{"id":19269,"date":"2026-02-23T13:02:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T13:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trumps-sotu-clouded-by-chaos\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T13:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T13:02:17","slug":"capitol-agenda-trumps-sotu-clouded-by-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trumps-sotu-clouded-by-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Trump\u2019s SOTU clouded by chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump is heading into Tuesday\u2019s State of the Union facing a messy Capitol Hill backdrop: a Supreme Court smackdown of his global tariffs, fresh GOP anxiety over the political fallout and a DHS funding standoff that\u2019s revealing chaos within his own administration.<\/p>\n

Add in a snowstorm scrambling the House and Senate schedule \u2014 postponing House votes on aviation safety legislation and delaying a key farm bill markup \u2014 and lawmakers are facing a compressed, high-stakes week.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we\u2019re watching:<\/p>\n

\u2014 Trump’s address:\u00a0<\/b>Attendance could be thin as lawmakers try to get back to Washington after a major snow storm on the East Coast. Many Democrats had already planned to boycott.<\/p>\n

Several Republicans told Blue Light News they hope Trump will focus on affordability and economic issues and highlight the megabill tax cuts.<\/p>\n

Trump critics on both sides of the aisle plan to make statements with their SOTU guests. Several Democrats are bringing individuals impacted by rising health care costs and the Trump administration\u2019s immigration crackdown. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) is bringing his wife, Carolyn Moffa, who has been a target of attacks from Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump thought it was appropriate to include her in two of his broadsides,\u201d Massie said. \u201cSo I thought it would be appropriate to invite her to his speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tariff fallout:\u00a0<\/b>After the Supreme Court struck down Trump\u2019s sweeping global tariffs on Friday \u2014 a move cheered by a number of GOP lawmakers<\/a> \u2014 Hill Republicans are now in a tough position as Democrats hope to put them on the record voting for or against the new 15 percent global tariffs<\/a> the president announced in response.<\/p>\n

The new tariffs expire after 150 days and Congress will have to vote to extend them \u2014 something Republicans privately say they won\u2019t have the support to do.<\/p>\n

Among the Republicans who have tough decisions to make are farm state lawmakers who had been pressing the administration for carveouts in Trump\u2019s tariffs but voted in support of his Canada tariffs. They got a taste of what could happen if they cross Trump, who over the weekend rescinded his endorsement of Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.) and endorsed his GOP challenger.<\/p>\n

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), one of the six Republicans who voted to rebuke Trump\u2019s Canada tariffs two weeks ago, said the levies are \u201cterrible politics for Republicans\u201d and that Trump\u2019s latest move \u201cwill also fail in the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump is putting a ball and chain\u201d on the GOP in the midterms, Bacon told Blue Light News. \u201cI hate seeing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 DHS stalemate:\u00a0<\/b>The DHS shutdown appeared to get real over the weekend when the department said it would suspend TSA PreCheck and other airport security services, but then quickly reversed course \u201cbased off of conversations the secretary had with the White House and TSA,\u201d according to the Washington Post<\/a>. Officials still plan to pause airport courtesy escorts for members of Congress as well as Global Entry.<\/p>\n

The White House and Democrats are entering the week without substantial public evidence of progress on an agreement to fund DHS and establish immigration enforcement guardrails. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that the administration is \u201cchoosing to inflict pain on the public instead of adopting common sense ICE reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

House Rules will take up two bills to roll back Biden-era efficiency standards at 4 p.m.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump is heading into Tuesday\u2019s State of the Union facing a messy Capitol Hill backdrop: a Supreme Court smackdown of his global tariffs, fresh GOP anxiety over the political fallout and a DHS funding standoff that\u2019s revealing chaos within his own administration. Add in a snowstorm scrambling the House and Senate schedule \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}