The Briefing, Vol. XIV, Issue 8
Feb. 23, 2026
This week:
- State of the Union tomorrow
- How Trump can use it to frame the midterms
- Virginia gerrymander referendum on hold once again
State of the Union
Tomorrow, February 24, President Trump will deliver his fourth formal State of the Union address as president. It will be the first of his second term in office.
The address is important because it is the most prominent outward facing manifestation of what people call the president’s “bully pulpit.” It represents Trump’s first major opportunity to frame the upcoming midterm elections, and in particular to convince his base — a lower-propensity voting base than Republicans counted on in the past — that it must engage and come out to vote in November.
It is almost a cliche, but it bears remembering: Democrats want the 2026 election to be a referendum on Trump. He needs it to be a choice between two models of governance.
The Democrats want people to view Trump’s administration as chaotic, norm-breaking, lacking a moral compass, authoritarian, fascistic, lacking in empathy and incompetent.
Trump, on the other hand, must convince the public that his administration is both hyperactive and laser-focused. His way, he must conted, is that of law-and-order, safe streets, economic freedom, and a flourishing economy (or so he hopes). On the other side, the progressive governance model is a choice of decline; it surrenders streets and neighborhoods to criminality, chaos, homelessness, and hopelessness, while earmarking billions for a fraud-riddled non-profit-industrial complex that doesn’t solve any of society’s problems.
Trump has a number of weaknesses. These include, most prominently, his recent loss on tariffs at the Supreme Court, the Jeffrey Epstein public relations disaster, and two high-profile police shootings by immigration enforcement.
Trump may want to give a nod to these weak points, to address them minimally. But litigating vulnerabilities should be an afterthought — not his focus. The State of the Union is his chance to put the spotlight on his strengths, and to move rhetorically from strength to strength.
Here is where we believe Trump needs to focus his speech to use his platform optimally.
Immigration and crime: Trump must focus most of all on the issue set that made his political career, and it will not be hard to do. He must focus on the fact that he has acquired and is maintaining full operational control over the U.S. border and presiding over massive reductions in crime.
The former is by far the most important accomplishment of Trump 2.0, since it touches so many other areas of daily life. As we have noted previously, no one in the political class was even willing to admit that control over the border was possible prior to 2025. Trump established it firmly within a month of taking office. Border apprehensions plummeted almost to zero, mostly just because he made it clear that no illegal border crossers would be permitted to enter and stay in the U.S. Incentives matter.
In addition to immigration enforcement, Trump has been taking proactive steps to help local law enforcement reduce crime. Among the many positive consequences:
- Nationalyl, crime and especially homicide were down last year by their biggest percentage ever. The homicide rate reached what might be an all-time low. This is in line with pre-existing trends and partly due to Trump’s surge in federal law enforcement outside the national capital region. But part of it is just a mathematical consequence of enforcing immigration law.
As of this month, ICE is holding in detention about 36,000 convicted or charged criminals on any given day, compared to about 13,000 held by the Biden administration at this time in February 2024. So as long as they are detained, that’s 23,000 additional identified criminals who are not out commiting crimes. Note also that some undetermined share of the other 32,000 current immigration detainees, although they do not have charges or convictions, are either wanted for crimes abroad or were simply never charged for their non-immigration-related crimes. This implies an even greater multiplier effect in preventing crime through detention and, cumulatively, through deportation.
- Border communities, previously overrun by the surge of migrants that Joe Biden had encouraged to come to the border, are peaceful and liveable again.
- In the District of Columbia, where Trump deployed the National Guard amid much derision by liberals, crime is down sharply. Homicides are down by two-thirds year-over-year as of today, robberies by 44 percent.
- About 6 percent of all backlogged immigration cases were closed just during the three month period between October 1 and December 31, 2025. Although the number of new cases during this period was also substantial, it was one-third less than the number closed. In other words, slowly, the backlog is shrinking. The rate of closures should get better over the next three years, even as fewer new cases are opened.
- Fentanyl and other overdose deaths are down by about 21 percent between 2024 and 2025. Trump probably doesn’t deserve credit for all of that — deaths were already dropping in 2024 — but he will, and politically speaking, he should take credit for the drop. Certainly, the end of the 2021-2024 border chaos is constricting smuggling and the supply of the deadly drugs.
- Traffic accidents fell by 13 percent year-over-year between 2024 and 2025. This is partly down to a cumulative reduction, by hundreds of thousands, of people driving daily without licenses. In the wake of a few high-profile accidents, Trump should also discuss his administration’s crackdown on states issuing commercial driver’s licenses to non-English speakers with little or no training in driving semi trucks.
Fraud: A major issue Trump should play up — obscured somewhat by the recent anti-ICE vigilantism and police shootings of recent weeks in Minnesota — is fraud in federal programs, and his commitment to rescue billions in savings. This issue will have a very long life beyond this election and indeed, beyond the 2028 presidential election as well, since it is very real and it motivates and enrages taxpayers.
Elon Musk’s DOGE did not survive quite long enough to tackle federal benefits fraud in all of its magnitude and complexity, but the federal government possesses the resources and investigatory power not only to fight fraud but also to put it front and center this spring and summer.
The nine-figure fraud behind the Feeding Our Future program in Minnesota, and the apparent subsidized child-care fraud uncovered by local news outlets (later popularized by YouTuber Nick Shirley) captured the public’s imagination. But the truth is, fraud is not a Minnesota issue or a Somali issue. Federal programs ranging from Medicaid and Medicare to SNAP and beyond are being ruthlessly exploited — not just by individual fraudsters of all backgrounds, but by sophisticated criminal networks and even foreign governments (Cuba’s in particular) in nearly every state.
The issue, at heart, is that Uncle Sam is far too generous with the taxpayers’ money and barely ever checks where the money is going.
If Trump has any announcements to make about cracking down on fraud — ideally something concrete about the number of fraud schemes newly uncovered or under investigation, or the cutoff of fraudulent benefit payments — this State of the Union speech would be a great time to make it. Americans are generous, but they also want to know that their money is going to the needy, not to the greedy.
Economy: Trump can also claim some economic successes — but he has to tread much more carefully here. The worst thing he can do — the biggest mistake Biden made as president — is to tell people that things are great and that they just don’t know how good they have it.
When voters are not feeling good about their finances, there is no message more grating than to hear a president telling them that things are fine.
For example, as in the Biden years, the U.S. unemployment rate under Trump is about as low as it gets — the current 4.3 percent is universally recognized by economists as full employment. And real wages have risen modestly, which is better than under Biden. But this is little consolation for consumers who still face prices (especially home prices) that were elevated by the peak 9 percent inflation of the Biden years, and interest rates still high enough to constrain borrowing. A lot of voters worry about the future and wonder how they are going to keep up.
Here, Trump must carefully admit that he still has lots of work to do. Instead of boasting about fixing the situation, he needs to argue that he has only just started, and that there are early positive signs: that inflation is back down to 2.4 percent. That specific items have become more affordable, such as eggs (down by nearly 50 percent since January 2025), and gasoline (at its lowest price since April 2021). That low-income wage individuals (especially people who live off tips and Social Security) are the greatest beneficiaries of last year’s tax bill.
There are other positive signs as well, such as a quarterly reading pointing to astounding annualized 5 percent GDP growth. But even here, Trump must tread carefully. For example, in the case of eggs, the price would still have to come down another 50 percent to reach pre-COVID levels. And the massive GDP growth so far is just aspirational rather than something people already feel.
In short, as long as Trump is humble about how the economy is coming along (humility is not his best skill), he can sell the first year of his second term as a success econonically.
Another area he can brag about is government efficiency. Although DOGE famously fizzled when Trump and Elon Musk had their original falling out, federal government employment has been cut by about 325,000 jobs — to its lowest level since May 1966. Surprisingly, there are no widespread and significant complaints about lack of service, no jobs where the feds are simply falling down for lack of manpower.
Military-foreign policy: American voters are famously oblivious to foreign policy. Moreover, thanks to the nature of his base, Trump’s supporters are naturally suspicious about any sort of foreign adventurism. So even if this comes up, it will not be the main focus.
Still, the surgical and bloodless removal of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, and the apparent impending collapse of Cuba’s communist dictatorship, are developments people notice and view in a positive way. Expect Trump to take credit.
Also, he would be remiss not to mention that whereas the Biden administration was falling short of military recruitment targets, nearly all of the services (except for the Army Reserve) are now meeting or exceeding their targets.
Summary: If Trump lists a whole variety of positive developments like these in his state of the union, it could be a profoundly positive speech, not of the “dark” variety often criticized. He will also give the clear impression that yes, something is being done right, and the Democrat-media narrative about his administration is false. The more their credibility is damaged, the more his is enhanced.
Trump’s overall message: Previously, it had been accepted wisdom that the border had to be chaotic, cities had to be crime-ridden, federal programs had to be easily exploitable by fraudsters, and ever-higher prices were unavoidable. But these are all choices, not inevitabilities, and a better life is possible.
House 2026
Virginia: A small but significant update from last week: A Circuit Court judge has once again halted the redistricting referendum, the voting for which was supposed to start on March 6. The new order blocks the referendum until March 18, pending appeal.
The referendum, if successful, would essentially hand Democrats four extra House seats this November by imposing an extreme gerrymander in which Republicans are electable in only one of the state’s 11 congressional districts.
