President Donald Trump has has delivered the State of the Union. Now the challenge for him is to make that message stick. The president gets his first opportunity to test drive his midterm year message later this week, when he travels to Texas ahead of that state's upcoming primaries. |
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President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) |
Trump plans to take his State of the Union message on the road — eventually — By Seung Min Kim
Presidents often travel immediately after delivering the State of the Union to amplify their agenda. And while he's going later this week to Texas, where the Latino voters whose shift toward Trump in his successful 2024 reelection campaign highlighted how he had reshaped the Republican coalition, Trump is spending much of the day Wednesday in meetings at the White House, including policy sessions and a sit-down with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Senior White House officials have promised that Trump will travel the country regularly until the midterms, and just the optics of leaving Washington can help telegraph to voters that a president cares about connecting with them.
He's so far hit critical battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina on his economy tour, but he also traveled to reliably conservative Iowa and the congressional district of former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. He has boosted candidates — in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, he bantered with Republican Michael Whatley and promoted his Senate run — while sometimes veering far away from the economic points the trips are meant to promote.
Still, the themes of economic prosperity and a more secure America that Trump emphasized in his 108-minute speech Tuesday night will underpin the broader narrative that he and his fellow Republicans will seek to sell to voters this November. Read more on Trump's post-SOTU plan here. |
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. holds his wife, Cheryl Hines, during the National Governors Association dinner at the White House, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert) |
RFK Jr. fought pesticides for years. Now he’s backing their production— By Ali Swenson
— This story by Ali Swenson does a great job at tying together policy and politics by highlighting how MAHA is reacting to Trump’s pesticides executive order. FBI director invites fresh scrutiny over travels with appearance at US men’s hockey team celebration— By Eric Tucker
— Eric Tucker’s expertise covering the FBI is on display with his story looking at Director Kash Patel’s locker room appearance at the Olympics. He puts the incident in the wider context. US military builds up the largest force of warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades — By Konstantin Toropin and Ben Finley
— Pentagon reporters give a detailed look at the U.S. military build up in the Middle East, with a great way of showing all the naval firepower. |
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FACT FOCUS: A look at Trump's false and misleading claims in his State of the Union speech |
President Donald Trump walks by Supreme Court Justices as he arrives on the House floor to give his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) |
Claim: Tariff revenues are “saving our country, the kind of money we’re taking in.”
Analysis: Though Trump has imposed massive tax hikes on imports, they’re not sizable enough to make a dent in the government’s annual budget deficits. Nor have the tariffs corresponded with manufacturing job gains.
Fact: Before the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs based on an emergency declaration, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that his new taxes would raise $3 trillion over 10 years, or $300 billion annually.
That’s not enough to cover the cost of his $4.7 trillion in tax cuts, including additional interest cuts, that favored companies and the wealthy. Nor is it enough to pay down an annual budget deficit that last year was $1.78 trillion. — By Melissa Goldin and Calvin Woodward
Read more on Trump's SOTU claims. |
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AP Elections Spotlight: Texas' 34th District |
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The big picture: After redistricting designed in part to make Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez harder to defeat, a former GOP congresswoman is seeking to reclaim the seat she won in an electrifying 2022 special election but subsequently lost. Trump, meanwhile, has endorsed one of her Republican rivals in what is among the most closely watched of next week's primary elections in the state.
The former congresswoman: Mayra Flores in 2022 became the first Republican to represent the Rio Grande Valley in Congress in more than 150 years. Although that victory proved that Republicans could win over working-class Hispanic communities once politically written off — and foreshadowed Trump's own surge in the region in 2024 — the GOP appears to have moved on.
The newcomer: Trump upended the race in December when he gave a surprise endorsement to Eric Flores — unrelated to the former representative — a former federal prosecutor and Army officer who is attracting money and energy. The candidate points to his experience in a Texas National Guard unit that patrolled the border and as a federal prosecutor in McAllen. — By Jonathan J. Cooper Read more on Texas' 34th District contest here. |
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First lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump are seated in their motorcade on the South Lawn of the White House, before traveling to the Capitol where President Trump will give the State of the Union address, Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) |
Here's how Washington Chief Photographer EVAN VUCCI captured this photo at the White House: "I knew exactly where President Trump sat in the motorcade, and with the way the window was lit, I initially envisioned a clean silhouette of him inside the car as it headed to the State of the Union. But the moment the light caught the first lady’s face, I knew instantly I had the stronger image."
Explore more of what goes into Vucci's iconic photography here. |
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