State of the Union address: Trump to speak to Congress as dozens of Democrats plan boycott

Trump calls tariffs ruling 'unfortunate' but says administration is pursuing legal alternatives

As we expected, the president bemoaned the supreme court’s ruling that Trump exceeded his presidential authority by implementing many global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

“I used these tariffs, took in hundreds of billions of dollars, to make great deals for our country, both economically and on a national security basis, everything was working well,” Trump said. “They were ripping us so badly. You all know that. Everybody knows that, even the Democrats know it.”

The president called the supreme court’s ruling “unfortunate”, as the four justices attending today’s address sat directly in the president’s eyeline.

While Trump falsely claimed the tariffs led to “no inflation” and “tremendous growth”, he said Friday’s decision was “disappointing”.

However, the president went on to tout his new 15% global tariffs under section 122 of the Trade Act. “They’re a little more complex, but they’re actually probably better, leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before,” he said.

Trump incorrectly said that these duties won’t require congressional oversight; however, these tariffs can only last 150 days before Congress has to agree to extend them.

As expected, Trump announced new “ratepayer protection pledges” during the State of the Union address, claiming they will protect Americans from rising electricity costs driven by increased demand from AI datacenters.

“We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs,” he said. “No one’s prices will go up, and in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for communities.”

The president reportedly negotiated these plans with tech giants for them to pay for increased electricity costs in locations where new datacenters are being erected.

Amid bipartisan pressure before midterm elections later this year, Microsoft last month released a plan it said will cut consumer energy costs. Tech firm Anthropic issued a similar pledge this month.

Green groups are largely unimpressed with Trump’s “ratepayer protection pledges” plan.

“Trump’s datacenter announcement is a toothless, empty promise based on backroom deals with his own billionaire donors,” said Jesse Lee, a senior adviser at the climate advocacy non-profit Climate Power. He noted that though Trump pledged to halve utility bills within his first year back in office, they have instead gone up nationwide.

A new poll from Lee’s group and Blue Rose Research found that voters are deeply concerned about datacenters’ effect on energy consumption and energy costs. When participants were asked to pick the more concerning issue in randomly paired matchups, they selected utility costs 64% of the time and energy consumption 59% of the time.

Ari Matusiak, the CEO of pro-electrification and climate non-profit Rewiring America, said the ratepayer protection pledges are “a good start” to take on that issue, but don’t go far enough.

“They’re not enforceable, and tech companies don’t set electricity rates. Utilities and regulators do,” he said in a statement. “The way to earn trust is to make investments families can actually see and feel. That means investing not just in power plants but in people’s homes, freeing up grid capacity while helping families lower their energy bills.”

Energy demand fromdata centers in the US is expected to increase up to threefold from 2023 to 2028, and by the end of that time frame could consume enough electricity annually to power more than 28m American households, an analysis from progressive environmental group Food and Water Watch found.

Trump turns to Iran and says he will 'never allow' country to have a nuclear weapon

More than an hour and a half into his State of the Union address, the president has finally mentioned the escalating tensions with Iran, as the world awaits with baited breath the US’s next move.

“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s No 1 sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

Earlier, the president repeated his misleading and exaggerated claim that he’s “solved eight wars”. In response, Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat, shouted: “It’s a lie”.

My colleague, Joseph Gedeon, debunked this often-repeated statement from Trump earlier this year.

Fact check: Killer of Iryna Zarutska was not an immigrant

When Trump introduced the mother of Iryna Zarutska – the Ukrainian woman murdered on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina – he falsely claimed the man who stabbed her was “a hardened criminal set free to kill in America [who] came in through open borders”.

However, Decarlos Brown Jr, the man arrested for killing Zarutska, was not an immigrant. Trump has long insisted that non-citizens are responsible for violent crime throughout the US. Data shows that relative to undocumented immigrants, US-born citizens are more than twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes, and 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes.

Trump introduced Sage Blair, a Virginia teenager whom the president claimed school officials “socially transition[ed] … to a new agenda, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents”.

The president said that Sage is now living as “a proud and wonderful young woman with a full-ride scholarship to Liberty University”.

As the president continued his well-trodden rant against gender-affirming care, Democrats looked on in disapproval, while many Republicans cheered.

“These people are crazy. I’m telling you, they’re crazy,” Trump said of Democrats.

Trump attacks Democrats for not giving a standing ovation

Trump sparred with Democrats when he asked all lawmakers to stand if they agreed that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens” and restore funding to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which remains shuttered.

It was a clear opportunity to chide lawmakers on the left, while Republican lawmakers stood with gusto. “You should be ashamed of yourself for not standing up,” Trump told Democrats, as several shouted back in response. “You’ve killed Americans,” Ilhan Omar said, as the president managed to provide his first visual example of the chasm in Congress.

Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, shouts as Donald Trump delivers the first State of the Union address of his second term to a joint session of Congress in Washington DC on 24 February. Photograph: Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Reuters

Trump repeats xenophobic rant against Somali community

The president repeated his xenophobic comments that the “Somali pirates ransacked Minnesota” through “bribery, corruption and lawlessness” during his speech.

“Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the USA,” Trump added. Democratic representative Ilhan Omar from Minnesota called the president a “liar” from her seat in the audience.

Trump said that the administration’s “war on fraud” would now be led by his vice-president, JD Vance.

Reporters in the House chamber are noting that Democratic representative Lauren Underwood, of Illinois, appears to have walked out of the president’s State of the Union address.

Trump said what congressional Republicans have been wanting him to emphasize before the midterm elections: the tax cuts they enacted last year through his massive policy legislation.

The president said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act brought the “largest tax cuts” in history, which is not accurate because they’re actually the sixth-largest, according to the Tax Foundation, and this messaging does not appear to have really broken through.

Trump calls tariffs ruling 'unfortunate' but says administration is pursuing legal alternatives

As we expected, the president bemoaned the supreme court’s ruling that Trump exceeded his presidential authority by implementing many global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

“I used these tariffs, took in hundreds of billions of dollars, to make great deals for our country, both economically and on a national security basis, everything was working well,” Trump said. “They were ripping us so badly. You all know that. Everybody knows that, even the Democrats know it.”

The president called the supreme court’s ruling “unfortunate”, as the four justices attending today’s address sat directly in the president’s eyeline.

While Trump falsely claimed the tariffs led to “no inflation” and “tremendous growth”, he said Friday’s decision was “disappointing”.

However, the president went on to tout his new 15% global tariffs under section 122 of the Trade Act. “They’re a little more complex, but they’re actually probably better, leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before,” he said.

Trump incorrectly said that these duties won’t require congressional oversight; however, these tariffs can only last 150 days before Congress has to agree to extend them.

“American oil production is up by more than 600,000 barrels a day,” he said. “American natural gas production is at an all-time high because I kept my promise to drill, baby, drill.”

Since re-entering office, Trump has worked to boost fossil fuels and roll back dozens upon dozens of environmental policies and incentives. Data shows that agenda has not worked out for the fossil fuel workers Trump claims to protect, one advocate noted on social media.

“Since President Trump took office, the drive to achieve energy dominance has resulted in the loss of 15,000 mining, oil, and natural gas jobs,” Sean O’Leary, a senior researcher at the Appalachia-focused clean energy and jobs thinktank Ohio River Valley Institute, wrote on social media, citing US Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Trump boasts low gas prices despite scrapping key environmental finding

Dharna Noor

Trump touted low gas prices during his state of the union speech, saying they are “now below $2.30 a gallon in most states and in some places, $1.99 a gallon”.

But a major environmental rollback his administration enacted two weeks ago could push gas prices up.

The repeal of the endangerment finding – the legal underpinning for all greenhouse gas regulations in the US – is expected to create a rise in gas prices, as I explained in an analysis last week. That’s according to the administration’s own data. Check it out here.

Trump is spending a lot of time boasting about sports accomplishments in a way that he does at rallies. He just announced that the US men’s Olympic hockey team goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, who played a key role in their gold medal win against Canada, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

When Trump began his address, everyone in the chamber sat down except for the representative Al Green, who continued to brandish his sign – which read “Black people aren’t apes!”, a reference to the US president recently sharing a racist video depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama.

Then a man came over – perhaps from security – and senator Markwayne Mullin again approached Green menacingly.

Green decided to leave. As he walked up the aisle, clutching his walking stick and protest sign, there were some acrimonious exchanges with Republicans, a few of whom began chanting: “USA! USA!”

Green’s seat is now empty save for a handwritten cardboard sign that says: “Al Green.”

Trump welcomes US men’s Olympic hockey team into House chamber to standing ovation

Hugo Lowell

This is some extraordinary choreography organized by Trump: he introduced the US men’s Olympic team, who entered the House chamber on the steps of the press gallery.

“Here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud,” Trump said, before the Olympians appeared, raising their gold medals to raucous applause.

Members of the Olympic US men’s hockey team, who won the gold medal, cheer during the State of the Union address. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Trump says the US women’s Olympic hockey team will soon be coming to the White House. It’s unclear whether something has changed since the team earlier declined an invitation this morning citing scheduling conflicts.

Before introducing the team, Trump said: “Our country is winning again. In fact, 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 too much. We can’t take it anymore.”