'There's overwhelming evidence'

Early voting for the March 3 Texas primary elections is open now. It began Tuesday, Feb. 17, and runs through Friday, Feb. 27. Most days have no lines, hours are flexible, and all you need is a photo ID. While the primary chooses party nominees for November, one proposition on the ballot is a defining moment for Texas: Proposition 10–“Texas should prohibit Sharia Law.” This non-binding proposition is your chance to send a clear message to Austin lawmakers before the 2027 legislative session: Texas will never allow a foreign legal system to undermine our Constitution. A strong YES vote is essential for every Texan who believes in liberty, equal rights, women’s safety, and the rule of American law. Sharia is not just personal religious practice. It is a comprehensive political and legal doctrine drawn from the Quran, Hadith, and Islamic jurisprudence that claims supremacy over all man-made laws, including the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. While our founding documents protect natural rights, equality, consent of the governed, and separation of religion from state power, Sharia demands the opposite. Direct conflicts include: Death penalties for apostasy and blasphemy versus our First Amendment freedoms. Women receive half the inheritance and half the courtroom testimony value of men, plus allowance of polygamy and honor-based violence, versus Texas equality laws. Second-class “dhimmi” status for non-Muslims versus our ban on religious tests or discrimination. Cruel corporal punishments (amputation, stoning, flogging) versus the Eighth Amendment. Sharia’s claim to override secular law versus the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. Texas has already taken strong steps. Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation targeting Sharia-compliant compounds and discriminatory practices. Federal lawmakers from Texas, including Reps. Chip Roy and others are pushing for national action. But Proposition 10 raises the stakes. A large YES vote will push the Legislature to deliver real protections: banning Sharia in family courts and contracts, increasing scrutiny of foreign-funded groups, and ensuring no parallel legal systems take root in our state. Recent data shows significant percentages of American Muslims support implementing Sharia here. Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks openly pursue “civilization jihad” through gradual legal and cultural infiltration. Texas–with its strong economy, conservative values, and key position–is a prime target. We stopped dangerous projects like EPIC City through vigilance. Proposition 10 is the next line of defense. Voting YES on Prop 10 accomplishes three critical goals: It declares that American law is the only law in Texas–no exceptions, no compromises. It builds unstoppable momentum for binding legislation in 2027. It tells the rest of the country that Texas remains the firewall for constitutional governance. As the BanSharia.com campaign states: Save Texas, Save America. Opponents will claim “Islamophobia” and say this attacks religious liberty. They are wrong. The First Amendment protects personal belief and private worship, not the establishment of a rival legal system that treats the Constitution as inferior. We defend faith and reject supremacy doctrines. Our Founders studied these threats and designed our republic to withstand them. This proposition is non-binding, but Texas voters know the power of these messages. Strong showings in past cycles drove real action on borders, taxes, and education. A large YES turnout during early voting will do the same. Our children’s freedom, women’s rights, and the constitutional republic are on the line. Texas must lead. Save Texas–and help save America. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Texas’ Proposition 10 a Critical Test Case for Prohibiting Sharia Law appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The House of Representatives appears likely to vote next week on whether to advance a resolution restricting President Donald Trump’s authority to go to war with Iran. The United States has continued to mobilize forces in the Middle East, and Trump has threatened “bad things” if the Iranian regime does not negotiate on its nuclear program. Next week, Ro Khanna, D-Calif., will attempt to advance his War Powers Resolution on the House floor. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., is a cosponsor of the resolution. “Trump officials say there’s a 90% chance of strikes on Iran. He can’t without Congress,” Khanna wrote Wednesday on X. “[Massie] & I have a War Powers Resolution to debate & vote on war before putting U.S. troops in harm’s way. I will make a motion to discharge to force a vote on it next week.” The War Powers Act of 1973 establishes a process for members of Congress to force a vote on whether to rein in the president’s ability to use military force. Massie and Khanna’s resolution, introduced in June, would prohibit “unauthorized hostilities” against Iran. Although the resolution is unlikely to become law, the vote on whether to advance the resolution will put members of Congress on the record. In January, a war powers resolution vote to rein in Trump’s powers to conduct war with Venezuela failed 215-215, with Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Thomas Massie joining all Democrats in voting for it. But some members have already indicated they do not intend to support the Iran resolution. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has already ruled out supporting Massie and Khanna’s resolution. “This resolution would restrict the flexibility needed to respond to real and evolving threats and risks signaling weakness at a dangerous moment,” Gottheimer writes in a joint statement with Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y.  GOTTHEIMER AND LAWLER JOINT STATEMENT ON IRAN WAR POWERS RESOLUTION pic.twitter.com/laP3KxCGCG— Congressman Mike Lawler (@RepMikeLawler) February 20, 2026 Additionally, Bacon has said in a statement he believes Trump should use military force against Iran. The White House did not immediately respond to a request from The Daily Signal for comment on the House war powers resolution or the likelihood of war with Iran. The post House to Vote on Trump’s War Powers appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Trump administration to block a California law aimed at forcing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to remove masks.  Attorney General Pam Bondi heralded the court ruling in an X post.  “Our @thejusticedept attorneys are fighting daily in court to protect law enforcement — and we just secured another key victory,” Bondi said. The 9th Circuit issued a full stay to block the No Secret Police Act, signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to force the unmasking of federal law enforcement, based on the supremacy clause.  “Law enforcement officers risk their lives for us, only to be doxxed by radical anti-police activists. Unacceptable,” the attorney general added. “This crucial ruling protects our brave men and women in the field. We will not stop fighting bad laws like these in California and across the country.” Newsom signed the law in September 2025, which only referenced federal, city, and county law enforcement, but did not apply to state law enforcement.  In an X post Thursday, Newsom stood by the law, saying, “Donald Trump’s federal agents should be unmasked and identifiable. Period, full stop.” Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder, appointed by President Bill Clinton, ruled the state law discriminates against federal law enforcement, as it allowed state police to wear masks to conceal their identities while preventing federal law enforcement from doing the same. The post ‘Crucial Ruling’: Appeals Court Delivers Big Setback for Newsom’s Push Against ICE appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A federal judge has handed the FBI a win in its attempts to keep secrets. On February 4th, Chief Judge James Boasberg ruled that the bureau can keep secret the precise amounts it paid Twitter between 2016 and 2023 for complying with legal process requests. Judicial Watch, which had sued under the Freedom of Information Act, walked away empty-handed. We obtained a copy of the opinion for you here. You may remember our earlier reporting on how the FBI was paying Twitter. The payments totaled at least $3.4 million between October 2019 and February 2021 alone. That figure emerged from the Twitter Files released in December 2022. The FBI has never confirmed it. Neither has Twitter. And now, thanks to Boasberg’s ruling, the quarterly breakdown that would show exactly when the money flowed, and how much, stays buried. What were the payments for? Officially, reimbursements. Federal law requires agencies to compensate companies for the cost of responding to subpoenas, search warrants, and national security legal demands. The FBI was sending those requests to Twitter in volume. During the period leading up to the 2020 election, the FBI’s Elvis Chan and colleagues were holding weekly meetings with Twitter staff about “misinformation.” They were flagging accounts. They were flagging content. And they were being reimbursed for the legal paperwork that accompanied all of it. The Trump DOJ, through US Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office, filed for summary judgment in December 2025, arguing the payment amounts are shielded by FOIA’s Exemption 7(E). That exemption covers law enforcement techniques and procedures whose disclosure could help criminals evade detection. Boasberg agreed, accepting the government’s argument that quarterly payment figures, combined with Twitter’s own transparency reports, could let bad actors reverse-engineer where the FBI is looking and where it isn’t. The logic is that if you know the FBI paid Twitter significantly more in Q4 2021 than Q3, you might infer the bureau ramped up surveillance following a specific event. A foreign intelligence service could check whether its operation triggered a spike. Criminals could compare the FBI’s Twitter payments with what it pays other platforms and migrate accordingly. The government’s declarations assert this. Boasberg deferred to them, as courts in national security cases routinely do. The mosaic theory the FBI invoked is real, and courts have repeatedly credited it. The problem isn’t the legal framework. The problem is what it conceals. The FBI was not simply investigating criminals during this period. It was meeting weekly with a private company’s content moderation team, flagging accounts of vaccine skeptics, lab-leak researchers, people who questioned the 2020 election, and journalists covering Hunter Biden. The $3.4 million in payments flowed through that same relationship. The legal-process reimbursements and the content-flagging meetings ran in parallel, conducted by the same FBI personnel, aimed at the same platform, during the same politically charged window before a presidential election. The quarterly payment breakdown requested would have shown, at a minimum, whether FBI engagement with Twitter spiked during electorally sensitive periods. It would have let the public cross-reference the payment timeline with known events: the weekly misinformation meetings, the account flagging, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. That is exactly the kind of accountability information FOIA exists to surface. Instead, Boasberg ruled that the numbers stay hidden because releasing them might tell a foreign spy whether the FBI noticed something. The court gave meaningful weight to the government’s national security declarations, as FOIA doctrine requires, and no weight at all to the public’s interest in understanding how the FBI was spending money on the platform it was simultaneously using as a content moderation partner. Judicial Watch had pointed out that Twitter’s semi-annual transparency reports already publish aggregate data on law enforcement requests. Boasberg acknowledged this but found that quarterly FBI-specific figures would add enough granularity to create a meaningful risk. The detail that remains secret is not how the FBI monitors threats online. Everyone knows that. What remains secret is the scale and timing of the FBI’s financial relationship with a platform it was also directing to censor Americans. The ruling does not find that the FBI acted properly during this period. It does not address the weekly misinformation meetings or the account flagging. It simply holds that the payment figures are protected law enforcement information, and that Judicial Watch gets nothing. Boasberg wrote that disclosure could “risk circumvention of the law.” The circumvention that went unexamined in his opinion is the one that may have already occurred. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post FBI Wins Court Ruling to Keep Twitter Payments Secret appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Police Investigate and Determine Alleged Hate Crime Didn't Happen

I Would Bet on Trump Striking Iran Soon, and 'Limited' Will Not Be in the Vocabulary

This was the modest video that kicked it all off in April 2005.

In the aftermath of DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin announcing her resignation, MS NOW reporter Jacob Soboroff accused her of spreading misinformation when, in fact, he was the one misinforming his viewers. Antonia Hylton filled in for Chris Hayes on Monday's All In show. She began by asking Soboroff what it has been like having to interact with McLaughlin to get information about immigration issues. He began by taking a shot at ex-DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen from the first Donald Trump administration: "It's been a bit of deja vu quite frankly, and I think that Tricia McLaughlin comes from a long line, I think it's fair to say, of Trump administration officials dealing with immigration policy that have been less than forthright with the truth." Referring to the other anti-Trump guest, former Trump DHS official Miles Taylor, Soboroff continued: And Miles Taylor knows this well and has spoken out since his time in the administration about this to Kirstjen Nielsen, who Miles worked for during the first family separation policy during the first Trump administration -- very famously said, "We do not have a policy of separating families at the border, period." That was on June 17, 2018. And the American people are not stupid -- they saw right through it. It has been previously documented by NewsBusters that in June 2018 Nielsen forthrightly announced that those who crossed the border illegally would be detained and separated from their children, but Soboroff prefers to harp on one of her answers to a question to portray her as dishonest. The MS NOW reporter then repeated more previously debunked information when he claimed that illegal alien Narciso Barranco did not swing his weed whacker at Border Patrol agents in Los Angeles even though there is video of him doing just that. Here's Soboroff: And Tricia McLaughlin has basically taken a similar posture with the American people. The stories that I have reported on, whether it was Narciso Barranco, the landscaper who was violently detained outside of that IHOP in Santa Ana, California. She accused him of attacking agents with a weed whacker, despite the fact that the video showed him retreating. Hylton then went to Taylor, who fretted about who would replace McLaughlin, and then claimed that DHS is violating constitutional rights. When getting his chance to follow up, Soboroff complained that immigration enforcement has been too harsh all the way back to the Clinton administration, and talked up liberal protesters pushing congressional Democrats to go further in enacting laws to protect illegal aliens. Earlier in the day, on Ana Cabrera Reports, reporter Vaughn Hillyard accused McLaughlin of exaggerating how many ICE detainees had criminal records even though his own network has been recently highlighting a CBS News study reporting that more than 60 percent of detainees had either been convicted or charged with non-immigration crimes, which is close to what McLaughlin has repeatedly cited in her television appearances. Here's Hilliard: "She is somebody who has suggested that DHS data had shown that the great majority of the individuals who had been deported and detained under the Trump administration were convicted criminals. Much of that data that was put out there came into deep questions as you began to unwrap some of the numbers." Transcripts follow: MS NOW's All In with Chris Hayes February 17, 2026 8:08 p.m. Eastern ANTONIA HYLTON, FILL-IN HOST: I guess, take us down memory lane. You and I -- we both have worked with and spoken to Tricia McLaughlin a decent amount over the past. So what has it been like for you trying to report out your stories and get to the truth in your interactions with her? JACOB SOBOROFF: You know what, Antonia? It's been a bit of deja vu quite frankly, and I think that Tricia McLaughlin comes from a long line, I think it's fair to say, of Trump administration officials dealing with immigration policy that have been less than forthright with the truth. And Miles Taylor knows this well and has spoken out since his time in the administration about this to Kirsten Nielsen, who Miles worked for during the first family separation policy during the first Trump administration -- very famously said, "We do not have a policy of separating families at the border, period." That was on June 17, 2018. And the American people are not stupid -- they saw right through it. They stood in the streets and they protested. And Tricia McLaughlin has basically taken a similar posture with the American people. The stories that I have reported on, whether it was Narciso Barranco, the landscaper who was violently detained outside of that IHOP in Santa Ana, California. She accused him of attacking agents with a weed whacker, despite the fact that the video showed him retreating. He was never charged with a crime for doing that. Any Lucia Lopez, the 19-year-old coming home from Babson College who was deported to Honduras while she was going to see her parents in San Antonio -- she defended that deportation despite the fact that the administration later admitted they did it in error. Even Nory Sontay Ramos, who I reported on that high school star student track star who was taken at a routine immigration check, and she defended those types of immigration hearings as well. The American people know exactly what this administration is doing. Doesn't matter how many times Tricia McLaughlin tried to defend it. The list goes on and on and on. I can think of many more examples. We don't have enough time to go through all of them -- the ones in which she didn't tell the American people the truth about what we could plainly see with our own eyeballs. (...) HYLTON: Do you think her departure signals a real change strategically in terms of the way policy is going to roll out? Or do you think we're going to get someone else who just brings more of the same? MILES TAYLOR, EX-DHS OFFICIAL: I shudder to think who comes next. And -- and you and Jacob both know this incredibly well, but I have to align with what Jacob said at the top of the program. The administration, whether it was the first Trump administration or this one, has tried to portray that cruelty is a consequence, an inadvertent consequence of policies that Renee Good, that Alex Pretti, that family separation, that all of these things are unfortunate mistakes. That is not true. That's where the lie machine starts at DHS. It's where it started when I was there. The cruelty, as has been said often, is the point here. It is the point. And -- sometimes they let the mask slip and they say that. In private they do. And in public, you've been seeing that happen more and more where they admit the point is to deter the political opposition. You say, "Wait a second, I thought this was about immigration." "Oh, well, we also want to send ICE to the polls." And I think that McLaughlin has only continued that tradition. She's probably become more of a little Trump than the other little Trumps in the administration. But what she hasn't been able to cover up in her tenure is that there has been an extraordinary violation of constitutional rights by this department, and that's because we've had people brave enough to take one of these and to go outside and to film it. And I do want to say something about this shutdown, because Republicans are going to say Democrats are holding the government hostage. I want to clarify something, and I'm not a Democrat. I'm saying this as someone who's watched this -- who's been in that department in two presidential administrations. Democrats aren't demanding policy changes. They are demanding compliance with the United States Constitution. There have been violations by this department of the 1st Amendment rights of Americans and the 4th Amendment rights of Americans and the 2nd Amendment rights of Americans and the 10th Amendment and the 14th Amendment. And those are just the ones that come to my mind right now. This isn't about Democrats and Republicans. This is about whether the Constitution is still a viable document in this country or not. And DHS is at ground zero of that debate. HYLTON: Well, Jacob, to Miles' point there, do you think that this laundry list, the list of demands that Democrats are sending to Republicans right now, when you talk to voters, to protesters that I know you speak with every week, do you think they see those demands as actually being enough because so many of them are just sort of basically what other law enforcement agencies already have to do and comply with day in and day out. Do they think that this list is enough, given just the outrage, the horror that there is just so deeply felt across this country right now? SOBOROFF: Not people who have spent enough time thinking about the system to understand that where we are today is a product of decades of bipartisan, deterrence-based, punitive-based immigration policy that started in the modern era in the Clinton administration, and under every President of the United States -- Democratic or Republican -- cruelty was used as a tool of immigration enforcement. No amount of unmasking ICE agents, no amount of identifying themselves, is going to change the fact that we have a for profit detention system largely in the United States of America that criminalizes people who come here seeking a better life, treats them as points on a bar graph or a chart, or talks about them like they're the weather, the flow, the surge, the inundation, the invasion, in the words of this administration. Joe Biden promised a wholesale departure from the cruelty of the first Trump administration -- fair, safe, humane, orderly immigration policy. And we ended up back here. I think the American people are very skeptical, and that is why you are seeing people in the streets in the numbers that we have seen in Minnesota, in Charlotte, in Chicago, here in Los Angeles, outside the hallways of 26 Federal Plaza in New York, because it's not enough, frankly, to rely on our lawmakers going to Capitol Hill and saying they're going to change things. We've been hearing that for decades as it comes to immigration. And I think that the American people now have not only are they not stupid, and what Tricia Mclaughlin has been telling them they know is not true, but they know it's going to take a lot more than relying on elected officials to go up to Capitol Hill and change the immigration system and the cruelty that we've been seeing in the streets. (...) Fox's America's Newsroom September 9, 2025 10:10 a.m. Eastern TRICIA McLAUGHLIN, DHS ASSISTANT SECRETARY: Seventy percent of those illegal aliens who have been arrested under this administration have prior convictions or pending charges. And that doesn't even include those who have been arrested who don't have rap sheets in the U.S. but have rap sheets in their countries of origin. They might be a gang member -- they might have a human rights violation against them. (...) Fox's America Reports November 11, 2025 1:19 p.m. McLAUGHLIN: In Chicago, we've seen fantastic results -- the arrests of about 5,000 illegal aliens, 70 percent of which are -- have past criminal convictions or pending criminal charges against them. (...) Fox's America's Newsroom January 19, 2026 9:08 a.m. McLAUGHLIN: The facts on the ground, Dana, is that 70 percent of those that have been arrested under the Trump administration -- seven, zero -- either have prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges against them. That does not even include known or suspected terrorists of which we've arrested over 1,000. That doesn't include gang membership -- that doesn't even include being wanted for a violent crime in your country of origin or a third country. (...) MSNOW's Katy Tur Reports February 9, 2026 2:48 p.m.  (discussing a study by CBS News that more than 60 percent of arrestees either had criminal convictions or criminal charges in addition to "civil immigration violations") JACOB SOBOROFF: The larger picture is what we have seen anecdotally over and over and over again. They are not going after the worst of the worst, and you cannot institute the largest mass deportation program by going after only the worst or the worst. KATY TUR: Is it because there are not that many of the quote, unquote "worst of the worst" to go after -- that if you wanted to do mass deportations, if you want to exceed the number of deportations that President Obama did, if you want a million people a year, that you're going to have to get people who are not violent criminals? (...) MSNOW's Ana Cabrera Reports February 17, 2026 11:32 a.m. VAUGHN HILLYARD: She is somebody who has suggested that DHS data had shown that the great majority of the individuals who had been deported and detained under the Trump administration were convicted criminals. Much of that data that was put out there came into deep questions as you began to unwrap some of the numbers.

All the major broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — broke in Friday morning with special reports on the Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 ruling declaring most of President Trump’s landmark tariffs unconstitutional. Unsurprisingly, ABC was almost ebullient in touting the ruling as “devastating,” “huge,” and “monumental” in hampering Trump’s presidency. Correspondent Devin Dwyer — who took over as the lone Court reporter at ABC after Terry Moran’s axing — said this was “one of the most significant decisions on presidential power in decades” ABC’s court reporter Devin Dwyer on SCOTUS deeming most of Trump’s tariffs illegal... “This is one of the most significant decisions on presidential power in decades. The supreme court just moments ago, in a 6-to-3 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, invalidated… pic.twitter.com/ermtNU5trX — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 20, 2026 Dispatch and SCOTUS editor and ABC legal analyst Sarah Isgur was even more explicit: .@SCOTUSblog editor/@ABC legal analyst @WhigNewtons on the SCOTUS ruling against most of Trump’s tariffs... “This has been a Supreme Court that has really been shrinking down executive power. We saw them do this during the Biden administration with his student loan debt… pic.twitter.com/4Ukxhcp77n — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 20, 2026 Of course, chief White House correspondent and Biden regime apple polisher Mary Bruce was almost giddy in touting the ruling as a “devastating,” “huge blow to this White House and to this President” with this entire presidency “now coming into question” with the tariff revenue possibly having to be refunded. ABC’s @MaryKBruce celebrating the Supreme Court striking down most of Trump’s tariffs... “Devastating is right. This is a huge blow to this White House and to this President. Trump, in the lead up to this decision, had said that a ruling against his tariffs would be ‘devastating… pic.twitter.com/S5PZpwYHkK — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 20, 2026 “There is a lot of questions about what happens to the money that has been collected so far...What happens to other issues, like, for instance, pharmaceutical prices....[I]t is the ripple effects of this will be tremendous. What does it mean for the manufacturing here in the U.S....I can tell you this: Based off of the President’s comments in the lead up to this, while we haven’t gotten a reaction from him just yet, he certainly is likely to be deeply frustrated and angry about this decision,” she added. After correspondent Elizabeth Schulze pointed to the business fallout from small, medium, and large businesses that could become “very messy and very complicated,” chief Washington correspondent and four-time anti-Trump author Jonathan Karl boasted this was “both a monumental decision and frankly, an obvious one”: ABC’s @JonKarl on the SCOTUS decision about tariffs... “This is both a monumental decision and frankly, an obvious one. I mean, it seemed clear from the day that Donald Trump came out and announced his so-called reciprocal tariffs on the rest of the world, or most of the world,… pic.twitter.com/SawFe4jzHo — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 20, 2026 CBS spent nearly 13 minutes on-air, starting with longtime legal correspondent Jan Crawford framing it as “the most significant U.S. Supreme [Court] loss for a U.S. President, I think, in modern history” but should be seen as “a deeply divided issue” even within the 6-3 breakdown .@JanCBS Crawford on SCOTUS ruling most of Trump’s tariffs are unconstitutional... “This decision is 6-to-3, invalidating President Trump's use of the sweeping tariffs imposing tariffs on almost every trading partner worldwide. This is the most significant U.S. Supreme [Court]… pic.twitter.com/YGHq6IUN9r — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 20, 2026   “But the bottom line Tony, a major defeat for the President. I think you can put that right up there with some of the most significant Supreme Court losses by a U.S. president in history,” she emphasized. CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil came back to her at the end and she reiterated something she has long said about the Supreme Court, including on December 28’s Face the Nation: WATCH: @JanCBS Crawford argues this tariff ruling shows people should quit saying this Supreme Court is wholly beholden to Trump... “And what this says is that all of these people who have been saying that this is a Supreme Court that’s in the tank for Donald Trump, need to take… pic.twitter.com/qYkJhuEiMG — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 20, 2026 Following more explanation of the Court’s reasoning from legal analyst Jessica Levinson, senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe floated possible alternative approaches the White House could take because the ruling will impact “not only the economic agenda, but arguably the foreign policy agenda...because the hope here at the White House, at times, was to be able to use the threat of tariffs as sort of a coercive tool to get their way with certain countries[.]” Chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett and chief business and tech correspondent Jo Ling Kent offered historical and economic reactions, respectively (click “expand”): GARRETT: Well, the Supreme Court is well aware of the Constitutional history of generating revenue, a power explicitly reserved to Congress in its origination in the Constitution. And before, we had an income tax in this country, we raised revenue principally through tariffs. And there were lots of conflicts that previous Supreme Courts dealt with about the legality of those tariffs. That precedent is a backdrop for this. President Trump has jawboned and criticized this Court, saying if you rule against me you’re going to destroy our economy, waging a very aggressive public relations campaign. But the Court cares what the Constitution says and what precedent says. It’s interesting to note, Tony, this 1977 law that Jan and others have referred to grew out of a crisis with Iran after the Iranian revolution, and it has been used principally to freeze assets or to levy sanctions. The Trump administration told the Supreme Court it had almost unlimited powers to impose tariffs, not just as an economic matter but as a diplomatic cudgel. And what the Court said and I think this is important. Summarizing the administration’s argument before it, “that view would represent a transformational expansion of the President’s authority over tariff policy. It is also telling,” the court wrote, “that in the IEEPA’s half century — that’s the law of existence — no president has invoked the statute to impose any tariffs, let alone tariffs, of the magnitude of this magnitude and scope.” So essentially, what the Court is saying is we have a Congress. Congress is negotiate laws with presidents, as this law was negotiated. If you follow that law, you can do it. If you expand way beyond that law, you can’t. And to Ed’s previous point, there’s another law in 1962 — law — the Trade Expansion Act, there’s a section 232 there. This President — previous presidents have used that to impose tariffs. There are many remedies this administration could look to and the trade representative, Jamieson Greer has said many times, if we lose in the Supreme Court, we have other remedies to advance our tariff agenda. This is not the end of the tariff conversation under this administration, but it is a setback significantly on this variant of using tariffs the way the President has attempted to enforce them. (....) KENT: [M]y phones are exploding right now with reaction from small business owners across the country we’ve been interviewing people about these tariffs for over the last year. And Emily Ley, a small business owner in Sarasota, Florida, tells me she’s thrilled. She’s relieved. It gives us clarity. She runs a very successful stationery and planner business. Another business owner, Beth, in Zumbrota, Minnesota, Southern Minnesota, she runs Busy Baby Mat and she says she’s seeing major relief that this is bittersweet. She just signed another $13,000 check to — you know for these tariffs to China last week. And now she feels like maybe she can start seeking a refund. Now when you pull back, how much does the average American household paid for these tariffs, you can see it’s about $1,700, according to the Yale Budget Lab. So what happens next? If this continues to move a pace, we expect overall prices, which could be good news for consumers to drop. But that won’t happen quickly. We also expect to see perishable items your fruits and veggies, they actually might go down in price a little bit more quickly. You might see durable goods like your tech products and furniture see a slight decrease as well. And you can see overall the price increases that you may be facing at home due to tariffs across the board there especially in apparel, things that are imported from overseas. But if you’re looking for a Trump tariff refund, if you will, as an individual family member, for example, that’s probably off the table. But we do expect businesses to start seeking tariffs and perhaps forming class action lawsuits to get this money back. As a result of this ruling those companies could get refunds from the Treasury. But overall, the small business reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, saying they feel that they’re thrilled and they’re relieved. NBC was on the air for just over nine minutes and was relatively muted but matter-of-the-fact in relaying the ruling. Chief legal correspondent and Saturday Today co-host Laura Jarrett emphasized the right-of-center justices who voted against the constitutionality of Trump’s tariffs, combining for half the majority that delivered “a major blow to the centerpiece of the President’s economic agenda” and could have ripple effects with forthcoming class-action lawsuits by affected companies. Senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake said he could not “overstate how important these tariffs were as a tool for President Trump” in “address[ing] trade deficits, to try to bring money into the U.S. government...sending back out to the American people in the form of refund checks or to use to fund other programs...and he has claimed repeatedly that the tariffs have helped him solve global conflicts around the world[.]” Jarrett herself wrapped by quoting from Justice Gorsuch’s concurring opinion and stating executive authority is the theme of this Supreme Court term (click “expand”): Yeah, it’s interesting just to see Justice Gorsuch complaining in his concurrence here knowing the criticism that could be on the way at least from a political standpoint and he says, “all I can offer them that most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people are funneled through the legislative process for a reason. Yes, legislating can be hard and take time and, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some passing problem arises, but the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design, essentially saying the Constitution was set up this way, having the legislative branch be the one that can levy taxes. And the President, of course, can enforce the laws. He can regulate some imports, but he can’t go too far, and the Constitution does that by design. (....) Well, and this whole term, if you think about it, is the Supreme Court taking a hard look at some of the things Donald Trump has done that have never been done before, like trying to fire a member of the Federal Reserve board, Lisa Cook. It’s another big case on the docket. He’s tried to fire her. He’s tried to fire a woman who was on the FTC. They obviously have other big questions concerning his birthright citizenship plan. So, this is really the term of SCOTUS and the President, and how they see executive authority. At least as it results to tariffs, [this] is a big blow. To see the relevant transcripts from the network special reports on February 20, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).