoax, which ended up costing U.S. taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, and almost irreparable damage to the country’s political system. The move was supported by a large swathe of America First Republicans, though DeSantis supporters like Rep. Thomas Massie came out against it, on spurious terms. Now, the full list of so-called Republicans who sided with Democrats and Adam Schiff can be revealed, perhaps demonstrating which so-called “conservatives” need primary challengers at their next election. The list of...

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said on Friday that Donald Trump had “brought these charges upon himself” after the former president was notified of his indictment in an investigation into his handling of classified materials. “Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so,” Romney said in a statement. The former Republican presidential candidate acknowledged that Trump is “entitled to the presumption of innocence” and that the government is faced with “the burden of proving its charges beyond a reasonable doubt.” However, he...

The Republican National Committee says it remains committed to fighting against new laws to expand mass pre-election voting but, in some states, ballot harvesting is already the law — and Democrats are using it to run up voting leads in too many critical elections. So, under the leadership of Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, the RNC is looking to beat Democrats at their own game in states where ballot harvesting is legal while pushing for more Republicans to vote early by mail or in-person. Building off of the RNC's 2022 election integrity operations, McDaniel wrote that the GOP will continue "leveraging tens...

It doesn't even matter who it is at this point, because they're ALL the same. Hence the name. The latest are Mike McRomBush and Chris McRomBush, who will join Nikki McRomBush, Asa McRomBush and Tim McRomBush. And maybe Will McRomBush soon. And perhaps ANOTHER Chris McRomBush (which could be confusing) DeSantis isn't a McRomBush but he's surrounded himself with them.

Governor Ron DeSantis’s “Never Back Down PAC” spokesman Steve Cortes has split with the newly minted presidential candidate over the McCarthy-Biden debt deal looming over Congress.DeSantis tweeted on Sunday: “Our country is careening toward bankruptcy, and after this debt ceiling ‘deal’ it will still be careening toward bankruptcy. The deal green lights $4 trillion in new debt over the next year and a half, locks in inflated levels of spending from COVID, and keeps 98% of the Biden IRS expansion.”His view is widely shared, including by this website. But his “National Spokesman” Steve Cortes disagrees, in a strange moment of...

“Debt Ceiling Tests Speaker McCarthy as He Rides Breezily Through High-Wire Act of His Career” WASHINGTON (AP) — One morning during the debt ceiling crisis, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy climbed onto his mountain bike and took a ride along the National Mall, marveling at the monuments. The next day he arrived for negotiations at the Capitol carting in tortilla chips and queso for the beleaguered reporters waiting outside his office during the 24/7 talks. Throughout the weeks of grueling negotiations McCarthy has remained relentlessly optimistic, breezing through the anxiety-filled hours, seemingly certain of the outcome. Underestimated from the start, he...

I strongly support Ron DeSantis in the race to become the Republican nominee. I am not unpersuadable. Certainly not NeverTrump. If it is Trump v. Democrat, I am Trump. Easy call, that. But I am, in fact, a fan of Ron DeSantis. You already know that, but I want to lay my cards on the table as the primary battle heats up. DeSantis has been an outstanding governor of Florida, and his electoral victory and the huge level of support in Florida (nearly 60% approval) demonstrate that Floridians as a group agree with that sentiment. DeSantis turned Florida deep Red...

The twitter launch of desantis' political run for president is currently a disaster. Thousands wait on the twitter, plagued with streaming and connection errors, as twitter engineers attempt to fix problems, and actually start any kind of presentation. It's 25 minutes past the time the event was to begin, and they still have not actually begun.