In his State of the Union address, US President Trump reiterated claims the US “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme last year, contradicting his special envoy Steve Witkoff, who said Iran is “one week away” from a nuclear bomb.
Published On 25 Feb 202625 Feb 2026
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In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Trump struck a confident and defiant tone — claiming huge victories tackling crime in major U.S. cities, securing the nation’s borders, deporting undocumented immigrants, bringing down costs for American households and commanding respect for the U.S. on the world stage.
“The state of our union is strong,” Trump said — at a time when he is significantly weakened politically, with a sluggish economy, shrinking support for his signature immigration crackdown and some of the lowest approval ratings of his political career.
Trump delivered his speech — the longest State of the Union on record — to a heavily divided Congress, receiving steady applause from Republicans and little other than stone-faced glares and momentary bursts of outrage and frustration from Democrats.
Throughout his speech, Trump spoke in superlatives, as is common for him — mostly to project a rosy picture.
He said he “inherited a nation in crisis,” with a “stagnate economy” and a “wide open border,” with “rampant crime” and “wars and chaos” around the world, but that under his leadership, “we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages.”
“Our nation is back — bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before,” he said.
He said U.S. military forces had conducted one of the greatest military actions “in world history” when they entered Venezuela at the start of the year to depose and capture then-President Nicolás Maduro to face drug charges in the U.S.
He said U.S. enemies are now “scared.” He said the economy is now “roaring.” He said U.S. military and police are now “stacked,” and that the nation now has the “strongest and most secure border in American history,” with “zero” undocumented immigrants getting into the U.S. in the last nine months.
He said the country had seen the “biggest decline” in violent crime since 1900 despite reliable crime data not going back that far, that the military is setting “records for recruitment,” that natural gas production is at an “all time high,” and that more Americans are working than “at any time in the history of our country.”
He gave out two Medals of Honor, a Purple Heart, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom during his speech.
“We’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, ‘Please, please, please, Mr. President, we’re winning so much we can’t take it anymore,’” Trump said. “I say, ‘No, no, no, you’re going to win again, you’re going to win big, you’re going to win bigger than ever.”
Trump was clearly working to convince Americans tuning in that the economy is strong.
Many Americans are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy, according to polling. A recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that 57% of respondents disapproved of Trump’s managing of the economy, and 64% disapproved of his handling of tariffs.
However, Trump pushed a bullish message on his impact on the economy, saying that President Biden had given him “the worst inflation in the history of our country,” and he had driven it down.
“We are doing really well,” he said. “Those prices are plummeting downward.”
He cited his policy to end tax on tipped wages, said mortgage rates have come down, and argued that his policies would soon bring down healthcare costs for American families substantially — despite millions of people facing higher costs due to the elimination by Republicans of healthcare subsidies in their recent “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Trump suggested that Democrats ruined the economy and drove up costs for Americans. “You caused that problem,” he told those in the room, as Republicans stood and clapped. He also suggested Democrats had picked the issue of “affordability” as a political issue to focus on for nothing.
“They just used it — somebody gave it to them,” he said.
Trump said that, in addition to increasing safety in the U.S., he had increased “security” for Americans abroad and U.S. “dominance” in the Western Hemisphere.
He claimed to have “ended eight wars” in nations abroad, a dubious claim that Democrats in the room dismissed.
He said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will go down as “the best ever.”
Trump called Venezuela a “new friend and partner” since the U.S. deposed Maduro, from whom the U.S. has since received some 80 million barrels of oil.
“As president I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever I must,” Trump said.
He praised the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear sites in June, said the country was warned not to build new weapons capabilities, and that the U.S. is in negotiations with Iran but hasn’t heard the “secret words” that they will never have a nuclear weapon.
Trump criticized the U.S. Supreme Court — but not heavily, as some had expected.
Just days prior, the court ruled that sweeping tariffs Trump had imposed on international trading partners — a signature piece of his economic policy — were illegal.
The 6-3 decision, in which Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and both Trump-appointed justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal-leaning justices in ruling against the president, riled Trump, who said he was pleased with the three conservative justices who voted in favor of upholding his tariffs — Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas — and upset with the six others.
He said those six were “barely invited” to observe the speech. He also suggested, without evidence, that the court was under foreign influence, and not ruling in the best interests of Americans.
On Tuesday night, four justices showed up for the speech, including three who had voted against the president: Roberts, as well as Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh and the liberal-leaning Elena Kagan. Not present were Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, and the court’s two other liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Before his speech, Trump cordially shook the hands of all four justices present. During his speech, Trump said the ruling was “very unfortunate,” but that the good news was that many of the nations who had struck trade deals with the U.S. based on the tariffs would continue with those deals. The justices sat stone faced, their hands in their laps.
Trump accented his speech with several teased programs and calls on Congress to act.
He suggested that, in the future, tariffs he would impose on trading partners might replace the income tax system in the U.S.
He said his administration would begin to provide working Americans with retirement plans similar to those held by federal workers, with the government matching up to $1,000 in contributions to such plans by those Americans each year.
He alleged that Somali immigrant “pirates” have “pillaged” and “ransacked” Minnesota through fraud, that similar fraud is occurring in California and other states, and that he was launching a “war on fraud,” to be led by Vice President JD Vance.
He also called on Congress to pass a law banning states from granting commercial driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.
Shortly after, Trump asked everyone in the room to stand if they agreed with the statement that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
Republicans stood and cheered. Democrats stayed seated. Trump told the latter they should be ashamed of themselves. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who was born in Somalia, screamed “Liar,” and “You have killed Americans!”
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos, in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
Boycotts. Prebuttals. Rebuttals. Historic guests.
California members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives’ approach to President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night are as varied as their politics and their districts.
Before the speech, Sen. Adam Schiff described Trump as an out-of-control and corrupt president who has ignored pressing issues such as climate change in order to enrich himself and punish his political enemies, including by turning the U.S. Department of Justice and the rest of the federal government into a “personal fiefdom,” unbound by the law.
“From the birth of our nation, our founders were obsessed with preventing tyranny and the emergence of another king, another despot. They created checks and balances, separation of powers, an independent judiciary. They understood that the greatest threat to liberty wasn’t foreign invasion, it was the concentration of power in the hands of one person or faction,” Schiff said on the floor of the U.S. Senate. “This president has systematically dismantled these safeguards in his second term.”
Schiff is among the Democrats boycotting the speech. Other Californians include Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) and Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village).
Sen. Alex Padilla, the son of immigrants who was tackled in Los Angeles last year when he attempted to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question during the immigration raids, will deliver a Spanish-language response after Trump’s address on television and online.
California has the largest congressional delegation in the nation, so its elected officials frequently have an outsized presence in the nation’s capital. An especially memorable moment was when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) ripped up a copy of Trump’s speech after the 2020 State of the Union address.
It’s unclear whether California elected officials plan anything as dramatic tonight. But their guests are notable.
Though Garcia is not attending the speech, his guest at the event is Annie Farmer, a woman who was abused at the age of 16 by sexual predators Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), who is attending, is bringing Teresa J. Helm — another Epstein abuse survivor.
Others plan to bring constituents from their districts — Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) is bringing Ben Benoit, the Riverside County auditor-controller who is a longtime friend.
Pelosi’s guest is the Rev. Devon Jerome Crawford, senior pastor of historic Third Baptist Church of San Francisco. And some have surprise guests who will be unveiled later tonight.
WASHINGTON — As President Trump prepares to deliver his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night, the event will unfold against the backdrop of a widening Democratic protest and mounting resistance from lawmakers who are standing by to balk at the president’s remarks.
More than 30 congressional Democrats have pledged to boycott the address altogether, while others plan to attend alternative events designed to compete with the president’s messaging.
“I think we are going to hear two different States of the Union: One from the president that is going to be full of lies and then you are going to hear the truth,” California Sen. Alex Padilla, who will deliver the Democrats’ Spanish-language response, said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Democrats who plan to skip the president’s formal address to Congress have said their doing so because they do not want to give credence to Trump. Others plan to voice their opposition to Trump by inviting guests who have been affected by his agenda.
California Democrats Rep. Robert Garcia and Rep. Ro Khanna will attend alongside Annie Farmer and Haley Robson, two of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender whose trafficking crimes have dogged the Trump since he returned to office a year ago.
“I’ve invited Annie to the State of the Union so she can join other survivors and remind the President of his refusal to release all of the Epstein files,” Garcia wrote Monday in a post on X.
The Democratic opposition highlights the tense political moment that Trump is facing early in his second term, when the stakes are high for Republican as they seek to keep control of Congress ahead of the midterm elections.
Trump, who is set to begin speaking at 6 p.m. Pacific time, is expected to frame the moment as one defined by economic successes and fulfilled campaign promises particularly as it related to his administration carrying out an immigration crackdown.
Trump is expected to make an appeal to his religious base as well. He has invited Erika Kirk, the widow of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and intends to use her presence to bring attention to the “tremendous revival of faith” that has taken place since Kirk’s assassination, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X.
“The president will call on Congress to ‘firmly reject political violence against our fellow citizens’ with Charlie Kirk’s widow in the chamber,” Leavitt said.
The president’s remarks could also shed light on the president’s thinking regarding international conflicts brewing in the Middle East and in Mexico as Trump pressures its southern neighbor to curb drug trafficking.
Another potential issue that could come up in the address is the topic of tariffs, more so after the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Trup’s preferred tariffs policy was illegal and could not stand without the approval of Congress.
Trump has been adamant that he intends to impose new tariffs in different ways, and has suggested he should not need congressional approval to do so. If Trump insists on imposing new tariffs, his push will be at odds with Republican leaders.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters on Monday that it would be a “challenge to find consensus on any path forward on the tariffs, on the legislative side.”
However Trump handled the issue of tariffs would underscore the existential moment that Congress is in as it navigates the Trump administration’s second term.
In recent months, Trump’s willingness to sideline Congress in major policy decisions — whether it is trade or national security — have exposed fractures within his own party and deepened partisan divisions.
Tuesday night’s even could highlight those tensions.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has been critical of the Trump’s use of military force without congressional approval since his administration began blowing up alleged drug boats on the Caribbean Sea late last year.
As Trump says he is considering a military attack on Iran, Schiff is once again raising concerns that Trump is stoking broader conflicts abroad.
“Our allies don’t trust us. Our adversaries don’t fear us,” Schiff said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “When the next crisis comes — and it will come, and it may even be caused by this president — we will find ourselves isolated.”
Trump’s push to have the federal government assert more control over elections could also expose some fractures.
In May, at the behest of Trump, the Justice Department began demanding voter registration data from states across the country. Democrats see the move as a pretext for bogus voter fraud claims down the line, as congressional Republicans tee up new barriers to voter registration through the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.
“The Trump administration is not being shy about threatening to undermine and steal this November election,” Padilla said. “They know that their record is not just unpopular but has been so harmful to working families that their only hope to stay in power is to initiate a voter purge.”
Democrats’ concerns have been heightened by comments made by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week in which she outlined plans to station federal immigration agents at polling stations “to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders”
The US president is expected to use the primetime platform to push his agenda and bolster support before the midterms.
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WASHINGTON — President Trump will deliver his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night at a moment of unusual upheaval, confronting a cascade of crises that have left Washington unsettled and his own political standing diminished early in his second term.
When lawmakers gather to hear the president’s agenda for the year ahead, the scene is expected to reflect an undeterred president under increasing political strain.
The president is facing a partial government shutdown triggered by his administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, rising tensions over the United States’ involvement in foreign conflicts and growing domestic dissent that is fracturing the president’s political alliances and aggravating his rivals.
Adding to the turbulent atmosphere is the economic unease in an election year. The president, who a year ago promised to bring down prices for consumers, insisted Monday that America has “the greatest economy we’ve ever had” even though public polling shows economic pressures are worrying a majority of Americans.
Trump said he plans to talk about the country’s economic successes in his speech, saying “it is going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.”
Republicans have recently pushed Trump to focus on the push to lower costs, a message they see as crucial to help them keep control of Congress. What remains to be seen is how much of Trump’s economic message will be colored by a Supreme Court decision last week that struck down his use of tariffs, a key portion of his economic agenda. In recent days, the president has remained defiant on the issue, lashing out at the justices for delivering a legal setback on his tariffs, and looking to impose new global tariffs in a different way.
Trump said Monday he does not need to seek congressional approval to impose new levies, even though the nation’s highest court ruled his tariffs cannot stand without the approval of Congress.
“As president, I do not have to go back to Congress to get approval of Tariffs,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It has already been gotten, in many forms, a long time ago!”
Trump’s rebuke underscores the president’s increasingly combative posture toward both the judiciary and Congress, at a time when he is heavily relying on his executive authority to advance sweeping policies on immigration, trade and national security.
His willingness to wield executive authority has been seen in the last year as the president led U.S. forces to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, threatened to seize Greenland, considered an attack on Iran and eyed an armed conflict with drug cartels in Mexico.
At home, Trump has said he thinks the federal government should assert control over state elections as he continues to push false claims of a stolen 2020 election.
Whether that will happen remains to be seen as Republican leaders, and other conservative lawmakers, voice opposition to some of the president’s legislative pitches.
In recent months, Congress has tried to reassert its authority over the executive branch — in some cases led by small Republican defections by lawmakers who have grown concerned about the president’s involvement in foreign wars and his economic policies.
One of the most notable rebukes to Trump’s authority occurred late last year, when a bipartisan group of lawmakers secured legislation that forced the Trump administration to release investigative files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
While Trump maintains the release of those files cleared him of wrongdoing, the findings have so far ensnared key figures in Trump’s political orbit and reinforced a sense of scandal that continues to loom over his administration. Anger over the administration’s handling of the Epstein case has led to bipartisan backlash, even prompting some conservatives to call for U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to resign.
Another sign of the polarized moment Trump will face Tuesday night will be led by Democrats.
About a dozen Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives plan to boycott the president’s speech and participate in what they have dubbed the “People’s State of the Union.”
“I will not be attending the State of the Union,” U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a social media video over the weekend. “We cannot treat this as normal. This is not business as usual. I will not give him the audience he craves for the lies that he tells.”
In recent years, lawmakers who wished to disavow the president’s address would typically stand and shout in protest, disrupt the remarks or coordinate outfits to signal their opposition.
In 2020, for example, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) stood behind Trump at the podium as he delivered his remarks and then shredded a copy of his script. She later called it a “manifesto of mistruths.”
This year, even the president’s allies appear to be on notice.
While it is a long-standing custom for the Supreme Court justices to attend the president’s annual address, Trump told reporters on Friday that the six justices who voted against his tariffs policy were “barely” invited to the event.
“Three of them are invited,” he said.
Trump’s State of the Union remarks will be dissected to see how he intends to advance his agenda and to deal with a divided Congress that remains at a standstill over how to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
The partial government shutdown was triggered by partisan tensions over Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents.
At a White House event Monday, Trump lamented that public polling shows waning support for federal immigration agents.
“It just amazes me that there is not more support out there,” Trump said. “We actually have a silent support, I think it is silent.”
This is the Year of the Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac — but for the White House, it’s more like the Year of Babies.
No, not the ones in the Trump administration. Actual babies.
Parents can take advantage of a larger child tax credit. July 5 will see the launch of $1,000 stock investments funded by the Treasury Department for children born in this country during President Trump’s reign. He has mulled offering $5,000 “baby bonuses” and creating a “National Medal of Motherhood” for women who have six or more children.
All this is happening even as birthrates have plummeted in this country for decades, reaching their lowest point ever in 2024. A reduced population tends to relegate countries to economic and demographic doom — look at Japan and Russia. That’s why one of Trump’s big campaign promises was to Make America Fertile Again.
“I’ll be known as the fertilization president and that’s OK,” he boasted last spring during a women’s history event at the White House.
But even as this administration urges families to grow and single people to marry and welcome little ones into their lives, it’s persecuting children in the name of Trump’s deportation deluge.
While the president told a crowd last October, “We want more babies, to put it nicely” while announcing cheaper in vitro fertilization drugs, the New York Times found his administration was keeping an average of 175 children a day in immigration detention — a 700% increase from the end of the Biden administration.
As Vice President JD Vance bragged during a March for Life rally in January that he “practices what he preaches” by expecting a fourth child this year, 5-year-old U.S. citizen Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos was adjusting to life in Honduras along with her deported mother.
On the same day last month that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on social media, “My greatest job is being a dad to my nine kids and family will always come first,” a federal judge ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, an Ecuadorean preschooler grabbed outside his Minneapolis home along with his father in what the jurist described as a “perfidious lust for unbridled power.”
Just last week, Alaska resident Sonia Espinoza Arriaga and her sons, ages 5 and 16, were dumped in Tijuana by la migra even though the family had an active case to determine whether they qualified for asylum. And Trump’s campaign against undocumented children is just beginning on multiple fronts.
Ayaan Moledina protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they march toward the South Texas Family Residential Center on Jan. 28 in Dilley, Texas.
(Joel Angel Juarez / Getty Images)
The Supreme Court has scheduled hearings in April for Trump’s lawsuit seeking to end birthright citizenship for people born to parents who aren’t citizens or permanent residents. U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi is suing to end policies that protect immigrant children in custody.
Thousands more agents are expected to storm our streets in the coming weeks while the Department of Homeland Security spends billions of dollars to build or retrofit warehouses to stuff with the people they grab. Reports are already emerging from the South Texas Family Residential Center an hour south of San Antonio, which ICE uses to house children slated for removal from this country, of rancid food and overcrowded cells.
Trump’s apologists will claim there’s nothing racist or heartless about removing youngsters in this country illegally — or if their parents are in the U.S. without documentation — while asking citizens to have bigger families, even as the main proponents of the so-called pronatalist movement are white conservatives while nearly all of the kids la migra are booting are Latinos.
But an administration that can’t treat these children humanely shouldn’t be trusted with taking care of even American-born children. And one can’t separate Trump’s supposed pro-baby policies from what this country has historically inflicted on Latino families.
American authorities forced U.S.-born children to leave for Mexico with their parents during the Great Depression, arguing they would become a welfare burden at the expense of white children. Doctors were sterilizing Latinas without their consent in the name of population control as recently as the 1970s. Popular culture ridiculed large Latino families as backward and destined for poverty.
I grew up in a California where politicians railed against Mexican American kids like myself for supposedly overwhelming schools, parks, medical clinics and streets with our numbers. We were supposedly the ground troops in a nefarious conspiracy called Reconquista that sought to return the American Southwest to Mexico.
By the time I reached high school in the 1990s, voters began to pass laws that sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants like my father and other relatives, with a special punitive focus on their progeny. The infamous Prop. 187, which passed in 1994, would’ve banned undocumented children from attending California public schools from kindergarten to higher education. Five years later, the Anaheim Union High School District, whose schools I attended, passed a resolution seeking to sue Mexico for $50 million for educating the children of undocumented immigrants.
Board president Harald Martin — who migrated to this country from Austria as a 2-year-old — appeared on NPR to justify his actions by comparing the students he was in charge of to Tribbles, furry little aliens that starred in a famous “Star Trek” episode when they bred in such numbers that the Starship Enterprise was overwhelmed.
“They were so cute and fluffy, nice little things when there were four or five of them,” Martin said. “Then it got to the point down the road when it wasn’t so nice. They were getting in the way because there now were thousands of them on the ship.”
Martin’s example was not only wildly racist, it ignored the reality that Latinos were on the same road to assimilation as other previous immigrant groups ridiculed for their large families. While a March of Dimes study released last year shows Latinas had more children than any other ethnic group in this country as of 2023, the Latina birthrate declined by a third since 2003 — by far the largest drop of those groups.
I’ve seen this play out in my own family. I have 16 aunts and uncles who lived to adulthood and am the oldest of four children born to my parents — but my dad has just one grandchild and probably isn’t getting any more. I agree with Trump, Vance and the rest of them that children bring magic and vitality to communities — but what Latino family would want to raise a family where everything is far more expensive and the threat of deportation is never far away?
In this photo released by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Adrian Conejo Arias and his son, 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, are seen in San Antonio on Jan. 31 after being released from the Dilley detention center.
(U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro)
Fatherhood wasn’t in the cards for me, but I love being Tío Guti to my nephew and the children of my friends. That’s why my heart breaks when I hear them say that their classmates left the United States and my blood boils when I hear Vance, Trump and others urge Americans to have more kids. Trumpworld isn’t looking to increase the number of people who look like my loved ones — and that’s something that should frighten us all.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday warned countries against backing away from recently negotiated trade deals with the U.S. after the Supreme Court struck down his emergency tariffs, saying that if they did, he would hit them with much higher duties under different trade laws.
Trump, in a series of social media posts, said he also may impose license fees on trading partners as uncertainty over his next tariff moves gripped the global economy and sent stocks lower.
“Any Country that wants to ‘play games’ with the ridiculous supreme court decision, especially those that have ‘Ripped Off’ the U.S.A. for years, and even decades, will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to. BUYER BEWARE!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said that despite the court’s decision to invalidate his tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), its decision affirmed his ability to use tariffs under other legal authorities “in a much more powerful and obnoxious way, with legal certainty, than the Tariffs as initially used.”
He suggested that the U.S. could impose new license fees on trading partners but did not provide further details. A spokesperson for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump’s plans.
In Brussels, the European Parliament decided on Monday to postpone a vote on the European Union’s trade deal with the U.S. after Trump said he would impose a new temporary import duty of 15% on imports from all countries.
EU goods under the deal would face a 15% U.S. tariff, with exemptions for hundreds of food items, aircraft parts, critical minerals, pharmaceutical ingredients, and other goods, while the EU would remove duties on many imports from the U.S., including industrial goods.
Trump initially announced the temporary duty under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 at 10% but promised on Saturday to raise it to 15%, the maximum allowed under the statute. An initial 10% tariff came into effect at a minute past midnight on Tuesday, though it is unclear when the 15% rate would take effect, as Trump has only signed an executive order for the 10% tariff so far.
Wall Street stocks ended lower on Monday as renewed tariff uncertainty following the Supreme Court decision, coupled with concerns about AI-fueled disruption, unnerved investors.
The dollar weakened against the euro and the yen, reflecting market anxiety over potential trade escalation and economic uncertainty.
The path forward for Trump’s foreign trade deals remains unclear:
The U.S. Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer, said the administration expects to open new Section 301 unfair trade practices investigations on several countries, potentially paving the way for new tariffs.
Meanwhile, a group of 22 Democratic U.S. senators introduced legislation to force the Trump administration to issue refunds for all now-illegal IEEPA-based tariffs within 180 days, although the bill faces an uncertain path to a vote.
Trump also criticized the Supreme Court justices who ruled against him, including two he appointed, and expressed concern that the Court could rule against his administration in a forthcoming birthright citizenship case.
Trump’s latest moves reflect his ongoing use of tariffs as a negotiating tool and political messaging device, rather than a targeted economic strategy. By threatening higher tariffs and potential license fees, he is signaling to trading partners that backing away from deals could carry immediate financial consequences.
However, the approach carries multiple risks:
Economists suggest that while Trump’s threats may pressure trading partners, the overall economic rationale is weak, since the U.S. is not in a balance-of-payments crisis, and broad-based tariffs risk collateral damage to U.S. businesses and consumers.
In sum, Trump’s tariff strategy highlights a blend of economic pressure and political signaling, but it comes with high uncertainty and potential unintended consequences for both the U.S. and global markets.
With information from Reuters.
CAMERON, N.C. — The 21-year-old North Carolina man who drove through a gate at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort with a shotgun before he was shot and killed worked as a golf course groundskeeper and liked to sketch.
Austin Tucker Martin rarely, if ever, talked about politics, seemed afraid of guns, and came from a family of Trump supporters, according to Braeden Fields, a cousin who said the two grew up together.
“I wouldn’t believe he would do something like this. It’s mind-blowing,” Fields said. “He wouldn’t even hurt an ant. He doesn’t even know how to use a gun.”
Martin drove into the secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago early Sunday and raised a shotgun at two Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy who then opened fire “to neutralize the threat,” said Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.
Trump, who often spends weekends at the Palm Beach, Fla., resort, was at the White House at the time.
Investigators have not identified a motive. Trump faced two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign, including one just a few miles from Mar-a-Lago when a man was spotted aiming a rifle through shrubbery while Trump was golfing.
Following Sunday’s incident, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said investigators believed Martin bought his shotgun while driving to Florida. Authorities said his family had recently reported him missing.
Martin was from central North Carolina, where guns and hunting are a part of life, his cousin said. But whenever they’d go hunting or target shooting, Martin would never pick up a gun, Fields told the Associated Press on Sunday.
He lived with his mother in a modest modular house down a rutted sandy road near the town of Cameron. No one answered the door Monday, and the large police presence from the day before was gone.
Martin’s sister was killed in a car accident a few years ago, and he has an older brother who’s in the military, Fields said.
For the last three years, Martin had worked as a groundskeeper at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club.
“It’s tragic. I feel for his family,” said Kelly Miller, president of the course in nearby Southern Pines. “It’s just unfortunate what transpired. It was totally unexpected.”
Martin last year started a business to sell pen drawings he made, according to state records. A website matching the company name features illustrations of golf courses, buildings and ancient Roman architecture.
Politics didn’t seem to be among his interests, his cousin said
“We are big Trump supporters, all of us. Everybody,” Fields said, but his cousin was “real quiet, never really talked about anything.”
Breed writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Michelle L. Price in Washington, Ali Swenson in New York, Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, six frigates, three light warships, and approximately thirty fighter jets and support aircraft have entered the Middle East by order of Donald Trump who, by repeatedly touting the slogan “I have ended six/seven/eight wars,” has considered (and continues to consider) himself deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. What objective do all these tensions that the U.S. administration has generated in the region actually pursue? The weakening of Iran, or the overthrow of the incumbent government? Whatever his and his administration’s aim may be, it appears that—within the cost–benefit calculations of his trader’s mindset—he has yet to arrive at a definitive conclusion as to what kind of blow, and at what scale, could deliver the desired outcome. His recent military posturing around Iran and his increasingly threatening rhetoric against the Islamic Republic have placed him in a no-win situation whose end few can predict.
First Strike Doubt: Trump and the constellation of officials currently in the White House—who, notably, are far from unified or aligned on how to approach Iran—have reached no certainty regarding the effectiveness of a first strike against Iran or the likelihood of achieving their desired results. It is evident to all that the Islamic Republic of Iran is neither Venezuela, nor Libya, nor Syria, nor Afghanistan, nor Iraq, nor anything akin to the historical cases in which the United States has intervened militarily in the name of democracy verbally and in pursuit of its own interests operationally. This very reality has, thus far, prevented Trump from issuing the order to “open fire” on Iran up to now.
On the other side, there is no sign of the flexibility or concession sought by the United States in the behavior or rhetoric of Iranian officials—a fact acknowledged by American officials themselves. This indicates that pressure, intimidation, and threats have thus far yielded no results. The reason is clear: the Islamic Republic views any potential confrontation as an existential war and is unwilling to grant any concessions. Trump, however—who seeks to manufacture achievements out of even the smallest events and whose penchant for exaggeration is among his defining traits—perceives such circumstances as detrimental to his personal prestige and standing.
Iran’s Resilience: The experience of the Israeli attack and the hybrid war launched against Iran in June 2025, with direct assistance from the United States and indirect support from so many others, demonstrated that the instability they sought within the governing structure of the Islamic Republic and even the internal social fragmentation and rifts that had been cultivated for years through various media tools did not materialize. Despite the blows inflicted on Iran, none of the long-term strategic objectives of the United States and Israel were achieved. Likewise, the unrest and riots of January 8 and 9, despite the violence and damage they caused to the public and the state, were ultimately brought under control and culminated in a multi-million-person rally on January 12 condemning the unrest and supporting the central government of the Islamic Republic.
High costs and Persian Gulf Worries: Operationalizing a military threat would impose heavy costs on the United States and its allies. The Islamic Republic has explicitly declared that any military action against its territory, at any scale, would be regarded as all-out war, and that, consequently, the entire region—as well as U.S. interests wherever they may be—would fall within range of Iran’s retaliatory strikes. This serious warning has also prompted Persian Gulf states to mobilize their capacities to dissuade Trump from attacking Iran. The strikes on U.S. bases at Ayn al-Asad and Al-Udeid entrenched the perception that the Islamic Republic does not shy away from responding to foreign aggression, even if large segments of the world regard the attacking state as a “superpower.”
Global Energy Risks: The ignition of war in the Persian Gulf would amount to a grave threat to global energy supply routes. Roughly 30 percent of the world’s crude oil and 20 percent of liquefied natural gas are supplied by Persian Gulf countries, and 20–25 percent of global crude oil transits the Strait of Hormuz. Any aggressive action by the United States would jeopardize the security of one-fifth of the world’s fuel and profoundly affect the global economy.
Although the U.S. National Security Strategy does not place the Middle East among America’s top strategic priorities, the same document states that: “We (the United States) want to prevent an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies, and the chokepoints through which they pass while avoiding the forever wars”, which shows Persian Gulf oil is still of high importance for Washington.
Tilting Power Balance: In addition, heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf would endanger China’s economic interests, and any large-scale military confrontation would likely lead to a more pronounced military-security presence by Russia and China in the Gulf—tilting the balance in favor of America’s rivals.
The embers beneath the region’s ashes today could be ignited by the slightest breeze, engulfing a vast area. Israel, while likely the first target of Iran’s retaliatory response in the event of a U.S. attack, is nevertheless eager to initiate confrontation based on the calculation that a war waged with the full might of the United States could ultimately erode the very existence of the Islamic Republic or weaken it to the point of capitulation. In this context, it is not far-fetched to suggest that the disclosure of new documents and details concerning Trump’s links to the notorious Epstein case and his mysterious island may have been driven by the Mossad, as such revelations could compel the U.S. president to undertake an irrational action to divert attention elsewhere.
Today, Trump is acting more than ever in contradiction to his own professed principles—from trampling on his signature MAGA slogan and morphing it into MIGA (Make Israel Great Again), to undermining his administration’s efforts to reduce unnecessary international expenditures; from his paradoxical pride in having ended “eight wars” to the strategy of off-shore balancing the Middle East. Should a war of this magnitude and consequence erupt, no country involved—whether through direct action or geographic proximity—would be spared its consequences. Regarding these circumstances, it appears that the only desirable scenario for Trump, the region, and the world at large is the opening of a genuine dialogue, free from the shadow of threats, intimidation, and American bullying.
Diplomacy continues despite the significant United States military build-up.
More talks are planned for Thursday between Iran and the United States, which is mobilising its largest military force since the invasion of Iraq more than two decades ago.
Amid mixed messages from US President Donald Trump, Tehran says it wants talks, but is ready for war, too.
So, where do both sides stand?
Presenter: James Bays
Guests:
Jamal Abdi – President of the National Iranian American Council
Hassan Ahmadian – Associate professor at the University of Tehran
Richard Weitz – Senior fellow at the NATO Defense College
Published On 23 Feb 202623 Feb 2026
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WASHINGTON — A trio of Senate Democrats is calling for the government to start refunding roughly $175 billion in tariff revenues that the Supreme Court ruled were collected because of an illegal set of orders by President Trump.
Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire are unveiling a bill on Monday that would require U.S. Customs and Border Protection to issue refunds over the course of 180 days and pay interest on the refunded amount.
The measure would prioritize refunds to small businesses and encourages importers, wholesalers and large companies to pass the refunds on to their customers.
“Trump’s illegal tax scheme has already done lasting damage to American families, small businesses and manufacturers who have been hammered by wave after wave of new Trump tariffs,” said Wyden, stressing that the “crucial first step” to fixing the problem begins with “putting money back in the pockets of small businesses and manufacturers as soon as possible.”
The bill is unlikely to become law, but it reveals how Democrats are starting to apply public pressure on a Trump administration that has shown little interest in trying to return tariff revenues after the Supreme Court announced its 6-3 ruling on Friday.
Because of the ruling, going into November’s midterm elections for control of Congress, Democrats have begun telling the public that Trump illegally raised taxes and now refuses to repay the money back to the American people.
Shaheen said that repairing any of the damage caused by the tariffs in the form of higher prices starts with “President Trump refunding the illegally collected tariff taxes that Americans were forced to pay.” Markey stressed that small business tend to have ”little to no resources” and a “refund process can be extremely difficult and time consuming” for companies.
The Trump administration has asserted that its hands are tied, because any refunds should be the responsibility of further litigation in court.
That message could put Republicans on the defensive as they try to explain why the government isn’t proactively seeking to return the money. GOP lawmakers had planned to try to preserve their House and Senate majorities by running on the income tax cuts that Trump signed into law last year, saying that tax refunds this year would help families.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN on Sunday that it’s “bad framing” to raise the question of refunds because the Supreme Court ruling did not address the issue. The administration’s position is that any refunds will be decided by lawsuits winding their way through the legal system, rather than by a president who has repeatedly stressed to voters that he has the ability to act with speed and resolve.
“It is not up to the administration — it is up to the lower court,” Bessent said, stressing that rather than offer any guidance he would “wait” for a court opinion on refunds.
Trump has defended his use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose broad tariffs on almost every U.S. trading partner, saying that his ability to levy taxes on imports had helped to end military conflicts, bring in new federal revenues and apply pressure for negotiating trade frameworks.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model released estimates that the refunds would total $175 billion. That’s the equivalent of an average of $1,300 per U.S. household. But determining how to structure reimbursements would be tricky, as the costs of the tariffs flowed through the economy in the form of customers paying the taxes directly as well as importers passing along the cost either indirectly or absorbing them.
The president has previously claimed that refunds would drive up U.S. government debt and hurt the economy. On Friday, he told reporters at a briefing that the refund process could be finished after he leaves the White House.
“I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years,” Trump said, later amending his timeline by saying: “We’ll end up being in court for the next five years.”
Boak writes for the Associated Press.
United States Secret Service agents and local police shot and killed a man who drove into the secure perimeter of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Published On 23 Feb 202623 Feb 2026
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Washington, DC – President Donald Trump has long been fixated on how voting in the United States is administered, claiming without evidence that his 2020 presidential election loss was the result of malfeasance.
Fast forward more than five years, and Trump is set to be in office for one of the most consequential midterm races in recent times.
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It is unclear how the US president might involve himself in the midterms, which will determine whether his Republican Party maintains control over both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The results will decide whether Trump can continue to enact his agenda with relative ease or if he will face congressional pushback at every turn.
The Republican leader’s approach so far appears to be twofold, according to Michael Traugott, a political scientist and professor emeritus at the University of Michigan.
On one hand, Trump has embarked on a messaging campaign to cast doubt on any results that seem unfavourable.
“Part of what the Trump administration is doing is trying to create the impression of fraud and mismanagement in local elections so that they can argue eventually that some outcomes are not legitimate or real or should be discounted,” Traugott told Al Jazeera.
On the other hand, Trump also appears to be conducting a stress test of pre-existing election law, to see how much the federal government can intervene.
“There are actions that he could take or try to take, which would likely be stopped in the courts,” Traugott said.
“The behaviour in the Trump administration is to appeal, appeal, appeal, until it gets to the Supreme Court,” he added. “I imagine that would be their strategy.”
Trump has been explicit about his desire to assert more federal control over the election, saying in early February that “Republicans ought to nationalise the voting”.
He pointed to what he described as “horrible corruption on elections” in some parts of the US.
The US Constitution assigns states the power to determine the “times, places and manner” of elections for federal office.
Congress, meanwhile, has the ability to “make or alter” rules related to voting through legislation or, in extreme cases, constitutional amendments.
“It’s important to remember that, in the United States, we don’t really have national elections. We have a series of state and local elections that are held more or less on the same day,” Traugott explained.
The president, meanwhile, has no constitutional role in how elections are administered, beyond signing any legislation Congress passes.
Still, it is possible for a president to leverage executive branch agencies that interact with state election administration. Trump too has explicitly blurred the lines between federal and state power.
In the Oval Office on February 3, he told reporters, “A state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway.”
His statements were swiftly condemned by voting rights groups.
The League of Women Voters, a voting rights group founded in 1920, called Trump’s remarks a “calculated effort to dismantle the integrity of the electoral system as we know it”.
“Time and again, the President’s claims of widespread fraud have been disproven by nonpartisan election officials, the courts, and the Department of Justice,” it added.
Despite Trump’s claims, voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the US, and any isolated instances typically have little effect on election outcomes.
Even the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind the Trump-aligned Project 2025, has documented an inconsequential rate of voter fraud in its catalogue of cases running back to 1982.
An analysis from the centre-left Brookings Institution found that fraudulent votes failed to amount to one ten-thousandth of a percentage point of the ballots cast in states where elections tend to be the closest.
For example, Arizona is a perennial battleground in presidential elections, but it has seen just 36 reported cases of voter fraud since 1982, out of more than 42 million ballots cast. That put the percentage of fraud at 0.0000845, according to the analysis.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration has heaped pressure on the Department of Justice to increase its probes into alleged voter fraud.
The attorney general has demanded that 47 states and Washington, DC, a federal district, hand over their complete voter registration lists, according to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy group.
Eleven states have complied or agreed to comply. The Trump administration has launched lawsuits against the 20 others that refused.
The Department of Justice has also stepped up its cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security to identify non-citizen voters.
Some critics have even accused the Justice Department of deploying coercive tactics to fulfil its demands for state voter information.
On January 24, for instance, US Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz suggesting three “common sense solutions” to “restore the rule of law” in the state.
One of those proposals was to allow the Justice Department to “access voter rolls”.
Bondi’s remarks came after a federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota had turned deadly, resulting in two on-camera shootings of US citizens.
While her letter did not directly offer a quid pro quo – access to the rolls in exchange for ending the crackdown – critics said the message it sent was clear. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, for instance, called the letter tantamount to “blackmail”.
But four days later, on January 28, the Justice Department went even further, seizing voting records and ballots in a raid on an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia.
The state has been a sore point for Trump: Georgia voted for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in more than two decades during the 2020 race.
At the time, Trump infamously pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find more votes” following his loss. He has spread rumours about fraud in Georgia’s election system ever since.
Local officials condemned the January raid as a “flagrant constitutional violation”, saying in a lawsuit that an affidavit submitted by the FBI to obtain a search warrant relied on hypotheticals.
In other words, it failed to establish probable cause that any crime had occurred, Fulton County officials argued.
That affidavit also revealed the investigation was the direct result of a referral from Kurt Olsen, who was appointed to a White House role as Trump’s head of election security in October.
Before entering the White House, Olsen led unsuccessful legal challenges to the 2020 election results, in what Trump dubbed the “Stop the Steal” campaign.
Fulton County officials noted “multiple courts have sanctioned Olsen for his unsubstantiated, speculative claims about elections”.
The apparent role of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, in the election investigations has also raised questions.
Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid, with Trump later telling reporters that she was “working very hard on trying to keep the election safe”.
Who authorised her presence, however, was the subject of contradictory statements from the Trump administration.
Gabbard said she had been sent on behalf of Trump, even though the president attempted to distance himself from the raid. The Justice Department later said Bondi had requested Gabbard’s presence. Gabbard finally said both Trump and Bondi had asked her to attend.
Whatever the case, Traugott, the political scientist, said that her presence at the scene was highly unusual.
“The director of national intelligence has been associated with observation and information gathering from foreign countries, not from domestic entities,” Traugott explained. “So historically, this is without precedent”.
In a statement, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said he was concerned that Gabbard had exceeded the powers of her office. He said the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is vice chairman, had not been briefed on any “foreign intelligence nexus” related to the Fulton County raid.
Either Gabbard was flouting her responsibility to keep the committee informed, Warner said, or she is “injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy”.
Gabbard, who is expected to testify before the Senate committee in March, responded in early February that she had been acting under her “broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyse intelligence related to election security”.
She maintained her office would “not irresponsibly share incomplete intelligence assessments concerning foreign or other malign interference in US elections”.
But it’s not just executive agencies like the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence pushing Trump’s agenda for the midterm races.
Experts say Trump has been angling to use the Republican majorities in Congress to pass restrictive voter laws ahead of November’s election.
Trump has supported a bill, dubbed the SAVE Act, which would require citizens to provide more documentation – such as a passport or a birth certificate – when registering to vote, as well as photo identification when casting a ballot.
Rights groups have long argued that such requirements would disenfranchise some voters who lack access to such materials. As of 2023, the US State Department reported that only 48 percent of US citizens had a valid passport.
The bill would also require states to provide voter lists to the Department of Homeland Security to identify and remove non-citizens, raising concerns about voter privacy.
The legislation, which has been passed by the House, is likely to face an uphill battle in the Senate. It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote.
Even without the legislation, though, Trump has threatened to sign an executive order requiring local election organisers to require voter identification before distributing ballots.
Trump already signed a similar order last March seeking to impose new rules on elections, including voter ID requirements, reviews of electronic voting machines and restrictions on how long votes can be counted.
Nearly all of the provisions have since been blocked by federal judges. The most recent ruling by US District Judge John Chun related to restrictions like tying federal election funding to “proof of citizenship” requirements.
“In granting this relief,” Chun wrote in his decision, “the Court seeks to restore the proper balance of power among the Executive Branch, the states, and Congress envisioned by the Framers.”
epa12767533 Steel products for export are stacked at a port in Pyeongtaek, around sixty kilometers south of Seoul, South Korea, 22 February 2026. Photo by YONHAP / EPA
Feb. 22 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s industrial sector said there is no immediate change in tariff rates but warned that uncertainty has grown after U.S. President Donald Trump signaled plans to impose new global tariffs.
Trump said Friday he would raise the proposed “global tariff” rate from 10% to 15% following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down his earlier reciprocal tariffs. The 15% duties previously applied to South Korea are expected to reappear under the new global tariff framework.
Industry officials said item-specific tariffs on automobiles, steel and semiconductors have not been directly addressed in the latest announcement, leaving companies cautious about possible next steps.
Major exporters are closely monitoring developments as Washington has yet to finalize detailed tariff guidelines.
Semiconductors, one of South Korea’s top export items, are currently subject to product-specific tariff discussions but remain duty-free for now. However, companies have not ruled out the possibility that Washington could soon put semiconductor tariffs on the negotiating table or raise rates to offset revenue lost from the invalidated reciprocal tariffs.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said after attending the U.S. Trans-Pacific Dialogue that he would review the court ruling before commenting further, reflecting the cautious stance of corporate leaders.
Automobile and steel tariffs are expected to remain in place regardless of the court decision. Automobiles and auto parts currently face a 15% tariff, while steel and aluminum were hit with a 50% tariff last year. Analysts said additional increases in those sectors appear unlikely in the near term.
For food, cosmetics, home appliances and chemical products, a 15% global tariff would largely mirror the current reciprocal tariff level. If the rate were set at 10% instead, exporters could see a modest reduction compared with the existing 15% rate.
While companies say there is no immediate operational impact, executives are concerned that Trump could invoke other trade authorities to introduce new measures, further complicating trade planning.
Industry officials said businesses are preparing contingency strategies as they await clearer guidance from Washington.
— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.
Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260222010006449
SAN FRANCISCO — While united against a common political enemy in the White House, the California Democratic Party remains deeply divided over how to address the state’s affordability crisis and who is best suited to lead the state in this turbulent era of President Trump.
Those fractures revealed themselves during the party’s annual convention in California’s liberal epicenter, San Francisco, where a slate of Democrats running to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom pitched very different visions for the state.
Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and wealthy financier Tom Steyer were among the top candidates who swung left, with Porter vowing to enact free childcare and tuition-free college and Steyer backing a proposed new tax on billionaires. Both candidates also support universal healthcare.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, the newest major candidate to enter the race, hewed toward partisan middle ground, chastising leaders in Sacramento for allowing the state budget to balloon without tangible improvements to housing affordability, homelessness and public schools.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), a vociferous critic and constant target of the Trump administration, emerged from the convention with the greatest momentum after receiving the most votes for the California Democratic Party’s endorsement, with 24% of delegates backing him.
“The next governor has two jobs: one, to keep Donald Trump and ICE out of our streets and out of our lives, and two, to lower your costs on healthcare, on housing, on utilities,” Swalwell said. “Californians need a fighter and protector, and for the last 10 years, I’ve gone on offense against the worst president ever.”
Still, none of the top Democrats running for governor received the 60% vote needed to capture the endorsement, indicating just how uncertain the race remains just months away from the June primary.
Betty Yee, a former state controller and party vice chair, placed second in the endorsement vote with 17%; former U.S. Health and Human Services Sec. Xavier Becerra had 14%; and Steyer had 13%. The remaining candidates had single-digit levels of support from among the more than 2,300 delegates who cast endorsement votes.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) takes a selfie with supporters during the California Democratic Party’s annual convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Saturday.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Despite anxiety and infighting over the governor’s race, many in the party agreed that the most effective way to fight Trump is to win back control of the House in November’s midterm elections.
“We’re going to win the House. There’s absolutely no question we will win the House,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) at a Young Dems event on Friday evening. “We’re going to protect the election, we’re going to win the election, and we’re going to tell people the difference that we will make.”
Thousands of delegates, party allies and guests attended the weekend California Democratic Party convention at Moscone Center in the South of Market neighborhood. The gathering included a tribute to Pelosi as she serves her final term.
Party leaders did coalesce behind one of the Democrats running to replace Pelosi, Scott Wiener, a liberal state senator who is vying be the first openly gay person to represent San Francisco in Congress.
The convention comes as party members and leaders continue to soul search after Trump’s second election. California remains a stronghold of opposition to the president, but its next governor will also have to face a growing cost-of-living crisis in a state where utility costs keep climbing and the median single-family home price is more than double what it is nationally.
Under growing pressure, the candidates for governor went on the offensive at the party gathering. Candidates sniped at each other — though rarely by name — for being too rich, too beholden to special interests or for voting in the past in support of ICE and border wall funding.
While largely panned by delegates who tend to lean further left than the typical California Democratic voter, Mahan has jolted the race by quickly raising millions from tech industry leaders and targeting moderate voters with a message of getting the state “back to basics.”
“We are at risk of losing the trust of the people of California if we don’t hold ourselves accountable for delivering better results on public education, home building, public safety,” Mahan said. “We’re not getting the outcomes we need for the dollars we’re spending.”
Mahan has raised more than $7.3 million since entering the contest in late January, according to campaign finance disclosures of large contributions. Many of the donors are tied to the tech industry, such as Y Combinator, Doordash, Amazon and Thumbtack. Billionaire Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso has also contributed the maximum allowed to Mahan’s campaign.
Technology businessman Dennis Bress, from Newport Beach, wears a pin supporting Planned Parenthood and a Yes on Proposition 50 shirt at the California Democratic Party convention at the Moscone Center on Friday in San Francisco.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Other candidates have raised concerns about the cash infusion, particularly Steyer, who has already dropped more than $37 million into his self-funded campaign and is pitching himself as a “billionaire who will take on the billionaires.”
“Here’s the thing about big donors: If you take their money, you have to take their calls,” Steyer said during his floor speech.
Delegates and party leaders said California’s next governor will have to continue leading the state’s aggressive opposition to Trump while dealing with the issues at home.
“I think people want a fighter,” said Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine), who represents Porter’s former congressional district and has endorsed her in the governor’s race. “They want someone who’s going to stand up to Donald Trump but also fight to help average people who feel like they’re getting a raw deal in today’s America.”
Several of the candidates made the case that they could do both.
During her speech, Porter held up a whiteboard — her signature prop when grilling CEOs and Trump administration officials while she served in Congress — with “F— Trump” written on it.
“I’ll stand up to Trump and his cronies just like I did in Congress,” she said. “But this election for governor is about far more than defeating Trump.”
Porter, a law professor at UC Irvine, called on Democrats to “send a message about democracy by rejecting billionaires and corporate-backed candidates.” She also rolled out a long list of “true affordability measures” including free child care, free tuition at public universities, and single-payer healthcare, though she did not specify how she would pay for them.
Fighting back against Trump is “the floor,” said 29-year-old Gregory Hutchins, an academic labor researcher from Riverside. “We need to go higher than the floor — what can you do for the people of California? We all recognize that this is a beautiful and wonderful state, but it is very difficult to afford living here.”
Even some delegates — often the most politically active members of a party — have yet to make up their minds in the governor’s race. Nearly 9% opted not to endorse a particular candidate at the convention.
“You want that perfect candidate. You want that like, yes, this is the person,” said Sean Frame, a school labor organizer from Sacramento who is running for state Senate. “And I don’t feel like there is one candidate for me that fits all that.”
For all the focus on affordability, there were undertones of growing frustration from even reliable Democratic allies over a lack of tangible results in a state where the median home price is more than $823,000. SEIU California president David Huerta said workers have “been deferring our power to elected leadership” for too long.
“I think we need to be the ones who set the agenda and hold them accountable to that agenda,” Huerta said. “And they need to be leading from the direction of working people.”
It’s a constant battle with Democrats at state and local levels to get fair pay, said Mary Grace Barrios, who left a career in insurance to take care of her disabled adult daughter.
Barrios makes $19 an hour as an in-home caregiver to other clients in Los Angeles County. When Newsom signed a law to raise wages for most healthcare workers to $25 an hour by 2030, in-home support staff like Barrios were not included.
“It’s so important that we be given the respect and pay we need to live because we can’t live on that amount,” she said, adding that it feels like a “constant attack by people in our own party that we supported, that forgot us.”
“As citizens, you get what you vote for, right? So we have to do it. We have to make the change.”
The US president has injected new uncertainty into the global economy with a 15 percent tariff on all imports.
US President Donald Trump has announced a 15 percent across-the-board tariff on all imports.
The move comes just a day after he set tariffs at 10 percent, enraged by a Supreme Court ruling that struck down much of his tariff regime.
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Governments across the world, including those that already struck tariff deals with the United States, will be analysing the new policy.
What will the implications be for them? And how is the global economy reacting to Trump’s latest decision?
Presenter: Tom McRae
Guests:
Deborah Elms – head of trade policy, Hinrich Foundation
Rebecca Christie – senior fellow, Bruegel think tank
Garima Kapoor – deputy head of research, Elara Securities
Published On 22 Feb 202622 Feb 2026
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US President Donald Trump writes on Truth Social that a ‘great hospital boat’ is going to Greenland as he mocks its healthcare system.
Published On 22 Feb 202622 Feb 2026
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Greenland said “no thanks” to US President Donald Trump’s plan to send a hospital ship to the Arctic island after he repeatedly threatened to seize the Danish autonomous territory for “national security” reasons.
Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a post on Facebook on Sunday that Trump’s proposal to send the US medical vessel had been “noted”.
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“But we have a public healthcare system where treatment is free for citizens. It is a deliberate choice,” Nielsen said, reiterating Greenland remained open to dialogue and cooperation.
“But talk to us instead of just making more or less random outbursts on social media,” he added.
The historically strong bilateral ties after World War II between NATO allies Denmark and the United States have come under severe strain in recent months as Trump ratcheted up talk of a possible US takeover of the mineral-rich and strategically located Arctic island.
Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told Danish broadcaster DR that the population of Greenland “receives the healthcare it needs”.
“They receive it either in Greenland or, if they require specialised treatment, they receive it in Denmark,” he said. “It’s not as if there’s a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland.”
On Saturday, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social account – with an AI-generated image of the US Navy vessel the USNS Mercy – that it was on its way to Greenland to treat those being medically neglected.
“We are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there. It’s on the way!!!” Trump wrote.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his interest in the US taking control of Greenland, citing it as a way to secure US national security. However, Greenland and Europe rejected the US desire to take the Arctic island and have upheld Greenlandic sovereignty.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she was “happy to live in a country where access to healthcare is free and equal for all”.
Greenland is a place “where insurance or wealth does not determine whether one receives dignified treatment,” she added in an apparent criticism of the US healthcare system, which is not universal.
Threats to take Greenland ebbed after Trump struck a “framework” deal with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in January to ensure greater US influence.
Greenland’s PM reminded Trump of its free healthcare, after Trump said he was sending a boat to aid people who were allegedly “not being taken care of”.
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BREAKINGBREAKING,
The incident in Florida took place on Sunday when US President Donald Trump was in Washington, DC.
Published On 22 Feb 202622 Feb 2026
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The United States Secret Service says its agents have shot and killed a man who attempted to break into a secure perimeter at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The man, in his 20s, appeared to be armed with a shotgun and fuel can, according to the Secret Service’s communications chief Anthony Guglielmi. He was shot at about 1:30am Sunday morning (06:30 GMT).
Trump was in Washington, DC, not Mar-a-Lago, when the incident took place. No other individuals under Secret Service protection were present, said the agency.
Guglielmi said Secret Service agents and a deputy from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office confronted the armed individual, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, after he approached Mar-a-Lago’s north gate. The individual was pronounced dead after being shot by law enforcement officials.
“The incident, including the individual’s background, actions, potential motive and the use of force, is under investigation by the FBI, the US Secret Service and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office,” said Guglielmi.
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SAN FRANCISCO — It was speed dating: Eight suitors with less than four minutes each, pitching the woo to thousands of Democratic Party faithful.
The race for California governor has been a low-boil, late-developing affair, noteworthy mostly for its lack of a whole lot that has been noteworthy.
That changed a bit on a sunny Saturday in San Francisco, the contest assuming a smidgen of campaign heat — chanting crowds, sign-waving supporters, call-and-response from the audience — as the state party held its annual convention in this bluest of cities.
Delegates had the chance to officially endorse a party favorite, providing a major lift in a contest with the distinct lack of any obvious front-runner. But with an overstuffed field of nine major Democratic contenders — San José Mayor Matt Mahan was said to have entered the contest too late for consideration — the vote proved to be a mere formality.
No candidate came remotely close to winning the required 60% support.
That left the contestants, sans Mahan, to offer their best distillation of the whys and wherefore of their campaigns, before one of the most important and influential audiences they will face between now and the June 2 primary.
There was, unsurprisingly, a great deal of Trump-bashing and much talk of affordability, or rather, the excruciating lack of it in this priciest of states.
The candidates vied to establish their relatability, that most valuable of campaign currencies, by describing their own hardscrabble experiences.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa — the first speaker, as drawn by lot — spoke of his upbringing in a home riven by alcoholism and domestic violence. State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond described his childhood subsistence on food stamps, free school lunches and surplus government cheese.
Former state Controller Betty Yee told how she shared a bedroom with four siblings. Katie Porter, the single mom of three kids, said she knows what it’s like to push a grocery cart and fuel her minivan and watch helplessly as prices “go up and up” while dollars don’t stretch far enough.
Michele Reed of Los Angeles cheers at the state Democratic Party convention.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
When it came to lambasting Trump, the competition was equally fierce.
“His attacks on our schools, our healthcare and his politics of fear and bullying has to stop now,” Villaraigosa said.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) called him “the worst president ever” and boasted of the anti-Trump battles he’s fought in Congress and the courts. Xavier Becerra, a former California attorney general, spoke of his success suing the Trump administration.
Porter may have outdone them all, at least in the use of profanity and props, by holding up one of her famous whiteboards and urging the crowd to join her in a chant of its inscription: “F—- Trump.”
“Together,” the former Orange County congresswoman declared, “we’re going to kick Trump’s ass in November.”
Porter was also the most extravagant in her promises, pledging to deliver universal healthcare to California — a years-old Democratic ambition — free childcare, zero tuition at the state’s public universities and elimination of the state income tax for those earning less than $100,000.
Unstated was how, precisely, the cash-strapped state would pay for such a bounty.
Former Assemblyman Ian Calderon offered a more modest promise to provide free child care to families earning less than $100,000 annually and to break up PG&E, California’s largest utility, “and literally take California’s power back.” (Another improbability.)
Becerra, in short order, said he was “not running on inflated promises” but rather his record as a congressman, former attorney general and health secretary in President Biden’s cabinet.
Rachel Pickering, right, vice chair of the San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party, stands with others wearing pins supporting Democratic causes at the party’s state convention.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
It was one of several jabs that could be heard if one listened closely enough. (No candidate called out any other by name.) “You’re not going to vote for a Democrat who voted for the border wall, are you?” Thurmond demanded, a jab at Porter who supported a major funding bill that included money for Trump’s pet project.
“You’re not going to vote for a Democrat who praises ICE, are you?” Thurmond asked, a poke at Swalwell, who thanked the department for its work last year in a case of domestic terrorism.
“You’re not going to vote for a Democrat who made money off ICE detention centers,” Thurmond went on, targeting Tom Steyer and his former investment firm, which had holdings in the private prison industry.
Yee seemed to take aim at Mahan and his rich Silicon Valley backers, suggesting grassroots Democrats “will not be pushed aside by the billionaire boys club that wants to rule California.”
The barb was part of a full-on assault on the state’s monied class, which includes Steyer, who made his fortune as a hedge fund manager.
In a bit of billionaire jujitsu, he sought to turn the attack around by saying his vast wealth — which has allowed him to richly fund his political endeavors — made him immune to the blandishments of plutocrats and corporate interests.
“Here’s the thing about big donors,” Steyer said. “If you take their money, you have to take their calls. And I don’t owe them a thing. In a world where politicians serve special interests, I can’t be bought.”
There were no breakout moments Saturday. Nothing was said or done in the roughly 35 minutes the candidates devoted to themselves that seemed likely to change the dynamic or trajectory of a race that remains stubbornly ill-defined and, to an unprecedented degree in modern times, wide open.
And there was certainly no sign any of the gubernatorial candidates plan to give up, bowing to concerns their large number could divide the Democratic vote and allow a pair of Republicans to slip through and emerge from California’s top-two primary.
But for at least a little while, within the confines of San Francisco’s Moscone Center, there was a glimmer of a life in a contest that has seemed largely inert. That seemed a portent of more to come as the June primary inches ever closer.
SOCORRO, Texas — In a Texas town at the edge of the Rio Grande and a tall metal border wall, rumors swirled that federal immigration officials wanted to purchase three hulking warehouses to transform into a detention center.
As local officials scrambled to find out what was happening, a deed was filed showing the Department of Homeland Security had already inked a $122.8-million deal for the 826,000-square-foot warehouses in Socorro, a bedroom community of 40,000 people outside El Paso.
“Nobody from the federal government bothered to pick up the phone or even send us any type of correspondence letting us know what’s about to take place,” said Rudy Cruz Jr., the mayor of the predominantly Latino town of low-slung ranch homes and trailer parks, where orchards and irrigation ditches share the landscape with strip malls, truck stops, recycling plants and distribution warehouses.
Socorro is among at least 20 communities across the U.S. whose large warehouses have become stealth targets for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s $45-billion expansion of detention centers.
As public support for the agency and President Trump’s immigration crackdown sags, communities both red and blue are objecting to mass detentions and raising concerns that the facilities could strain water supplies and other services while reducing local tax revenue.
In many cases, mayors, county commissioners, governors and members of Congress learned about ICE’s ambitions only after the agency bought or leased space for detainees, leading to shock and frustration even in areas that have backed Trump.
“I just feel,” said Cruz, whose wife was born in Mexico, “that they do these things in silence so that they don’t get opposition.”
ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, has purchased at least seven warehouses in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas, signed deeds show. Other deals have been announced but not finalized, though buyers scuttled sales in eight locations.
Homeland Security objected to calling the sites warehouses, emphasizing in a statement that they would be “very well structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards.”
The process has been chaotic at times. ICE last week acknowledged that it made a “mistake” when it announced warehouse purchases in Chester, N.Y., and Roxbury, N.J. Roxbury then announced Friday that the sale there had closed.
Homeland Security has confirmed that it is looking for more detention space but hasn’t disclosed individual sites ahead of acquisitions. Some cities learned only through reporters that ICE was scouting warehouses. Others were tipped off by a spreadsheet circulating online among activists whose source is unclear.
It wasn’t until Feb. 13 that the scope of the warehouse project was confirmed, when the governor’s office in New Hampshire, where there is backlash to a planned 500-bed processing center, released an ICE document showing the agency plans to spend $38.3 billion to boost detention capacity to 92,000 beds.
Since Trump took office, the number of people detained by ICE has increased to 75,000 from 40,000, spread across more than 225 sites.
ICE could use the warehouses to consolidate and to increase capacity. The document describes a project that includes eight large-scale detention centers, capable of housing 7,000 to 10,000 detainees each, and 16 smaller regional processing centers. The document also refers to the acquisition of 10 existing “turnkey” facilities.
The project is funded through Trump’s massive tax and spending cuts law enacted last year that nearly doubled the Homeland Security budget. To build the detention centers, the Trump administration is using military contracts.
Those contracts allow for a high degree of secrecy and enable Homeland Security to move quickly without following the usual processes and safeguards, said Charles Tiefer, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Baltimore Law School.
In Socorro, the ICE-owned warehouses are so large that 4½ Walmart Supercenters could fit inside, in contrast to the remnants of the austere Spanish colonial and mission architecture that define the town.
At a recent City Council meeting, public comments stretched for hours. “I think a lot of innocent people are getting caught up in their dragnet,” said Jorge Mendoza, an El Paso County retiree whose grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico.
Many speakers invoked concerns about three recent deaths at an ICE detention facility at the nearby Ft. Bliss Army base.
Even communities that backed Trump in 2024 have been caught off-guard by ICE’s plans and have raised concerns.
In rural Pennsylvania’s Berks County, commissioner Christian Leinbach called the district attorney, the sheriff, the jail warden and the county’s head of emergency services when he first heard ICE might buy a warehouse in Upper Bern Township, three miles from his home.
No one knew anything.
A few days later, a local official in charge of land records informed him that ICE had bought the building — promoted by developers as a “state-of-the art logistics center” — for $87.4 million.
“There was absolutely no warning,” Leinbach said during a meeting in which he raised concerns that turning the warehouse into a federal facility would mean a loss of more than $800,000 in local tax money.
ICE has touted the income taxes its workers would pay, though the facilities themselves will be exempt from property taxes.
In Social Circle, Ga., which also strongly supported Trump in 2024, officials were stunned by ICE’s plans for a facility that could hold 7,500 to 10,000 people after first learning about it through a reporter.
The city, which has a population of 5,000 and worries about the infrastructure needs for such a detention center, heard from the Homeland Security Department only after the $128.6-million sale of a 1-million-square-foot warehouse was completed. Like Socorro and Berks County, Social Circle questioned whether the water and sewage system could keep up.
ICE has said it did due diligence to ensure the sites don’t overwhelm city utilities. But Social Circle said the agency’s analysis relied on a yet-to-be built sewer treatment plant.
“To be clear, the City has repeatedly communicated that it does not have the capacity or resources to accommodate this demand, and no proposal presented to date has demonstrated otherwise,” the city said in a statement.
And in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, officials sent a scathing letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after ICE without warning bought a massive warehouse in a residential area about a mile from a high school. Arizona Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes, a Democrat, raised the prospect of going to court to have the site declared a public nuisance.
Back in Socorro, people waiting to speak against the ICE facility spilled out of the City Council chambers, some standing beside murals paying tribute to the World War II-era bracero program that allowed Mexican farmworkers to be guest workers in the U.S. The program stoked Socorro’s economy and population before the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s began mass deportations aimed at people who had crossed the border illegally.
Eduardo Castillo, formerly an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, told city officials that it is intimidating but “not impossible” to challenge the federal government.
“If you don’t at least try,” he said, “you will end up with another inhumane detention facility built in your jurisdiction and under your watch.”
Hollingsworth and Lee write for the Associated Press and reported from Kansas City, Mo., and Socorro, respectively. AP writers Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.