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Just 32% of Americans say Trump has right priorities, new poll finds, ahead of State of the Union speech – live
Just 32% of Americans believe Trump has the right priorities, CNN poll finds
A new CNN poll shows Trump’s approval falling ahead of his State of the Union address.
The poll, conducted by polling firm SSRS, showed his approval among independents at a new low among CNN’s polls, at 26%, the outlet reported.
Among the findings: only 32% of Americans believe Trump has the right priorities, his job approval rating among all adults was 36%, and 61% said his policies are moving the country in the wrong direction.
The outlet noted a steep drop in approval among Latino Americans, at a 19-point drop, and Americans under age 45, with an 18-point drop.
Respondents said they want Trump to talk about the economy and cost of living during the State of the Union, the issue that far outpaced other topics they were asked about.
Key events
The state of the union is part speech, part spectacle – and one of the enduring rituals are the guests invited to sit in the first lady’s box in the Capitol.
In something of a break from precedent, Melania Trump has invited two guests to highlight her work with the foster care system and a responsible AI initiative, while the president, separately has invited guests to reflect the accomplishments he plans to tout in his address this evening.
“The first lady will have two great children with her as part of her Fostering the Future initiative,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News. “The president himself has invited some extraordinary guests this year who, again, truly exemplify what it means to be a patriotic American”.
The White House announced on Wednesday that Melania Trump will be joined in her box by Sierra Burns, a participant in the first lady’s Foster Youth to Independence Program, and Everest Nevraumont, a 10-year-old Texas student and AI-advocate.
As previously noted, Trump has invited Erika Kirk, as well as a Pennsylvania waitress who is benefitting from a no tax on tips or overtime policy and members of the military.
The White House has also said it’s trying to bring members of the US Olympic men’s hockey team. The team won gold in Italy this weekend after defeating Canada.
The office of the US Attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, will drop the case against six Democratic lawmakers who Trump assailed as “seditious” after they made a video urging troops to refuse unlawful orders, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to the Guardian’s Sam Levine.
The move comes after a grand jury in Washington DC earlier this month declined to charge the lawmakers: Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan. They all have military or intelligence backgrounds.
It was not yet clear whether the Justice Department could still explore pursuing other venues for the case, though it appeared unlikely, according to several media reports.
The decisions was first reported by NBC News.
Speaking of Newsom’s book tour, conservatives have seized on comments he made about his low SAT score during a stop in Atlanta on Sunday, accusing the California governor of disparaging Black Americans.
According to the LA Times, Newsom was asked during a conversation with the Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who is a Black, what he wanted the audience and readers of his memoir to know about him.
Newsom gave a lengthy reply, in which he insisted: “I’m like you.”
“I’m no better than you. I’m a 960 SAT guy,” he said, of his below-average score on the standardized college admissions test before discussion his dyslexia and struggle to read.
Conservatives pounced. “@GavinNewsom Thinks a 960 SAT Makes Him ‘Like’ Black Americans. Let That Sink In,” Fox News commentator Sean Hannity posted on X.
“You didn’t give a shit about the President of the United States of America posting an ape video of President Obama or calling African nations shitholes — but you’re going to call me racist for talking about my lifelong struggle with dyslexia?” Newsom replied on X. “Spare me your fake fucking outrage, Sean.”
Dickens also defended Newsom and urged viewers to watch the full clip. “That wasn’t an attack on anyone,” the mayor wrote on Instagram. “It was a moment of vulnerability about his own journey.”
Happy coincidence? One of Trump’s most visible foes Gavin Newsom has a new memoir, Young Man in a Hurry, out today in the US. Publishing a book is almost a pre-requiste to run for president and the outgoing California governor has hardly been coy about his intentions to seek the Democratic nomination in 2028.
Newsom has built his national profile attacking Trump with a bevy of lawsuits, a redistricting countermeasure, and a seemingly endless stream of mocking, all-caps social media posts.
True to form, Newsom claimed in a factitious X post on Wednesday that Fox News’s “wall-to-wall” coverage of his book tour had “completely ‘hijacked’” Trump’s “Big Speech Day”.
WOW!!! JUST GOT A CALL FROM A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE (TOP LEVEL) THAT DONALD TRUMP IS FURIOUS RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I, GAVIN C. NEWSOM (GOVERNOR OF THE FREE WORLD) HAVE COMPLETELY “HIJACKED” THE NEWS ON HIS “BIG SPEECH DAY” WITHOUT EVEN TRYING. FOX NEWS IS WALL-TO-WALL COVERAGE OF ME…
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) February 24, 2026
Newsom is currently on a book tour that began in the South, with appearances in Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina. He’s in New York tonight. The book is an attempt to formally introduce himself to Americans – before Republicans do.
In his memoir, he talks about growing up between “two worlds” – raised by a single mom who juggled multiple jobs and his father, a close friend of the Getty family, who introduced him to a rarefied world of privilege. Throughout the memoir, which Newsom has repeatedly described as “raw,” Newsom recounts his lifelong struggle with dyslexia, his tumultuous four-year marriage to Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is now the Trump administration’s ambassador to Greece and more famously the ex-fiancee of Don Jr, his wife needing an emergency abortion shortly before the supreme court struck down Roe, and sitting with his mother during her assisted dying.
It’s a complex portrait of a complex political figure who Republicans love to hate but whom Nancy Pelosi has called “masterful”.
Trump has warned that his speech tonight will be a long one – and the political prediction markets are betting it’ll be historically long.
His joint address to Congress last year ran 99 minutes – a record.
Polymarket, the betting site, shows the highest odds at the speech going longer than 100 minutes.
Erika Kirk to be one of president’s special guests at state of the union address
Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, will join the president as one of his special guests at this evening’s state of the union, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Erika Kirk will be one of President Trump’s Special Guests at the State of the Union
“The president will call on Congress to ‘firmly reject political violence against our fellow citizens’ with Charlie Kirk’s widow in the chamber.”https://t.co/7DOmUAVVbz
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) February 24, 2026
Kirk was killed during a college campus tour last year. Tens of thousands of mourners attended a memorial service for the conservative activist in Phoenix, Arizona, during which Trump escalated his calls for political retribution against the left, and said: “I hate my opponents.” But on Wednesday, he’s expected to deliver a different message, according to Leavitt, who shared a Daily Caller article saying “The president will call on Congress to ‘firmly reject political violence against our fellow citizens.’”
After Charlie Kirk’s death, Erika Kirk was appointed chair and CEO of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), the powerful conservative youth organization founded by her husband. Over the past few months, she has traveled to college campuses and made several high-profile media appearances as part of her commitment to continuing her husband’s work of building a conservative youth movement.
Ted Cruz, a Republican US senator from Texas, called the US supreme court decision that struck down a specific type of tariffs Trump sought to install “unfortunate”.
“I think it’s going to cause a lot of chaos, a lot of litigation. I think you’re going to see billions of dollars litigation drag on for years. That’s unfortunate,” he told CNBC.
The court ruled against tariffs Trump put in place under emergency powers, saying Congress needed to approve these tariffs because the taxing power sat with Congress. Trump has bashed the decision and set up an across-the-board 10% tariff, threatening more if countries try to “play games” over previously negotiated deals.
Cruz said, as a lawyer, he stood with the arguments made by the conservative justices who dissented from the majority, believing the president could use this power as he did.
“The supreme court decision, I don’t think is going to have much consequence other than a bunch of chaos and litigation, because there are a host of other federal statutes that let the president impose basically the same tariffs,” Cruz said.
Tuesday so far…
Here’s what we’re watching today:
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Trump will deliver his state of the union address tonight. He’s warned it’ll be a long one, so prepare for a late evening.
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He is expected to focus on the 250th anniversary of US independence and affordability, including an announcement of new programs such as a pledge from tech companies to cover increased electricity costs for data centers.
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A new CNN poll showed Trump’s approval ratings sliding ahead of the address. Only 32% of Americans believe Trump has the right priorities, his job approval rating among all adults was 36%, and 61% said his policies are moving the country in the wrong direction.
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Dozens of Democrats are skipping the event and instead attending a counter-program. Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger will give the customary Democratic rebuttal speech.
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Mike Lee, a Republican US senator, retorted in response to reports that Democrats would be skipping tonight’s state of the union address: “More room for the hockey team.”
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LaMonica McIver, a Democratic member of Congress who the Trump administration has criminally charged, gave a prebuttal address warning that Trump will lie and highlighting the expanded power and politicization of the administration.
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Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and her adviser Corey Lewandowski came up with the plan to suspend TSA PreCheck services at airports amid the partial government shutdown, the Washington Post reported.
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The US state department continues to field calls and provide advisories about safety and travel in western Mexico after the killing of a major drug lord and subsequent violence by cartels.
LaMonica McIver, a Democratic US representative who the Trump administration criminally charged over a visit to an immigration detention facility, issued a prebuttal to his state of the union address today.
McIver’s remarks centered on Trump’s consolidation of power and the strain on the rule of law because of it. Her prosecution, which the Guardian wrote about in December as part of a series on people Trump has targeted for retribution, is part of a pattern of silencing dissent and expanding politicization.
“The administration is testing our humanity, and they are testing the strength of our democracy – pushing, bending, and even breaking the guardrails that hold it together,” she said in the address. “The administration weaponizing the Department of Justice against me is just one example. They are doing something that hasn’t happened in our country since the 1700s: trying to put someone who the people elected in jail for using my voice to question his.”
In tonight’s speech, she said, Trump will “do what he always does: lie” and tell Americans that they are safer and better off than they were before he took office. Trump has made life worse, she said, and he only cares about helping himself, his family and billionaires.
“Watch not just what the president is saying, but what he is doing,” she said. “Think about what he has done. Is this the America you want? Because that is the real measure of the state of our union. And if the answer to that question is no, then the work is ours. And I know that we can do it together. We must.”
Mike Lee, a Republican US senator, retorted in response to reports that Democrats would be skipping tonight’s state of the union address: “More room for the hockey team.”
He’s referencing the US men’s hockey team, which won a gold medal in the Olympics, then partied in the locker room with FBI director Kash Patel.
On a phone call, Trump invited the team to attend the state of the union, then joked that he’d “have to bring the women too,” a reference to the US women’s hockey team, which also won a gold medal. The men’s players laughed as Trump continued that if he didn’t invite the women’s team, he “probably would be impeached”.
The laughs from the players led to backlash, as the women’s team, more decorated than the men’s, was treated as a joke rather than equals.
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and her adviser Corey Lewandowski came up with the plan to suspend TSA PreCheck services at airports amid the partial government shutdown, the Washington Post reported late Monday, citing unnamed officials.
The plan was scrapped after the White House got involved, and PreCheck is now open on a case-by-case basis depending on each airport’s ability to manage it, the Post said.
Shutting down PreCheck, a paid program where travelers can go through security faster if they’re signed up and pre-screened, only lasted a few hours and went over poorly with travelers and Democrats.
A former DHS official under Obama told the Post that shutting down PreCheck seemed like a move to attack Democrats rather than an operational decision. “If your goal is to process many people as efficiently as possible to limit the number of staff you need, you would actually enhance or quickly clear the TSA lines and then go to your general aviation line — so that did not make sense,” Juliette Kayyem told the Post.
Noem, Lewandowski, the White House and DHS did not directly address questions from the Post over whether the two DHS officials came up with the plan.
