The Daily Brief - Feb. 25, 2026

The latest on State of the Union coverage, the Pentagon's clash with Anthropic, and more

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State of the Union Coverage

Last night, President Trump delivered the longest State of the Union address in American history. We surveyed the media landscape to find out how the speech has been received in the press across the spectrum — left, right, and center.

News in the center

In the center of the news spectrum, the response to the speech was measured, with most outlets situating Trump’s touting of his accomplishments within the larger context of deeply dissatisfied voters. On ABC News, the coverage evaluated the State of the Union in the larger context of the recently released Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll, which shows voters’ growing disapproval of Trump’s job performance, particularly on issues like immigration and inflation.

The post-speech broadcast described the address as “laser focused on the economy,” and “at times boastful, at other times belittling,” and noted the “tense moments,” such as the discussion of immigration enforcement when Rep. Ilhan Omar shouted at Trump when he accused Somali immigrants of widespread fraud. ABC’s chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce said the speech was the “most disciplined we’ve seen the president in quite some time” in terms of staying on message, and that he “again and again highlighted crimes by immigrants.

Reporter Martha Radditz pointed out that Trump failed to provide much of a rationale for a potential war with Iran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent praised the speech, and pushed back when asked about poll numbers that show most voters are dissatisfied with how Trump has handled the economy. ABC also noted that Trump made numerous false claims, including about elections, the price of groceries, and the number of wars he’s ended.

Over at The Wall Street Journal, one top headline stated “Trump Hails an Economic Turnaround Many Voters Don’t See,” and the story pointed out his failure to acknowledge affordability as a real pain point for many Americans. Another noted Trump’s focus on the economy even as voters “worry.”

The framing in Reuters was similar, with a headline saying, “Trump hails ‘golden age’ in State of the Union as voters sour on the economy.” In its story listing major takeaways from the speech, Reuters highlighted the focus on the economy, Trump’s many moments of “political theater” as he handed out awards and medals, the graphic descriptions of crimes by immigrants, and his attacks on Democrats. Like ABC, Reuters also noted Trump’s failure to make a substantive case for military action in Iran.

Left-leaning news

Liberal media, unsurprisingly, didn’t love President Trump’s State of the Union speech, calling it “boring,” “long,” “lies,” and “extreme.”

Rachel Maddow on MS Now came out of the gate at the end of speech, saying Trump started with a “bunch of striking lies” and called his pace frenetic at the start, saying he was “wound up and weird.” She called his descriptions of multiple murders to be “violence porn.” Jen Psaki echoed those comments, saying his stories were “gross.”

The Huffington Post said the speech was “vicious” and a “snooze.” One article said the president seemed “desperate for a way to revive his political fortunes” and that new proposals he offered up would never actually become law. Another said Trump stole the thunder of a 100-year-old war veteran by making it about himself.

And The Daily Beast focused less on the substance, and more on the people in the audience, and the “MAGA” reaction. Coverage last night talked about a meltdown over Trump’s “Olympics Stunt.”

And an article today said MAGA was “raging” over Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sitting “front and center” at the speech last night, because of his connections to Jeffrey Epstein. Citing two right-wing “influencers” as the MAGA ragers, it says their comments were “a common opinion that emerged on social media whenever a smiling Lutnick was shown during State of the Union broadcasts.”

All three left-leaning outlets found things they didn’t like about Trump’s speech, with no room for positive coverage.

Right-leaning news

Conservative media largely framed Tuesday’s State of the Union as a strong performance by Trump and a bad night for Democrats. Newsmax’s headline echoed Trump’s own language — “a turnaround for the ages” — while noting he delivered it “in defiance of polling.” The site also featured four historians offering mixed reactions: Nixon biographer Irwin Gellman said Trump “could not have done much better,” while presidential historian Chris Whipple said, “Remarkably, he stayed on script. The trouble was the script, which failed to convincingly address affordability or Epstein or any of the pressing issues of the day. Instead, he reveled in dystopian scenes of American carnage and demonizing his opponents. It makes a GOP shellacking in the 2026 midterms all the more likely.”

The Washington Examiner’s editorial called it “turbo-populism,” describing Trump as “a gifted populist showman” who turned the speech into “a theater production” calculated to make Democrats look unpatriotic — pointing to a moment where every Democrat sat silently when Trump asked lawmakers to affirm that government’s first duty is to protect American citizens.

Fox News led with a confrontation over gender transitions, highlighting Trump calling Democrats “crazy” for refusing to applaud his call to ban schools from socially transitioning minors without parental consent. The network ran real-time voter reaction data showing Republicans responding positively while Democrats reacted negatively.

Across all three outlets, the dominant framing was that Trump controlled the room and that Democrats hurt themselves by refusing to stand or applaud for proposals framed around patriotism, public safety, and parental rights.

Washington Post

A federal judge has ruled that the Justice Department cannot conduct an unsupervised search of electronic devices seized from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home. Instead, he says he will review the contents of her devices himself.

In January, federal agents took Natanson’s phone, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive, and a smart watch during a search of her home as part of an investigation into whether a Pentagon contractor illegally leaked classified information to her. The Post says the seized material spans years of reporting across hundreds of stories, including communications with confidential sources.

Judge William Porter wrote that “seizing the totality of a reporter’s electronic work product, including tools essential to ongoing newsgathering, constitutes a restraint on the exercise of First Amendment rights.” He compared allowing the government to search a reporter’s files to “leaving the government’s fox in charge of the Washington Post’s henhouse.”

The investigation stems from articles Natanson co-wrote that the DOJ says contained classified information. Pentagon contractor Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones was arrested in January and charged with unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents, which he allegedly passed to Natanson. He has been in jail since the time of his arrest.

The case has raised concerns among press freedom groups, particularly after Attorney General Pam Bondi issued new guidelines last April that said prosecutors could use things like warrants and subpoenas to investigate journalists to whom unauthorized disclosures were made.

Anthropic Pentagon Clash

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given an ultimatum to tech company Anthropic: allow the US military unrestricted use of its AI technology, or be placed on the equivalent of a government blacklist. The military can use AI technology to analyze and summarize large amounts of data and text, draft memos, and complete translations. The US reportedly used Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, in the operation to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, but the exact role AI played has not been publicly explained.

Anthropic has placed restrictions on its AI model, Claude, to prevent what the company sees as potentially unethical usage. Hegseth is insisting that Anthropic remove two of the guardrails in particular: one that prevents the creation of AI-controlled weapons, and one that prevents use of the model for mass surveillance.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has repeatedly expressed his concerns about unfettered government use of AI technology. “A powerful AI looking across billions of conversations from millions of people could gauge public sentiment, detect pockets of disloyalty forming, and stamp them out before they grow,” he wrote in an essay.

Hegseth has reportedly given Anthropic until this Friday to drop the safeguards, or else the Pentagon will label the company a supply chain risk, which will ban the use of Anthropic products by any companies with military contracts. Hegseth has also threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) against Anthropic, which would force it to allow the Pentagon to use the technology as it sees fit with or without the company’s permission.

Surgeon General Nominee Hearing

The Senate health committee today spent more than two hours questioning Dr. Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General. Means is a wellness influencer and author closely tied to the Make America Healthy Again movement. She’s also a major supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

In her opening remarks, Means focused on rates of chronic illness in the US and emphasized the solutions she advocates for. “Public health leaders must address the evidence-based, modifiable drivers of chronic diseases which include ultra-processed foods, industrial chemical exposure, lack of physical activity, chronic stress and loneliness, and overmedicalization,” Means said.

Means evaded questions about vaccines. “I think there’s a nuanced conversation that American families are looking to have about shared clinical decision-making with their doctors about specific vaccines that their children may not be as seriously at risk for,” she said. Means emphasized that parents should have “autonomy” about when children are vaccinated, and declined to answer directly when Senator Bill Cassidy asked whether it was important for the US to achieve universal hepatitis B vaccination. She also declined to answer whether she believes vaccines cause autism, saying, “We do not know as a medical community what causes autism… Until we have a clear understanding of why kids are developing this at higher rates, I think we should not leave any stone unturned.”

Senators also asked Means about her past comments about her opposition to certain pesticides, and her business ties. Last year, an investigation found that Means made more than half a million dollars from partnerships with companies selling “teas, supplements, and elixirs,” herbal remedies, and health testing.

While Means has a medical license, she said she has currently let it lapse. It is expected that she will be confirmed as Surgeon General.

Rep. Tony Gonzales

Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales is refusing to step down or end his re-election bid over an alleged affair with a staffer, despite several members of his own party saying he should.

The staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles died by suicide in September after setting herself on fire.

In recent weeks, news organizations obtained text messages between Santos-Aviles and Gonzales showing an intimate relationship.Gonzales is married and has six children, and Santos-Aviles was married at the time as well, with one child.

Gonzales asked her to send “sexy” photos, according to ABC News, which received the text messages from Santos-Aviles’ widower. She responds, “you don’t really want a hot picture of me” and he tells her he’s a “visual person… sorry.”

In the messages, he also asks her about her sexual preferences, according to ABC News, and she says that Gonzales is “going too far boss.”

Subsequent messages show Santos-Aviles making plans to meet up at a vacation cabin, according to San Antonio Express-News. The newspaper also received a text message from April 2025 from Santos-Aviles to her co-worker, where she said she had an “affair with our boss.”

Gonzales has denied the affair.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise calls the accusations “very serious.” The Office of Congressional Conduct is currently investigating the relationship.

If the OCC finds enough evidence, the House Ethics Committee could open its own investigation, which could lead to disciplinary action against Gonzales.

So far, several Republicans have called on him to resign immediately, while others have said he should not run for reelection.

Kash Patel Plane Use

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin says he has credible whistleblower information that FBI Director Kash Patel’s “excessive misuse” of the agency’s aircraft, along with poor decision making, impacted the FBI’s response to recent high-profile shootings.

Durbin outlined one accusation, saying, “In the immediate aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk, the FBI’s shooting reconstruction team was asked to fly to Utah to aid the investigation and process the scene. However, the team’s deployment was delayed by at least a day because of a Bureau plane and pilot shortage caused by the Director’s personal flights.”

He also said the response to the December shooting at Brown University was impeded because Patel made the decision to put a Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) on standby,grounding a plane that could be used by another critical evidence-collecting team to travel to Providence. That team ended up having to drive overnight from Quantico, Virginia to Rhode Island instead of using the plane.

The whistleblower said other SWAT teams from Boston or New York could have gone instead, so the HRT wasn’t even needed.

FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson responded by saying, “The Brown U thing is totally false but the Charlie Kirk allegation is even more egregious. Kash was in DC on 9/10 and in New York the next day for the 9/11 ceremonies - not personal travel. Durbin and whoever he’s speaking to are full of it.”

Durbin sent the new allegations to the Government Accountability Office to be included in their review of Patel’s plane use. He also sent it to the Inspector General at the Justice Department, asking them to investigate.

Last May, Durbin asked the GAO to review Patel’s use of the agency’s plane for personal travel, citing reports that Patel used the aircraft to fly to a hockey game and to visit his girlfriend. He said the FBI director’s “frequent and unapologetic use of DOJ or FBI-controlled aircraft for personal travel raises concerns about whether he is complying with applicable regulations and reimbursement requirements for non-mission-related travel and whether the Department has sufficient internal controls to track and enforce those obligations.”