Trump’s State of the Union; ROTOR Act; Pete Hegseth : NPR

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Today’s top stories

NPR’s senior political editor/correspondent Domenico Montanaro joins the newsletter today to break down the State of the Union address.

President Trump has been facing difficult poll numbers, tied to the economy, specifically prices and the cost of living. But in his first State of the Union address of his second term, Trump ignored those economic warts.

Instead, he boasted that “our nation is back” and that it had achieved a “turnaround for the ages.” It all amounted to a long speech — record-setting, in fact — that hit familiar Trump notes on immigration and culture, with a healthy amount of the usual showmanship.

Here are five takeaways from the speech:

1. Trump ignored the difficulties people are facing with the economy. Voters continue to say it’s their top concern, but Trump had no “I feel your pain” moment. And he doubled down on his unpopular tariffs, criticizing Supreme Court justices sitting feet away for ruling that most of his tariffs were illegal.
2. The midterm message is … what Trump talks about all the time. Gory stories of immigrants causing crime and the culture wars. It’s a tactic long employed by Trump, the GOP and conservative media. His message worked in 2024, but now he owns the economy and has a record on immigration.
3. There was no legislative agenda. There was no laundry list of things Trump wants Congress to do this year. No surprise, given that Trump has spent the better part of the last year trying to consolidate power.
4. The Democratic response had a wide range. From outbursts, silent stares and boycotts to Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s official response, which was sharply focused on the economy, Democrats will have a choice to make on which direction the party will go. But not in 2026, with midterm elections so heavily focused on Trump.
5. None of this will likely matter much politically because views of Trump are “baked in.” Views of Trump haven’t changed much in the last decade, and they likely won’t as a result of this speech. Trump used prime time to put on a show, from gold medals to medals of honor, and the show will go on for roughly three more years.

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The House of Representatives narrowly rejected a bipartisan aviation safety bill yesterday. Lawmakers developed the proposed legislation, called the ROTOR Act, after a U.S. Army helicopter and a passenger jet collided midair near Washington, D.C. last year, killing 67 people. Safety investigators and the victims’ families backed the bill, yet the Pentagon withdrew its support just before the vote.

• 🎧 The act would mandate wider u,se of ADS-B in and ADS-B out, a safety system that transmits an aircraft’s location to other aircraft, NPR’s Joel Rose tells Up First. The National Transportation Safety Board said the technology could have prevented the deadly midair collision near Washington by giving pilots more warning and time to react. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said that the bill could create “unresolved budgetary burdens and operational security risks.” Parnell didn’t clarify what those risks are. Rose says these concerns appear new, as the Pentagon backed the bill when it passed the Senate unanimously in December. The act’s sponsors say they plan to push for another vote in the House.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is threatening to blacklist Anthropic after the artificial intelligence company refused to loosen its safety standards for the military. During a meeting with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Hegseth vowed to punish the company for denying the Trump administration’s demands, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting who were not authorized to speak publicly. One person said that Hegseth suggested the Pentagon could cancel Anthropic’s $200 million contract. A Pentagon official said repercussions could include the government seizing Anthropic’s AI tools for use against the company’s will.

Deep dive

The Trump administration fired nearly 100 judges in 2025 as part of a larger push to reshape U.S. immigration courts. These firings, as well as resignations, shrunk the number of judges in the nation’s immigration courts by about a quarter in the last year, even when accounting for new hires. The Justice Department Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) lost more than 400 legal assistants, attorney advisers and legal administrative specialists, according to data NPR obtained and verified. While the administration defends its personnel decisions as a necessary correction to “lenient” asylum rulings, the drain has crushed staff morale, bloated backlogs and left the due process system floundering.

• ➡️ The staff left behind say that the current justice system is fundamentally different from what it was a year ago. One visible change is in the work environment. People in bureaucratic roles witnessed immigration and customs officers violently arresting people in the court hallways. Some judges also say they feel pressure to align case decisions with the administration’s priorities.
• ➡️ Although the majority of courts across the U.S. have lost judges, the impact hasn’t been spread evenly. The Trump administration onboarded 17 new permanent judges, but assigned only one to a court that lost the majority of its judges.
• ➡️ Smaller courts have felt the biggest impact of personnel shrinkage. Fourteen are now operating with two or fewer permanent judges.

Today’s listen

Ukrainian pianist and composer Vadim Neselovskyi was born in Odesa, a city that Russia has repeatedly bombed since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He channels this horror into his latest album, titled Perseverantia. The 11-part suite for piano and strings combines classical and jazz, capturing the sounds of war, empathy and hope. In an interview with Morning Edition, Neselovskyi explained that, despite how music plays a big part in his life, he was unable to play for three weeks after the Russian invasion. When he finally approached the piano, he played brutal chords that later became the basis of the suite’s second movement, “Tanks Near Kyiv.” That is when he realized that instrumental music could deliver a message that words couldn’t. Listen to snippets of his new album and read more about how Neselovskyi composed his songs.

3 things to know before you go

1. A new study found that when horses whinny, they use distinct parts of their vocal tract to generate both high and low frequencies. This two-tone sound could help them convey more complex information.
2. Rapper and television personality Flavor Flav invited the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team to Las Vegas for a “real celebration.” His request comes after Trump snubbed the team, which won a gold medal at the 2026 Olympics, during a phone call with the men’s hockey team.
3. The Fear of Flying Clinic helps anxious travelers by offering a four-day course that provides slow exposure to the flying experience, supported by mental health and aviation professionals. The phobia impacts around 25 million Americans.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.