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.
Updated at 21.54 EST
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Fact Check: Trump pushes misleading claims on DC crime rates
Earlier, the president said that crime in Washington DC is now “at the lowest level ever recorded” and murders in DC this January “were down close to 100%” from a year ago.
However, data from the Metropolitan police deparment (MPD) shows that homicides are down 67% compared to this time in 2025.
While violent crime in DC fell in 2025, it had started to fall in the year before Trump took office, and sent national guard troops to the nation’s capitol and federalized the MPD.
Joseph Gedeon
Former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, speaking at the State of the Swamp counter-event at the National Press Club, drew on her time inside the first Trump administration to call him a liar mid-State of the Union speech.
“He used to tell me: ‘Stephanie, if you tell them enough, they will believe it,’” she told the crowd, after his speech was turned off.
“I can tell you, he is lying right now to this country,” she added.
Grisham left the administration in 2021 and has since become one of Trump’s most outspoken critics.
Updated at 23.47 EST
Spanberger wrapped her speech in 12 minutes, ending her remarks hopeful that her success is indicative of more Democratic wins come November:
double quotation markI was the first Democrat elected in 50 years, swinging our district 17 points. Those who are stepping up now to run will win in November, because Americans, you at home, know you can demand more and that we are working to lower cost. We are working to keep our communities and our country safe, and we are working for you.
Updated at 23.47 EST
Spanberger’s gubernatorial victory last year was a bright spot for Democrats as they reckoned with Kamala Harris’s 2024 election loss.
“I won my election by 15 points, and we won 13 new seats in our state legislature because voters decided they wanted something different,” Spanberger said in her address today, telegraphing a blue wave in the upcoming midterms.
“This is happening across the country. New Jersey elected Mikey Sherrill as governor in a double-digit victory,” the Virginia governor added. “Democrats flip state legislative seats in places like Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi and Texas. The list goes on and on. Ordinary Americans are stepping up to run in the spirit of our forefathers. They are running to demand more and to do more for their neighbors and communities.”
Updated at 23.38 EST
Spanberger condemns violent immigration crackdown
Spanberger went on to admonish the Trump administration for the violent immigration crackdown throughout the country – particularly in Minnesota.
“They have sent children, a little boy in a blue bunny hat, children to far-off detention centers,” she said of Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis.
“They have killed American citizens in our streets,” the Virginia governor said of the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers. “They have done it all with their faces masked from accountability … Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed, not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities.”
Abigail Spanberger delivers the Democratic response to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. Photograph: Steve Helber/APShare
Updated at 23.37 EST
Spanberger says Trump tariffs ‘forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each’
In her opening remarks, Spanberger is homing in on how Trump’s economic policy is affecting Americans at large.
“Since this president took office last year, his reckless trade policies have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs,” Spanberger said of an estimate from congressional Democrats.
“Small businesses have suffered. Farmers have suffered, some losing entire markets every day. Americans are paying the price,” she added, while noting that Republican members of Congress “remain unwilling to assert their constitutional authority to stop him [Trump]. They’re making your life harder. They’re making your life more expensive.”
Updated at 23.36 EST
Virginia governor delivers Democratic response to Trump’s State of the Union address
Abigail Spanberger, Virginia’s Democratic governor, is now delivering the party’s response to Trump’s State of the Union address.
She kicked off her remarks focused on the economy:
double quotation markLet me ask you, the American people watching at home, three questions: is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family? Is the president working to keep Americans safe, both at home and abroad? Is the president working for you?
Updated at 23.15 EST
Fact check: Trump boasts misleading claims about US energy prices
Dharna Noor
During his State of the Union address, Trump suggested that energy prices were decreasing.
“When they see energy going down to numbers like that, they cannot believe it,” he said.
But the average household energy bill went up by 6.7% from 2024 to 2025 in the US, my colleague Oliver Milman and I found last month. That’s despite Trump’s oft-repeated promise to cut electricity costs in half within his first year back in office.
Since Trump retook the White House, utility companies have raised or sought to raise rates on American families by at least $92bn, raising bills for 112 million electric customers and 52 million gas customers, according to an analysis from liberal thinktank the Center for American Progress. The president’s attacks on clean energy expansion are also expected to increase electricity rates by up to 18% by 2035, data from power research group Energy Innovation shows.
The Trump administration has also gutted energy assistance for US families. Last year, the administration eliminated tax credits for cost-cutting home energy-efficiency upgrades. It also attempted to eliminate the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps 6 million low-income Americans with their energy bills each year; the program survived, but has been significantly hindered after the administration laid off the program’s entire staff. The cuts and a government shutdown caused unprecedented delays in the disbursement of aid.
Updated at 23.43 EST
Andrew Roth
Reporting from Washington
When it comes to foreign policy in Donald Trump’s address, the newsiest bit was the president claiming that Iran was developing missiles that could threaten the United States.
“They’ve already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas,” he said. “And they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”
Trump did not provide any more information on those weapons systems.
The president is seeking to broaden negotiations from just Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon to its ballistic missiles program and its support for overseas proxies as well.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister today reaffirmed that Tehran would only negotiate over the country’s nuclear program, leaving negotiations in something of a dead end before the next round of talks in Geneva on Thursday.
“We are in negotiations with them,” he continued. “They want to make a deal. But we haven’t heard those secret words: ‘we will never have a nuclear weapon’.”
Updated at 23.10 EST
Trump breaks record for longest State of the Union address in history
The president broke the record for the longest State of the Union address since the American Presidency Project began recording addresses in 1964.
Trump’s speech came in at 108 minutes.
Updated at 23.26 EST
Trump announces plans to limit electricity price hikes amid datacenter expansion
Dharna Noor
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.
Updated at 22.58 EST
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.
Updated at 22.54 EST
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.
Updated at 22.54 EST
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.
Updated at 22.28 EST