Contact Newsletter
🤝 Support Our Work 🔗 Allies & Resources

TRUE SIGNAL MEDIA | THE DAILY BRIEF
Morning Edition
Today's Brief

State of the Union Night: Trump Addresses Congress Under the Weight of Four Crises at Once

The morning briefing on the State of the Union, a looming Iran decision window, tariff legal battles, and growing oversight challenges across Washington.

True Signal Media | The Daily Brief tracks the institutions, decisions, and accountability stories shaping the day ahead.
Wide-angle nighttime photograph of the U.S. Capitol dome illuminated against a dark winter sky, snow covering the ground and American flags lining the approach, conveying a formal and consequential atmosphere in Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 Maya Sutton | Daily Brief Editor Standard Politics

Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, President Trump delivers the first State of the Union address of his second term before a joint session of Congress. The theme, per White House officials: "America at 250: Strong, Prosperous and Respected." The reality landing on the doorstep of that speech: a Supreme Court that just struck down his entire tariff architecture four days ago, a self-imposed 10-day Iran decision window that is now open, cartel violence still burning across Mexico, Cuba in financial and humanitarian freefall, and a government that has been partially shut down over DHS funding for two weeks.
At 12:01 a.m. this morning, new 10% global tariffs took effect under an untested legal authority — Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — hours after the Supreme Court invalidated his original tariff regime. Trump has simultaneously threatened to raise those to 15%, the statutory cap, with Section 122 only allowing tariffs for 150 days before Congress must vote to extend them. Legal experts are already flagging the new tariffs as likely vulnerable to fresh court challenges.
More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers are boycotting the speech entirely, staging a counterprogram at the National Mall. The U.S. women's Olympic gold medal hockey team — invited by Trump — declined, citing scheduling. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger delivers the Democratic response. A new CNN/SSRS poll shows 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling inflation, tariffs, relations with other countries, immigration, and the economy. Multiple Jeffrey Epstein survivors are expected to attend as guests of members of Congress.
The speech is Trump's biggest single opportunity to shape the midterm narrative before November. He walks into it with his two signature second-term priorities — mass deportation and tariff-driven trade policy — under simultaneous legal assault from the Supreme Court he built.

Top Stories

Trump's New 15% Tariffs Take Effect Today — Already Facing Legal Challenge

At midnight, new global tariffs kicked in at 10% under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, replacing the IEEPA-based tariff regime struck down by the Supreme Court Friday in a 6-3 ruling. The court held that tariffs are taxes, the power to tax belongs to Congress under Article I of the Constitution, and IEEPA was never intended to grant the president unlimited tariff authority. Trump called the decision "deeply disappointing," said he was "ashamed" of Justices Gorsuch and Barrett — two of his own appointees — and vowed on Saturday to raise the new tariffs immediately to 15%. As of this morning they took effect at 10%, with the administration still working on the paperwork to raise the rate to the 15% cap. Section 122 tariffs are limited to 150 days and cannot exceed 15%, meaning Trump has already reached the ceiling of his current legal authority. Legal experts say new court challenges are imminent. The EU postponed a scheduled trade vote today pending clarity on U.S. intentions. One economist's summary: "The U.S. is pulling away from the world, and the rest of the world is now pulling away from the U.S."

Sources: Yahoo • Al Jazeera • CNBC • PIIE

ICE Agents Calling Legal Observers "Domestic Terrorists" — Now a Federal Class Action Lawsuit

A federal class action lawsuit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Maine by two Portland women — social worker Colleen Fagan and community member Elinor Hilton — alleging that DHS and ICE are violating the First Amendment by scanning the faces and license plates of people lawfully filming immigration enforcement operations, adding them to government databases, and threatening to label them domestic terrorists. Fagan's video went viral last month after a masked ICE agent was recorded telling her: "Cause we have a nice little database, and now you're considered a domestic terrorist." Hilton was told by an agent: "I hope you know that if you keep coming to things like this, you are going to be on a domestic terrorist watchlist. Then we're going to come to your house later tonight." She did not sleep at home that night. The lawsuit notes the government is in a catch-22 of its own making: either the database is real and the Constitution is being violated, or agents are lying about the database specifically to intimidate citizens — which is also unconstitutional. The administration denies any such database exists. Border czar Tom Homan said in January the government plans to "make famous" everyone who interferes with ICE. The lawsuit seeks a restraining order and expungement of all collected data.

Sources: NPR • Bangor Daily News • Protect Democracy

Pentagon Split on Iran — Joint Chiefs Warned Against Strikes, Trump Denied It

The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, privately warned Trump of "various risks" associated with military strikes on Iran — including munition shortages, lack of allied support, potential U.S. and allied casualties, and the danger of depleting U.S. air defense capabilities. Trump denied the reports as "100 percent incorrect." The same day the reports published, the denial landed. This public fracture between the president and his top uniformed military official, emerging during a 10-day self-imposed decision window on Iran, is a significant accountability story. When generals break with presidents publicly on war decisions, it is newsworthy. When presidents deny the reports the same hour they break, that too requires documentation. Iran and the U.S. are now scheduled to resume nuclear talks in Geneva Thursday. Whether that meeting holds — or whether the clock runs out first — is the story of the rest of this week.

Sources: Press Tv • ABC news

Ruben Ray Martinez: ICE Killed a U.S. Citizen in Texas a Year Ago. It Just Became Public.

Newsweek and the New York Times revealed last week that ICE fatally shot Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, in South Padre Island, Texas on March 2025 — nearly a full year before the story became public. Martinez, who worked at an Amazon warehouse in San Antonio, was in South Padre Island to celebrate his birthday when an unnamed ICE agent shot him multiple times after he did not follow orders to exit his car. ICE kept this killing out of public view for nearly a year while simultaneously claiming its operations targeted only "the worst of the worst." The revelations establish a documented pattern: federal immigration agents have killed at least three people — Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and now Ruben Ray Martinez — with Martinez's death having been concealed for eleven months. All three were U.S. citizens or people with clear legal status. None received the public transparency that normally accompanies law enforcement use-of-force fatalities.

Sources: Democracy Now

Mexico Aftermath: Violence Persists, World Cup Clock Ticking

Violence triggered by El Mencho's killing was still active across multiple states Monday, with schools canceled in Jalisco and surrounding states and curfew conditions in effect across parts of western Mexico. The timing creates compounding urgency: Guadalajara is a FIFA World Cup host city for the summer tournament, now just months away. Mexican security forces seized armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and other weapons from CJNG members in operations over the weekend, but without a clear successor to El Mencho, analysts expect an extended period of internal power struggle within the cartel — a pattern consistent with what followed the arrest of Sinaloa Cartel leader El Chapo. The U.S. State Department shelter-in-place advisories for affected regions remain in effect as of this morning.

Sources: NBC news • Al Jazeera

Quick Hits

  • DHS Partial Shutdown Enters Third Week. — The government has been in partial shutdown for two weeks over congressional deadlock on DHS funding, as Democrats refuse to fund an agency documented to have illegally detained people more than 4,400 times. No resolution in sight heading into SOTU. [Source]
  • Epstein Survivors Attending State of the Union Tonight. — Multiple survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse network are attending the SOTU as guests of members of Congress — a deliberately visible signal to the administration as it fields congressional pressure over the files and the arrest of former Prince Andrew last week. [Source]
  • U.S. Women's Olympic Hockey Team Declined Trump's SOTU Invite. — The gold medal-winning team — which captured the U.S.'s first women's hockey gold in decades — reportedly cited "scheduling" for declining Trump's invitation to attend the address. The men's team, which won gold Sunday, accepted. [Source]
  • Sudan Drone Strikes Kill 90 People at Two Crowded Markets. — The Rapid Support Forces carried out drone strikes on two markets in North Kordofan, Sudan, killing at least 90 people and injuring dozens more. The attack received minimal Western press coverage as it fell on the same news cycle as the SOTU, cartel violence, and the tariff ruling. [Source]

What to Watch Today

State of the Union — 9 p.m. ET Tonight: The most important moments to track are not the applause lines — they are what Trump says about Iran (White House press secretary implied it would feature), what he says about tariffs and the Supreme Court, and whether he addresses the government shutdown directly. Virginia Gov. Spanberger’s response at roughly 10:30 p.m. sets the Democratic counter-frame going into midterm season.

Iran Geneva Talks — Thursday: The next scheduled round of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks is set for Thursday in Geneva. Whether the talks happen on schedule, are postponed, or are preempted by a military decision is the single most consequential watch item of the week.

Tariff Legal Challenges: Section 122 has never been used as a tariff tool before. Legal challenges are expected to move quickly. Watch for any federal court filing or TRO request in the next 48 hours — legal shops were already filing challenges when the tariffs went live at midnight.

ICE Domestic Terrorist Lawsuit: Protect Democracy has asked for an emergency temporary restraining order in the Maine case. That ruling could come within days and would be the first judicial test of ICE’s surveillance of First Amendment activity.

By The Numbers

150

The number of days Trump's new Section 122 tariffs can legally remain in effect before Congress must vote to extend them. That clock started today. This is the hard ceiling of his current statutory authority.

View Source
$175 billion

Estimated amount the U.S. government may owe in refunds to companies that paid IEEPA tariffs now ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Trump has indicated the administration does not plan to honor those refunds.

View Source
3

The number of U.S. citizens now documented to have been killed by federal immigration agents since Trump's second term began: Renee Good, Alex Pretti (both Minneapolis, January 2026), and Ruben Ray Martinez (South Padre Island, Texas, March 2025 — concealed for nearly a year).

View Source
6 in 10

The share of Americans who, per a new CNN/SSRS poll released ahead of the SOTU, disapprove of Trump's handling of inflation, tariffs, foreign relations, immigration, and the economy simultaneously.

View Source
10

The self-imposed days Trump gave himself to decide on Iran. That window opened this weekend and runs through approximately March 2. Geneva talks are Thursday. The decision is this week.

View Source

Quote of the Day

"Plaintiffs must either abandon their constitutional rights or accept being cataloged and branded as 'domestic terrorists.' That is a choice the Constitution does not require Plaintiffs, or anyone, to make."
— From the federal class action complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Maine against DHS, ICE, CBP, and related agencies, on behalf of Maine residents who were surveilled, threatened, and labeled domestic terrorists for lawfully filming immigration enforcement operations in their communities.
https://protectdemocracy.org/work/defending-maine-communities-from-federal-surveillance-and-intimidation/

Bottom Line

Tonight Trump stands before Congress to make the case that everything is going according to plan. The morning briefing tells a different story: his tariff regime was just ruled unconstitutional, its replacement is already legally shaky, three U.S. citizens are now documented dead at the hands of federal immigration agents, ICE is running facial recognition on people filming public operations and threatening to call them domestic terrorists, a possible war with Iran may be decided in the next 10 days without a congressional vote, and Mexico is still on fire. The State of the Union is a speech about the state of the union. Tonight's will be worth measuring against the record this brief documents week by week. TSM will.

Other TSM Articles

Read Full Coverage →
← Previous Brief All Briefs