Live updates: Trump to deliver State of the Union address | CNN Politics

Where things stand

• Wide-ranging, record-long speech: President Donald Trump delivered his 2026 State of the Union address tonight, beating his own record for the longest annual address. He touted the economy, touched on Iran, Venezuela and other international affairs, and took jabs at Democrats. CNN’s experts analyzed the speech as it unfolded — read their analysis here.

• Fact check: Trump is no stranger to false claims, and his speech was unsurprisingly replete with them. You can read CNN’s fact check of his speech here.

• Democrats respond: Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivered the Democratic response, hitting Trump on affordability and immigration.

These moments stood out from Trump’s State of the Union address

President Donald Trump spoke for just under 1 hour and 40 minutes, breaking his own record for the longest State of the Union address. There were some notable moments throughout his speech.

If you’re just catching up, here are the highlights from the president’s address:

- Rep. Ilhan Omar:“You have killed Americans”the Minnesota Democrat shouted after Trump criticized Democrats for demanding Immigration and Customs reforms before agreeing to fund the Department of Homeland Security. - Erika Kirk:Trump recognizedthe widow of slain conservative activistCharlie Kirk, and called on Americans to “totally reject political violence of any kind.” - Calling out Democrats:Trump urged Congress to ban insider trading — and took a jab at one of his Democratic arch rivals, formerHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi. - Honors:Trump announced he would awardPurple Hearts to two National Guardsmanwho were shot in an attack in Washington DC last year. Trump praised National Guardsman Andrew Wolfe, who was wounded in the incident, and Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, who was fatally shot.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) shouted “you have killed Americans” as President Donald Trump slammed Democrats for demanding reform before funding the Department of Homeland Security. Omar was referring to the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to the deaths of two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

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CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg, Annette Choi and Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

Johnson defends Trump's attacks on immigrants, says fraud central to GOP midterm message

House Speaker Mike Johnson defended President Donald Trump taking aim at Somali immigrants during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, explaining that “fraud” would be central to the GOP effort to maintain control of Congress.

“I think he called out the fraud. I think he called out the fraud that the American people are disgusted with, and the fact that the Democrats would not agree with that is pretty shameful,” Johnson told CNN.

Trump reiterated his unproven claim that the Somali community in Minnesota had committed an estimated $19 billion in fraud, prompting an outburst from Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali American who represents a district in Minneapolis.

“We’re going to make fraud a major theme in the midterm elections coming up, because it’s an abuse, a waste of taxpayer funds, and it’s big blue cities and blue states that have abused taxpayer dollars. I think the American people are with us on this,” Johnson continued.

He called the president’s speech a “great review” of the work Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House, have done.

“He gave a lot of examples for the American people…a little taste of what is to come in the remainder of his term and the remainder of Republicans being in control of Congress, I think we win the midterms on this record. And it was, it was fun for him to explain all that to the American people.”

Fact check: Trump's inaccurate claims about NATO

President Donald Trump repeated his claim that before he prodded NATO members to spend more on defense, the US was “paying for almost all of NATO.”

His comment in the State of the Union address was an exaggeration. NATO figures show that in 2016, the year before Trump took office the first time, US defense spending made up about 72% of total NATO defense spending; in 2024, the year before he returned to office, it was about 63%.

Both figures are big, of course, but “almost all” is a stretch” — and the US contributes a smaller percentage to NATO’s own organizational budget. Under an agreed formula, the US provided about 16% of that budget at the time Trump returned to office in 2025. When he took office in 2017, the US was contributing

of the budget.

about 22%Trump touted NATO members’ 2025 commitment to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense-related and security-related spending by 2035 — including at least 3.5% of GDP on the “core” defense requirements that were covered by the previous target of 2% of GDP — saying they agreed “to pay 5% of GDP for military defense, rather than the 2% which they weren’t paying…Now they’re paying 5 (percent) as opposed to not paying 2 (percent).”

But most NATO members are not yet meeting the new higher target, which, again, they have given themselves a decade to meet. NATO estimates show that just three members, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, were at or above 3.5% in core defense spending in 2025, though they may be joined by others in 2026.

“It’s absolutely not true that the Allies are currently ‘paying 5%’ on hard defense, and even by 2035 they’ve only committed to 3.5%, in terms of their defense budget conventionally-understood. As of mid-2025, no Ally is spending 5%, in fact not even 4.5%,” professor Erwan Lagadec of George Washington University said in January.

Senate Intel member praises Trump's message on Iran

GOP Sen. James Lankford, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised President Donald Trump’s message on Iran, telling reporters, “We’ve got hundreds of tons of diplomacy sitting off their coast right now, and the president made it very clear, I want to have a diplomatic solution, but they cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Lankford added that he would like a full committee briefing from the administration on developments in Iran, after the so-called ‘Gang of Eight’ were briefed earlier on Tuesday by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

GOP Rep. Bacon says he wished speech was "more unifying"

GOP Rep. Don Bacon told reporters that he wished President Donald Trump’s speech had been “more unifying,” and noted that he disagrees with the president’s new tariffs and will continue to vote with Democrats to block them on the House floor

“I think it was a little bit divisive at times,” he said. “Bottom line is, I wish it was more unifying. I wish — we are the best country in the world we live in, hate to see this polarization. And it was there tonight, in parts of the speech, like in the middle, it was there.”

However, the Nebraska Republican said that the speech was “much more good than bad” and praised Trump’s remarks on affordability and lowering costs for Americans. “He spent a great amount of effort talking about the economy and how the wages are climbing faster than inflation, and energy prices and gasoline. There’s a lot of good stuff there, I think he should do that more often, a lot more emphasis on how the economic indicators are going the right way.”

Bacon continued, “He should talk this way every day. This was a good speech on the affordability. An hour was spent on it, and that’s what he should be dwelling on. I think he gets, he gets diverted.”

In photos: protest scenes from the nation's capital

As President Donald Trump delivered his address Tuesday evening, a few protests sprouted within the US Capitol and around downtown Washington, DC. Democrats led counter-programming, and activists organized small protests outside the Capitol building.

Within the House Chamber, US Representatives Al Green, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Olmar and several others also spoke out in protest of Trump. Green was escorted out of the room after holding a sign up that read, “Black people aren’t apes!” at the beginning of the address – a sign that appeared meant to criticize Trump’s sharing of a racist video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

"He lied": Rep. Lauren Underwood on why she walked out of Trump's State of the Union

Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood told reporters that she walked out of the State of the Union during President Donald Trump’s remarks on health care because “he lied.”

“We’re having a health care crisis. Donald Trump took a trillion dollars out of Medicaid, $500 billion out of Medicare, and refused to extend the very popular, successful ACA tax credit, and now tens of millions of Americans can’t afford their rising premiums that have doubled or tripled, and people are losing health care coverage,” she said.

“The president was not courageous enough to stand in front of the American people and take accountability for his role in creating the crisis.”

She dismissed his praise for ‘Trump RX,’ saying “Trump RX is like, good RX, but you’re giving the Trumps your data in order to get a coupon. What are we talking about? It’s absurd.”

Underwood said she found his comments on how he has addressed IVF “so offensive,” as well. “And so I left.”

Our experts analyzed Trump's speech. Here's what they said

Fact check: Trump’s false claim on balancing the federal budget by ending fraud

President Donald Trump baselessly claimed that eliminating fraud in federal programs would balance the federal budget.

“If we’re able to find enough of that fraud, we will actually have a balanced budget overnight. It’ll go very quickly,” he said in his State of the Union address.

The annual budget deficit far exceeds the estimated amount of money the federal government loses to fraud each year.

A first-of-its-kind estimate that the federal Government Accountability Office released in 2024 found that between $233 billion to $521 billion is lost to fraud annually. But the federal budget deficit came in at just under $1.8 trillion for the most recent fiscal year, which ended in September, according to the Treasury Department – more than triple the highest estimated fraud total.

Here's the moment Rep. Green was escorted out of the chamber

Democratic Rep. Al Green was escorted out of the House chamber during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address after holding up a sign reading “Black people aren’t apes.” He was protesting Trump’s now-deleted social post of a racist video depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle.

Rep. Al Green was escorted out of the House chamber just minutes into President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address after holding up** **a sign reading “Black people aren’t apes.” Earlier this month, Trump shared and then deleted a racist video depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle.

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Padilla accuses Trump of lying about the economy, immigration and elections

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla opened his Spanish-language response to the State of the Union by accusing President Donald Trump of lying about the economy, immigration and the elections.

“We just heard Donald Trump do what he does best: lie,” said the senator, who is the son of Mexican immigrants. “He lies about the economy. He lies about his violent and out-of-control enforcement of immigration laws. And he tries to deceive us about his plans to manipulate the elections this November.”

The senator also said that economic policies show that “the state of our union does not feel strong for everyone.”

“Definitely not when armed, masked federal agents terrorize our communities, targeting people because of the color of their skin or for speaking Spanish — including immigrants with legal status and citizens,” Padilla said.

“Not when the costs of rent, food, and electricity keep rising. Not when Republicans raise our medical costs to fund tax cuts for billionaires,” he added.

Padilla closed his Spanish-language message by evoking the message of unity that Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny shared a few weeks ago during his Super Bowl halftime show: “As Bad Bunny reminded us, ‘Together, we are America.’”

Spanberger offers preview of Democrats' anti-Trump message for November

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Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger hammered President Donald Trump during her rebuttal for lacking an economic agenda and for inflating his claims on public safety — while hitting on her biggest priorities for her own party.

Spanberger — who won last year’s Virginia election on a cost-focused message — criticized the White House for failing to address spiking expenses for millions of Americans. And she fiercely attacked Trump for his administration’s ICE surge in communities like Minneapolis.

The rhetoric on law enforcement in particular is notable for Spanberger, a former CIA agent, who made a name for herself in Washington for criticizing her own party’s “defund the police” rhetoric that she believed was driving away voters.

And it’s a preview of how many national Democrats will use the White House’s contentious moves on immigration policy as a cudgel against the GOP in this year’s midterms.

Fact check: No tax on Social Security

President Donald Trump again falsely claimed that he eliminated taxes on Social Security, one of his key campaign promises in 2024.

“With the great Big, Beautiful Bill, we gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security,” he said during his State of the Union address.

The massive domestic policy package that Trump signed last summer did create an additional, temporary $6,000-per-year tax deduction for individuals age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for individuals earning $75,000 per year or more).

But as the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged, millions of Social Security recipients age 65 and older will continue to pay taxes on their benefits – and that new deduction, which expires in 2028, doesn’t apply to the Social Security recipients who are younger than 65.

Spanberger takes aim at Trump’s immigration policy in Democratic response

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger slammed President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration, accusing his administration of sending federal agents “to terrorize our communities.”

“Our president has sent poorly-trained federal agents into our cities where they have arrested and detained American citizens and people who aspire to be Americans,” she said during the Democratic response to Trump’s State of the Union address.

She accused federal agents of “sowing fear” and said that immigration under the Trump administration is “something to be fixed.”

*Remember: *White House border czar Tom Homan has announced an end to the monthslong immigration enforcement crackdown in Minnesota, in which two US citizens were killed by federal officers. But the at-times violent crackdown deepened outrage over the administration’s sweeping enforcement in multiple states. The Department of Homeland Security has previously defended its training of immigration enforcement officers.

Spanberger also took hits at other Trump administration actions, such as affordability, international relations and crime.

A live audience could be seen applauding Spanberger’s response. While aides are usually present during a State of the Union address rebuttal, it’s not typical for an audience to audibly applaud or be visible during the response.

Spanberger, in response, paints Trump as working for himself and not “working for you”

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Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger painted President Donald Trump as working for himself and not for regular Americans in her Democratic response to the State of the Union speech.

In his State of the Union speech, the president sought to shift blame — as he frequently does — for Americans’ cost-of-living concerns, accusing Democrats of fueling higher prices for everyday goods.

“Come on in”: Showman Trump punctuates SOTU with splashy moments

President Donald Trump’s roots as a reality television star shone through during his State of the Union address as he punctuated policy announcements with surprise guests, awards and other moments underscoring his understanding of what makes a good show.

During the nearly two-hour speech, Trump recognized American heroes in moments that received bipartisan support in an otherwise largely divisive address: 100-year-old Korean War veteran Royce Williams, a Navy fighter pilot, received the Medal of Honor from first lady Melania Trump.

Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover, who was involved in Trump’s operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, also received a Medal of Honor.

Trump presided over a heartwarming family reunion for Enrique Márquez, a man held political prisoner by the Maduro regime.

“Alejandra, I am pleased to inform you that not only has your uncle been released, but he’s here tonight! We brought him over to celebrate his freedom with you in person. Enrique, please come down,” Trump said, his voice raised in delight.

Trump honored US Coast Guard rescue swimmer Scott Ruskan, credited with saving 165 people during the deadly flooding in Central Texas last summer, with a Legion of Merit medal.

Trump also surprised the crowd with an appearance by the Olympic gold medal winning US men’s hockey team: “Here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud: the men’s gold medal Olympic hockey team. Come on in.”

In a dramatic entrance, the athletes arrived in the House chamber through two sets of double doors into the press gallery and received a standing ovation from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Trump later announced that goalie Connor Hellebuyck will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

DC bar serves free beer for 45 minutes, stopping when Trump said "first insult"

Penn Social, a bar about a mile from the White House, served guests free beer on Tuesday night for 45 minutes during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address after promising it would do so “until the first insult” of the speech.

Free Narragansett started flowing at 9 p.m. and it kept flowing until around 9:45 p.m., when Trump spoke of his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, and “his corrupt partners.” The moment, ****which was about 34 minutes into Trump’s speech, passed without much uproar in the venue.

There were louder cheers and points at the screen when Trump more clearly lobbed an insult aimed at Democrats later in the speech, saying: “These people are crazy.”

The “civic experiment” drew dozens of people to the event space, which had three projectors playing the State of the Union. It attracted a group on the younger side — with some up front cheering for Trump and others cheering for Democrats, like Sen. Mark Kelly, when he was shown on the screen.

One thing that united nearly everyone in the bar: Support for the US men’s Olympic hockey players, who walked out with their gold medals during the address.

Fact check: Trump’s claim he ended 8 wars

President Donald Trump repeated a familiar false claim about his role in foreign affairs in his State of the Union address: “My first 10 months, I ended eight wars.”

While Trump has played a role in resolving some conflicts (at least temporarily), the “eight” figure is a clear exaggeration.

Trump explained during the speech that his list of supposed wars settled includes a war between Egypt and Ethiopia, but that wasn’t actually a war; it is a long-running diplomatic dispute about a

on a tributary of the Nile River.

major Ethiopian dam project Trump’s list also included another supposed war that didn’t actually occur during his presidency, between Serbia and Kosovo. (He has sometimes

to have prevented the eruption of a new war between those two entities, providing few details about what he meant, but that is different than settling an actual war.)

claimed And his list included a war involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, but that war has continued despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration in 2025 – which was never signed by the leading rebel coalition doing the fighting.

Trump’s list also included an armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, where fighting temporarily erupted again in December despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration earlier in 2025.

One can debate the importance of Trump’s role in having ended the other conflicts on his list, or fairly question whether some have truly ended; for example, killing continued in Gaza after the October ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, and Trump said in the speech, “The war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level; it’s just about there.” Regardless, Trump’s “eight” figure is obviously too big.

Virginia governor is delivering the Democratic response

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger is now delivering the Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.

Spanberger, the first female chief executive of her state, is delivering the speech live from Colonial Williamsburg.

Fact check: Trump’s claim that more Americans are working today than ever

President Donald Trump repeated his regular claim that there are more people working today in the US than ever before. That’s true, but the claim needs context: the number of people working tends to rise over time because the US population tends to rise over time.

Economists say there are far better measures of the health of the labor market.

The employment-population ratio, which measures the percentage of the population that is employed, is down slightly this presidential term so far, going from 60.1% in January 2025, the month Trump returned to office, to 59.8% in January 2026.

The unemployment rate, which measures unemployment as a percentage of the labor force, has increased, going from 4.0% in January 2025 to 4.3% in January 2026. It hit a four-year high of 4.5% in November before easing.

The labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the population that is employed or actively looking for work, has been almost unchanged, ticking down 62.6% in January 2025 to 62.5% in January 2026.