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Tag: State of the Union Address

  • Fact checking Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address and Spanberger’s response

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    CBS News fact checked President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address Tuesday night, in which he highlighted his record on the economy, immigration and tariffs, and also assessed a claim made by Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger during her Democratic response. 

    Here are some of the claims and CBS News’ ratings and context for those statements:

    True: Trump claims murder rate saw its largest decline in recorded history last year

    “Last year, the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history. This is the biggest decline, think of it, in recorded history — the lowest number in over 125 years.”

    Details: 

    • Preliminary data from independent researchers suggests that homicides may have hit an 125-year low last year, although the FBI’s official annual crime report for 2025 will not be released until later this year.
    • A January study by the Council on Criminal Justice, or CCJ, found a “strong possibility” that the 2025 homicide rate will drop to about 4 per 100,000 residents, which would be the lowest recorded in law enforcement or public health data dating back to 1900. The homicide rate has been declining since 2022, according to annual FBI reports.
    • The CCJ report also noted that the reasons for last year’s decline are not clear, but researchers say possible influences include “changes in criminal justice policies and programs, shifts in the use of technology, and broader social, economic, and cultural trends.”

    By Laura Doan

    Partially true: Trump claims that in the past 9 months, no illegal immigrants have been admitted into the U.S.

    “In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States.”

    Details: 

    Mr. Trump is likely referring to the number of migrants released by Border Patrol after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

    Over the past nine months, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported zero releases of migrants by Border Patrol along the U.S. southern border.

    That does not necessarily mean every single migrant who has entered the U.S. illegally since Mr. Trump took office has been deported.

    Some migrants initially arrested by Border Patrol and then transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement could be released by that agency, though the Trump administration has sought to bar those who entered the U.S. illegally from being eligible for bond.

    Border Patrol’s numbers also do not account for migrants who enter the U.S. illegally surreptitiously, without being caught by Border Patrol agents. It’s unclear how many of those so-called “got-aways” have been recorded under the second Trump administration.

    Overall, illegal border crossings have plummeted under Mr. Trump’s second administration, falling to the lowest level since 1970 in fiscal year 2025. Still, thousands of migrants continue crossing into the U.S. illegally each month. In January, Border Patrol apprehended roughly 6,000 migrants after they crossed the southern border unlawfully, government data show.

    By Camilo Montoya-Galvez

    Misleading: Trump claims more Americans working today than at any time in U.S. history 

    “More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country. Think about that — any time in the history of our country, more working today. And 100% of all jobs created under my administration have been in the private sector.”

    Details: 

    Preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics show there are roughly 158.6 million people employed in the U.S., as of January 2026, which is more than at any other point on record. But the total number of employed people usually rises as the population grows. About 157 million people were employed when President Joe Biden left office in January 2025.

    Economists generally rely on the share of people working to compare labor market strength over time, which has remained largely flat over the past year. The labor force participation rate sat at 62.5% in January, which is identical to the rate in December 2024, Biden’s last full month in office. 

    Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has ticked up under Mr. Trump to 4.3% from 4.1% in December 2024.

    By Aaron Navarro 

    False/not supported: Trump claims he’s secured $18 trillion in new investment in the U.S.

    “In four long years, the last administration got less than $1 trillion in new investment in the United States. And when I say less, substantially less. In 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion, pouring in from all over the globe.”

    Details: 

    • According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, new foreign direct investments over Biden’s four years in office did add up to less than $1 trillion.
    • But a CBS News review found no evidence that total commitments or new investments approach the scale the president has cited. New investment of $18 trillion would represent almost 60% of U.S. GDP.
    • The administration’s own list of major investment commitments “made possible by President Trump’s leadership” totaled $9.6 trillion as of the latest update in November, but even that figure is exaggerated and includes some investments announced while Biden was president.
    • Additionally, federal data shows corporate investment levels are similar to levels last year, with U.S. companies on track to invest over $5 trillion in 2025. Overall, since the end of the pandemic, corporate investment has been rising.

    By Jui Sarwate

    False: Trump claims gas is “now below $2.30 a gallon in most states”

    “Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor — it was, quite honestly, a disaster — is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states, and in some places, $1.99 a gallon. And when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline.”

    Details: 

    While gas prices have dropped from a national peak of $5.02 in June 2022 to $2.95, according to AAA, they are not below $2.30 in most states. 

    Only one state, Oklahoma, had an average gas price around $2.30 as of Feb. 24, according to AAA data. According to GasBuddy, which tracks prices at roughly 150,000 stations nationwide, the cheapest 10% of all stations had gas priced at $2.30, as of February 23. Only eight gas stations nationwide were selling a gallon of gas for under $2, GasBuddy told CBS News. 

    Trump specifically mentioned $1.85 gas in Iowa. AAA did report Iowa among the 10 states with the lowest prices – but the average price in the state was $2.50.

    By Laura Doan, Julia Ingram, John Kelly

    Misleading: Trump claims “members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer”

    “When it comes to the corruption that is plundering — really, it’s plundering America — there’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer.”

    Details: 

    • President Trump’s “estimated $19 billion dollars” figure refers to the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported over a dozen state-run programs in Minnesota since 2018.
    • The exact extent of the fraud and losses is still being investigated. In December 2025, a top prosecutor suggested the total amount of fraud could be $9 billion or more.
    • More than 90% of the people charged in major fraud cases announced before December 2025 were of Somali descent, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota. But the number of people of Somali descent charged, 82 individuals, is a small fraction of the Somali community across the state. Census Bureau data shows that there are more than 107,000 people who identify as Somali in the state.
    • Prosecutors have said the mastermind behind Feeding Our Future, Minnesota’s biggest fraud scheme to date, is Aimee Bock, a White woman. 

    By Emma Li

    Misleading: Trump claims tariffs are paid for by foreign countries and take “a great financial burden off the people that I love”

    “As time goes by, I believe that tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.”

    Details: 

    Mr. Trump and the White House maintain that it’s foreign companies and exporters who pay for tariffs. He wrote in a January Wall Street Journal op-ed that data shows tariffs have “fallen overwhelmingly on foreign producers and middlemen.”

    The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published an analysis in February that found over 90% of Mr. Trump’s 2025 tariffs were passed onto U.S. consumers and businesses in the form of higher costs. It found that from January through August of last year, U.S. importers bore 94% of tariff costs. That decreased slightly in November, as exporters began to take up more of the burden, but U.S. importers still remained on the hook for 86% of the tariffs, according to their analysis.

    The Harvard Business School study that the president cites in his Wall Street Journal op-ed found that U.S. consumers paid for roughly 43% of the tariff-induced border costs after seven months of Trump’s tariffs, “with the remainder absorbed mostly by U.S. firms.”

    As for the idea that tariff revenue can offset or replace income taxes — even if a president imposed 50% tariffs on all imports — the income generated would represent less than 40% of income tax revenue, according to the Peterson Institute.

    Historians who study U.S. trade note that tariffs have not been viewed as a primary way to raise revenue since income taxes were introduced in 1913. Income taxes generate over $2 trillion each year, according to the Treasury Department.

    In 2024, tariff collections on imports represented just 1.7% of the more than $4.9 trillion in total federal revenue. And according to the Congressional Research Service, tariffs have not accounted for much more than 2% of federal revenue in the last 70 years.

    By Aaron Navarro

    Misleading: Trump claims new MFN agreements mean Americans, who’ve paid “highest prices of any nation” for prescriptions will now pay “the lowest price anywhere” 

    “Under my just enacted Most Favored Nation agreements, Americans who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs.”

    Details: 

    • It’s true that prescription drug prices in the U.S. tend to be much higher than in other countries. In 2024, the RAND Organization published its review of prescription drug data, which showed that through 2022, prescription drug prices in the U.S. were on average 2.8 times higher than in 33 other nations. Brand-name drugs averaged 4.22 times as much in the U.S.
    • Mr. Trump did sign an executive order in May that threatened regulatory action against drug companies that failed to take steps to lower drug costs for Medicare or Medicaid recipients.
    • But health policy experts say there are scant public details that lay out the full scope of Trump’s MFN agreements, including which drugs are included and how prices are determined. It’s also unclear how these deals would be extended to all Americans.

    By Emma Li, Laura Doan

    Partially true/Misleading: Trump claims price of eggs is down 60%, and the prices of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, autos and rent are “lower today than when I took office by a lot”

    “The price of eggs is down 60%. Madam Secretary, thank you. The cost of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, rent is lower today than when I took office by a lot.”

    Details: 

    • The president’s claim about eggs is accurate — the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data from January shows average retail egg prices for shoppers are down about 59% from their peak in March 2025 of $6.23 per dozen.
    • But Bureau of Labor Statistics data from March 2025 through January 2026 shows relatively flat changes in price for the other products and index items he mentioned:
    • And while prices vary across products, Consumer Price Index data shows average cost of groceries in January increased by 0.2% from the previous month and by 2.4% from last year.

    By Jui Sarwate

    False: Trump claims SAVE AMERICA Act must be passed “to stop illegal aliens” from voting in U.S. elections because “the cheating is rampant in our elections”

    “I’m asking you to approve the SAVE AMERICA Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are uncommitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections. The cheating is rampant in our elections. It’s rampant.”

    Details: 

    • Multiple studies have found that noncitizen voting in federal elections, which is illegal, is rare. 
    • The conservative Heritage Foundation, which maintains a database of voter fraud cases brought by prosecutors, includes only 85 cases involving allegations of noncitizen voting over a two-decade period from 2002 to 2023, according to a Washington Post analysis. The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found only 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting reported by election officials in 2016 among 23.5 million votes cast across 42 jurisdictions reviewed. 
    • States have also conducted their own audits of voter rolls. A 2024 audit in Georgia found that 20 noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters, according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. An audit in Texas found 2,724 potential noncitizens among 18.6 million registered voters, the secretary of state’s office said. 
    • Noncitizens who vote in federal elections risk deportation and prison time. While only some states require a photo ID, when registering to vote, individuals must attest under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens, and provide a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their social security number. 

    By Julia Ingram

    Misleading: Trump claims Democrats’ refusal to vote to fund DHS means “nobody’s getting paid” 

    “Tonight, I’m demanding the full and immediate restoration of all funding for the Border Security, Homeland Security of the United States and also for helping people clean up their snow. We have no money because of the Democrats, and it would be nice — love to give you a hand at cleaning it up, but you gave no money. Nobody’s getting paid.”

    Details: 

    During the partial government shutdown, some Department of Homeland Security personnel are paid even when annual appropriations lapse — because their pay comes from other budget authorities that are still valid (like fee revenue or previously enacted legislation).

    For instance, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers are expected to be paid because vast parts of their budgets are funded by prior legislation, not just the expired DHS annual appropriation. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law last year by Mr. Trump allocated an unprecedented $170 billion for immigration enforcement, with ICE alone getting $75 billion.

    The other immigration agency at DHS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees legal immigration, is mostly funded by application fees, so its operations and workforce continue largely uninterrupted.

    Most frontline “essential” DHS workers (including TSA agents, FEMA staff, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency employees, Secret Service agents, Coast Guard personnel whose funding has lapsed, etc.) are working but not receiving paychecks until the shutdown ends.

    By Nicole Sganga, Camilo Montoya-Galvez

    False: Trump claims Biden and Democrats “gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country”

    “The Biden administration and its allies in Congress gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country. But in 12 months, my administration has driven core inflation down to the lowest level in more than five years. And in the last three months of 2025, it was down to 1.7%.”

    Details: 

    Under President Biden, year-over-year inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022. That was the highest monthly rate in about 40 years, but not the highest ever. The 1970s and early 1980s saw inflation rates between 12% and 14%, according to Federal Reserve data.  

    By the time Biden left office, the inflation rate had eased to about 3%, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

    The figures Trump cited regarding inflation during his second term used a less-common metric called “core inflation,” which excludes food and energy. 

    Core inflation was 2.5% in January 2026, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the lowest since 1.6% in March 2021 – nearly five years ago.

    The source for Trump’s claim of 1.7% core inflation in the final three months of 2025 is not clear. Core inflation was 2.6% in both November and December 2025, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Federal inflation data for October 2025 is missing because of the 2025 federal government shutdown.

    By Steve Reilly

    Misleading” Trump suggests there are currently states that “rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will”

    “But surely we can all agree, no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will. Who would believe that we’re even talking about — we must ban it, and we must ban it immediately.”

    Details: 

    There are no states that have laws that allow them to “rip” or take into custody minors and then give them access to gender transition surgeries, without parental input. In fact, most medical care for minors, including gender-affirming care, still requires parental consent, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.  

    There are 35 states that do not force school staff to inform family members if their minor child is transgender, according to the Movement Advancement Project. On Mr. Trump’s call for bans, 27 states have enacted laws to limit youth access to gender-affirming care in some way, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. 

    What prompted the president to talk about this is the case of Sage Blair, who suffered from gender dysphoria as a 14-year-old in 2021, according to a filing of her family’s ongoing lawsuit against a Virginia school board. 

    As a freshman, Blair began to refer to herself with male pronouns and was bullied. According to the lawsuit, in private sessions, high school counselors encouraged her to “embrace” her male identity, but allegedly did not inform her paternal grandmother, Michele Blair, about their communications with Sage. She ran away and was abducted by sex traffickers before ending up in the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services for two months, before running away again. Blair’s family alleges that the school’s actions in not informing her family about her safety at school resulted in her running away and being sex trafficked.

    According to the filing, school counselors supported Sage’s use of different pronouns, but they did not “rip” Sage from her parents and transition her “against her parents’ will,” as Mr. Trump and the White House have stated. The legal team for the school counselor referenced in the lawsuit said the alleged damages “were not, and could not have been caused” by their interactions with Blair. The case is ongoing and was sent to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia last year.

    By Aaron Navarro

    Misleading: Trump claims he ended 8 wars

    “In my first 10 months, I ended 8 wars — including Cambodia…Cambodia and Thailand, Pakistan and India — would have been a nuclear war. Thirty-five million people said the prime minister of Pakistan, would’ve died if it were not for my involvement — Kosovo and Serbia, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Congo and Rwanda, and of course, the war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level, it’s just about there.”

    Details: 

    Mr. Trump claimed credit for ending eight wars in his term, but foreign policy experts say that overstates his record.

    While he’s helped broker ceasefires, including one between Israel and Iran, several of the foreign conflicts cited by the administration are not full-scale wars, and many remain unresolved. 

    Mr. Trump has claimed he brokered peace between Ethiopia and Egypt, whose leaders have disagreed about Ethiopia’s decision to build a hydroelectric dam in the Nile. Although Egypt previously threatened to go to war over the dam, the dispute has remained a diplomatic one.

    The White House has also pointed to a peace deal announced in June between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo after days of talks in Washington in June. The deal aimed to end three decades of fighting over Congo’s mineral reserves. Yet the violence has continued. Human Rights Watch reported that M23, an armed group U.S. officials believe is backed by Rwanda, killed over 140 civilians in eastern Congo in July.

    Trump also cited Thailand and Cambodia, which agreed to a ceasefire last July, after an outbreak in fighting killed at least 35 people. Mr. Trump pressured both sides to come to the table by threatening trade consequences. But the border dispute continued and the countries then agreed to a second ceasefire late December, which both sides have since accused each other of violating.

    India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire in May after weeks of cross-border missile and drone strikes. The deal ended the latest flare-up in their long-running dispute over Kashmir, which both nuclear-armed nations claim as their territory. However, Josh Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CBS News it’s a stretch to call the territorial dispute over Kashmir settled.

    In 2020, President Trump helped negotiate a deal between Serbia and Kosovo to help normalize economic ties, but progress stalled soon afterward. Talks have continued with European leaders, but there have been no breakthroughs. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, which Serbia still does not recognize.

    By Laura Doan, James LaPorta

    Inconclusive: Trump claims 32,000 protesters were killed in Iran

    “Just over the last couple of months, with the protests, they’ve killed at least it looks like 32,000 protesters in their own country. They shot them and hung them.”

    Details: 

    Mr. Trump first cited a figure of 32,000 last week, on Feb. 20, without disclosing the source of the number. TIME magazine last month cited a figure of 30,000 from two senior officials within Iran’s Ministry of Health. And other news outlets have since also put the figure at more than 30,000, based on estimates from Iranian doctors, internal documents and eyewitness reports. 

    Two sources, including one inside Iran, told CBS News last month that at least 12,000, and possibly as many as 20,000 people had been killed in Iran during the protests. Israel’s Mossad also told the U.S. government in mid-January that its estimate was at least 5,000, the Times of Israel reported.

    Iran denies the higher figures — the Iranian foreign minister pushed back on Trump’s latest estimate and said Tehran’s official death toll is 3,117 victims.

    It is exceptionally difficult to verify casualty numbers in Iran during protests because of repressive tactics used by Iranian regime that make it more difficult for civilians to communicate, including the imposition of information blackouts and a high-risk environment for journalists who are unable to report freely.

    By Camilla Schick

    Inconclusive: Spanberger claims that Trump’s tariff policies have resulted in $1,700 in higher costs for American families

    Spanberger: “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.”

    Details: 

    Mr. Trump instituted a series of tariff increases starting in early 2025, and economists have found importers often pass on part of the cost of the tariffs to consumers in the form of higher prices.

    Spanberger’s statement reflects a report released this month by Democratic lawmakers on the Joint Economic Committee estimating that “American consumers overall paid more than $231 billion in tariff costs between February 2025 and January 2026, an average of roughly $1,745 per family.”

    But there is no settled methodology for quantifying the impact of tariffs on consumers, and other organizations have offered differing estimates. The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that in 2025, “the Trump tariffs amounted to an average tax increase per US household of $1,000.”

    By Steve Reilly

    In:

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  • Trump’s State of the Union Was a Bloated Awards Show

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    Photo: Kenny Holston/Getty Images

    When we heard that Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union Address would break his own record for the longest-ever presidential speech to Congress, a lot of us figured he’d combine improvised attacks on his enemies with his assigned mission of convincing people he had a plan to deal with pervasive economic discontent. In fact, he mostly appeared to stick to his script. On many topics, he was succinct rather than expansive or weave-y. The speech was very long primarily because of its extraordinary number of gimmicks, theatrics, and props, with multiple medals being awarded right there in the gallery, and the speechifying being regularly interrupted with extra-long standing ovations from the Republicans in the room. For a while, you felt that the veteran TV star at the podium was channeling Oprah, showering awards on the worthiest people in his studio audience.

    The address did not, however, break any significant new ground. He had one surprise, an endorsement of a ban on insider trading by members of Congress, and one relatively novel (already leaked) proposal: a deal with tech companies to absorb utility costs created by their AI data centers. But that was about it.

    The first half-hour of the speech was the familiar “American carnage” litany of bile hurled at Joe Biden’s administration, with the usual lies and exaggerations designed to make Trump’s record look better by making his predecessor’s record look dark and even sinister. Then he moved into his own economic agenda, and visibly lost momentum. There was a tiny flutter of emotion in his voice when he deplored the Supreme Court’s decision blowing up his tariff regime, which he rather childishly dismissed as irrelevant because he had come up with an alternative scheme. But he quickly moved on.

    For a good while, we wondered if we were witnessing the first truly boring Trump speech on record. It was only when he moved on to what might be described as the “culture war” section of the address that he got some of his old verve back. Murderous immigrants, gruesome murders, monstrous transgender surgeries, stuffed ballot boxes, criminals being turned out of jail to do crimes again — it was the 2024 election message all over again. He did not say a single word to address the widespread dismay, extending even to Republicans, about the murderous tactics deployed by ICE and the Border Patrol as part of his mass deportation initiative.

    When he finally transitioned to the obligatory section on world events, Trump lost his mojo again. While many expected a bombshell announcement about an impending military attack on Iran, he mumbled his way through what he’s said a hundred times before about denying that country nuclear weapons. He said almost nothing about the Russia-Ukraine war, and literally did not mention China — allegedly the greatest global challenger to our country — even once.

    Most of all, this was almost certainly the most partisan speech any president has ever delivered to Congress, exceeding even his belligerent message a year ago. Over and over again, he accused Democrats — not just their supposed “radical left” element, but all of them — of conscious, deliberate betrayal of the country, by opening the borders, the prisons, the very gates of hell. He called them “crazy,” too. Knowing that many Democrats had resolved to show “silent defiance” during the address, he pulled off one neat trick: presenting a phony antithesis between the interests of U.S. citizens and “illegal aliens” and demanding they stand up for the country! He expertly prolonged the moment as Republicans hooted and cheered while Democrats sat sullenly. But the fact remains that in a narrowly divided Congress, Trump will need Democrats to get anything done the rest of the year. He detonated that slim possibility instead.

    This probably didn’t win over many swing voters unhappy with the economy, but it surely, like the entire speech, thrilled his base. And since he gave very much the speech scripted for him, we have to conclude that its object was to shore up that base rather than to expand it. Perhaps he and his advisors truly believe the economy is going to go gangbusters later this year, or that Trump’s party will be awarded with continued control of Congress without much of an effort to change anyone’s mind.

    If you tuned into the SOTU address expecting policy innovations or a different Trump tone, you had to be disappointed. It appears he will go into difficult midterm elections standing pat on his record, his message, and his unshakable belief in his own greatness.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • These 3 charts highlight the affordability issues Americans worry about most

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    President Trump gave his 2026 State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, during which he addressed, among other topics, the economy — an urgent topic of concern for millions of Americans who say they’re worried about everything from the price of food to spiraling health care costs.

    The president touted his work during his first year back in office, saying, “inflation is plummeting, incomes are rising fast, the roaring economy is roaring like never before.”

    By conventional metrics, the economy looks resilient. Unemployment remains low at 4.3%; inflation is cooling; and GDP is expanding, with the U.S. largely shrugging off the impact of tariffs that economists feared could trigger a recession. Consumers — whose spending keeps the economy humming — also report feeling more confident of late amid a burst in January job creation. 

    At the same time, many households still report grappling with stubbornly high prices for essentials like food, housing and health insurance, a disconnect that underscores the challenge Mr. Trump faces in touting his economic record.

    Mr. Trump has offered a range of proposals to address affordability issues. Yet some of the most visible initiatives, such as a push to cap credit card rates at 10%, have yet to show benefits, Bankrate senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick said in an email. 

    Americans polled by the Pew Research Center in January said their top economic concerns are the cost of food, housing and health care. 

    Food prices

    The cost of food has been a flashpoint for consumers since inflation soared to a 40-year high in 2022. High food prices also bedeviled former President Biden, prompting Mr. Trump to vow while on the campaign trail that he would end the “inflation nightmare.”

    Since Mr. Trump returned to office in 2025, food prices have continued to climb, although at a slower pace than under the Biden administration, when pandemic-related supply disruptions drove price hikes. 

    But economists have long noted that shoppers tend to be more focused on the prices they see on store shelves than the rate of inflation. Although food costs are rising more slowly, prices of some staples have continued rise sharply in the past year: Ground beef has jumped 17.2% from a year ago, while coffee has surged 18.3%.

    The Trump administration has sought to counter rising food prices in part by exempting beef, coffee and bananas from tariffs. Earlier this month, Mr. Trump also said he would boost U.S. imports of beef from Argentina in an effort to ease prices. 

    Because beef imports from Argentina represent only 0.6% of the overall U.S. beef supply, that policy is unlikely to move the needle on prices, experts have told CBS News.

    Housing affordability

    More than 8 in 10 Americans say it is harder today to buy a home than it was for earlier generations, according to a CBS News poll that surveyed consumers in early February. Pew also recently found that 62% of Americans report feeling concerned about the cost of housing.

    The Trump administration has proposed several remedies, including banning institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes. The president has also directed the federal government to buy $200 billion in mortgage securities, a move that could help lower the cost of home loans.

    Experts say that those ideas may provide some relief, but aren’t likely on their own to address the deeper issue behind rising home prices: a shortage of affordable housing. Homebuilding cratered after the Great Recession in 2008-09 and has never caught up with demand.

    The U.S. would need to build as many as 4 million additional homes beyond the normal pace of construction to significantly reduce the housing shortage, Goldman Sachs analysts estimate.

    Health care spending

    Paying for health care has emerged as Americans’ top financial worry after Congress failed last year to extend some Affordable Care Act subsidies, triggering premium spikes for millions, health policy research firm KFF found in a recent poll.

    Meanwhile, workers with employer-sponsored health insurance face increases of about 6% to 7% in 2026 — more than double the current rate of inflation. Since 2008, the cost of private health insurance has roughly doubled, KFF found. 

    Soaring health care costs (Line chart)

    Millions who rely on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces for insurance plans faced even sharper spikes after Congress failed to extend enhanced premium subsidies, which expired Dec. 31. Some Americans told CBS News they planned to skip coverage this year because they couldn’t afford their soaring premiums. 

    The Trump administration is tackling drug costs through its new TrumpRx website, which lists lower direct-to-consumer prescription prices. Mr. Trump described the site as “one of the most transformative health care initiatives of all time.” 

    But experts note that the site is geared to consumers who pay out of pocket, meaning that it doesn’t help people with insurance and won’t count toward meeting a consumer’s health plan deductible. 

    The Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” act also paid for tax cuts by significantly trimming spending on Medicaid and other social programs, Vanessa Williamson, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, noted in an email.

    “When you add to that the refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act credits, which caused health insurance premiums to double for millions of Americans, and the cuts to affordable energy programs, you can see Americans were really hit in their wallets over the last year,” she said.

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    Alain Sherter

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  • Major events to impact DC traffic starting Sunday – WTOP News

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    Expect road closures and rerouting on D.C. streets this week due to the Chinese New Year parade on Sunday and the President’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.

    Expect road closures and rerouting on D.C. streets this week due to the Chinese New Year parade on Sunday and the President’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.

    Sunday — Chinese New Year Parade

    On Sunday, Feb. 22, at 2 p.m. traffic patterns will be adjusted for the Annual Chinese Lunar New Year Parade in Downtown D.C. The parade, celebrating the Year of the Horse, will feature cultural and community performances and a firecracker show during the grand finale on H Street.

    The following streets will be posted as Emergency No Parking on Sunday, Feb. 22, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.:

    • H Street from 6th Street to 7th Street NW
    • I Street from 5th Street to 8th Street NW
    • 8th Street from I Street to G Street NW
    • G Street from 8th Street to 7th Street NW
    • 7th Street from G Street to I Street NW
    • 6th Street from H Street to Massachusetts Avenue NW

    The following street will be closed to vehicle traffic on Sunday from approximately 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.:

    • H Street from 6th Street to 7th Street NW

    The following street will be closed to vehicle traffic on Sunday from approximately 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.:

    • I Street from 5th Street to 7th Street NW
    • 6th Street from H Street to Massachusetts Avenue, NW

    The following streets will be closed to vehicle traffic on Sunday from approximately 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.:

    • G Street from 7th Street to 9th Street NW
    • H Street from 5th Street to 9th Street NW
    • I Street from 6th Street to 9th Street NW
    • 6th Street from F Street to Massachusetts Avenue NW
    • 7th Street from F Street to Massachusetts Avenue NW
    • 8th Street from G Street to I Street NW

    For timely traffic information, check for updates here.

    Tuesday — State of the Union address

    On Tuesday at 9 p.m., expect road closures as President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address.

    Roads will temporarily close around the U.S. Capitol and traffic will be redirected.

    From 12:01 a.m. until the conclusion of the event, the following roads will be closed to the public:

    • First Street between Constitution Avenue, NW, and Independence Avenue SW
    • Pennsylvania Avenue between 3rd Street NW, and First Street NW
    • Maryland Avenue between 3rd Street, SW, and First Street SW

    From 1 p.m. until the conclusion of the event, the following roads will be closed to the public:

    • First Street between Constitution Avenue NE, and Independence Avenue SE
    • East Capitol Street between First Street and 2nd Street

    From 5:30 p.m. until the conclusion of the event, the following roads will be closed to the public:

    • Constitution Avenue between Louisiana Avenue NW, and 2nd Street NE
    • Independence Avenue between Washington Avenue SW, and 2nd Street SE
    • First Street between Constitution Avenue, NW and Louisiana Avenue NW
    • First Street between the Rayburn House Office Building garage entrance and Independence Avenue SW
    • D Street between First Street NE, and 2nd Street NE
    • Maryland Avenue between First Street NE, and Constitution Avenue, NE
    • New Jersey Avenue between C Street, NW, and Constitution Avenue, NW
    • From 7 p.m. until the conclusion of the event, the following roads will be closed to the public:
    • First Street between Columbus Circle NE, and D Street NE
    • D Street between Louisiana Avenue NW, and First Street NE
    • Delaware Avenue between Columbus Circle NE, and D Street NE
    • 2nd Street between Constitution Avenue, NE, and Independence Avenue SE
    • Constitution Avenue between 3rd Street NW, and Louisiana Avenue NW
    • First Street between C Street, NW, and Louisiana Avenue NW
    • Independence Avenue between 3rd Street, SW, and Washington Avenue SW
    • Washington Avenue between Independence Avenue SW, and C Street SW
    • 2nd Street between Washington Avenue, SW, and C Street SW

    Tour Bus Rerouting

    From 12:01 a.m. until 11 p.m., tour buses will be rerouted away from the Capitol Complex for passenger loading and unloading.

    You can find additional road closure information about this National Special Security Event at nsse.dc.gov.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    LaDawn Black

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  • Minneapolis and Chicago mayors to deliver unofficial rebuttals to Trump’s State of the Union address

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    Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson will join several other Democratic elected officials and well-known actors in giving unofficial responses to President Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, according to a news release about the event.

    Organizers are calling the “State of the Swamp” a boycott of Mr. Trump’s address. Frey and Johnson are expected to join Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer, actors Robert De Niro and Mark Ruffalo, journalists Don Lemon and Jim Acosta and several others at the event. It’s scheduled to take place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. 

    Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger will deliver the official Democratic response to Mr. Trump’s speech, according to party leaders in Congress.

    “There are moments in our country’s history when leadership is measured not by party loyalty, but by moral clarity. This is one of those moments,” Frey said in the release. 

    Johnson added, “Donald Trump’s vision for America runs counter to the hopes and aspirations of the working people who wake up every single day and make our cities run.”

    Minneapolis and Chicago have both faced an influx of federal agents as part of a nationwide immigration crackdown by the Trump administration. Organizers, without expanding, cited the cities as faces “of the resistance to lawless actions” of the administration.

    Border czar Tom Homan said on Sunday that more than 1,000 immigration agents have left Minnesota since he announced the end of Operation Metro Surge, and several hundred more were expected to leave in the coming days.

    Johnson last month signed an executive order directing members of the Chicago Police Department to investigate and document any alleged illegal activity by federal immigration agents. Police will preserve and provide evidence of felony violations to the Cook County State’s Attorney. 

    Defiance.org, which is organizing the event, is a club for people “willing to take peaceful, lawful, defiant action to defend democracy” from Mr. Trump, according to its website.

    WCCO is reaching out to Frey’s office for comment.

    Marissa Sulek and

    Jeramie Bizzle

    contributed to this report.

    In:

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    Nick Lentz

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  • It’s Not the Economy. It’s the Pandemic.

    It’s Not the Economy. It’s the Pandemic.

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    Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage.

    America is in a funk, and no one seems to know why. Unemployment rates are lower than they’ve been in half a century and the stock market is sky-high, but poll after poll shows that voters are disgruntled. President Joe Biden’s approval rating has been hovering in the high 30s. Americans’ satisfaction with their personal lives—a measure that usually dips in times of economic uncertainty—is at a near-record low, according to Gallup polling. And nearly half of Americans surveyed in January said they were worse off than three years prior.

    Experts have struggled to find a convincing explanation for this era of bad feelings. Maybe it’s the spate of inflation over the past couple of years, the immigration crisis at the border, or the brutal wars in Ukraine and Gaza. But even the people who claim to make sense of the political world acknowledge that these rational factors can’t fully account for America’s national malaise. We believe that’s because they’re overlooking a crucial factor.

    Four years ago, the country was brought to its knees by a world-historic disaster. COVID-19 hospitalized nearly 7 million Americans and killed more than a million; it’s still killing hundreds each week. It shut down schools and forced people into social isolation. Almost overnight, most of the country was thrown into a state of high anxiety—then, soon enough, grief and mourning. But the country has not come together to sufficiently acknowledge the tragedy it endured. As clinical psychiatrists, we see the effects of such emotional turmoil every day, and we know that when it’s not properly processed, it can result in a general sense of unhappiness and anger—exactly the negative emotional state that might lead a nation to misperceive its fortunes.

    The pressure to simply move on from the horrors of 2020 is strong. Who wouldn’t love to awaken from that nightmare and pretend it never happened? Besides, humans have a knack for sanitizing our most painful memories. In a 2009 study, participants did a remarkably poor job of remembering how they felt in the days after the 9/11 attacks, likely because those memories were filtered through their current emotional state. Likewise, a study published in Nature last year found that people’s recall of the severity of the 2020 COVID threat was biased by their attitudes toward vaccines months or years later.

    [From the May 2021 issue: You won’t remember the pandemic the way you think you will]

    When faced with an overwhelming and painful reality like COVID, forgetting can be useful—even, to a degree, healthy. It allows people to temporarily put aside their fear and distress, and focus on the pleasures and demands of everyday life, which restores a sense of control. That way, their losses do not define them, but instead become manageable.

    But consigning painful memories to the River Lethe also has clear drawbacks, especially as the months and years go by. Ignoring such experiences robs one of the opportunity to learn from them. In addition, negating painful memories and trying to proceed as if everything is normal contorts one’s emotional life and results in untoward effects. Researchers and clinicians working with combat veterans have shown how avoiding thinking or talking about an overwhelming and painful event can lead to free-floating sadness and anger, all of which can become attached to present circumstances. For example, if you met your old friend, a war veteran, at a café and accidentally knocked his coffee over, then he turned red and screamed at you, you’d understand that the mishap alone couldn’t be the reason for his outburst. No one could be that upset about spilled coffee—the real root of such rage must lie elsewhere. In this case, it might be untreated PTSD, which is characterized by a strong startle response and heightened emotional reactivity.

    We are not suggesting that the entire country has PTSD from COVID. In fact, the majority of people who are exposed to trauma do not go on to exhibit the symptoms of PTSD. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t deeply affected. In our lifetime, COVID posed an unprecedented threat in both its overwhelming scope and severity; it left most Americans unable to protect themselves and, at times, at a loss to comprehend what was happening. That meets the clinical definition of trauma: an overwhelming experience in which you are threatened with serious physical or psychological harm.

    [Read: Why are people nostalgic for early-pandemic life?]

    Traumatic memories are notable for how they alter the ways people recall the past and consider the future. A recent brain-imaging study showed that when people with a history of trauma were prompted to return to those horrific events, a part of the brain was activated that is normally employed when one thinks about oneself in the present. In other words, the study suggests that the traumatic memory, when retrieved, came forth as if it were being relived during the study. Traumatic memory doesn’t feel like a historical event, but returns in an eternal present, disconnected from its origin, leaving its bearer searching for an explanation. And right on cue, everyday life offers plenty of unpleasant things to blame for those feelings—errant friends, the price of groceries, or the leadership of the country.

    To come to terms with a traumatic experience, as clinicians know, you need to do more than ignore or simply recall it. Rather, you must rework the disconnected memory into a context, and thereby move it firmly into the past. It helps to have a narrative that makes sense of when, how, and why something transpired. For example, if you were mugged on a dark street and became fearful of the night, your therapist might suggest that you connect your general dread with the specifics of your assault. Then your terror would make sense and be restricted to that limited situation. Afterward, the more you ventured out in the dark, perhaps avoiding the dangerous block where you were jumped, the more you would form new, safe memories that would then serve to mitigate your anxiety.

    Many people don’t regularly recall the details of the early pandemic—how walking down a crowded street inspired terror, how sirens wailed like clockwork in cities, or how one had to worry about inadvertently killing grandparents when visiting them. But the feelings that that experience ignited are still very much alive. This can make it difficult to rationally assess the state of our lives and our country.

    One remedy is for leaders to encourage remembrance while providing accurate and trustworthy information about both the past and the present. In the early days of the pandemic, President Donald Trump mishandled the crisis and peddled misinformation about COVID. But with 2020 a traumatic blur, Trump seems to have become the beneficiary of our collective amnesia, and Biden the repository for lingering emotional discontent. Some of that misattribution could be addressed by returning to the shattering events of the past four years and remembering what Americans went through. This process of recall is emotionally cathartic, and if it’s done right, it can even help to replace distorted memories with more accurate ones.

    President Biden invited the nation to grieve together in 2021, when American death counts reached 500,000, and again in 2022, when they surpassed 1 million. In his 2022 State of the Union address, he rightly acknowledged that “we meet tonight in an America that has lived through two of the hardest years this nation has ever faced,” before urging Americans to “move forward safely.” But in the past two years, he, like almost everyone else, has largely tried to proceed as if everyone is back to normal. Meanwhile, American minds and hearts simply aren’t ready—whether we realize it or not.

    [Read: The Biden administration killed America’s collective pandemic approach]

    Perhaps Biden and his advisers fear that reminding voters of such a dark time would create more trouble for his presidency. And yet, our work leads us to believe that the effect would be exactly the opposite. Rituals of mourning and remembrance help people come together and share in their grief so that they can return more clear-eyed to face daily life. By prompting Americans to remember what we endured together, paradoxically, Biden could help free all of us to more fully experience the present.

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    George Makari

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  • How Hur Misled the Country on Biden’s Memory

    How Hur Misled the Country on Biden’s Memory

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    First impressions stick. After a big story hits, the initial conclusions can turn out to be wrong, or partly wrong, but the revisions are not what people remember. They remember the headlines in imposing font, the solemn tone from a presenter, the avalanche of ironic summaries on social media. Political operatives know this, and it’s that indelible impression they want, one that sticks like a greasy fingerprint and that no number of follow-ups or awkward corrections could possibly wipe away.

    Five years ago, a partisan political operative with the credibility of a long career in government service misled the public about official documents in order to get Donald Trump the positive spin he wanted in the press. The play worked so well that a special counsel appointed to examine President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, Robert Hur, ran it again.

    In 2019, then–Attorney General Bill Barr—who would later resign amid Trump’s attempts to suborn the Justice Department into backing his effort to seize power after losing reelection—announced that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had not found sufficient evidence to indict Trump on allegations that he had assisted in a Russian effort to sway the 2016 election and had obstructed an investigation into that effort. Mueller’s investigation led to indictments of several Trump associates, but he later testified that Justice Department policy barred prosecuting a sitting president, and so indicting Trump was not an option. Barr’s summary—which suggested that Trump had been absolved of any crimes—was so misleading that it drew a rebuke not only from Mueller himself but from a federal judge in a public-records lawsuit over material related to the investigation. That judge, Reggie Walton, wrote in 2020 that the discrepancies “cause the court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller report to the contrary.”

    David A. Graham: The Special Counsel’s devastating description of Biden

    As my colleague David Graham wrote at the time, the ploy worked. Trump claimed “total exoneration,” and mainstream outlets blared his innocence in towering headlines. Only later did the public learn that Mueller’s report had found “no criminal conspiracy but considerable links between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, and strongly suggested that Trump had obstructed justice.”

    Now this same pattern has emerged once again, only instead of working in the president’s favor, it has undermined him. Hur, a former U.S. attorney in the Trump administration, was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Biden for potential criminal wrongdoing after classified documents were found at his home. (Trump has been indicted on charges that he deliberately mishandled classified documents after storing such documents at his home in Florida and deliberately showing them off to visitors as “highly confidential” and “secret information.”)

    In Hur’s own summary of his investigation, he concluded that “no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,” even absent DOJ policy barring prosecution of a sitting president. But that part was not what caught the media’s attention. Rather it was Hur’s characterization of Biden as having memory problems, validating conservative attacks on the president as too old to do the job. The transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden, released yesterday by House Democrats, suggest that characterization—politically convenient for Republicans and the Trump campaign—was misleading.

    Sparking alarming headlines about Biden’s mental faculties, Hur had written that Biden “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and “diminished faculties in advancing age.” As with Barr’s, that conclusion set off a media frenzy in which many mainstream outlets strongly reinforced conservative propaganda that Biden was mentally unfit to serve, a narrative that reverberated until the president’s animated delivery of the State of the Union address last week.

    In press coverage following the report, Hur’s phrase was frequently shortened to an “elderly man with a poor memory,” turning the evaluation of a potential legal strategy into something akin to a medical diagnosis. A cacophony of mainstream-media coverage questioning Biden’s age and fitness followed, while conservative politicians and media figures outright declared Biden incapacitated and demanded he be removed from office according to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, which provides for succession in case a president is “unable to discharge his duties.”

    The transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden illuminate Hur’s summary as uncharitable at best. As a report in The Washington Post noted, “Biden doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be.”

    Hur wrote that Biden “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.” Yet the transcript shows Biden remembering the exact day, May 30, after which staffers offer the year—2015—and Biden says, “Was it 2015 he had died?” In another exchange Hur singled out as indicative of Biden’s poor memory, he said Biden mischaracterized the point of view of an Obama-administration official who had opposed a surge of combat troops to the war in Afghanistan, but left out that Biden correctly stated the official’s views in an exchange later that day. The transcript also shows Biden struggling with other dates while answering questions about when he obtained certain documents or in the interval between the Obama and Biden administrations, when he decided to run for president. But as The New York Times reported, “In both instances, Mr. Biden said the wrong year but appeared to recognize that he had misspoken and immediately stopped to seek clarity and orient himself.”

    The transcript does not completely refute Hur’s description of Biden’s memory, but it is entirely incompatible with the conservative refrain that Biden has “age-related dementia.” Indeed, both Barr and Hur framed their conclusions with a telltale lawyerly touch that would push the media and the public toward a far broader conclusion about Trump’s supposed innocence or Biden’s alleged decline while allowing them to deny that they had been so explicit.

    There’s no question that both Biden and Trump are much older than they used to be. To watch clips of either of them from 20 years ago is to recognize a significant difference. But the transcript shows Biden exactly as he appeared in the State of the Union last week, as someone who has lost a step or two as he’s aged but is fully capable of grasping the politics and policy implications demanded by the presidency. “Mr. Biden went into great detail about many matters, the transcript shows,” the Times reported. “He made jokes over the two days, teasing the prosecutors. And at certain points, he corrected his interrogators when they were the ones who misspoke.” During an exchange about Biden’s home, Hur remarked that Biden had a “photographic understanding and recall of the house,” a remark Hur acknowledged in yesterday’s testimony before the House that he had left out of his original report.

    People with serious cognitive decline do not simply have verbal flubs or memory lapses of the sort both campaigns are constantly highlighting on social media. They avoid asking questions they fear might betray their loss of memory; they struggle to recollect the season, the time of day, the state they are currently in. They awkwardly attempt to hide their inability to recall recently relayed information in ways that simply underline its absence. They repeat innocuous statements that they do not realize they made minutes earlier. They pretend to know people they’ve never met and fail to recognize people they’ve known for decades. The late Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the clearest recent example of this in politics, was reported to have had incidents such as a meeting at which lawmakers had to “reintroduce themselves to Feinstein multiple times during an interaction that lasted several hours,” as the San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2022.

    During his testimony before the House, Hur insisted that “partisan politics had no place whatsoever in my work.” He tried to have it both ways, insisting that his report was accurate while refuting the most uncharitable right-wing characterizations of Biden’s memory. But as legal experts pointed out after the report was released, Hur’s description of Biden’s memory was not a necessary element of his duties, and it is unlikely that someone with as much experience in Washington as Hur would be so naive as to not understand how those phrases would be used politically.

    Yet Hur’s report is itself something of a self-inflicted wound for Democrats, a predictable result of their efforts to rebut bad-faith criticism from partisan actors by going out of their way to seem nonpartisan. The age story caught fire in the press, not only because of genuine voter concern over Biden’s age but because this is the sort of superficially nonideological criticism that some reporters feel comfortable repeating in their own words, believing that it illustrates their lack of partisanship to conservative sources and audiences. Coverage of the Hillary Clinton email investigation reached saturation levels in 2016 for similar reasons.

    There are more parallels between those stories. Then-President Barack Obama appointed James Comey, a Republican, to run the FBI, in an effort to illustrate his commitment to bipartisanship; Attorney General Garland’s decision to appoint Hur probably had similar intentions. Comey, like Hur, declined to press charges but then broke protocol. In Comey’s case, he did so by first holding a press conference in which he criticized Clinton, and later, during the final days of the presidential campaign, announcing that he was reopening the investigation into Clinton while keeping the bureau’s investigation into Trump a secret. A 2017 analysis published by FiveThirtyEight makes a compelling argument that the latter decision threw a close election to Trump.

    Helen Lewis: Biden’s age is now unavoidable

    For reasons that remain unclear to me, Democrats seem to have internalized the Republican insistence that only Republicans are capable of the fairness and objectivity necessary to investigate or enforce the law. Any lifelong Republican who fails to put partisanship above their duties is instantly and retroactively turned into a left-wing operative by the conservative media. Acting to prevent complaints of bias (as opposed to actually being fair) is ultimately futile: Comey’s last-minute gift to the Trump campaign didn’t prevent Trump from smearing him as a liberal stooge.

    These efforts to work the refs pay off. Right-wing criticism of Obama probably influenced him to pick a grandstanding Republican to head the FBI, an agency that has never been run by a Democrat, just as it likely influenced Garland to pick a grandstanding Republican to investigate Biden. Conservative criticism of the mainstream press leads too many journalists to attempt to prove they aren’t liberals, which results in wholesale amplification of right-wing propaganda to deflect criticisms that the media aren’t objective; the facts become a secondary concern.

    Fairness, objectivity, and due process are important values, but there is a difference between upholding them and seeking to convince everyone that that’s what you’re doing. Performatively pursuing the latter can easily come at the expense of the former. If you try too hard to convince people you are doing the right thing instead of just doing the right thing, you often end up doing the wrong thing.

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    Adam Serwer

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  • Biden electrifies Democrats, spars with Republicans in fiery State of the Union address

    Biden electrifies Democrats, spars with Republicans in fiery State of the Union address

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    A spirited President Joe Biden delivered a fiery, partisan State of the Union address on Thursday, fit for an election year with enormously high stakes in a divided nation.

    “Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today,” Biden said early in the speech.

    “What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time,” he said.

    “Overseas, [President Vladimir] Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not,” the president said to cheers from Democrats and applause from a smattering of Republicans.

    “My message to President Putin is simple. We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down,” Biden said.

    The president also celebrated Sweden’s ascension into NATO earlier in the day, as Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson sat to the left of First Lady Jill Biden in her guest box.

    U.S. first lady Jill Biden sits alongside Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson during U.S. President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, March 7, 2024.

    Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

    On domestic policy, Biden was even more confrontational than he was on foreign affairs, repeatedly calling out Republicans and sparring live on TV with some of the loudest voices in the GOP caucus.

    As a coterie of conservative Supreme Court justices sat just feet away from him, Biden excoriated them for overturning the reproductive rights enshrined in Roe vs. Wade.

    “In its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority wrote that, ‘women are not without … electoral or political power,’” Biden said.

    Then he paused and said to them, “You’re about to realize just how much.” With that, Democrats in the chamber jumped to their feet and clapped and cheered.

    Biden also went toe to toe with Republicans over a border security bill.

    “In November, my team began serious negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators. The result was a bipartisan bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen in this country,” said Biden.

    U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., yells at U.S. President Joe Biden as he delivers the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, March 7, 2024.

    Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

    As Republicans booed the bill that they agreed to in the Senate, but then sunk in the House, Biden turned to his left, where Republican members were seated.

    “Oh, you don’t think so? You don’t like that bill, huh? Darn, that’s amazing,” he said.

    “Because that bipartisan deal would hire 1,500 more border security agents and officers, 100 more immigration judges to help tackle a backload of 2 million cases.”

    Again and again, Biden met Republican interruptions and boos in real time with quips and jabs that appeared to disarm them.

    Overall, the speech was a clear, and effective, effort to convey to the public and to his party that he is a candidate ready for a fight in November.

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  • State of the Union 2024 key takeaways and analysis

    State of the Union 2024 key takeaways and analysis

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    State of the Union 2024 key takeaways and analysis – CBS News


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    President Biden delivered his third State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday as he eyes a second White House term. “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell leads a special report.

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  • Sen. Katie Britt delivers Republican rebuttal to State of the Union address

    Sen. Katie Britt delivers Republican rebuttal to State of the Union address

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    Sen. Katie Britt delivers Republican rebuttal to State of the Union address – CBS News


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    Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama delivered her party’s response to President Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday night, in emotional remarks from her kitchen. “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell leads a panel to break down Britt’s speech.

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  • Biden pokes fun at age criticisms in closing State of the Union remarks

    Biden pokes fun at age criticisms in closing State of the Union remarks

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    Biden pokes fun at age criticisms in closing State of the Union remarks – CBS News


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    As he neared the end of his State of the Union address, President Biden addressed criticisms about his age head-on, and said his years in public service have provided him clarity. The president said he has learned to “embrace freedom and democracy.”

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  • Biden says her name — Laken Riley — at urging of GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

    Biden says her name — Laken Riley — at urging of GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — It was what the Republicans demanded, but never expected.

    President Joe Biden said her name.

    “Laken Riley.”

    Even before Biden started speaking, the topic of border security was certain to rise as one of the most tense moments in the State of the Union address.

    Biden was confronted as he walked into the House chamber by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hardline Republican, decked out in a red Trump MAGA hat and a t-shirt emblazoned with the message, which was also on a button she pressed into his hand.

    “Say her name,” it said, the phrase evoking the language used by activists after the death of George Floyd and others at the hands of police.

    The death of Laken Riley, a nursing student from Georgia, has become a rallying cry for Republicans, a tragedy that they say encompasses the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S-Mexico border amid a record surge of immigrants entering the country. An immigrant from Venezuela who entered the U.S. illegally has been arrested and charged with murder.

    Midway through the speech, Biden started talking about border security and called on Congress to pass legislation to secure the border and modernize the country’s outdated immigration laws, praising the bipartisan effort that collapsed when his likely Republican presidential rival, Donald Trump, opposed it.

    Greene interjected, “Say her name!”

    The congresswoman from Georgia yelled, pointing a finger, and jabbing it toward Biden.

    And then Biden did just that.

    He held up the white button, and said: “Laken Riley.”

    Biden spoke briefly of her death and he made reference to his own family’s trauma — his first wife and young daughter were killed in 1972 after an automobile crash. His son, Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015.

    And then he urged Congress to work together to pass a border security compromise.

    “Get this bill done!” Biden said.

    He even called on Trump to stop fighting against any border deal.

    “We can do it together,” he said.

    With immigration becoming a top issue in the presidential election, Republicans are using nearly every tool at their disposal — including impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — to condemn how the president has handled the border.

    Hours earlier, the House voted to pass the “Laken Riley Act,” which would require the Department of Homeland Security to detain unauthorized migrants who are accused of theft.

    Authorities have arrested on murder and assault charges Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan man who entered the U.S. illegally and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case. He has not yet entered a plea to the charges.

    Trump has used Riley’s death to slam Biden’s handling of the border and at one event this month told the crown that the president would never say her name.

    Biden has also adopted some of the language of Trump on the border, and on Thursday night, he called the man charged with murdering Riley an “illegal.”

    That was disappointing to Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “I wish he hadn’t engaged with Marjorie Taylor Greene and used the word illegal,” she told the AP after the speech.

    Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, the speaker emeritus, said afterward on CNN, “Now he should have said ‘undocumented,’ but it’s not a big thing.”

    Greene had handed out the buttons earlier in the day. Biden also looked up to the gallery where many guests were seated, but Riley’s parents were not there.

    Rep. Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican, said this week that he had invited Riley’s parents to the State of the Union address, but they had “chosen to stay home as they grieve the loss of their daughter.”

    __

    Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Jill Colvin contributed to this story.

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  • Why So Many Congresswomen Chose To Wear White at the State of the Union

    Why So Many Congresswomen Chose To Wear White at the State of the Union

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    Mar 7th, 2024, 11:12 pm

    A group of Congresswomen wearing white applaud

    As President Joe Biden made his way to the podium Thursday night to make his State of the Union address, cameras panned over the members of Congress gathered for the event, showing that many of the lawmakers were dressed in white. That was, obviously, not a coincidence.

    The Democratic Women’s Caucus announced this week that its members would wear white—a nod to American suffragettes—and don pins reading “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” during the speech.

    “Our message is clear: women must be able to access the health care they need to control their own lives and futures. That means women, not politicians, should be in charge of whether, when, and how to start or grow their families. That includes access to birth control, access to abortion, and access to IVF,” said DWC Chair Lois Frankel.

    This is not the first time these Democratic congresswomen have used this specific sartorial choice to send a message. In 2019, the caucus decided to wear “suffragette white” to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. At the time, Frankel called the move a “respectful message of solidarity with women across the country, and a declaration that we will not go back on our hard-earned rights.”

    Unfortunately, we have had so many of those rights stripped from us in the five years since. The DWC’s decision to wear white tonight is sending a simple, silent message that we do not intend to let that loss of rights be permanent, and that the fight is ongoing.

    (featured image: Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)

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    Vivian Kane

    Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she’s been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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  • Watch Live: Biden delivers State of the Union address for 2024

    Watch Live: Biden delivers State of the Union address for 2024

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    President Biden is delivering his State of the Union address Thursday evening as he faces a broad array of challenges: widespread concern about the southern border, the public’s frustration with the economy, his handling of the Israel-Hamas war and the war in Ukraine. 

    The speech, his third State of the Union and the final one of his first term, also takes place against the backdrop of the November election, two days after the Super Tuesday primaries effectively ensured that he’ll face former President Donald Trump this fall in a rematch of their 2020 race. As the only major Democratic candidate, Mr. Biden has dominated the nominating contests during his primary reelection campaign, but the 81-year-old president continues to face lingering questions about whether he’s too old to run.

    The speech gives the president the opportunity to try to frame the early stages of the general election race in front of one of the largest television audiences of the entire campaign. If last year’s message to a newly divided Congress was one that urged bipartisanship and consensus, this year the president is expected to highlight the differences he has with Republicans. 

    Mr. Biden will be speaking directly about the role of abortion access in Democrats’ political victories, and according to excerpts released by the White House in advance of his address, the president will be promising to restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land on abortion rights if Americans elect a Democratic Congress. 

    And though he may not name Trump, Mr. Biden will be talking about him, contrasting his presidency with what the former president would offer — and reminding voters that his opponent’s age is close to his own. He’ll present his own political philosophy as one that respects everyone and aims “to give everyone a fair shot” and “give hate no safe harbor,” according to excerpts released by the White House.  

    “Now some other people my age see a different story: an American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution,” Mr. Biden will add. “That’s not me.”

    Mr. Biden will also be touting plans to lower costs for middle- and low-income families and draw what senior administration officials say is a “stark contrast” with GOP lawmakers, who they say prioritize  “tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, for large corporations.” 

    Some recent general election polling shows the president trailing Trump. A CBS News poll this month found that a majority of Americans think the economy is bad and believe Mr. Biden’s policies would increase prices, compared to policies that would be implemented by Trump. This seems to be the case despite evidence that the economy has been steadying. Unemployment has remained at record lows, under 4%, and inflation is down to around 3%, well below peaks exceeding 9% two years ago. 

    But during Mr. Biden’s presidency, Americans have experienced a higher cost of living: grocery prices are 20% higher than they were three years ago, home prices are rising and mortgage rates are hovering at just over 7%.

    The president is expected to urge Congress to take action to ease the economic strain on Americans by working to lower health care costs, among other ideas.

    Mr. Biden will also ask Congress to restore the expanded Child Tax Credit, which has been extended before but has since expired. The White House says this would cut the taxes of 39 million low- and middle-income families by an average of $2,600.

    He’s also going to be targeting big companies, with a proposal to raise the corporate minimum tax rate from 15% to 21%. Mr. Biden will also introduce a plan to deny corporate tax deductions to companies that pay any employees over $1 million, according to the top White House economic adviser, Lael Brainard, and other senior administration officials. They said that this would raise $250 billion in revenue. The president will not be able to deliver any of these measures without support from Congress, and the Republican-led House, which has one of the narrowest majorities in history, has struggled to pass legislation.

    Mr. Biden is also expected to press Congress to pass national security funding to support Ukraine, which is rapidly exhausting military weapons and supplies it needs to resist Russia’s invasion. The national security bill that includes funding for Ukraine and Israel remains stalled in Congress after Trump opposed the measure.

    Alabama Sen. Katie Britt is set to deliver the Republican response to Mr. Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address, a rebuttal that comes as the GOP seeks to draw a contrast with the president heading into the November general election and establish that the Republican Party is better positioned to lead the nation.

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  • Who is the designated survivor for the 2024 State of the Union address tonight?

    Who is the designated survivor for the 2024 State of the Union address tonight?

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    Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is the designated survivor chosen to sit out Thursday’s State of the Union, a White House official confirmed to CBS News. 

    Who is the designated survivor for 2024?

    Cardona is 16th in the presidential line of succession. He has served in the White House since the beginning of the Biden administration, having been approved by a vote of 64-33. 

    What is a designated survivor?

    Because the State of the Union is traditionally delivered in the House chamber before the vice president, a joint session of Congress, and Cabinet members — all the members of the line of succession to the presidency are in attendance. In case of a catastrophic event targeting the chamber, one Cabinet member is selected by the White House to go to a secure location and sit out the speech and be ready to take over the presidency in case of such a disaster. 

    The designated survivor is a Cabinet member who does not attend the State of the Union address and would take over the presidency in case a catastrophic incident at the Capitol causes the death or incapacitation of everyone in the line of succession. This person is always chosen ahead of the State of the Union, and the White House refers to the individual as the “cabinet member not in attendance.” 

    The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 set the line of succession, which establishes who’s next in line for the presidency if the office is vacated. Here are the first six in line: Vice President (Kamala Harris), Speaker of the House (Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana), Senate pro tempore (Sen. Patty Murray of Washington), Secretary of State (Antony Blinken), Secretary of Treasury (Janet Yellen), Defense Secretary (Lloyd Austin). 

    How do they choose the designated survivor?

    The designated survivor is usually chosen at random, according to the Constitution Center. Not all Cabinet members are eligible to be president — in the Biden administration, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas are both naturalized U.S. citizens and therefore not eligible to be president.

    The person chosen to be the designated survivor is given some training ahead of time, although what exactly happens is classified. 

    How is the designated survivor protected during the State of the Union?

    The security around the designated survivor is mostly classified, although a few former designated survivors have described what they could about the experience.

    Dan Glickman, who served as Secretary of Agriculture in the Clinton administration, wrote in Politico that he was “taken to a location outside of Washington (my daughter’s apartment in New York), where I was accompanied by key military staff and Secret Service, including a military officer carrying what I presumed to be the nuclear football—a black, leather-encased aluminum briefcase that would be used to authenticate the person ordering a nuclear strike.”

    “It felt like an awesome responsibility to put on one man’s shoulders, even if it was exceedingly unlikely the president—or in this case, the secretary of agriculture—would ever have to use it,” Glickman wrote. “I sometimes wonder if I would have had the courage to give the order.”

    Who has been the designated survivor in the past?

    It’s unclear exactly when the tradition started, although generally it is considered to have originated during the Cold War. The first publicly announced designated survivor was in 1981, when the White House announced it would be Education Secretary Terrel Bell.

    According to the Congressional Research Office, the designated survivor has most frequently been a secretary from the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture or Commerce. 

    In the past 5 years, the designated survivor has been:

    Caroline Linton

    Caroline Linton is a senior editor on the political team for CBSNews.com. She has previously written for The Daily Beast, Newsweek and amNewYork. She is currently based out of Austin, Texas, and writes and edits about local, state and national politics.

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  • Fact check: Breaking down Biden’s exchanges with Republican senators over Social Security and Medicare | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Breaking down Biden’s exchanges with Republican senators over Social Security and Medicare | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden has gone on the attack over Social Security and Medicare.

    In speeches and tweets this week, Biden and his White House have singled out particular Republican senators – notably including Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin – over proposals from those senators that could affect the retirement and health care programs.

    The Republican senators have responded forcefully, accusing Biden of deceiving the public about where they stand. Here is a fact-check of the exchanges.

    Biden and his White House targeted Lee on Wednesday over a video clip of Lee saying, “I’m here right now to tell you one thing that you probably have never heard from a politician. It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it.” The clip has gone viral on Twitter this week; a second viral clip features Lee saying moments later, “Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort and need to be pulled up.”

    The videos are authentic, though Biden didn’t tell his Wednesday speech audience in Wisconsin they are from more than 12 years ago – an event in 2010, when Lee was running for the Senate but before he was first elected. And as Lee noted in Wednesday tweets responding to Biden, Biden didn’t mention that Lee added at the same 2010 event that current Medicare beneficiaries should have their benefits “left untouched” and that “the next layer beneath them, those who will retire in the next few years, also probably have to be held harmless.”

    Still, while Biden could have included more context, he was accurate in saying Lee had called for Social Security to be phased out.

    And while Lee said in a tweeted statement on Wednesday that, during his 12 years as a senator, he has not called for “abolishing” Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits, only for “solutions to improve those programs and move them toward solvency,” he has supported benefit cuts. For example, he has endorsed various proposals over the years to raise the Social Security retirement age.

    Since last year, Biden has criticized Scott over particular components of what Scott calls his “12 Point Plan to Rescue America.”

    In the State of the Union address on Tuesday and in speeches on Wednesday and Thursday, the president referred to a part of Scott’s plan that says, “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” Biden correctly asserted that “all federal legislation” would include Social Security and Medicare, which do not currently require congressional re-approval.

    Scott responded by accusing Biden of being dishonest and confused. Scott argued on Twitter on Wednesday that while his plan does say that “all” federal legislation should sunset in five years and become subject to a new vote by Congress, “This is clearly & obviously an idea aimed at dealing with ALL the crazy new laws our Congress has been passing of late.”

    But the plan itself doesn’t say that.

    The plan’s official text, which remains online on a dedicated website, says “all federal legislation,” period, should be sunset in five years – not all recent legislation, all crazy legislation or all legislation except for the laws that created Social Security and Medicare. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected Scott’s plan last year, McConnell too said that the plan “sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”

    Last year, Biden sometimes overstated the support for Scott’s sunset proposal among congressional Republicans, which appears very limited. Biden has been more precise in his speeches this week, attributing the proposal to Scott himself or accurately saying in the State of the Union that “some” Republicans – “I’m not saying it’s a majority” – support it.

    Biden may have created an inaccurate impression, however, by mentioning the sunset proposal during the section of the State of the Union in which he discussed the battle over the debt ceiling. There is no indication that House Republicans are pushing this proposal as part of the current debt ceiling negotiations with the Biden administration, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has, more generally, said cuts to Social Security and Medicare are “off the table” in these negotiations.

    Scott, in turn, has tossed a false claim into the debate with Biden this week by repeatedly accusing the president of having cut billions from Medicare in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act did not cut Medicare benefits; rather, it allowed the government and seniors to spend less money to buy prescription drugs – and, in fact, simultaneously made Medicare benefits more generous to seniors. The claim of a Medicare cut was repeatedly debunked last year, when Scott and a Republican campaign organization he chaired used it during the midterm elections.

    On Friday afternoon, the day after McConnell told a Kentucky radio station that Scott’s proposal will be a “challenge” for Scott’s own 2024 re-election campaign in a state with a large population of seniors, Scott announced he is introducing a new bill that would make it more difficult for Congress to make any cuts to Social Security and Medicare and that would send the Inflation Reduction Act’s $80 billion in Internal Revenue Service funding to Social Security and Medicare instead.

    This week and in numerous previous speeches, Biden has castigated Johnson for saying last year that Medicare and Social Security should be treated as discretionary spending, which Congress has to approve every year, rather than as permanent entitlements.

    Biden has accurately cited Johnson’s remarks this week. Here’s what Johnson told a Green Bay radio show in August: “We’ve got to turn everything into discretionary spending, so it’s all evaluated, so that we can fix problems or fix programs that are broken, that are going to be going bankrupt. Because, again, as long as things are on automatic pilot, we just continue to pile up debt.” When Johnson faced criticism for those remarks at the time, he stood by them and said that was his consistent longtime position.

    Johnson, however, claimed Wednesday that Biden was “lying” when the president discussed Johnson’s comments shortly after saying that some Republicans want to “cut” Social Security. Johnson has repeatedly said that his proposal to require annual approval for Social Security spending, and to “fix” and “save” Social Security in light of its poor fiscal shape at present, does not mean that he wants to put the programs on the “chopping block” or even to “cut” it.

    “The Democrats have been accusing me, since the first time I ran for office, of wanting to end Social Security, wanting to cut it, wanting to gut it, wanting to – I’ve never said that. I’ve always been consistent: I want to save it,” he said in a radio interview this week.

    It’s impossible to definitively fact-check this particular dispute without Johnson specifying how he wants to “fix” and “save” the program. His office did not respond to a CNN request for comment.

    White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates noted in an email to reporters on Thursday that, though Johnson accused Biden this week of lying about his stance on Social Security, Johnson also said in interviews this week that Social Security is a “legal Ponzi scheme” and that “Social Security might be in a more stable position for younger workers” if the government had proceeded with Republican President George W. Bush’s controversial and eventually abandoned proposal in the mid-2000s to allow workers born after 1949 to divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts in which they could buy into the stock market and make other investments.

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  • Rick Scott: From embattled health care executive to Biden’s top foil | CNN Politics

    Rick Scott: From embattled health care executive to Biden’s top foil | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Sen. Rick Scott has emerged as Joe Biden’s top Republican foil in the days since the president’s State of the Union address, with the White House seizing on a year-old Scott proposal that even GOP leaders recognized at the time as politically toxic.

    As a spending fight looms in Washington and Biden moves toward his 2024 reelection bid, the White House is attempting to make Scott the poster child for the president’s accusations that Republicans are seeking to cut entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare.

    Scott has responded by accusing Biden of lying, airing a misleading ad that alleges Biden cut Medicare and lambasting the president in a barrage of television interviews.

    Biden traveled Thursday to Florida – where Scott was a health care executive and two-term governor – on the latest leg of his post-State of the Union tour.

    The trip was designed in part to stoke a fight with Scott after Biden in his speech Tuesday night seized on the first-term senator’s proposal to sunset all federal programs – including Social Security and Medicare – every five years unless Congress extends those programs.

    Biden’s assertion that some Republicans are seeking to change entitlement programs was met with jeers from Republican lawmakers, who have said spending cuts should be part of any proposal to raise the debt ceiling.

    The president continued pressing that message Wednesday in Wisconsin, telling union workers, “A lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare.” He waved a pamphlet with Scott’s proposal as he spoke.

    Ahead of Biden’s speech Thursday in Tampa, White House aides placed copies of Scott’s proposal on every seat.

    In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday, Scott said Biden has misrepresented the proposal he put forward ahead of the 2022 midterm elections while serving as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of the Senate GOP.

    “Nobody believes that I want to cut Medicare or Social Security. I’ve never said it,” Scott said.

    Scott said his proposal is intended to eliminate wasteful spending and help ensure the government can “figure out how to start living within our means.”

    “I want to make sure we balance our budget and preserve Medicare and Social Security, and I’ve been clear all along. So what I want to do is get rid of wasteful programs that we never review up here,” he said.

    But Scott’s proposal would sunset all federal legislation – including the two entitlement programs – every five years and require Congress to pass them again.

    Long before he was a US senator, Scott had first-hand experience dealing with America’s federal health care programs – and it became the source of much criticism as he entered the political arena.

    In the 1980s, Scott founded Columbia Hospital Corporation by purchasing a pair of distressed Texas hospitals. He later merged his company with Hospital Corporation of America to create Columbia/HCA, becoming the largest for-profit hospital chain at the time and gaining notoriety on Wall Street for what appeared like cost-cutting in an industry with ballooning expenses.

    In 1997, federal agents unveiled a sweeping investigation into Columbia/HCA that would roil the company for years. On the day the FBI swooped in to seize records from 35 of its hospitals across six states, Scott shrugged off the probe. “It’s not a fun day, but … government investigations are a matter of fact today in health care,” he said on CNN.

    The investigation would unearth what the US Department of Justice later called the “largest health care fraud case in U.S. history.” According to a press release, Columbia/HCA schemed to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE, the military’s health care program, of hundreds of millions of dollars. The company pleaded guilty to criminal conduct, including charges related to fraudulent Medicare billing and paying kickbacks to doctors, and it ultimately agreed to pay $1.7 billion in fines, damages and penalties.

    Scott was pushed out as CEO amid the turmoil. He was never charged with a crime, though much of the alleged financial abuses took place during his watch. His time in the corporate world made Scott a wealthy individual, which he would lean on in 2010 when he decided to kickstart a political career by entering the race for Florida governor.

    Scott’s time at the helm of Columbia/HCA was the subject of negative ads from both Republicans and Democrats, but he fended them off with a self-funded campaign that flooded the airwaves with a jobs-focused message. He told the St. Petersburg Times that “mistakes were made” at his former company and that he had “learned hard lessons,” but he also said during a debate that he was “proud of the company I built.” Regardless of the controversy, the little-known Scott defeated a GOP favorite for his party’s nomination, and Floridians narrowly elected him governor that fall.

    During his eight years leading Florida, Scott fought off attempts to extend safety net benefits to Floridians. He frequently challenged the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act and blocked expansion of Medicaid in Florida. In his first year as governor, he signed a bill to cut unemployment payments and tied benefits to the state’s unemployment rate.

    Democrats continued to make Scott’s time at Columbia/HCA an issue, to no avail. Scott eked out a reelection victory in 2014. He then narrowly unseated longtime Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in 2018 after spending more than $70 million of his own money on his campaign.

    Marching to the beat of his own drum, Scott declined to be sworn in with his class in January 2019. Instead, he waited until his term as governor had ended and flew to Washington for a separate ceremony. For a time, it made him the country’s most junior senator, but he nevertheless soon found himself in party leadership.

    Scott and other Republicans are aggressively pushing back against Biden’s assertions that the GOP is seeking to cut spending on entitlement programs.

    However, Republican leaders have long recognized Scott’s proposal to sunset all federal programs after five years as rocky political terrain.

    The tense relationship between Scott and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell burst into public view during the 2022 election cycle as Republicans sought to retake the Senate.

    Scott, as NRSC chairman, released a platform called “Rescue America,” which would have subjected all federally elected officials to a term limit of 12 years and closed the Department of Education, amid a slew of other initiatives. It would also have required millions of low-income and middle-class Americans to pay income taxes, which was later dropped in a revised version of the plan.

    And, in what Democrats immediately recognized as an opening to accuse Republicans of attempting to undercut popular programs, Scott’s plan proposed sunsetting all federal legislation in five years – unless Congress extended it.

    McConnell quickly disavowed Scott’s plan, seeking to make clear that the Florida senator did not speak for Senate Republicans.

    “Let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda,” McConnell said at a news conference last March. “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”

    Their frosty relationship did not improve as the 2022 election cycle continued, as the two battled over which candidates to support in primaries and in the general election, and Republicans ultimately fell short of winning a majority.

    After the election, Scott challenged McConnell for the top Senate Republican post but lost.

    The Florida senator said last week that he saw McConnell’s decision to remove him from the Senate Commerce Committee as retribution.

    “He didn’t like that I opposed him because I believe we have to have ideas – fight over ideas,” Scott said on “CNN This Morning.”

    When pressed Thursday by CNN’s Collins about why his proposal left open the opportunity for the government to cut funding for Social Security and Medicare, Scott repeatedly referenced a policy proposal from then-Sen. Biden in 1975 to sunset federal legislation periodically.

    Scott said Biden’s old proposal does less to protect entitlements for seniors than the senator’s plan from last year because “he proposed it year after year after year to reduce Medicare and Social Security. Year after year. I’ve never done that. I don’t believe in that.”

    Asked Thursday about the 1975 proposal mentioned by Scott, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “A bill from the 1970s is not part of the president’s agenda.”

    “The president ran on protecting Medicare and Social Security from cuts. And he reiterated that in the State of the Union,” she said.

    A new ad from Scott released this week in advance of the president’s visit to Florida says that “Joe Biden just cut $280 billion from Medicare” – a claim that was previously debunked when Scott and the NRSC made it in 2022.

    Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is expected to reduce Medicare prescription drug spending by the federal government by $237 billion, according to the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate, because the law allows the government to spend less money to buy drugs from pharmaceutical companies and not because it cuts benefits to seniors enrolled in Medicare. The law makes Medicare’s prescription drug program substantially more generous to seniors while also saving them money.

    Scott, in his interview with Collins, also defended his recent call for Biden to resign, labeling him “a complete failure.” He said his resignation calls did not specifically stem from Biden’s use of his proposal as an avenue to attack Republicans but expressed his displeasure with the president’s repeated references to his plan.

    “He lies about what I want to get done, and I don’t appreciate it,” Scott said.

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  • 2/8: Red and Blue

    2/8: Red and Blue

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    2/8: Red and Blue – CBS News


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    President Biden trumpets economic agenda in Wisconsin; How Mr. Biden’s State of the Union address compares to past speeches.

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  • Biden delivers fiery State of the Union address

    Biden delivers fiery State of the Union address

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    Biden delivers fiery State of the Union address – CBS News


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    Fresh off a fiery State of the Union speech, President Biden took his economic message to Wisconsin, where he mocked Republicans who heckled him during the address. Weijia Jiang has more on the biggest moments from the night.

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  • GOP lawmakers interrupt Biden during State of the Union

    GOP lawmakers interrupt Biden during State of the Union

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    GOP lawmakers interrupt Biden during State of the Union – CBS News


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    A day after delivering the State of the Union address, President Biden Wednesday traveled to Wisconsin touting his economic agenda. During his address, Republican lawmakers broke with tradition, with GOP lawmakers heckling the president multiple times. CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane, and CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, joined “Red and Blue” to discuss the speech.

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