After former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave depositions in the House Oversight Committee’s Epstein investigation, calls have been growing for President Donald Trump to also testify, but Chairman James Comer says that he’s already cooperating.

The New York Times reported that the Clintons were questioned for a total of roughly nine hours “about their relationships with the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019, and Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime associate.”

Both Clintons “said repeatedly that they had no knowledge of any sex trafficking or sexual abuse by Mr. Epstein or Ms. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.”

CNN reported last week that the Clintons’ testimony could end up backfiring on President Trump. The news outlet asked, “isn’t there a double standard if Trump, who was mentioned in the files numerous times, is not also put under oath?”

“Some observers might wonder whether first lady Melania Trump might have similar insight” as Hillary Clinton’s “about the times her husband and Epstein moved in similar orbits before and after their marriage in 2005. While there would surely be a mighty constitutional fight over an attempt to compel testimony from a sitting president, the first lady has no formal constitutional role, and there appear to be no legal barriers to such a summons.”

Now, NewsNation reports that Chairman Comer says Trump is “turning over documents” and has answered “hundreds if not thousands” of questions regarding his committee’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein.

Comer did not appear to offer any insight into the methods by which Trump has been answering questions, nor how or what documents he has turned over.

“I’m very appreciative of the cooperation with the Trump administration,” Comer told NewsNation. “And President Trump’s answered hundreds, if not thousands, of questions about Epstein.”

Comer also said that the rich and powerful were not exempt from his committee’s investigation.

“It was always our plan to bring in rich and powerful people, anyone that had spent a lot of time with Epstein, anyone that was on the island or in the airplane just to try to learn about how Epstein was able to pull this off, any close associate,” he said.

He did not say that Trump would be brought in, but he was asked about “the knowledge that President Trump knows.”

Noting that “former presidents are now clearly on the table,” the NewsNation host asked, “so when he leaves office, will you ask the same of him?”

“We’re working with the president,” Comer said.

Appearing to sidestep the question, Comer replied that Democrats are “going to go after President Trump whether or not this Epstein investigation ever happened.”

Just one day after signaling it would stand down in its fight with law firms that refuse to yield to President Donald Trump, the administration abruptly reversed course and moved to renew its defense of the president’s executive orders.

“The administration told a court on Monday that it was abandoning its defense of executive orders targeting the firms,” The New York Times reports. “But on Tuesday, the Justice Department appeared to abruptly change its position.”

According to the Times, the situation is currently “fluid,” as the administration has not indicated what legal strategy it will now utilize, nor has the court ruled that it would allow the Department of Justice to reverse course.

The administration on Monday had asked an appeals court if it could drop its appeal after law firms had won their case in court, an apparent signal that it did not believe the executive orders could withstand scrutiny.

“But on Tuesday morning, the Justice Department appeared to have abruptly changed its position, according to the people, the Times noted. “In an email to the four firms contesting the orders, a department official apologized for the short notice and said it would file a motion to withdraw its voluntary dismissal.”

On Monday, before the administration’s reversal, the Times reported that the administration had “abandoned its attempts to impose potentially crippling executive orders against law firms that refused to capitulate to the president, walking away from its appeal of victories the firms had won against the White House.”

Calling it “the White House’s most significant acknowledgment that the executive orders cannot be successfully defended in court,” the Times reported that the “move is particularly striking given that some firms opted to reach deals in a bid to head off executive orders that President Trump’s Justice Department said it would no longer stand behind.”

The Bulwark’s Sam Stein commented on the latest development: “A reversal on the reversal as the attacks on Big Law are now back on, apparently.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday in an effort to head off a potential “revolt” from lawmakers angered by the Trump administration’s decision to attack Iran without notifying Congress — let alone without seeking its authorization — a move critics say violates the U.S. Constitution.

The House and Senate are set to vote this week on resolutions to put guardrails on President Donald Trump‘s ability to use unilateral military force, Politico reports.

Secretary Rubio on Monday said that “Congress can vote on whatever they want. But there’s no law that requires us” to obtain congressional approval before going to war.

“Look, that is fine if they want to take a war powers vote,” Rubio told reporters. “They can do that. They’ve done that. They’ve done that a bunch of times. But there’s no – people keep saying that we have – there’s no law that requires the President to have done anything with regards to this. To begin with, no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional – not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Rubio will be joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, to brief members of Congress on the President’s military actions in Iran.

Politico adds that “lawmakers on both sides are decrying a lack of details from the administration — including evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S. that would necessitate military action.”

Some prominent Democrats blasted Rubio’s claim that there is no law that requires the administration to obtain congressional approval.

“There is a law,” wrote U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). “It’s called the frickin Constitution of the United States.”

But Speaker of the House Mike Johnson pushed back on efforts to put guardrails on the President.

“The idea that we would take the ability of our commander in chief … to finish this job, is a frightening prospect to me,” he said.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump authorized massive military action against Iran. On Sunday, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, put FBI counterintelligence teams on high alert for threats to the homeland, after a Texas gunman killed two Americans and wounded 14 others in an attack the Bureau is investigating as a possible act of terrorism.

Not part of any FBI investigation will be at least a dozen staffers, including agents, who reportedly were fired last week for their roles in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump’s possibly unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return dozens of classified documents and other items from the White House, which he kept at Mar-a-Lago.

“The ouster of at least a dozen staffers from a counterintelligence unit, known as CI-12, which operates out of the Washington Field Office, was ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, according to four former officials familiar with the dismissals,” The New York Sun reported on Monday in an exclusive. “The dismissals came just days before the start of Operation Epic Fury and, separately, a deadly mass shooting at a bar in Austin, Texas, by a man reportedly wearing a sweatshirt that said, ‘Property of Allah,’ beneath which was a T-shirt that was ’emblazoned with a design similar to the Iranian flag,’ CBS News reported Monday.”

The Sun reported that the CI-12 unit “focuses on media leaks, global espionage, and international threats against America emanating from countries such as Cuba and Iran, former FBI officials tell the Sun.”

“More broadly, CI squads are the lead domestic teams for investigating insider threats and foreign intelligence activity on American soil.”

The FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, which took place on August 8, 2022, came months before Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. President Trump called the raid a “travesty of justice.”

During Trump’s first term as president, CI-12 in 2020 “assisted in monitoring potential retaliatory actions by Iranian-backed actors on American soil following a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport that killed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps major general Qasem Soleimani.” Trump ordered that operation, according to former FBI officials.

Recently, Director Patel expressed outrage after learning that the FBI, under Smith’s direction, had “secretly obtained his phone records, along with those of Trump aide and current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, as part of Mr. Smith’s investigations into Mar-a-Lago as well as into January 6.”

In a statement to Reuters, Patel said: “It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records — along with those of now-White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight.”

Hours later, the FBI dismissed the dozen staffers and agents.

The Sun noted that those “fired were also believed to have been involved in efforts to obtain phone records of Mr. Patel and Ms. Wiles, according to reports.”

The White House was forced to fire back after a prominent conservative influencer and podcaster criticized President Donald Trump‘s various and rapidly-shifting reasons for attacking Iran in a massive and ongoing military exercise that the president and defense chief have called “war.”

Matt Walsh, who hosts his right-wing podcast on The Daily Wire and has four million followers on X, on Monday expressed his confusion with the administration’s talking points.

“So far we’ve heard that although we killed the whole Iranian regime, this was not a regime change war,” he began. “And although we obliterated their nuclear program, we had to do this because of their nuclear program. And although Iran was not planning any attacks on the US, they also might have been, depending on who you ask. And although we are not fighting this war to free the Iranian people, they are now free, or might be, depending on who seizes power, and we have no idea who that will be.”

“The messaging on this thing is,” he said, “to put it mildly, confused.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to Walsh just hours later, saying that Trump on Saturday had “released a statement laying out clear objectives to the American people for Operation Epic Fury.”

According to Leavitt, they include destroying Iran’s missiles and Navy, ensuring Iran’s proxies cannot destabilize the region or the world, stopping them from making and using IEDs, guaranteeing Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, and preventing the Iranian regime from threatening America.

“Simply put,” she wrote, “the terrorist Iranian regime would not say yes to peace.”

“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has actively and intentionally facilitated the killing of Americans while chanting ‘death to America’ and funding other bloodthirsty terrorists seeking to destroy the United States and all of Western Civilization. Prior American leaders were too weak and cowardly to do anything about it. Now, President Donald J. Trump is correcting decades of cowardice and holding those responsible for the deaths of Americans accountable.”

But Politico’s White House bureau chief Dasha Burns noted that Walsh “is among many right wing voices questioning the administration’s actions in Iran.”

“I have heard repeated warnings from Republican sources that the WH needs to do more to get MAGA on side,” she added.

Sean Davis, co-founder of the right-wing website The Federalist, reposted Walsh’s remarks and shared similar ones of his own.

“Is the goal to eliminate the Iranian regime or free the Iranian people or degrade their nuclear capability or degrade the conventional weapons capability or eliminate their regional hegemony or to cut off their oil supply to China or to help Israel or what?” Davis asked. “The lack of any coherent message seems to suggest the lack of any coherent objective.”

Former Trump ally and former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who months ago broke with Trump, wrote: “And just like that we are no longer a nation divided by left and right, we are now a nation divided be those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance.”

Editor’ Note: This story has been updated.

While making his first remarks to the nation from the White House about his military attack on Iran that began on Saturday, President Donald Trump came under fire for taking time to discuss his $400 million ballroom and drapes.

“We have a lot of great service members here with us, too, in this beautiful building, isn’t it? Beautiful?” Trump told the audience. “We’re adding on to the building a little bit. We’re improving the building. See that nice drape?”

“When that comes down, right now, you see a very, very deep hole, but in about a year and a half from now, you’re gonna see a very, very beautiful building. And there’s your entrance to it, right there. In fact, it looks so nice, I don’t think I’ll even, I think I’ll save money on the doors, ’cause it can’t get more beautiful than that.”

“I picked those drapes in my first term. I always liked gold, but I think we can save a lot of money. I just saved… I just saved curtains. But, uh, it will be. It will be spectacular. It’ll be the most beautiful ballroom,” he said.

Critics blasted the president’s remarks.

“American troops are dead and Trump is on TV talking about the drapes…” remarked The Lincoln Project.

“Trump just explained about the attack on Iran that ‘I don’t get bored. There’s nothing boring about this.’ Despite that, he is now talking at some length about gold drapes and ‘the most beautiful ballroom,'” commented columnist Niall Stanage.

“In a war that’s already killed four Americans, Trump says it could last beyond 4-5 weeks because he doesn’t get ‘bored,'” observed Scripps News’ Simon Kaufman. “Moments later, he moves on from Iran and talks about ballroom renovations and drapes.”

“Trump demonstrating his mental disfigurement by bragging about his ballroom and chuckling immediately after claiming that ‘we grieve’ for 4 US soldiers killed in the war he just initiated,” wrote journalist John Harwood. “Trump does not possess empathy and does not grieve for any other person’s misfortune.”

Noting that the president sounded “exhausted and not good,” foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen observed “the difference” in Trump’s “demeanor and affect when talking about the war and then the ballroom is so different.” She also said that “it is evident the war is becoming more of a s — — than he expected.”

“It’s worth noting that Trump is putting infinitely more effort into selling his ballroom to the American people than anyone in his administration is on selling the attack on Iran,” wrote conspiracy theories expert Mike Rothschild.

“Trump started an unnecessary war in the Middle East with no real strategy, there’s already American military loss of life and this guy is obsessing over the damn drapes and his $400 million gilded ballroom project,” remarked former political commentator Tara Setmayer. “How is this making America great????”

“Bragging about his ‘beautiful ballroom’ while he’s supposed to be explaining the somber decision to go to war,” wrote The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser. “It’s one of the most politically tone deaf things I’ve ever seen from a POTUS, including this one…”

Gas prices could surge this week as President Donald Trump’s military action in Iran and a seasonal jump in driving combine to push pump prices sharply higher.

According to Patrick De Haan, the head of Petroleum Analysis at GasBuddy, gas prices are expected to start climbing on Monday. Over the coming week, De Haan expects the price of gas at the average station to rise 10–30 cents per gallon, but “potentially 30–85 cents per gallon jumps at individual stations.”

If things go “bad at every turn,” De Haan said, consumers could potentially see prices rising by even more than 50 cents per gallon, MarketWatch reports.

MarketWatch adds that there is “little doubt that the military strikes launched this weekend by the U.S. and Israel on Iran, one of the world’s largest crude producers, will lead to a spike in oil prices” — and that the bigger question is how hard that will hit American drivers at the pump.

De Haan notes that Trump’s military action in Iran “is adding volatility and risk premium, but it’s landing on top of an already firming market.”

He says that gas prices have been rising for four straight weeks, and 36 states saw average gas prices “rising over the last week “with the national average up to $2.94/gal.”

Citing De Haan, MarketWatch adds that without a doubt, “the Iran attack looks to be the biggest pricing event for gasoline since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.”

“Americans will be very anxious about what the conflict could mean for oil prices, given how President Donald Trump made low oil prices his ‘signature policy,’ De Haan said.”

President Donald Trump has communicated to the American people through multiple channels about the objectives of his “Operation Epic Fury” — the large-scale military campaign now underway against Iran — though critics contend those objectives continue to shift.

According to The Economist's Middle East correspondent Gregg Carlstrom, "Trump is basically calling up every journalist in his phone to workshop different timelines and goals for his war."

Overnight, Carlstrom wrote that in the past two days, Trump told several different media outlets about various goals for the war.

He told The Washington Post that the aim is "freedom for the people" of Iran, Carlstrom wrote.

Trump told Axios that maybe we can "end it in two or three days" with a deal.

He told The New York Times that it might be "four to five weeks," and said that he has "three very good choices" for who might take control in Iran.

But then, Carlstrom wrote, Trump told ABC News, "actually, nevermind, we killed those choices."

"He doesn't sound convinced by any of it," said Carlstrom. "He's throwing spaghetti at the wall. Ultimately I suspect he just wants to say he 'solved' a problem that has vexed every American president since Jimmy Carter."

"But there's no clear idea what that looks like and no plan for how to get there. And there are plenty of possible scenarios in which Trump declares victory and leaves the region with an absolute mess," he warned.

Others appeared to agree.

New York Times conservative columnist David French, an Iraq War veteran, responded to Carlstrom, saying: "This is an absolute mess."

Historian Timo R. Stewart wrote: "Throwing spaghetti at the wall is an apt summary of the White House's chaotic messaging related to the war that has just begun."

Journalist Alan Friedman added, "No one ever accused the Trump administration of having a clear strategy on matters of tariffs, trade wars, invasions, kidnappings, threats against Greenland or his new war of choice against Iran. He is making it up as he goes along, folks. Hard to believe, but this is improv."

National security expert Marc Polymeropoulos wrote, "I’m sure someone will say this is deliberate deception, part of his brilliance…."

Legal and voting rights experts are sounding the alarm after a Washington Post bombshell report revealed that President Donald Trump — who has been insisting on federalizing voting and has issued an executive order to pressure states to require proof of citizenship for voter registration — is now being urged by activists to sign an executive order declaring a voting "emergency."

The proposed 17-page order would "unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting,” the Post reported, noting that the proposal "claims China interfered in the 2020 election" which would be the "basis to declare a national emergency."

Former Trump national security official Miles Taylor warned that the "biggest electoral crime in American history might be unfolding."

"The president cannot seize control of state-run elections by declaring a fake 'emergency.' There’s no statute that permits it," wrote Fair Fight Action communications director Max Flugrath. "Reviving debunked conspiracy theories to force changes before a major election is what politicians do when they believe they’re going to lose."

Flugrath added that the Post's reporting follows up on an October New York Times investigation which found "that Trump officials discussed a fake 'national emergency' to force new election rules on states. A DHS official said it could allow Trump to 'go around Congress' and take over elections."

“What a gift such a clearly unconstitutional executive order would be!" election security expert David Becker told CBS News' Scott MacFarlane. "Though divorced from legal and factual reality, it would enable the courts to invalidate this power grab well in advance of the election, and confirm the clear limits to fed'l interference in elections."

Prominent elections attorney Marc Elias wrote, "My team and I have been anticipating this for months. It is unconstitutional and illegal. The media should note: Last time he issued an EO about voting, we sued and won. If Trump issues such an order we will sue again and we will win again."

"Far right voices in Colorado," journalist Kyle Clark noted, "have long called for this step as a prelude to military tribunals and mass executions."

U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said, that there is "no national emergency exception" to Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.

"States regulate elections unless Congress passes law," he added, stating that is why Trump "desperately" wants to pass the SAVE Act, "to suppress voting."

The NAACP called the proposed executive order a "dangerous proposal," and "a direct assault on our democracy."

Former WBZ-TV anchor Liam Martin commented, "I tend to think even this SCOTUS would block an attempt to federalize elections. But what Trump and his team are doing is setting the stage to declare the midterms void and refuse to seat the new members. What do we do then?"

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer appears to be changing his tune on Howard Lutnick, now suggesting that it is "very possible" he might subpoena him after the Trump Commerce Secretary allegedly lied before Congress about the extent of his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Just two weeks ago, MS NOW reported that Chairman Comer had dodged questions about subpoenaing Lutnick.

Asked at the time if his committee had any plans to subpoena the Commerce Secretary, Comer instead replied, "Well, we're going to try to get these five [witnesses] nailed down. We've got a lot of very important people we're trying to bring in to answer questions."

On Thursday, the question came up again, and Comer offered reporters a different perspective.

Asked if "in the spirit of bipartisanship" he would request Lutnick testify, Comer replied it was "very possible, and I think it's a good possibility his name will arise on some questioning today" as the Committee deposes former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said Lutnick was on her list to talk about with Clinton.

According to The Independent, Comer's "suggestion that Lutnick could soon be facing a congressional subpoena comes after weeks of increased scrutiny of his relationship with Epstein, his onetime next-door neighbor in New York, after documents released by the Justice Department showed that he’d lied during an interview with the New York Post in October."

Lutnick had "claimed to have cut off contact with Epstein after a 2005 encounter that he claimed had left him so unsettled that he’d vowed to 'never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.'"

Documents from the Epstein files showed that Lutnick had continued to maintain a relationship with Epstein as recently as 2018 — "long after" Epstein had "spent time in jail for state-level offenses related to his preying on young girls," The Independent reported.

Q: “Would you ask the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to come testify?”
Rep. Comer: “That’s very possible, I think it’s a good possibility that his name will arise in some questioning today.” pic.twitter.com/BF6YXBo2oa
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) February 26, 2026

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that President Donald Trump‘s sweeping global tariffs were unlawful, administration officials are strategizing ways to keep at least some of the $133 billion already collected — even after the Trump Justice Department told the courts the funds would be paid back, plus interest, if he lost the case.

“Early ideas include policies to discourage companies from claiming their refunds, prevent the government from paying the money back or otherwise preserve at least some of the tariff revenue, according to five people familiar with the conversations, granted anonymity to discuss them,” according to Politico.

Another idea would be to claim that the funds are now lawfully held, after the administration announced its would use alternate legal vehicles to support collecting the tariffs going forward.

Yet another possible plan would be to allow companies that agree to forfeit a portion of the funds to obtain faster refunds.

“Trump is trying to paint a blurry picture that the courts haven’t decided what to do with the money,” one of the people familiar with the strategies told Politico. They added that the normal refund process takes about two-and-a-half years, which would give the Trump administration “two years before there’s real question marks that they’re being insincere in returning that money.”

Should the Trump administration attempt to slow-walk refunds, Politico reports, its attempts would be challenged in the courts — and challenged by Democrats who see the refunds as a winning issue in a consequential political year.

“Trade lawyers and customs experts are skeptical that any mechanism the administration devises would hold up in court,” Politico noted. Judges at the Court of International Trade “are likely to scrutinize any effort that appears designed to sidestep repayment.”

“Obviously courts will not like it if the government not only doesn’t honor its word, but then makes everybody file a lawsuit to get the refund,” said Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer for one of the companies that sued the Trump administration over the tariffs.

“What is fair in this case is the people that were harmed get the money back because that money was illegal,” Schwab told Yahoo Finance. “That money that they were charged was illegal.”

The billionaire head of a Berlin-based global mass media behemoth that owns influential outlets including Politico, reportedly met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles on Wednesday.

Mathias Döpfner serves as chairman and CEO of Axel Springer SE, a publishing group that operates in dozens of countries and counts U.S. private equity firm KKR — co‑founded by Republican donor Henry Kravis — among its principal owners. According to Forbes, Kravis gave one million dollars to Donald Trump's 2017 inauguration committee.

In the U.S., Axel Springer also publishes Business Insider and Morning Brew.

New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin reported that Wiles met with Döpfner in, according to a source, "an introductory, get-to-know-you meeting."

The meeting comes just one day after President Donald Trump delivered his controversial State of the Union address and less than nine months before the midterm elections.

Döpfner sent an email to his top executives before the 2020 election, asking if they would like to join him to pray for the re-election of Donald Trump, according to reports. The email came one year before Axel Springer sealed the deal to purchase Politico.

“Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?” Döpfner wrote in the email, The Daily Beast reported, citing an article in The Washington Post.

“No American administration in the last 50 years has done more,” Döpfner added.

“When asked about the message,” The Daily Beast reported, “Döpfner initially denied it existed, going so far as to say: ‘It has never been sent and has never been even imagined.’ When confronted with a printout of the email, he explained that he may have sent it ‘as an ironic, provocative statement in the circle of people that hate Donald Trump.’ ‘That is me,’ he added. ‘That could be.'”

In a 2022 analysis titled "The Scandalous History of America’s Newest Media Baron," Foreign Policy reported: “The new owner of Politico, Axel Springer, has a decades-long record of bending journalistic ethics for right-wing causes.”

President Donald Trump was confronted with a sign held by a Democratic congressman that read, "Black People Aren't Apes," as he entered the chamber and began to deliver his State of the Union address.

U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) held up the sign before House Majority Leader Steve Scalise tried to remove it from him. Minutes later, as the president was speaking, Green was reportedly removed from the chamber.

Rep. Al Green brought a sign: “Black people aren’t apes.” #StateOfTheUnion pic.twitter.com/wcDq5cIwl0
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) February 25, 2026

The sign apparently referred to video President Trump posted to his Truth Social account that included a meme of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama depicted as apes. The video received widespread bipartisan condemnation before Trump removed it. He refused to apologize for it.

Here is Rep. Al Green holding up a sign that according to CNN's Manu Raju said "Black people are not apes” before Steve Scalise pulled it down pic.twitter.com/chrxydRYIw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026

Republicans in Congress are so divided they may not be able to pass legislation to further President Donald Trump's and the Republican Party's agenda — namely, a budget reconciliation bill that builds on Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

GOP lawmakers are attempting to stuff a legislative package with a wide variety of goals, including health care reform, tax cuts for the working class, voting legislation, and methods to reduce the deficit.

According to The Hill, "none of those legislative goals has the same support across the Senate and House GOP conferences that tax reform and major defense and homeland security spending initiatives had last year."

A massive budget reconciliation bill does not appear to appeal to the president.

"It’s a tacit recognition that Trump is unlikely to muster the near-unanimous votes he needs to pass major partisan bills through Congress at a time when the federal debt has ballooned to nearly $39 trillion and Republicans up for reelection in swing states are worried about facing Democratic attack ads in the fall," The Hill noted.

“It doesn’t seem to me that there’s a plan for a second reconciliation bill and I don’t know how you could do one in the House,” a Republican senator, referring to the GOP House's razor-thin majority, told The Hill. “The president says it’s not a good idea. At the moment, I don’t see reconciliation as a likely aspect of the remaining months this year.”

Some Republicans in the Senate appear to be ignoring the odds and are pushing forward — they just can't agree on what they want to include in the legislative package.

“I don’t care how we do it but we’ve got to get health care costs down. The best way to do it is get the consumer involved,” said U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who wants to funnel taxpayer dollars into individual health savings accounts called Trump Health Freedom Accounts.

“I believe that we can do this. We’re going to be up here the rest of the year. We got to get some things done,” Scott added. “The American public demands that we accomplish some things.”

U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) wants to go in a different direction — finding funding to restore the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies that Republicans let lapse in the fall against Democratic support for the programs.

“I do want them addressed. I’m very concerned that people are losing their insurance, they simply can’t afford it. We do need to reform the whole health care system and bring down the costs,” Collins said.

It may all come down to process.

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune "doesn’t want to risk a protracted negotiation over a budget reconciliation bill only to have it blow up on the Senate floor — an embarrassment that befell the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act during the first year of Trump’s first term in 2017."

Several top Democrats are sounding the alarm after the Gang of Eight met this afternoon behind closed doors with top administration officials in a meeting rumored to focus on President Donald Trump's intentions for war against Iran — just hours before the State of the Union address.

Trump has been amassing in the Middle East one of the largest collections of military assets since the 2003 Iraq War, and has warned Iran to stop its nuclear program, saying “bad things” or a “very bad day” will follow if Tehran does not agree to a deal.

“I'm very concerned," U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) said after exiting the Gang of Eight intelligence briefing, according to foreign policy reporter Laura Rozen. The Gang of Eight is a small group of top congressional leaders who are entrusted with some of the nation’s most sensitive classified intelligence briefings.

"Wars in the Middle East don't go well for presidents, for the country, and we have not heard articulated a single good reason for why now is the moment to launch yet another war in the Middle East,” Himes, the Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee, added.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed the eight members at the White House, CBS Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Margaret Brennan reported. CIA Director John Ratcliffe was also reportedly in attendance.

Senate Intelligence Democratic Vice Chairman Mark Warner told reporters, "this is an extraordinary serious time, serious moment in the Middle East, serious moment for America," according to News Nation's Kellie Meyer.

He also called on Trump to make the case for "what our country's goals are, what our country's interests are and how we're going to protect American interests in the region."

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer commented, "This is serious, and the administration has to make its case to the American people."

Ominous words from Sen. Schumer after the Gang of 8 briefing on Iran pic.twitter.com/VTiSSBaDK2
— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) February 24, 2026

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has permanently blocked the release of former Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on President Donald Trump's alleged removal, retention, and refusal to return classified documents.

Politico's Kyle Cheney reported the news.

In a fifteen-page order, Judge Cannon restated that she had found the appointment of Special Counsel Smith was unlawful and therefore any "actions that flowed" from the appointment were "unlawful exercises of executive power."

Cannon wrote that Attorney General Pam Bondi or her successors or any other Department of Justice officials are prohibited from releasing or sharing the report, known as Volume II, anywhere outside the DOJ.

She also wrote that she agrees that releasing the report would be unfair to President Donald Trump and his former co-defendants, Cheney reported.

Cannon wrote that releasing it "would cause irreparable damage to former defendants" and "it would contravene basic notions of fairness and justice in the process, where no adjudication of guilt has been reached following initiation of criminal charges."

Judge Cannon last month had temporarily blocked the release of the report, ABC News reported at the time.

President Donald Trump's Friday got off to a rough start as three critical components of his economic agenda collapsed.

A major economic indicator, gross domestic product (GDP), slowed significantly, dropping to just 1.4% annually as inflation rose. And the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the legal basis for the president’s sweeping global tariffs, ruling that his use of that authority was unlawful.

"U.S. growth slowed more than expected near the end of 2025 as the government shutdown impacted spending and investment, while a key inflation metric showed high prices are still a factor for the economy, according to data released Friday," CNBC reported.

GDP was expected to come in at 2.5%, experts predicted.

For 2025, the president delivered GDP far softer than his predecessor, President Joe Biden, did in 2024.

"For the full year in 2025, the U.S. economy grew at a 2.2% pace, down from the 2.8% increase in 2024," CNBC noted.

Trump and his administration had been aiming for 3% to 4% growth.

"Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in December, "said that it’s been a 'very strong' holiday season for the economy and predicted that the U.S. would end the year at 3% real GDP," CNBC reported at the time.

Meanwhile, inflation "held firm in December, according to a gauge most closely watched by Fed officials that increased 3% from a year ago," CNBC added, meaning that overall prices are three percent higher than they were one year ago.

But for Trump, perhaps the most devastating news came from the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 6–3 majority, said Trump had acted outside his authority by unilaterally imposing global tariffs without congressional approval.

Critics were quick to weigh in.

"The 'Trump economy' is a story of lost jobs, and higher prices, caused by greed, corruption and incompetence," noted professor and investor Adam Cochran.

"It's hard to imagine a ruling that cuts more deeply to the heart of Trump's identity in public life," Politico's Kyle Cheney wrote, "he has linked his presidency to the ability to use tariffs as a deal-making cudgel and bend other global powers to his will."

Aaron Fritschner, Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) wrote simply, "He’s gonna be big mad."

A former Bush Justice Department official is warning President Donald Trump against smearing the U.S. Supreme Court after the justices delivered a highly anticipated ruling that struck down the legal foundation of his sweeping global tariffs — a major setback for his economic agenda.

“It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think,” the president said on Friday, as the Guardian reported. Trump said he was "ashamed" of the six justices who sided with the majority opinion. "Absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”

“They’re just being fools and lapdogs for the Rinos [Republicans in name only] and the radical left Democrats, and not that they should have anything at all to do with it,” Trump added. “They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our constitution.”

John Yoo, the prominent Bush administration Deputy Assistant Attorney General known for writing what have been called the "torture memos," appeared on Fox News on Friday and warned the president.

"I think President Trump would be wise to no longer call the justices somehow tools of foreign influence," he said, reminding him that the Roberts Supreme Court has been giving him "a number of wins."

Yoo also noted that, had he been at the DOJ under President Trump, he would have been "shuddering" when he heard him speak about the court as he did, "because President Trump has got a number of other big cases pending at the court, like whether it can fire the heads of independent commissions, whether it can fire a governor of the Federal Reserve Board, whether redistricting can go on."

Even Fox News is telling Trump to pump the brakes on accusing SCOTUS of being controlled by foreign actors, reminding him he has other "big cases" before the court.
John Yoo: "I think President Trump would be wise to no longer call the justices somehow tools of foreign influence."
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— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) February 20, 2026 at 2:31 PM

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent delivered an alternative interpretation of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on Friday that struck down the legal basis for the president’s sweeping global tariffs, which the justices ruled was an unlawful use of executive authority.

“President Trump will always put our national security and Americans first," Bessent told the Economic Club of Dallas, as Mediaite reported.

"Let’s be clear about what today’s ruling was and what it wasn’t. Despite the misplaced gloating from Democrats, ill-informed media outlets, and the very people who gutted our industrial base — the court did not rule against President Trump’s tariffs," Bessent insisted.

Rather, he continued, the six justices "simply ruled that IEEPA authorities cannot be used to raise even $1 of revenue.”

He vowed that the Trump administration would "invoke alternative legal authorities" to replace the vehicle used to collect tariffs, which he said would be "virtually" equal to the level that was previously being collected.

The Secretary, commenting on whether consumers will get refunds from the approximately $175 billion in tariffs already collected, also said, "I got a feeling the American people won't see it."

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Political commentator and strategist James Carville says the Epstein files scandal is not ever going to go away.

"It's never gonna go away, and if you think about it, it can't go away," Carville told to Al Hunt on their Politicon podcast.

"What do you have?" he continued. "You have a really rich guy, filthy rich ... with a glamorous woman who's harvesting young women around the world. You got princes, and Ivy League professors, and politicians, and bankers, and sports organizers, and didn't get all of that. And then you got a dead body."

"And then you got secrecy everywhere, and it's not going away 30 years from now. They're gonna still be digging through that stuff. They lied about everything," Carville said.

"There's nothing you can say to make this go away," he continued. "And there's so much s — — we don't know."

"You know, I didn't — I must say, six months ago, I did not think that the Epstein issue would still be with us, and certainly not with us through the 2026 campaign," Hunt said. "I was wrong."

"There are three reasons it's not going away. Number one, the dissembling, by the White House, and its subsidiary, the Justice Department — there clearly is a cover up of some stuff," he added.

"Two, Ro Khanna, a liberal Democrat, and Tom Massey, a conservative Republican, are leading the fight for full exposure. They have proven to be bulldogs, and they won't give up," Hunt said.

He added that the third reason the Epstein files are here to stay "is those victims, the women who have courageously spoken up against the sexual abuse trafficking of Epstein and his accomplice, Maxwell, won't be silenced until the Justice Department ends this limited hangout approach."

Hunt also pointed to "a headline in Wednesday's Washington Post, quote, Epstein fallout rattles the globe. Many powerful people face consequences," which he noted was "true in every place but the Trump administration."

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In a 6-3 ruling. the Roberts Supreme Court has rejected the legal basis for President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, imposed on “Liberation Day” in April 2025.

“The Supreme Court has struck down President Trump’s tariff authority, saying his claim of emergency authority to issue sweeping tariffs to America’s trading partners was unlawful,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports.

NBC News called it a “major blow” to President Trump.

During oral arguments, justices appeared skeptical of the Trump arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts said that the tariffs were “an imposition of taxes on Americans and that has always been the core power of Congress,” as Axios reported.

President Trump has repeatedly argued that his reciprocal tariffs — which studies show are almost entirely paid by American consumers and businesses — were necessary for national security. The administration relied on an obscure provision of U.S. trade law that allows a president to impose tariffs without congressional approval if imports are deemed a threat to national security. Critics, however, argued that the statute was never intended to justify sweeping, permanent global tariffs.

Trump’s public statements repeatedly broadened his rationale. At the beginning of the year, declaring the Supreme Court’s impending decision would be “their most important (ever!) Decision,” he claimed the tariffs “have rescued our Economy and National Security.”

Last month, Trump warned that “if the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this National Security bonanza, WE’RE SCREWED!”

As recently as Thursday, Trump lambasted the high court for taking, as he put it, “forever,” to release its decision.

“And to think I have to be, in the United States Supreme Court for many, many months, waiting for a decision on tariffs — without tariffs, this country would be in such trouble right now,” Trump said.

“I’ve been waiting forever. Forever. And the language is clear that I have the right to do it as president. I have the right to put tariffs on for national security purposes, countries that have been ripping us off.”

Just weeks ago, Trump told Fox Business that he had had an “emergency call from, I believe, the prime minister of Switzerland, and she was very aggressive. Nice, but very aggressive.”

“Again and again and again. I couldn’t get her off the phone,” the president continued, as The Hill reported. “So [the tariffs were] at 30 percent, and I didn’t really like the way she talked to us, and so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39 percent.”

The president has also suggested that there is so much money coming into the Treasury from tariffs that he would be sending tariff “dividend” checks to Americans — a claim he appeared to have forgotten about last month when asked by a reporter.

Trump has also claimed that if the Court struck down his tariffs, the U.S. would not be in a position to provide refunds, which could run between $100 billion and $200 billion. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, stated that providing refunds would be possible.

It has been estimated that tariffs are costing the average American family between $1,300 and nearly $5,000 annually.

Economist Justin Wolfers, when asked about the effectiveness of Trump’s tariffs, told CBC News, “If the trade deficit this year is bigger than it was last year, and this year we have high tariffs and a trade war and last year we didn’t, I guess it doesn’t require a lot of fancy statistics to infer that Trump’s tariffs didn’t help the trade deficit.”

On Friday, he wrote, “We had this big lousy trade war, and we’ve got nothing to show for it.”

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board on Thursday wrote, “If your tariff policy is so unpopular that you have to bully the central bank into not talking about it, maybe it’s time for a new policy.”

President Donald Trump expressed frustration with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, telling steel workers that he has had to wait "many months" for a decision on the tariffs case, even though tariffs are still being collected.

The court hear oral arguments on November 5 — three and a half months ago — and a decision could come as soon as Friday. It is not unusual for the justices to take many months to decide a case.

The court, reports stated, appeared skeptical of Trump's authority to impose sweeping tariffs via executive orders without Congress.

"And to think I have to be, in the United States Supreme Court for many, many months, waiting for a decision on tariffs — without tariffs, this country would be in such trouble right now," Trump said at the Coosa Steel Corporation in Rome, Georgia, in a speech at a GOP-ticketed event.

"Without tariffs, this country would be like your company was two years ago," he told workers. "What a difference it made. And you know who brought the cases against us? People that are China-oriented, people that have business in China that want to rip us off and keep ripping us off."

Trump continued to display his ire.

"I'm waiting for a decision from the Supreme Court. Can you imagine? We have to wait."

"And I have to wait for this decision," he continued. "I've been waiting forever. Forever. And the language is clear that I have the right to do it as president. I have the right to put tariffs on for national security purposes, countries that have been ripping us off."

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President Donald Trump is vowing that the controversial SAVE America Act voter ID bill will pass into law, "one way or another."

"We are going to have the Save America Act, one way or the other, after approval by Congress through the very proper use of the Filibuster or, at minimum, by a Talking Filibuster, à la 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'" he wrote on Truth Social on Thursday.

The legislation, which narrowly passed the House, is currently sitting in the Senate. For it to pass will require 60 votes under current filibuster rules, which — given staunch Democratic opposition — does not appear to be possible in its current form, or under current Senate rules.

Republican Majority Leader John Thune could attempt to alter Senate rules, though such major changes are typically debated at the start of a new session rather than mid‑Congress. He has indicated opposition to doing so.

Democrats oppose the bill in part because it requires a passport or birth certificate to register to vote — something tens of millions of Americans do not currently have, according to voting rights groups. It also narrows generally acceptable forms of photo ID to vote.

Others oppose it because it requires states to run their voter rolls through federal immigration databases, which reportedly have a high error rate. Critics also say that creates a large unfunded administrative burden for states.