Free Republic

The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) has announced that President Donald J. Trump will address NRA members as the keynote speaker at the 2024 NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits on Saturday, May 18, in Dallas, Texas. This marks President Trump's ninth address on NRA’s stage, reaffirming his strong commitment to the NRA, the Second Amendment, and the rich American tradition of firearm ownership. President Trump first addressed the NRA in Nashville in 2015. Since then, he has been a steadfast advocate for the NRA, the Second Amendment, and self-defense rights—including his promise in 2016 to never let NRA members...

WEST PALM BEACH — Susie Wiles, the people who know her the best believe, is a force more sensed than seen. Her influence on political events, to many who know what they’re watching, is as obvious as it is invisible. The prints leave not so much as a smudge. It’s a shock when she shows up in pictures. Even then it is almost always in the background. She speaks on the record hardly ever, and she speaks about herself even less. … Wiles is not just one of Trump’s senior advisers. She’s his most important adviser. She’s his de facto...

Kéthévane Gorjestani spent time as president of the White House Foreign Press Group, meaning she helped spearhead efforts to get more access to Joe Biden. While Trump was at the White House press podium “all the time,” Gorjestani says there was a feeling among the media corps that Biden’s handlers were more reluctant to engage. The France 24 journalist thinks this has been to Biden’s detriment. Gorjestani argues that the president’s blunders or moments of brain fog appear worse when he is on-script. “Let Joe be Joe,” she says, turning to a phrase she has heard in Washington D.C. Gorjestani...

A group of Colorado voters contends that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits for- mer President Donald J. Trump, who seeks the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party in this year’s election, from becoming President again. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed with that contention. It ordered the Colorado secretary of state to exclude the former President from the Republican primary ballot in the State and to disregard any write-in votes that Colorado voters might cast for him. Former President Trump challenges that decision on sev- eral grounds. Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States,...

…A New York Times-Siena College poll from October revealed that 22% of all Black voters in six battleground states ― including my native Michigan ― would support Trump in a general election if it were held at that time. Black men seem to be leading this charge: Trump secured 12% of our vote in 2020, up from 8% in 2016. Considering that the Trump supporter archetype is that of an American-flag-shirt-wearing, far-right white wingnut from Middle America, it’s both frightening and sobering that, even with the information we have about Trump, nearly 1 in 4 Black folks would vote for...

…While Swift has made no presidential endorsements, the story sparked ire among right-wing figures, who are now spreading baseless claims about the pop star being a “psyop” — psychological operation — meant to draw voters to the Democratic Party. Some Republican figures, such as Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, warned that a Swift endorsement of Biden could result in a “tsunami” that “will be very difficult to thwart.” Meanwhile, conservative pundits on Fox News, One America Network and Newsmax spent a lot of airtime discussing Swift this week. Staring directly into the camera on Monday, Fox News host Jeanine...

In the decade before the great financial crisis of 2008, the chair of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, became a virtual demigod in Washington. As U.S. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, famously advised, “If he’s alive or dead it doesn’t matter. If he’s dead, just prop him up and put some dark glasses on him.” During Greenspan’s two decades as chair, from 1987 to 2006, the Fed played a central role in a period of accelerated growth in the U.S. economy. Among the sources of Greenspan’s fame was what financial markets called the “Fed put.” (A “put” is a...

A progressive activist is warning voters against reelecting President Joe Biden, whom she describes as a "dictator" and being "worse than Trump." "Biden is already a dictator, folks. Fascism is already here under Biden," Bree Newsome said in a Wednesday post on X (formerly Twitter). "Please pay attention to how popular will is being completely ignored because Biden doesn't give af what the public thinks if he can maintain his grip on power." Newsome, who made national headlines for removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds in 2015, has staunchly opposed a second Biden term since the...

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Saturday said her home was the target of a swatting call and she has received threats since her ruling Thursday that Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot in the Republican primary in 2024. “This behavior is unacceptable. The non-stop threatening communications the people who work for me endured all day yesterday is unacceptable,” Bellows, a Democrat, wrote on Facebook Saturday afternoon. “It’s designed to scare not only me but also others into silence, to send a message.” The Maine Department of Public Safety issued a statement Saturday confirming the...

A new Emerson College Polling survey of U.S. voters finds President Biden continuing to trail former President Donald Trump, 43% to 47%, with 9% of voters undecided. With independent or third-party candidates Robert Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein added to the ballot, Trump’s support drops to 43%, Biden’s to 37%, while 7% support Kennedy, with 1% for Stein and West respectively. Twelve percent are undecided. In a matchup between Joe Biden and Nikki Haley, 39% support both candidates respectively, while 23% are undecided. These numbers reflect last month’s polling, and this month’s survey oversampled young voters to better...

Republican lawmakers in Maine are preparing impeachment orders against Secretary of State Shenna Bellows following her decision to remove former President Donald J. Trump from the Maine GOP presidential primary ballot.“I wish to impeach her on the grounds that she is barring an American citizen and 45th President of the United States, who is convicted of no crime or impeachment, their right to appear on a Maine Republican Party ballot in March,” Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris) said in a statement. “This is raw partisanship and has no place in the office of our state’s Constitutional Officers,” Andrews said. Bellows, a...

With less than a month until the Iowa caucuses, former President Donald Trump has a wide lead for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. His supporters stand out for their desire for a presidential candidate who will push hard for policies that Republican voters want, even if it makes it much harder to get some things done. Chart shows Trump supporters place less priority on seeking common ground with Democrats than GOP voters who back DeSantis or HaleyRoughly six-in-ten Trump supporters (63%) say it is more important for a Republican nominee to focus on this if elected, while 36% say it’s...

… Trump continues to hold a mammoth lead for the Republican presidential nomination and is polling within the margin of error of President Joe Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup….Americans don’t like Trump, but Republicans do. And general elections aren’t referendums on one candidate but a choice between two or more – and Americans, as a whole, dislike both Trump and Biden. … … Between 14% and 16% of Republicans believe Trump should have been charged, according to recent ABC News/Ipsos surveys. The vast majority don’t. Republicans justify their stance by saying that the charges are politically motivated. Over...

…Demographic data compiled in the 2016 and 2020 elections showed that the top 40 percent of income earners preferred the Democratic candidate for president (Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden) over the Republican (Donald Trump), signifying a sizable coalition shift from where the party was in the previous decade. Recent data shows the trend is likely baked in. In a CNBC survey, America's millionaires said they are more likely to support Biden over Trump in the upcoming presidential election by double-digit margins. And most of the nation's voters are not wealthy. … In the 2016 election, approximately 60 percent of white...

President Joe Biden's chances of winning in 2024 aren't looking so sunny in the Sunshine State, Democrats say. The president just officially declared his reelection bid, but even before his announcement, Democratic insiders were looking beyond Florida for his path to reelection. The state is an electoral gem in presidential politics, but it's expensive to campaign there and it's home to both former President Donald Trump and potential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis... "I don't know how the hell we win this," a DC-based Democratic consultant told Insider when asked whether Democrats are giving up on Florida as a swing...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden's 2024 campaign launch on Tuesday pushes America one step closer to Biden-Trump II, the rematch voters don't want. Biden has no serious challenger for the Democratic nomination, and former President Donald Trump is the clear front-runner for a third straight Republican nod. Ironically, a return engagement looks increasingly likely at a time when the vast majority of Americans believe the country the two men led back-to-back is on the wrong track. More pointedly, in an NBC News survey released Sunday, 70 percent of respondents said Biden shouldn't run, and 60 percent said Trump shouldn't. To...

The question Republicans are asking is: Can Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) win the White House in 2024? A better, more precise question is: Can he win suburban voters in Pennsylvania? It’s a question all prospective GOP primary candidates should answer. Suburbanites are swing voters, while urban dwellers trend Democratic and rural residents are overwhelmingly Republican. Therefore, in battleground Pennsylvania, the candidate who captures the suburban vote increases his or her chances of winning the state’s 19 electoral votes to reach the 270 votes required to win the presidency. Thus, for Republicans itching to win back the White House, the eventual...

Neither of the senior House Democrats running against each other in Manhattan’s 12th Congressional District were willing to back President Joe Biden’s re-election in 2024 when given the chance Tuesday night. Manhattan Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, both of whom were first elected in 1992, squared off alongside challenger Suraj Patel in a lively debate, which was co-sponsored by WNYC and Spectrum News NY1. About halfway in, co-moderator Errol Louis asked the three candidates a direct question: “Should President Biden run again in 2024?” Patel, who worked on President Barack Obama’s advance team and is pushing himself as a...