Free Republic

President Trump halted new US strikes on Iran as he weighs whether Tehran is ready to cut a deal — while a wider regional war appears to be spreading into another critical shipping corridor. After 13 consecutive days of attacks, Trump instructed the US military to pause any additional strikes against Iran Friday, Axios reported Saturday, which cited two people familiar with the decision. But the president has made clear that the temporary halt does not mean Washington is backing down. In a brief phone interview with France’s LCI news, Trump said he was still prepared to restart a major...

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy listed renaming New York’s Penn Station as an administration priority on Wednesday, leading to speculation the nation’s busiest transit hub could be rechristened in honor of President Trump as part of an $8 billion makeover. Duffy penned a letter, sent to leaders of several Senate committees, urging Congress to “direct Amtrak to rename New York Penn Station” when it reauthorizes funding for surface transportation initiatives that expire on Sept. 30. “We have a unique opportunity through reauthorization efforts to address key initiatives – particularly those related to transforming New York Penn Station,” he wrote. Duffy did...

The Trump administration is ratcheting up tariffs on 60 countries that have failed to ban imports made from forced labor, as 10% global duties are set to expire Friday. Senior administration officials said Thursday that countries that have begun implementing a forced labor prohibition will be hit with 10% duties, while those that haven’t will receive an import tax of 12.5% — with the levies taking effect at 12:01 a.m. on July 24. “The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to...

US House of Representatives passes a $1.15T defense bill with provision deepening Pentagon-Israel weapons tech cooperation and funding $750M for joint defense programs.

Corey Lewandowski fired a Coast Guard pilot for leaving Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s blanket on a plane — but was forced to rehire them upon realizing there was nobody else to fly the plane, according to a stunning new report.Lewandowski, an unpaid special government employee who unofficially acts as chief of staff for Noem — with whom he’s had a years-long affair — has overseen a reign of terror over department staff since President Trump took office last year.According to the Wall Street Journal, Noem had to switch planes during an official trip due to a maintenance issue, but...

In an age of rage, it is often difficult to stand out in the mob as so many pander to the perpetually irate. However, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie has found a way to win the race to the bottom. In a posting on Bluesky, Bouie mocked the account of the addiction of the mother of Vice President J.D. Vance, saying that she should have sold her son for drugs. Bouie used Bluesky (the digital safe zone for the viewpoint intolerant on the left) to post one of the most reprehensible attacks on Vance. Bouie wrote that “this is...

The White House is dismissing backlash over a meme video the president posted on Truth Social late Thursday depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as gorillas. “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from ‘The Lion King,'” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.” *** The roughly one-minute video was mostly focused on claims of vote rigging in the 2020 election but showed AI-generated...

The headmaster of Chicago’s tony Latin School will resign less than two weeks after it was revealed that students were rehearsing Nazi marching themes for the second year in a row. Dr. Thomas Hagerman revealed his plans to leave his job in a Jan. 14 email to the Latin School community which cited health issues as the reason for his exit. “This decision comes after a great deal of thoughtful deliberation. I have been repeatedly reminded about the importance of attending more intentionally to my health and overall sustainability,” Hagerman wrote*** The surprise resignation comes two weeks after middle schoolers...

Iran issued a grisly threat against President Trump on Wednesday, broadcasting a picture of the commander-in-chief during the 2024 Butler, Pa., rally assassination attempt — with the words “This time it will not miss the target. The ominous warning was aired on Iranian state-run TV, Agence France-Presse reported. It marks Tehran’s most direct threat yet against Trump, following his repeated threats that the US will strike the country if it continues its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters.

“Squad’ Rep. Ilhan Omar implored the public to film Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and blasted the Trump administration for making judgments about the shooting of Renee Good before an investigation into it. “It is really important for Americans to record, to create the level of accountability and transparency that we need,” the far-left Minnesota congresswoman told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday. “What we’ve seen in Minneapolis is ICE agents oftentimes jumping out of their cars, these are unmarked cars, oftentimes they’re wearing a mask, they’re approaching, running towards cars ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who shot Good after she...

President Trump is preparing to announce plans to build new battleships for the first time in more than 80 years — and will name them after himself, according to a report.The new ships will be an upgrade to Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, the Wall Street Journal reported — with the current models costing more than $2 billion apiece to build. It was not immediately clear how many of the new ships will be built, what new capabilities they might have or whether legislation will be required to finance the initiative. The Journal also reported, citing a source, that...

Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro denounced right-wing podcast titan Tucker Carlson as “an opponent of conservatism” who “has trafficked in nearly every conspiracy theory under the sun” in a speech*** Shapiro appeared at the largest conservative think tank in DC ostensibly to discuss his book, “Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America (and Her Critics).” Instead, he took advantage of the platform to address what he called “the elephant in the room.” “If we care about conservatism, if, as Heritage Foundation proclaims, our goal ought to be to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of...

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., suggested Tuesday that President Donald Trump was a bigger threat to the American way of life than radical Islamic jihad. Schultz brought up the president when NewsNation host Leland Vittert asked her on “On Balance” whether she believed that Islamophobia or jihad was a bigger threat to American life and values after a deadly attack against Australian Jews Sunday. “I think we have to focus, quite frankly, on, if we’re worried about the threat to American values, on the person who’s in the White House. I mean, we have a president …,” Schultz began. Vittert...

President Trump defended White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in an exclusive interview with The Post Tuesday — saying she was right to tell Vanity Fair he has an “alcoholic’s personality” and that he has full faith in Wiles to continue in her role.Trump, 79, reiterated that he avoids alcohol, saying in the interview he has a “possessive and addictive type personality” and that he wasn’t offended by her word choice. “No, she meant that I’m — you see, I don’t drink alcohol. So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a...

President Trump lodged an eye-watering $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC on Monday, accusing the British broadcaster of defaming him through a deceptive edit of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech at the White House Ellipse. The lawsuit took aim at a 2024 documentary by the BBC, which spliced different sections of Trump’s comments before his supporters ransacked the Capitol to make it appear as though he explicitly encouraged the riot. “I’m suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth, literally,” Trump grumbled to reporters earlier in the day, Monday. “They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to...

Kash Patel is at the center of another embarrassing fiasco after the FBI released a person of interest detained over the mass shooting at Brown University. The FBI had wrongfully detained a 24-year-old Army sniper whose name and photo was leaked to the press by cops, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha admitted on Sunday. A gunman opened fire during a review session for an introductory economics final exam at around 4pm on Saturday. He killed two students including Ella Cook, 19, vice president of the Ivy League school's Republican club, and injured nine others. Forty-eight hours later, the FBI...

President Trump said Monday morning that murdered actor-director Rob Reiner had “driven people CRAZY” with his opposition to the Republican chief executive in a bizarre, rambling post on Truth Social that prompted outrage from critics of all political persuasions. Reiner, 78, and his wife Michele, 68, were found butchered in their Brentwood, Los Angeles, home Sunday afternoon. Their son Nick has been taken into custody in connection with the crime. ”A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has...

Cannabis stocks jumped on Friday as the White House prepared to significantly ease federal restrictions on marijuana. President Donald Trump is expected to issue an executive order as soon as Monday that would allow for reclassification of weed, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC. Such a move would allow cannabis companies to fall under different tax regulations and encourage investment.Cannabis stocks took a leg up in Friday’s midday trading following CNBC’s report. The Washington Post first reported on Thursday that Trump was expected to use an executive order to instruct federal agencies to reclassify marijuana as a less...

The United States would suffer a devasting defeat and lose its biggest aircraft carrier if it tried to stop China invading Taiwan, according to a top secret Pentagon report. War games showed the U.S. would be overwhelmed by China's arsenal of around 600 hypersonic weapons, along with missiles and nuclear submarines. The grim assessment, revealed by the New York Times, confirmed the conclusions of previous war games, but it also highlighted wider concerns about the future direction of the U.S. military and its continued reliance on outdated methods. *** Ships like the $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford - the...

CNN anchor Jake Tapper was ripped by critics Thursday after he wrongly referred to accused DC pipe-bomber Brian Cole Jr. as “a white man.”Tapper made the cringeworthy gaffe while discussing the arrest of Cole, who is black, during his opening segment on “The Lead.” His “white man” comment came at 5:01 p.m., around the time CNN was the first outlet to publish a photo of Cole’s face that originated from the suspect’s mother’s Instagram account. Cole’s father is also black and once enlisted the services of Ben Crump, an attorney best known for his racial discrimination cases. Viewers were stunned...