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• Record-long speech: President Donald Trump has delivered his 2026 State of the Union, beating his own record for the longest annual address. He touted the economy, touched on Iran, Venezuela and other global 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. Read an annotated, fact-checked version of his speech here.
• Democrats respond: Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivered the Democratic response, hitting Trump on affordability and immigration.
Trump to present Medal of Freedom to hockey star
President Donald Trump said he would award the nation’s highest civilian honor to US men’s hockey Olympic gold medalist Connor Hellebuyck.
During the State of the Union address, President Donald Trump said he will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to US men’s hockey Olympic gold medalist Connor Hellebuyck, who was key to the first American men’s hockey gold medal victory since 1980.
Read Trump's annotated, fact-checked speech
The State of the Union Address was President Donald Trump’s chance to recast his unpopular mass deportation effort, explain why US warships are massing for possible military action with Iran, and stare down Supreme Court justices who last week rejected his unprecedented use of tariffs.
Read Trump’s speech as delivered, annotated with context and fact checks, here.
Dems tried to limit State of the Union disruptions. It didn’t always work
CNN’s Manu Raju describes the interplay between Democrats and President Donald Trump during his high-stakes speech.
CNN's Manu Raju describes the interplay between Democrats and President Donald Trump during his high-stakes speech.
Iran says Trump repeated "big lies" during SOTU
Iran’s foreign ministry said US President Donald Trump repeated “big lies” about Iran in his State of the Union address.
Spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei accused the White House of carrying out a “disinformation and misinformation campaign” against the country in a statement posted to X on Wednesday morning.
“Professional liars are good at creating the ‘illusion of truth’,” he wrote.
What did Trump say? In his speech, Trump said he is amassing US military assets around Iran to ensure the country does not obtain a nuclear weapon.
“They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words: We will never have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
Iran, in fact, has stated clearly it is not pursuing a nuclear bomb. On Tuesday, the country’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that Tehran “will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.”
Trump also claimed the Iranian regime had killed “it looks like 32,000 protesters.” Iran claims only 3,117 people died during the unrest, including about 200 officers.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said at least 6,490 protesters had been killed since mass demonstrations erupted in late December. CNN cannot independently verify HRANA’s figures.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed reporting.
Why many Democrats wore a white button during SOTU
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi told CNN why she wore a pin that read “Release the Files” to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins spoke to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who explained why many Democrats wore a pin that read "release the files” following President Donald Trump's State of the Union address.
Just one mention of China in Trump’s record-long speech as he prepares to meet Xi
As we watched the State of the Union from a rainy morning in Beijing, it became increasingly clear US President Donald Trump does not want to rock the boat ahead of his March 31 – April 2 trip to China.
This was a record long speech. And yet there was no section in the address about China policy. Just one aside about how Chinese and Russian military technology failed to protect Nicholas Maduro’s compound in Caracas.
Gone were any mentions of strategic competition between the world’s two superpowers.
Recent presidents usually describe how America must win the competition of ideas and technology in the 21st century, a paramount objective to stay ahead of Beijing, and a hallmark of Trump’s global trade war.
Those familiar phrases were nowhere to be found last night. Why?
It might be because Trump is now somewhat weakened in the US-China trade truce as he prepares to journey to Beijing.
Trump just had his tariff wings clipped by the US Supreme Court, and analysts widely agree Beijing now holds a much stronger hand in future trade negotiations with Washington. Beijing also continues to have a near monopoly on rare earth minerals and its huge export network remains untouched.
We all know Trump can use bellicose language towards Beijing. Who can forget the ALL CAPS posts on Truth Social, escalating tariffs into triple digits? There’s also the past Trump rhetoric emanating from the presidential lectern, of China “ripping off” the US.
We heard Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, delivering the Democratic Party rebuttal, saying that Trump continues to “bow down to China.”
From Trump? No criticism of Beijing. But it’s clear he wants a deal and a defining meeting when he sees Chinese leader Xi Jinping in just over a month.
Trump calls out Supreme Court Justices as they sit before him
President Donald Trump called out the Supreme Court Justices at the State of the Union address as they sat before him, calling their recent ruling against his tariffs “unfortunate.” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reports.
President Donald Trump called out the Supreme Court Justices at the State of the Union address on Tuesday, calling their recent ruling against his sweeping tariffs "unfortunate." CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports.
Trump’s record-long speech barely touched on foreign policy
President Donald Trump spent very little of his record-long State of the Union speech discussing international affairs.
Anyone hoping for clarity about whether the enormous American armada recently deployed across the Middle East would be used to attack Iran was left guessing.
Trump insisted he prefers diplomacy. But added he would never let Iran have a nuclear weapon – while also claiming to have obliterated Iran’s nuclear program in a bombing campaign last year.
Trump repeated another favorite exaggeration that he ended eight wars.
He did, however, make a passing reference to Europe’s deadliest war. This week marks the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Trump once famously promised to end this conflict in 24 hours. But tonight, he conceded that 25,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers die on the battlefield every month.
While Trump celebrated the daring American military operation that resulted in the capture of Venezuela’s president earlier this year, the most glaring absence in his speech was any mention of China, an economic superpower he has long criticized.
China’s leader Xi Jinping has gone toe-to-toe in a trade war with Trump.
Perhaps Trump avoided the subject because he is expected to visit Beijing sometime next month.
Last week, the Supreme Court declared Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs illegal. The US president will soon have to face the Chinese leader without the free use of his favorite foreign policy weapon.
What Rep. Ilhan Omar shouted as Trump slammed Democrats on immigration
Rep. Ilhan Omar shouted out as President Donald Trump slammed Democrats for demanding reform before funding the Department of Homeland Security.
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.
Fact check: Trump falsely claims a Charlotte killer “came in through open borders”
In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump lamented the murder of a refugee from Ukraine, Iryna Zarutska, who was killed on public transit in Charlotte.
But Trump added a false claim that the alleged killer had migrated to the US, saying Zarutska “had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal set free to kill in America – came in through open borders.”
In reality, the man charged with first-degree murder over the killing was, according to all available evidence, from the US. The Charlotte Observer has reported that the man’s Facebook page said he was born in Charlotte and attended high school there, and the newspaper has interviewed his American mother.
The Observer published its own fact check on Tuesday night noting Trump’s claim was not true.
Johnson says Democrats’ actions during State of the Union were "shameful"
Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans condemned some House Democrats’ actions on the floor during the State of the Union.
Democrats were advised by leadership to silently protest during Trump’s speech or not show up at all, aiming not to give Trump any kind of reaction. However, there were a few outbursts as the speech went on.
Rep. Al Green was escorted out of the chamber shortly after Trump’s speech began for holding a sign that read, “Black people aren’t apes!”
Johnson said he didn’t know if he would censure Green and said he would “let our colleagues decide that.”
Markwayne Mullin had a much stronger reaction to Green’s actions.
Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib both shouted at Trump during the speech when he called members of Minnesota’s Somali community “pirates,” with Omar at one point accusing Trump of killing Americans.
Johnson said both members “brought shame upon their party and among themselves.”
What did speech watchers think of Trump’s address?
CNN’s David Chalian has the instant poll numbers.
President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address drew largely positive marks from a heavily Republican audience, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS. CNN's David Chalian breaks down the results.
Fact check: Trump's two false claims about crime in Washington, DC
President Donald Trump claimed in his State of the Union address that after his takeover of law enforcement and deployment of the National Guard in Washington, DC, the capital is “now one of the safest cities in the country.”
That’s not true. Nor is his claim that the capital has “almost no crime anymore,” as a cursory glance at public data or police press releases shows; more than 1,300 crimes were reported in the last month.
Crime data expert Jeff Asher told CNN in a February email: “DC crime fell substantially in 2025 but it was not anywhere near the safest city in America.”
Of the 50 largest cities tracked by Asher’s Real-Time Crime Index, he said, “DC had the 9th highest murder rate and 12th highest violent crime rate in 2025 of the 50 largest cities in the Real-Time Crime Index.” Trump’s intervention happened in August; in the period running from August through December 2025, Asher said, “DC had the 18th highest murder rate and 17th highest violent crime rate.”
And he added that crime in the capital was “falling considerably” prior to Trump’s Guard deployment, and continued to fall after the deployment, “in a way that is hard to determine the impact of the deployment itself.”
Trump could have accurately said the capital has had some prolonged recent stretches without a murder; the Washington Post reported that it began the year with a highly unusual three-week period with no homicides. But that stretch ended January 21.
How some Democrats protested Trump's address
CNN’s Arlette Saenz reports from the National Mall, where Democratic lawmakers held a “People’s State of the Union” counter-rally during President Trump’s State of the Union address.
CNN’s Arlette Saenz reports from the National Mall, where Democratic lawmakers held a "People's State of the Union" counter-rally during President Trump’s State of the Union address.
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 recognized the widow of slain conservative activist Charlie 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, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
- Honors: Trump announced he would award Purple Hearts to two National Guardsman who 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.
- Tariffs: Trump slammed the Supreme Court’s decision against his sweeping emergency tariffs, even as he suggested his administration would quickly move past it. With four justices sitting just feet away, Trump touted what he described as a vast economic benefit from the global tariffs before lamenting the “unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court.”
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.
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 about 22% of the budget.
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.
Ilhan Omar's guest arrested for allegedly disrupting State of the Union
One of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s guests was arrested by US Capitol Police during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address for allegedly disrupting the proceeding.
The congresswoman’s office identified the guest as Aliya Rahman, a South Minneapolis resident who earlier this year addressed Democratic lawmakers about her experience with DHS and ICE agents. An earlier press release announcing Rahman as one of Omar’s guests said she was “calling for ICE to face legal accountability for their aggression against civilians.”
Rahman had been sitting in the gallery of the House chamber before she was removed. Omar’s office said she was still in custody.
A statement from Capitol Police said, “All State of the Union tickets clearly explain that demonstrating is prohibited. At approximately 10:07 p.m., a person in the House Gallery started demonstrating during tonight’s State of the Union Address. The guest was told to sit down, but refused to obey our lawful orders. It is illegal to disrupt the Congress and demonstrate in the Congressional Buildings, so 43-year-old Aliya M. Rahman of Minneapolis, MN, was arrested for D.C. Code §10-503.16 - Unlawful Conduct, Disruption of Congress.”
Omar’s office told CNN Rahman, a Bangladeshi-American software engineer, is a US citizen.
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.”
