Free Republic

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 President Donald Trump is set to speak at the Libertarian Party’s National Convention on Saturday in Washington, D.C. It’s in some sense both a big win and loss for the party. For a former president to address the party is a symbolic victory. But, on the other hand, it is a bizarre thing for the party to do given that Trump is neither the Libertarian Party presidential candidate nor is he in any meaningful sense a libertarian. The only beneficiary of this, at the margins, is Trump, who has made clear he wants the vote of registered Libertarians. “We...

President Biden and former President Donald Trump are locked in a statistical tie as they gear up for the first of two scheduled debates next month, but nearly one-fifth of voters say they could still change their mind about for whom they ultimately pull the lever. In a one-on-one matchup, Biden garnered 48% support to Trump’s 47%, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released Wednesday. Last month, the survey found Trump and Biden in a flat-footed tie, with each receiving 46% support. Despite the incumbent’s lead, history suggests the margin would be tight enough for Trump...

Over the course of my lifetime these are some of the film makers I have revered: Charlie Chaplin (more for his silent features than his talkies) and Shirley Temple, (both as a child and adult for the former and as a child only for the latter), Woody Allen (when i was a tertiary student in the 1970's and 1980's but less so now) Steve Bochco, primarily for the reinvention of what television can do through Hill Street Blues and Shawn Ryan and Micheal Ciklis for The Shield which I consider an even better drama than HSB and the best thing...

The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to advance a bill that would empower the federal government to crack down on student protests by defining antisemitism in a way that includes certain criticism of Israel. Sponsored by Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, the bill's passage reflects a broader national trend. Earlier this year, Gov. Brian Kemp signed H.B. 30, which revised Georgia’s hate crime statute to include certain forms of speech critical of Israel. In March, Gov. Kristi Noem signed legislation into the South Dakota civil rights statute that codified some forms of speech critical of...

Gov. Kristi Noem has “no shot” at being Donald Trump’s running mate after revealing in a forthcoming book that she shot and killed her puppy, sources close to the 45th president tell The Post. *** “She was already unlikely to be picked as VP, but had a shot,” the person said of Noem, who has been widely projected to be on Trump’s shortlist. “After this, it’s just impossible.” Noem writes, according to the Guardian, that she executed Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer, after determining that the pooch’s “aggressive personality” made her “untrainable” as a hunting dog. “It was not a...

With seven months to go until November's presidential election and the majority of polls showing the presumptive presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden are basically neck-and-neck, the pair both need every vote they can to secure the keys to the White House. But Trump, the Republican former president, may be hampering his chances at success because of his standing with one key demographic in the adult voting population: women. Polls show that the proportion of women who plan to vote for Trump in November is less than the proportion who voted for him in the 2020 election. Meanwhile, experts...

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker will return the witness stand today for the second day of Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial over covering up “hush money” payments to a porn star. Pecker will resume testimony where he is expected to detail the inner workings of a scheme he, Trump and his “fixer” lawyer Michael Cohen devised to buy up and bury bad news during the 2016 presidential election. Trump is on trial for allegedly fudging business records to conceal a $130,000 payoff to Stormy Daniels made before the 2016 presidential election. The 72-year-old ex-CEO of the Enquirer’s parent company,...

“Look, we have a majority of one, OK? It’s not like he can go and do whatever he wants to do,” Trump, 77, told radio host John Fredericks on Real America’s Voice Monday night. “I think he’s a very good person. You know, he stood very strongly with me on NATO,” added Trump, referring to a campaign rally in which he urged member states to pay more for their common defense — or he would let Russia “do whatever the hell they want.” “I think he’s trying very hard,” the 45th president concluded.Johnson (R-La.) bucked the majority of his conference...

Alec Baldwin’s scuffle with a loudmouthed anti-Israel agitator at a New York City coffee shop spilled out onto the sidewalk, new photos obtained by The Post show. An irate Baldwin, 66, was seen struggling with the woman out the front door and down the stoop of Maman, an upscale cafe on University Place in Greenwich Village, after she had accosted him inside on Monday and demanded he declare “Free Palestine” as she filmed him. Footage of the encounter, first posted online by the woman herself, cut off after Baldwin took a swipe at her phone — and new photos appear...

The New York judge overseeing former President Trump’s hush money trial said Monday that Trump cannot attend arguments on presidential immunity at the Supreme Court next week. ... The decision to not allow Trump to be in Washington, D.C., on April 25, when the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on a presidential immunity claim Trump is making in his federal criminal case, came just before the New York trial adjourned Monday. “Arguing before the Supreme Court is a big deal, and I can certainly appreciate why your client would want to be there, but a trial in...

Shares of Trump Media plunged more than 17% in the pre-trading hours after the company filed to issue millions of additional shares of stock. ... Shares of Trump Media plunged more than 11% on Monday after the company filed to issue millions of additional shares of stock. Trump Media’s dramatic slide came as Donald Trump headed to a Manhattan court to begin jury selection for his criminal trial on hush money-related charges. Trump is the majority stakeholder in the company. Trump Media, which created the Truth Social app and trades under the stock ticker DJT on the Nasdaq, fell nearly...

By forming the Supreme Court majority that would finally reverse Roe v. Wade and restore the right of the people and their elected representatives to protect unborn children and their mothers in the law, President Trump can truly be called the most consequential pro-life president in history. ... Since the 2022 midterms, however, a narrative has taken hold that the life issue costs Republicans elections and is better left to the states, anyway – a narrative that threatens this great accomplishment. With policy platforms suddenly having very real consequences, many candidates became fearful, listened to consultants and opted for the...

RON DESANTIS IS BACK TO RUNNING Florida’s government. But he hasn’t really stopped running for president. Next month, DeSantis hosts a two-day presidential-donor gathering at the Hard Rock Hotel in South Florida that’s billed as—don’t call it a “fundraiser”—an “Investor Appreciation Retreat.” It’s the latest phase of an image makeover DeSantis started after he officially dropped out of the 2024 race on January 21 and endorsed Donald Trump. For the past month, DeSantis has hosted one-on-one thank-you calls with donors, small meetings with more of these “investors” in Naples and in Miami, and conference calls with former volunteers. In a...

Former President Donald Trump lost three major legal challenges in the past week, including his efforts to dismiss a racketeering case on First Amendment grounds. Here is a look at the rulings in three separate cases this week in Georgia, Florida, and New York. New York judge denies Trump’s attempt to delay hush money trialNew York Judge Juan Merchan denied the former president’s attempt to delay his criminal hush money trial on Wednesday, after Trump claimed he was protected under presidential immunity. Merchan said that Trump had plenty of opportunity before March to claim presidential immunity in the case. Trump...

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed Friday to appoint a special counsel to review cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot against rival Donald Trump and his supporters if Kennedy wins the Oval Office — arguing one can oppose the former president but still be “disturbed by the weaponization of government against him.”“As President, I will appoint a special counsel — an individual respected by all sides — to investigate whether prosecutorial discretion was abused for political ends in this case, and I will right any wrongs that we discover. Without the impartial rule of law,...

US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday denied a motion filed by former President Donald Trump seeking to dismiss the criminal charges against him in his classified documents case. Trump, 77, had argued that under the Presidential Records Act of 1978 he had the authority to designate sensitive documents as his personal property after leaving the White House. Cannon ruled that “the Presidential Records Act does not provide a pre-trial basis to dismiss” the 40 charges against the former president. She further noted that prosecutors “make no reference to the Presidential Records Act” in the indictment against Trump and did...

Documents for Donald Trump's $175 million bond in his New York civil fraud case were rejected by a court because a current financial statement was not included. On Wednesday, a message on the New York State Supreme Court's electronic filing system showed Trump's "Bond/Undertaking" had been "returned for correction."New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled in February against Trump; his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump; and others associated with the Trump Organization. They were accused in a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James of inflating the former president's net worth and the...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday raised concerns about efforts to ban Chinese-owned social media app TikTok in the U.S., saying it would only serve to empower Meta ’s Facebook platform. “Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” *** Acknowledging his concerns around national security and data privacy over TikTok, Trump said, “there’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad” with the platform. “There are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who...

New York Attorney General Letitia James has been handed a "smoking gun" in the civil fraud case against Donald Trump, according to an attorney. Jeffrey McConney, the Trump Organization's former corporate controller, testified on Tuesday that it was his understanding that Trump reviewed financial statements before they were finalized, contradicting previous testimony."This was probably the worst day for Donald in the New York City fraud case," attorney Joe Gallina said during an interview with Mary Trump, the former president's estranged niece. "This was very simply the smoking gun Attorney General Letitia James was looking for." James filed a lawsuit against...