How Albert Einstein Found Faith at the Edge of Reason by Gerald Holton

 Though wary of organized religion, the physicist believed that the harmony of universal laws pointed to a higher power.

 Historians of modern science have good reason to be grateful to Paul Arthur Schilpp, professor of philosophy and Methodist clergyman, but better known as the editor of a series of volumes on “Living Philosophers,” which included several volumes on scientist-philosophers. His motto was: “The asking of questions about a philosopher’s meaning while he is alive.” And to his everlasting credit, he persuaded Albert Einstein to do what he had resisted all his years: to sit down to write, in 1946 at age 67, an extensive autobiography — 45 pages long in print.

 

To be sure, Einstein excluded most of what he called “the merely personal.” But on the very first page, he shared a memory that will guide us to the main conclusion of this essay. He wrote that when still very young, he had searched for an escape from the seemingly hopeless and demoralizing chase after one’s desires and strivings. That escape offered itself first in religion. Although brought up as the son of “entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents,” through the teaching in his Catholic primary school, mixed with his private instruction in elements of the Jewish religion, Einstein found within himself a “deep religiosity” — indeed, “the religious paradise of youth.”

The accuracy of this memorable experience is documented in other sources, including the biographical account of Einstein’s sister, Maja. There she makes a plausible extrapolation: that Einstein’s “religious feeling” found expression in later years in his deep interest and actions to ameliorate the difficulties to which fellow Jews were being subjected, actions ranging from his fights against anti-Semitism to his embrace of Zionism (in the hope, as he put it in one of his speeches [April 20, 1935], that it would include a “peaceable and friendly cooperation with the Arab people”). As we shall see, Maja’s extrapolation of the reach of her brother’s early religious feelings might well have gone much further.

The primacy of young Albert’s First Paradise came to an abrupt end. As he put it early in his “Autobiographical Notes,” through reading popular science books, he came to doubt the stories of the Bible. Thus, he passed first through what he colorfully described as a “positively fanatic indulgence in free thinking.”

But then he found new enchantments. First, at age 12, he read a little book on Euclidean plane geometry — he called it “holy,” a veritable “Wunder.” Then, still as a boy, he became entranced by the contemplation of that huge external, extra-personal world of science, which presented itself to him “like a great, eternal riddle.” To that study one could devote oneself, finding thereby “inner freedom and security.” He believed that choosing the “road to this Paradise,” although quite antithetical to the first one and less alluring, did prove itself trustworthy. Indeed, by age 16, he had his father declare him to the authorities as “without confession,” and for the rest of his life, he tried to dissociate himself from organized religious activities and associations, inventing his own form of religiousness, just as he was creating his own physics.

These two realms appeared to him eventually not as separate as numerous biographers would suggest. On the contrary, my task here is to demonstrate that at the heart of Einstein’s mature identity there developed a fusion of his First and his Second Paradise — into a Third Paradise, where the meaning of a life of brilliant scientific activity drew on the remnants of his fervent first feelings of youthful religiosity.

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For this purpose, we shall have to make what may seem like an excursus, but one that will, in the end, throw light on his overwhelming passion, throughout his scientific and personal life, to bring about the joining of these and other seemingly incommensurate aspects, whether in nature or society.

In 1918, he gave a glimpse of it in a speech (“Prinzipien der Forschung”) honoring the 60th birthday of his friend and colleague Max Planck, to whose rather metaphysical conception about the purpose of science Einstein had drifted while moving away from the quite opposite, positivistic one of an early intellectual mentor, Ernst Mach. As Einstein put it in that speech, the search for one “simplified and lucid image of the world” not only was the supreme task for a scientist, but also corresponded to a psychological need: to flee from personal, everyday life, with all its dreary disappointments, and escape into the world of objective perception and thought. Into the formation of such a world picture, the scientist could place the “center of gravity of his emotional life [Gefühlsleben].” And in a sentence with special significance, he added that persevering on the most difficult scientific problems requires “a state of feeling [Gefühlszustand] similar to that of a religious person or a lover.”

Throughout Einstein’s writings, one can watch him searching for that world picture, for a comprehensive Weltanschauung, one yielding a total conception that, as he put it, would include every empirical fact (Gesamtheit der Erfahrungstatsachen) — not only of physical science, but also of life.

He tried to dissociate himself from organized religious activities and associations, inventing his own form of religiousness.

Einstein was, of course, not alone in this pursuit. The German literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries contained a seemingly obsessive flood of books and essays on the oneness of the world picture. They included writings by both Ernst Mach and Max Planck, and, for good measure, a 1912 general manifesto appealing to scholars in all fields of knowledge to combine their efforts in order to “bring forth a comprehensive Weltanschauung.” The 34 signatories included Ernst Mach, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand Tönnies, David Hilbert, Jacques Loeb — and the then still little-known Albert Einstein.

But while for most others this culturally profound longing for unity — already embedded in the philosophical and literary works they all had studied — was mostly the subject of an occasional opportunity for exhortation (nothing came of the manifesto), for Einstein it was different, a constant preoccupation responding to a persistent, deeply felt intellectual and psychological need.

This fact can be most simply illustrated in Einstein’s scientific writings. As a first example, I turn to one of my favorite manuscripts in his archive. It is a lengthy manuscript in his handwriting, of around 1920, titled, in translation, “Fundamental Ideas and Methods of Relativity.” It contains the passage in which Einstein revealed what, in his words, was “the happiest thought of my life [der gluecklichste Gedanke meines Lebens]” — a thought experiment that came to him in 1907: nothing less than the definition of the equivalence principle, later developed in his general relativity theory.

It occurred to Einstein — thinking first of all in visual terms, as was usual for him — that if a man were falling from the roof of his house and tried to let anything drop, it would only move alongside him, thus indicating the equivalence of acceleration and gravity. In Einstein’s words, “the acceleration of free fall with respect to the material is therefore a mighty argument that the postulate of relativity is to be extended to coordinate systems that move nonuniformly relative to one another . . . . ”

For the present purpose, I want to draw attention to another passage in that manuscript. His essay begins in a largely impersonal, pedagogic tone, similar to that of his first popular book on relativity, published in 1917. But in a surprising way, in the section titled “General Relativity Theory,” Einstein suddenly switches to a personal account. He reports that in the construction of the special theory, the “thought concerning the Faraday [experiment] on electromagnetic induction played for me a leading role.” He then describes that old experiment, in words similar to the first paragraph of his 1905 relativity paper, concentrating on the well-known fact, discovered by Faraday in 1831, that the induced current is the same whether it is the coil or the magnet that is in motion relative to the other, whereas the “theoretical interpretation of the phenomenon in these two cases is quite different.”

While other physicists, for many decades, had been quite satisfied with that difference, here Einstein reveals a central preoccupation at the depth of his soul: “The thought that one is dealing here with two fundamentally different cases was for me unbearable [war mir unertraeglich]. The difference between these two cases could not be a real difference . . . . The phenomenon of the electromagnetic induction forced me to postulate the (special) relativity principle.”

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Let us step back for a moment to contemplate that word “unbearable.” It is reinforced by a passage in Einstein’s “Autobiographical Notes”: “By and by I despaired [verzweifelte ich] of discovering the true laws by means of constructive efforts based on known facts. The longer and the more despairingly I tried, the more I came to the conviction that only the discovery of a universal formal principle could lead us to assured results.” He might have added that the same postulational method had already been pioneered in their main works by two of his heroes, Euclid and Newton.

Other physicists — for example, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg — also reported that at times they were brought to despair in their research. Still other scientists were evidently even brought to suicide by such disappointment. For researchers fiercely engaged at the very frontier, the psychological stakes can be enormous. Einstein resolved his discomfort by, as he did in his 1905 relativity paper, turning to the postulation of two fundamental principles (the principle of relativity in physics and the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo), adopting them as tools of thought.

Einstein also had a second method to bridge the unbearable differences in a theory: generalizing it, so that the apparently differently grounded phenomena are revealed to be coming from the same base. We know from a letter to Max von Laue of January 17, 1952, found in the archive, that Einstein’s early concern with the physics of fluctuation phenomena was the common root of his three great papers of 1905, on such different topics as the quantum property of light, Brownian movement, and relativity.

For researchers fiercely engaged at the very frontier, the psychological stakes can be enormous.

But even earlier, in a letter of April 14, 1901, to his school friend Marcel Grossmann, Einstein had revealed his generalizing approach to physics while working on his very first published paper, on capillarity. There, he tried to bring together in one theory the opposing behaviors of bodies: moving upward when a liquid is in a capillary tube, but downward when the liquid is released freely.

In that letter, he spelled out his interpenetrating emotional and scientific needs in one sentence: “It is a wonderful feeling [ein herrliches Gefühl] to recognize the unity of a complex of appearances which, to direct sense experiences, appear to be quite separate things.” The postulation of universal formal principles, and the discovery among phenomena of a unity, of Einheitlichkeit, through the generalization of the basic theory — those were two of Einstein’s favorite weapons, as his letters and manuscripts show. Writing to Willem de Sitter on November 4, 1916, he confessed: “I am driven by my need to generalize [mein Verallgemeinerungsbeduerfnis].” That need, that compulsion, was also deeply entrenched in German culture and resonated with, and supported, Einstein’s approach.

Let me just note in passing that while still a student at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, in order to get his certificate to be a high school science teacher, Einstein took optional courses on Immanuel Kant and Goethe, whose central works he had studied since his teenage years. That Verallgemeinerungsbeduerfnis was clearly a driving force behind Einstein’s career trajectory.

Thus, he generalized from old experimental results, like Faraday’s, to arrive at special relativity, in which he unified space and time, electric and magnetic forces, energy and mass, and so resolved the whole long dispute among scientists between adherence to a mechanistic versus an electromagnetic world picture. Then he generalized the special theory to produce what he first significantly called, in an article of 1913, not the general but the generalized relativity theory. Paul Ehrenfest wrote him in puzzlement: “How far will this Verallgemeinerung go on?”

And, finally, Einstein threw himself into the attempt of a grand unification of quantum physics and of gravity: a unified field theory. It is an example of an intense and perhaps unique, life-long, tenacious dedication, despite Einstein’s failure at the very end — which nevertheless, as a program, set the stage for the ambition of some of today’s best scientists, who have taken over that search for the Holy Grail of physics — a theory of everything.

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So much for trying to get a glimpse of the mind of Einstein as a scientist. But at this point, for anyone who has studied this man’s work and life in detail, a new thought urges itself forward. As in his science, Einstein also lived under the compulsion to unify — in his politics, in his social ideals, even in his everyday behavior. He abhorred all nationalisms, and called himself, even while in Berlin during World War I, a European.

Later, he supported the One World movement, dreamed of a unified supernational form of government, helped to initiate the international Pugwash movement of scientists during the Cold War, and was as ready to befriend visiting high school students as the Queen of the Belgians. His instinctive penchant for democracy and dislike of hierarchy and class differences must have cost him greatly in the early days, as when he addressed his chief professor at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute, on whose recommendation his entrance to any academic career would depend, not by any title, but simply as “Herr Weber.”

And at the other end of the spectrum, in his essay on ethics, Einstein cited Moses, Jesus, and Buddha as equally valid prophets. No boundaries, no barriers; none in life, as there are none in nature. Einstein’s life and his work were so mutually resonant that we recognize both to have been carried on together in the service of one grand project — the fusion into one coherency.

There were also no boundaries or barriers between Einstein’s scientific and religious feelings. After having passed from the youthful first, religious paradise into his second, immensely productive scientific one, he found in his middle years a fusion of those two motivations — his Third Paradise. We had a hint of this development in his remark in 1918, in which he observed the parallel states of feeling of the scientist and of the “religious person.” Other hints come from the countless, well-known quotations in which Einstein referred to God — doing it so often that Niels Bohr had to chide him. Karl Popper remarked that in conversations with Einstein, “I learned nothing . . . . he tended to express things in theological terms, and this was often the only way to argue with him. I found it finally quite uninteresting.”

There were no boundaries or barriers between Einstein’s scientific and religious feelings.

But two other reports may point to the more profound layer of Einstein’s deepest convictions. One is his remark to one of his assistants, Ernst Straus: “What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.” The second is Einstein’s reply to a curious telegram. In 1929, Boston’s Cardinal O’Connell branded Einstein’s theory of relativity as “befogged speculation producing universal doubt about God and His Creation,” and as implying “the ghastly apparition of atheism.” In alarm, New York’s Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein asked Einstein by telegram: “Do you believe in God? Stop. Answer paid 50 words.”

In his response, for which Einstein needed but 25 (German) words, he stated his beliefs succinctly: “I believe in Spinoza’s God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.” The rabbi cited this as evidence that Einstein was not an atheist, and further declared that “Einstein’s theory, if carried to its logical conclusion, would bring to mankind a scientific formula for monotheism.” Einstein wisely remained silent on that point.

The good rabbi might have had in mind the writings of the Religion of Science movement, which had flourished in Germany under the distinguished auspices of Ernst Haeckel, Wilhelm Ostwald, and their circle (the Monistenbund), and also in America, chiefly in Paul Carus’s books and journals, such as “The Open Court,” which carried the words “Devoted to the Religion of Science” on its masthead.

If Einstein had read Carus’s book, “The Religion of Science” (1893), he may have agreed with one sentence in it: “Scientific truth is not profane, it is sacred.” Indeed, the charismatic view of science in the lives of some scientists has been the subject of much scholarly study — for example, in Joseph Ben-David’s “Scientific Growth” (1991), and earlier in Robert K. Merton’s magisterial book of 1938, “Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England.”

In the section entitled “The Integration of Religion and Science,” Merton notes that among the scientists he studied, “the religious ethic, considered as a social force, so consecrated science as to make it a highly respected and laudable focus of attention.” The social scientist Bernard H. Gustin elaborated on this perception, writing that science at the highest level is charismatic because scientists devoted to such tasks are “thought to come into contact with what is essential in the universe.” I believe this is precisely why so many who knew little about Einstein’s scientific writing flocked to catch a glimpse of him and to this day feel somehow uplifted by contemplating his iconic image.

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Starting in the late 1920s, Einstein became more and more serious about clarifying the relationship between his transcendental and his scientific impulses. He wrote several essays on religiosity; five of them, composed between 1930 and the early 1950s, are reproduced in his book “Ideas and Opinions.”

In those chapters, we can watch the result of a struggle that had its origins in his school years, as he developed, or rather invented, a religion that offered a union with science. In the evolution of religion, he remarked, there were three developmental stages. At the first, “with primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions. This ‘religion of fear’. . . is in an important degree stabilized by the formation of a special priestly caste” that colludes with secular authority to take advantage of it for its own interest. The next step — “admirably illustrated in the Jewish scriptures” — was a moral religion embodying the ethical imperative, “a development [that] continued in the New Testament.”

Yet it had a fatal flaw: “the anthropomorphic character of the concept of God,” easy to grasp by “underdeveloped minds” of the masses, while freeing them of responsibility. This flaw disappears at Einstein’s third, mature stage of religion, to which he believed mankind is now reaching and which the great spirits (he names Democritus, St. Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza) had already attained — namely, the “cosmic religious feeling” that sheds all anthropomorphic elements.

In describing the driving motivation toward that final, highest stage, Einstein uses the same ideas, even some of the same phrases, with which he had celebrated first his religious and then his scientific paradise: “The individual feels the futility of human desires, and aims at the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought.” “Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison, and he wants to experience the universe as a single, significant whole.” Of course! Here, as always, there has to be the intoxicating experience of unification.

And so Einstein goes on, “I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research . . . . A contemporary has said not unjustly that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.” In another of his essays on religion, Einstein points to a plausible source for his specific formulations: “Those individuals to whom we owe the great creative achievements of science were all of them imbued with a truly religious conviction that this universe of ours is something perfect, and susceptible through the rational striving for knowledge. If this conviction had not been a strongly emotional one, and if those searching for knowledge had not been inspired by Spinoza’s amor dei intellectualis, they would hardly have been capable of that untiring devotion which alone enables man to attain his greatest achievements.”

“I believe in Spinoza’s God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world.”

I believe we can guess at the first time Einstein read Baruch Spinoza’s “Ethics” (Ethica Ordinae Geometrico Demonstrata), a system constructed on the Euclidean model of deductions from propositions. Soon after getting his first real job at the patent office, Einstein joined with two friends to form a discussion circle, meeting once or twice a week in what they called, with gallows humor, the Akademie Olympia. We know the list of books they read and discussed. High among them, reportedly at Einstein’s suggestion, was Spinoza’s “Ethics,” which he read afterwards several times more. Even when his sister Maja joined him in Princeton in later life and was confined to bed by an illness, he thought that reading a good book to her would help, and chose Spinoza’s “Ethics” for that purpose.

By that time, Spinoza’s work and life had long been important to Einstein. He had written an introduction to a biography of Spinoza (by his son-in-law, Rudolf Kayser, 1946); he had contributed to the “Spinoza Dictionary” (1951); he had referred to Spinoza in many of his letters; and he had even composed a poem in Spinoza’s honor. He admired Spinoza for his independence of mind, his deterministic philosophical outlook, his skepticism about organized religion and orthodoxy — which had resulted in his excommunication from his synagogue in 1656 — and even for his ascetic preference, which compelled him to remain in poverty and solitude to live in a sort of spiritual ecstasy, instead of accepting a professorship at the University of Heidelberg.

Originally neglected, Spinoza’s “Ethics,” published only posthumously, profoundly influenced other thinkers, such as Friedrich Schlegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Goethe (who called him “our common saint”), Albert Schweitzer, and Romain Rolland (who, on reading Ethics, confessed, “I deciphered not what he said, but what he meant to say”).

For Spinoza, God and nature were one (deus sive natura). True religion was based not on dogma but on a feeling for the rationality and the unity underlying all finite and temporal things, on a feeling of wonder and awe that generates the idea of God, but a God which lacks any anthropomorphic conception. As Spinoza wrote in Proposition 15 in “Ethics,” he opposed assigning to God “body and soul and being subject to passions.” Hence, “God is incorporeal” — as had been said by others, from Maimonides on, to whom God was knowable indirectly through His creation, through nature.

In other pages of “Ethics,” Einstein could read Spinoza’s opposition to the idea of cosmic purpose, and that he favored the primacy of the law of cause and effect — an all-pervasive determinism that governs nature and life — rather than “playing at dice,” in Einstein’s famous remark. And as if he were merely paraphrasing Spinoza, Einstein wrote in 1929 that the perception in the universe of “profound reason and beauty constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man.”

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Much has been written about the response of Einstein’s contemporaries to his Spinozistic cosmic religion. For example, the physicist Arnold Sommerfeld recorded in Schilpp’s volume that he often felt “that Einstein stands in a particularly intimate relation to the God of Spinoza.”

But what finally most interests us here is to what degree Einstein, having reached his Third Paradise, in which his yearnings for science and religion are joined, may even have found in his own research in physics fruitful ideas emerging from that union. In fact, there are at least some tantalizing parallels between passages in Spinoza’s “Ethics” and Einstein’s publications in cosmology — parallels that the physicist and philosopher Max Jammer, in his book “Einstein and Religion” (1999), considers as amounting to intimate connections. For example, in Part I of Ethics (“Concerning God”), Proposition 29 begins: “In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things are determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and act in a certain manner.”

Here is at least a discernible overlap with Einstein’s tenacious devotion to determinism and strict causality at the fundamental level, despite all the proofs from quantum mechanics of the reign of probabilism, at least in the subatomic realm. There are other such parallels throughout.

But what is considered by some as the most telling relationship between Spinoza’s Propositions and Einstein’s physics comes from passages such as Corollary 2 of Proposition 20: “It follows that God is immutable or, which is the same thing, all His attributes are immutable.” In a letter of September 3, 1915, to Else (his cousin and later his wife), Einstein, having read Spinoza’s “Ethics” again, wrote, “I think the ‘Ethics’ will have a permanent effect on me.” Two years later, when he expanded his general relativity to include “cosmological considerations,” Einstein found to his dismay that his system of equations did “not allow the hypothesis of a spatially closed-ness of the world [raeumliche Geschlossenheit].”

How did Einstein cure this flaw? By something he had done very rarely: making an ad hoc addition, purely for convenience: “We can add, on the left side of the field equation a — for the time being — unknown universal constant, – λ.”

“The cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.”

In fact, it seems that not much harm is done thereby. It does not change the covariance; it still corresponds with the observation of motions in the solar system (“as long as λ is small”), and so forth. Moreover, the proposed new universal constant λ also determines the average density of the universe with which it can remain in equilibrium, and provides the radius and volume of a presumed spherical universe. Altogether a beautiful, immutable universe — one an immutable God could be identified with.

But in 1922, Alexander Friedmann showed that the equations of general relativity did allow expansion or contraction. And in 1929, Edwin Hubble found by astronomical observations the fact that the universe does expand. Thus, Einstein — at least according to the physicist George Gamow — remarked that “inserting λ was the biggest blunder of my life.”

Max Jammer and the physicist John Wheeler, both of whom knew Einstein, traced his unusual ad hoc insertion of λ , nailing down that “spatially closed-ness of the world,” to a relationship between Einstein’s thoughts and Spinoza’s Propositions. They also pointed to another possible reason for it: In Spinoza’s writings, one finds the concept that God would not have made an empty world. But in an expanding universe, in the infinity of time, the density of matter would be diluted to zero in the limit. Space itself would disappear, since, as Einstein put it in 1952, “On the basis of the general theory of relativity . . . space as opposed to ‘what fills space’. . . had no separate existence.”

Even if all of these suggestive indications of an intellectual, emotional, and perhaps even spiritual resonance between Einstein’s and Spinoza’s writings were left entirely aside, there still remains Einstein’s attachment to his “cosmic religion.” That was the end point of his own troublesome pilgrimage in religiosity — from his early vision of his First Paradise, through his disillusionments, to his dedication to find fundamental unity within natural science, and at last to his recognition of science as the devotion, in his words, of “a deeply religious unbeliever” — his final embrace of seeming incommensurables in his Third Paradise.

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After the strike: The danger of war in Iran

 On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran, resulting in the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Brookings experts break down what the ensuing war means for Iran and what’s at stake internationally and domestically.

 Suzanne Maloney

‘Khamenei raft’

In February 1979, after months of internal unrest, Iranian newspapers announced the departure of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last king of Iran. The massive banner headline declaring “Shah raft” (“the Shah is gone”) quickly became iconic. That concise phrase and the vivid image evoked the magnitude of this historical moment, at the culmination of an unlikely popular revolution that toppled the modernizing monarch of a wealthy, pro-Western state in a strategically and economically vital region.

Saturday’s death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the state that succeeded the monarchy, in an Israeli airstrike on his compound, is no less momentous. Over the course of nearly 37 years in power, Khamenei cemented the unique dominance of his office, thwarted every effort to make meaningful changes to Iran’s approach to the world, and empowered and expanded its influence across the region. For many Iranians and others, Khamenei’s quick elimination elicited celebrations and a rare sense of hope for the future.

Sadly, however, that hope may be short-lived. Just as the shah’s departure failed to usher in the aspirations of the millions who rallied in the streets during the 1979 revolution, it’s highly uncertain that the U.S.-Israeli operation will successfully produce a real transition to a different regime. Over the past few days, airstrikes have powerfully degraded Iran’s military capabilities and decapitated key political and military leadership. Still, the deeply embedded networks and institutions that have underpinned the Islamic Republic for nearly half a century ensure that, at least in the near term, the vestiges of the power structure continue to hold an overwhelming advantage over any challengers.

To regain some leverage even as the country remains under bombardment, Tehran is deploying its time-tested strategy of escalating strikes on its neighbors’ energy and economic infrastructure in the hopes of creating pressure and incentives for diplomacy. After the attrition of its proxies and its nuclear program at the hands of Israel and the United States over the past 18 months, and then the shock of a massive internal uprising in January, the regime saw this conflict coming. For Iran’s battered and bloodied regime, the stakes are existential. Imposing high costs on Washington, their neighbors, and the global economy is their survival strategy.

 Mara Karlin

High-end war, low-cost drones

The horrific October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks triggered a series of conflicts across the Middle East, culminating this weekend in sweeping American and Israeli efforts to conduct regime change in Iran. Together, the U.S. and Israeli militaries have apparently hit more than a thousand Iranian targets in two days, demonstrating a historic joint operation against high value political and military people and places, and employing sophisticated conventional capabilities paired with rich intelligence and strategic planning.  

In response, the Islamic Republic has operated like there is no tomorrow—which is plausible given the breadth, depth, and efficacy of these attacks on its foundations. In doing so, Iranian missiles and drones have attacked at least nine different countries as of Monday morning, including Gulf bases where the U.S. military operates, likely executed by devolved command and control. Iranian efforts to expand the war have resulted in a number of countries who hoped to avoid engagement in this conflict now being brought into the conflict. While many Iranian missiles have been shot down, relatively low cost Iranian drones appear to have been more effective in evading air defense and hitting targets; further evidence that contemporary wars span the low to high end of the continuum of conflict. This latest chapter in Middle East wars looks like “everything everywhere, all at once.” 

 Vanda Felbab-Brown

The limits of leadership targeting

In the United States and Israel’s war against Iran, the Trump administration announced as a key goal the end of the theocratic regime that has ruled Iran since 1979. But it’s provided few—and contradictory—details as to what the regime’s end means, and the new political dispensation it would find satisfactory. It merely called on the Iranian people to overthrow the regime, without repeating its earlier promises of protection.

In the first days of airstrikes, the United States and Israel killed the ayatollah as well as several top leaders of the Iranian military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), adding to those killed in July 2025 during the joint attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But the Iranian regime is vast, with sprawling religious authority, layers of officers across various armed branches and militias, and widespread control of the country’s economic assets. Even if the United States and Israel continue mowing down newly-replaced leaders for weeks, the IRGC and various armed forces and their economic assets will not just melt away, even if they eventually fracture.

Even a future electoral process, should a transitional regime at some point emerge, may not lead to a sustained democratic system. Although many people in Iran crave it, such outcomes require nurturing over many years, including from the external intervener. Iran’s fragmented political opposition may produce unstable governments that struggle to satisfy the immense economic needs of the Iranian people and a clamoring for a strongman. And that’s even if armed struggles and militancy don’t rise, such as from Iran’s oppressed Kurdish and Baluch people or from Islamist groups.

The Trump administration broke a cruel, brutal, and dangerous regime with little clarity, planning, readiness, and accountability for how to foster a new, desirable replacement system. In Venezuela, it remains satisfied with 99% of the Maduro regime staying in power, including those with egregious human rights records, and only cosmetic political liberalization, as long as the “new” regime appears to be doing U.S. oil bidding. President Donald Trump is hinting that such a minimal change of leadership in Iran may be enough for him. It hardly will be for the Iranian people or Israel.

 Stephanie T. Williams

Flying blind

We are flying blind, captured by magical thinking. The United States has launched an entirely volitional and illegal war against a country in which it has had no diplomatic presence for nearly 50 years. Against a theocratic dictatorship whose leader the U.S. military has now decapitated, and who will be mourned by few, but who may well be replaced by someone far worse. A country of 92 million people ruthlessly ruled for decades by a corrupt cabal of armed thugs, whose tentacles deeply penetrated what little remained of the state’s institutions.

The Trump administration has no clue and no plan for what comes next. We can, however, draw lessons—none of them good—from the United States’ 21st^–century failures in regime change wars in the Middle East and North Africa. The United States must therefore prepare for the likelihood of Iran’s full implosion, fragmentation, and the spread of a chaos that would make the aftermath of our misadventures in Iraq and Libya look like a picnic. Is the Trump administration prepared to stand by while the Middle East region is engulfed in violence? Will it dispatch ground troops? Will it maintain an armada in the Persian Gulf? None of this has been explained to the American people or U.S. congressional representatives. Ironically, the greatest beneficiaries of the United States’ grave violations of international law are the very actors whom, under normal circumstances, Washington would be seeking to restrain: Moscow will be emboldened to continue its barbaric assault on Ukraine, while China will feel empowered to move on Taiwan.

 Sharan Grewal

The most likely scenario is still a deal, not regime change

For Trump, the best option in Iran is still a “Venezuela scenario”: striking a deal with whoever comes to replace Khamenei, likely a modified nuclear deal plus some oil concessions. Trump—and especially his MAGA base—has no interest in a long, drawn-out war in the Middle East, which is what is required to truly topple the Iranian regime. Especially as casualties mount—with three U.S. troops already killed over the weekend, followed by a friendly fire downing of three jets Monday morning—Trump is likely to abandon his earlier calls for regime change and attempt to strike a deal. Iran, for its part, appears to be pursuing the same strategy, expanding the war as much as and as quickly as possible in order to create the greatest diplomatic pressure on Trump to end the war, and signaling its interest in negotiations as well.

Inside Iran, while the killing of Khamenei and other top officials has decapitated the regime, the incentives of each element of the regime have not meaningfully shifted. While protesters celebrated Khamenei’s death in the streets, the regime also organized continued nationalist counterprotests in its favor. That suggests the regime’s networks remain resilient, and, at least as of writing, there have still been no major defections.

If so, then for Iran, all Trump’s attacks have really done is to accelerate Khamenei’s already looming death. But the operation may have a meaningful impact on Trump himself: Nicolás Maduro’s capture and now Khamenei’s killing might further embolden him to continue to pursue these reckless, unilateral military operations against heads of state across the globe. Despite his campaign rhetoric, Trump has proven to be even more hawkish than his predecessors, leaving future generations to face the eventual blowback.

 Steven Heydemann

The regime change gamble

Wars rarely go according to plan. In launching a war of choice with Iran, the United States and Israel have unleashed a confrontation that is unlikely to succeed and certain to produce unintended effects that they will be unable to manage or contain. There is little question that the United States and Israel can inflict serious damage on Iran’s military capabilities. It is likely that Iran, already severely weakened, will be unable to mount a sustained response to blistering attacks by the United States and Israel, though it will certainly try to inflict as much damage as it can on United States and Israeli targets across the region.

Whether the United States will succeed in its longer-term objectives, however, is doubtful. The Trump administration’s minimal aims can be seen as reversing the unintended effects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the event that paved the way for the expansion of Iran’s influence across the Arab east and reinforced its commitment to its nuclear program. These include giving up its nuclear ambitions; accepting limits on its missile program; abandoning its proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen; and conceding its status as a regional power. The Trump administration’s maximalist aims can be seen as reversing the effects of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, restoring Iran’s standing as a status quo power aligned with the West. Neither outcome is possible if the current regime remains in power, and appeals by both Trump and Netanyahu encouraging Iranians to rise up underscore the centrality of regime change to the success of their plans.

Yet regime change is also the war’s central vulnerability and holds out the most dangerous of its potential unintended consequences. Several scenarios are possible, none of which offer any assurance that the war will go according to plan. First, the regime may well survive the war even if its current leadership has been killed off, paving the way for a period of increased repression, renewed determination to restore its deterrent capabilities, and increased use of asymmetric means to impose costs on its enemies. After all, Hamas and Hezbollah have survived far more devastating assaults. Iran’s regime will likely prove to be no less resilient. Second, the regime might collapse yet be replaced by leaders even more repressive and even less inclined to make the concessions demanded by the United States and Israel. Or, third, regime collapse could inaugurate a period of sustained conflict and political instability that will be difficult to contain within Iran’s borders. In going to war to exploit the Iranian regime’s weakness, therefore, Trump and Netanyahu may well have set the stage for a lose-lose outcome that will leave no one, least of all the Iranian people, better off.

 Dafna H. Rand

Civilian tools, not bombs

Trump’s war of choice is unwise and potentially unlawful. It also misaligns ends and means, like so many of Trump’s other defense and foreign policies. If this war’s objective is to transform the Iranian regime’s nature—rather than merely its leadership—the prioritization and expansion of U.S. civilian tools of influence should be paramount. For decades, the United States and its allies have supported quiet, locally led efforts within Iran to strengthen civil society—journalists, academics, trade unions, environmental advocates, and women’s rights organizations. Congress has consistently funded these activities through the Near East Regional Democracy Program, which, since its establishment in 2009, has invested nearly $600 million in on-the-ground initiatives.

Administrations of both parties have approached this work with appropriate caution, given the recognition that only the Iranian people can legitimately mobilize internal pressure for political change. U.S. involvement in Iran’s domestic politics also carries historical baggage. When major protests emerged—the Green Movement (2009-2010), the Dey protests (2017-2018), and the Women, Life, Freedom movement (2021-2022)—the United States calibrated its endorsement out of concern that its involvement would discredit these local efforts. In retrospect, this caution may have been excessive, and the United States should have provided more public support.

Even so, during the peak of the Women, Life, Freedom protests, roughly one in four Iranians used a U.S.-funded virtual private network (VPN) to bypass heavy government censorship. In the years since, U.S. programs—often involving partnerships with U.S. technology companies—have developed more advanced methods that allow Iranians to circumvent total internet shutdowns—rare events that require technologies more sophisticated than VPNs or even satellite-based systems, such as Starlink.

Over the past five years, U.S. policymakers added new accountability measures and used Global Magnitsky sanctions to target Iranian officials responsible for human rights abuses and corruption.

The United States should now expand every civilian lever of statecraft. Policymakers should restore the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and associated foreign assistance programs, including internet freedom funding. For more than a decade, these capabilities allowed the United States to anticipate and counter authoritarian crackdowns in the information space. They should also rebuild the specialized teams that administer Global Magnitsky and related sanctions so they can hold individual perpetrators of repression and state violence accountable. Most urgently, the administration should set aside its counterproductive tensions with the European Union, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and other multilateral institutions. Without a U.S. presence on the ground in Iran, Washington will need to rely on its partners to help support opposition actors.

 Aslı Aydıntaşbaş

After Iran, Turkey and Israel face a reckoning

With the death of Iran’s supreme leader and the continued U.S.-Israeli strikes on the Iranian regime, the Islamic Republic’s future is suddenly much harder to predict. The regime may decline gradually, and then suddenly. Or a narrower security elite may consolidate power, eventually strike a deal with Washington, and preserve the system through harsher repression at home.

One consequence, however, is already coming into view: this war is sharpening the enmity between Turkey and Israel, pushing them closer to a long-term collision.

That much was clear in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s initial response. He blamed Netanyahu for triggering the conflict and condemned Israel’s strikes as “provocations,” with no reference to the U.S. military role. Ankara wants to believe Trump was dragged into war by an Israel determined to reshape the Middle East.

Turkey doesn’t want another war at its doorstep and will quietly work with the Trump administration and regime insiders to identify an off-ramp—not out of sympathy for Tehran but because it fears the day after. Iran and Turkey are historic rivals, and Turks have long been nervous about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, missile capabilities, and proxy networks. But Turkish officials also feared that war would bring prolonged instability and produce consequences worse than the status quo—including refugee flows, trade and energy disruption, and the possibility that turmoil inside Iran could create new space for Kurdistan Workers’ Party-linked Kurdish autonomy inside Iran. Turkey does not believe regime change is in the cards.

Ankara’s deeper concern, however, is geopolitical. It prefers the Iran it knows to a postwar order shaped more decisively by Israel. In Turkish eyes, American and Israeli aims diverge. Trump is seen as a transactional actor who may still declare a quick victory and return to nuclear diplomacy. Israel, by contrast, is viewed by Turks as pursuing something broader: an ideological transformation, a fractured Iran, and a Middle East reorganized around Israeli military primacy. That will inevitably clash with Turkey’s own interests and quest for regional influence.

That is why Turkey and Israel are increasingly locked into a security dilemma, each viewing the other’s gains as a direct threat—accusing each other of “neo-Ottomanism” and “Greater Israel” ambitions, respectively. Their rivalry had already intensified over Gaza and Syria. Now, the prospect of an Israel-led regional order will deepen it further. Ankara may stay out of the war itself. But managing the rivalry with Israel—and the diplomacy with Washington over what comes next—will be far harder.

 Kemal Kirişci

Turkey is holding its breath

Turkish leaders repeatedly expressed their categorical opposition to a military intervention against Iran. Two concerns would have been at the forefront of their minds: the potential for a mass influx of refugees and the economic consequences.

After the current Iranian regime rose to power in 1979, an estimated 1.5 million Iranians transited Turkey during the 1980s and early 1990s on their way to a then-welcoming Western Europe and the United States.  Today, traditional countries of asylum have closed their doors. A case in point is the Syrian refugees, who were overwhelmingly hosted in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. In Turkey, the government initially received them with open arms, expecting a quick regime change in Syria and a quick return home. This did not happen. Instead, for more than a decade, until a slow repatriation process started with the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria late 2024, Turkey housed the largest refugee population in the world. Their presence—still numbering more than 2.3 million—has taxing social, political, and economic consequences in Turkey. This experience has unsurprisingly led the government to build a wall along both the Syrian and Iranian borders and consider receiving refugees on the Iranian side of the border.

The Turkish economy today is not booming, in contrast to when Syrians began to arrive in the spring of 2011. The government is following a painful anti-inflationary policy with limited results, a policy dependent on a highly overvalued and fragile national currency. A hike in energy prices and a slowdown in the world economy would aggravate Turkey’s so far manageable trade deficit. This could jeopardize the government’s economic policies and weaken its capacity to resist the opposition’s persistent calls for early national elections.  

 Constanze Stelzenmüller

Will Europe enter the fray?

The Iranian regime has played a nefarious role in European security for a long time: it has supported terrorist networks, fed wars and civil strife in the Middle East that swept streams of refugees to Europe, and helped Russia pursue its brutal invasion of Ukraine with Shahed drones. For Tehran, Europe was an enemy as much as Israel and the United States.

But the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran present European governments with a highly uncomfortable dilemma. Relief at the overthrow of a dictatorial regime that butchered its own citizens and exported terror is mixed with apprehension at the potential destabilizing consequences, including in Europe—and a sharp sense of limited agency and options. Most European governments initially responded to the aerial bombings with calls for restraint or the respect of civilian lives and international law.

Yet, following Iranian drone hits on British and French military bases, as well as bases in Jordan and Iraq that station German soldiers, the “E-3” (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) declared on Sunday night: “We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source. We have agreed to work together with the US and allies in the region on this matter.” The U.K. has agreed to let the United States use British bases; France says it will boost its military presence in the region. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who arrives in Washington on Monday, will no doubt be asked what his repeated vow to build “the strongest army in Europe” means in this context.

Meanwhile, Europeans and Americans might do well to remember that there is one country with four years of expertise in downing Iranian drones: Ukraine.

 

Pavel K. Baev

For Russia, a major geopolitical setback with a sharp personal twist

The high probability of a U.S. attack on Iran was obvious in Moscow, but it still came as a shock. Russia sought to discourage this escalation by staging naval exercises with Iran, both on its own and together with China, but Trump’s “beautiful armada“ was too expensive to assemble to be deterred. From the narrow focus of the U.S.-Iranian talks in Geneva, Russian experts deduced a limited scope of air assault targeting primarily nuclear assets. They did not expect the first strike to be so massive, let alone effectively eliminate Iran’s top leadership.

During the previous escalation of hostilities in June 2025, President Vladimir Putin firmly refused to discuss the possibility of Israel or the United States targeting Iran’s supreme leader. Last Saturday, he held an emergency meeting of the Security Council, but not a word on the proceedings was published. His message of condolences decried Khamenei’s “assassination” as a “cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law,” which rings hollow for any researcher of the Russian way of war, but betrays his angst. Putin has been obsessed with personal safety since the death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and Putin’s long self-isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic turned it into paranoia. How this fear would play in the U.S.-Russian-Ukrainian talks on a peace deal, no rational analysis can tell, but it is not impossible that Putin may discover new incentives for a compromise.

How microplastics are infiltrating the food you eat by Isabelle Gerretsen

 

Plastic pollution is one of the defining legacies of our modern way of life, but it is now so widespread it is even finding its way into fruit and vegetables as they grow.

Microplastics have infiltrated every part of the planet. They have been found buried in Antarctic sea ice, within the guts of marine animals inhabiting the deepest ocean trenches, and in drinking water around the world. Plastic pollution has been found on beaches of remote, uninhabited islands and it shows up in sea water samples across the planet. One study estimated that there are around 24.4 trillion fragments of microplastics in the upper regions of the world's oceans.  

But they aren't just ubiquitous in water – they are spread widely in soils on land too and can even end up in the food we eat. Unwittingly, we may be consuming tiny fragments of plastic with almost every bite we take.

In 2022, analysis by the Environmental Working Group, an environmental non-profit, found that sewage sludge has contaminated almost 20 million acres (80,937sq km) of US cropland with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called "forever chemicals", which are commonly found in plastic products and do not break down under normal environmental conditions.

Sewage sludge is the byproduct left behind after municipal wastewater is cleaned. As it is expensive to dispose of and rich in nutrients, sludge is commonly used as organic fertiliser in the US and Europe. In the latter, this is in part due to EU directives promoting a circular waste economy. An estimated 8-10 million tonnes of sewage sludge is produced in Europe each year, and roughly 40% of this is spread on farmland.

 Due to this practice, European farmland could be the biggest global reservoir of microplastics, according to a study by researchers at Cardiff University. This means between 31,000 and 42,000 tonnes of microplastics, or 86 trillion to 710 trillion microplastic particles, contaminate European farmland each year.

 

The researchers found that up to 650 million microplastic particles, measuring between 1mm and 5mm (0.04in-0.2in), entered one wastewater treatment plant in south Wales, in the UK, every day. All these particles ended up in the sewage sludge, making up roughly 1% of the total weight, rather than being released with the clean water.

 The number of microplastics that end up on farmland "is probably an underestimation," says Catherine Wilson, one of the study's co-authors and deputy director of the Hydro-environmental Research Centre at Cardiff University. "Microplastics are everywhere and [often] so tiny that we can't see them."

 

And microplastics can stay there for a long time too. One recent study by soil scientists at Philipps-University Marburg found microplastics up to 90cm (35in) below the surface on two agricultural fields where sewage sludge had last been applied 34 years ago. Ploughing also caused the plastic to spread into areas where the sludge had not been applied.

The microplastics' concentration on farmland soils in Europe is similar to the amount found in ocean surface waters, says James Lofty, the lead author of the Cardiff study and a PhD research student at the Hydro-environmental Research Centre.

The UK has some of the highest concentrations of microplastics in Europe, with between 500 and 1,000 microplastic particles are spread on farmland there each year, according to Wilson and Lofty's research.

As well as creating a large reservoir of microplastics on land, the practice of using sewage sludge as fertiliser is also exacerbating the plastics crisis in our oceans, adds Lofty. Eventually the microplastics will end up in waterways, as rain washes the top layer of soil into rivers or washes them into groundwater. "The major source of [plastic] contamination in our rivers and oceans is from runoff," he says.

 

One study by researchers in Ontario, Canada, found that 99% of microplastics were transported away from where the sludge was initially dumped into aquatic environments.

Environmental contamination

Before they are washed away, however, microplastics can leach toxic chemicals into the soil. Not only are they made from potentially harmful chemicals that can be released into the environment as they break down, microplastics can also absorb other toxic substances, essentially allowing them to hitch a ride onto agricultural land where they can leach into the soil, according to Lofty.

 A report by the UK's Environment Agency, which was subsequently revealed by the environmental campaign group Greenpeace, found that sewage waste destined for English farmland was contaminated with pollutants including dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at "levels that may present a risk to human health".

A 2020 experiment by Kansas University agronomist Mary Beth Kirkham found that plastic serves as a vector for plant uptake of toxic chemicals such as cadmium. "In the plants where cadmium was in the soil with plastic, the wheat leaves had much, much more cadmium than in the plants that grew without plastic in the soil," Kirkham said at the time.

Research also shows that microplastics can stunt the growth of earthworms and cause them to lose weight. The reasons for this weight loss aren't fully understood, but one theory is that microplastics may obstructs earthworms' digestive tracts, limiting their ability to absorb nutrients and so limiting their growth. This has a negative impact on the wider environment, too, the researchers say, as earthworms play a vital role in maintaining soil health. Their burrowing activity aerates the soil, prevents erosion, improves water drainage and recycles nutrients.

Plastic particles can also contaminate food crops directly. A 2020 study found microplastics and nanoplastics in fruit and vegetables sold by supermarkets and in produce sold by local sellers in Catania in Sicily, Italy. Apples were the most contaminated fruit, and carrots had the highest levels of microplastics among the sampled vegetables.

According to research by Willie Peijnenburg, professor of environmental toxicology and biodiversity at Leiden University in the Netherlands, crops absorb nanoplastic particles – minuscule fragments measuring between 1-100nm in size, or about 1,000 to 100 times smaller than a human blood cell – from surrounding water and soil through tiny cracks in their roots.

Analysis revealed that most of the plastics accumulated in the plant roots, with only a very small amount travelling up to the shoots. "Concentrations in the leaves are well below 1%," says Peijnenburg. For leafy vegetables such as lettuces and cabbage, the concentrations of plastic would likely then be relatively low, but for root vegetables such as carrots, radishes and turnips, the risk of consuming microplastics would be greater, he warns.

 

Another study by Peijnenburg and his colleagues found that in both lettuce and wheat, the concentration of microplastics was 10 times lower than in the surrounding soil. "We found that only the smallest particles are taken up by the plants and the big ones are not," says Peijnenburg.

This is reassuring, says Peijnenburg. However, many microplastics will slowly degrade and break down into nanoparticles, providing a "good source for plant uptake," he adds.

It will take decades before plastics are fully removed from the environment – Willie Peijnenburg

The uptake of the plastic particles did not seem to stunt the growth of the crops, according to Peijnenburg's research. But what effect this accumulation of plastic in our food has on our own health is less clear.

Further research is needed to understand this, says Peijnenburg, especially as the problem will only get bigger.

"It will take decades before plastics are fully removed from the environment," he says. "Even if the risk is currently not very high, it's not a good idea to have persistent chemicals [on farmland]. They will pile up and then they might form a risk." 

Health impacts

While the impact of ingesting plastics on human health is not yet fully understood, there is already some research that suggests it could be harmful. Studies show that chemicals added during the production of plastics can disrupt the endocrine system and the hormones that regulate our growth and development.

Chemicals found in plastic have been linked to a range of other health problems including cancer, heart disease and poor foetal development. High levels of ingested microplastics may also cause cell damage which could lead to inflammation and allergic reactions, according to analysis by researchers at the University of Hull, in the UK.

The researchers reviewed 17 previous studies which looked at the toxicological impact of microplastics on human cells. The analysis compared the amount of microplastics that caused damage to cells in laboratory tests with the levels ingested by people through drinking water, seafood and salt. It found that the amounts being ingested approached those that could trigger cell death, but could also cause immune responses, including allergic reactions, damage to cell walls, and oxidative stress.

Our research shows that we are ingesting microplastics at the levels consistent with harmful effects on cells, which are in many cases the initiating event for health effects," says Evangelos Danopoulos, lead author of the study and a researcher at Hull York Medical School. "We know that microplastics can cross the barriers of cells and also break them, We know they can also cause oxidative stress on cells, which is the start of tissue damage."

 

There are two theories as to how microplastics lead to cell breakdown, says Danopoulos. Their sharp edges could rupture the cell wall or the chemicals in the microplastics could damage the cell, he says. The study found that irregularly-shaped microplastics were the most likely to cause cell death. 

"What we now need to understand is how many microplastics remain in our body and what kind of size and shape is able to cross the cell barrier," says Danopoulos. If plastics were to accumulate to the levels at which they could become harmful over a period of time, this could pose an even greater risk to human health.

But even without these answers, Danopoulos questions whether more care is needed to ensure microplastics do not enter the food chain. "If we know that sludge is contaminated with microplastics and that plants have the ability to extract them from the soil, should we be using it as fertiliser?" he says.

Banning sewage sludge

Spreading sludge on farmland has been banned in the Netherlands since 1995. The country initially incinerated the sludge, but started exporting it to the UK, where it was used as fertiliser on farmland, after problems at an Amsterdam incineration plant.

Switzerland prohibited the use of sewage sludge as fertiliser in 2003 because it "comprises a whole range of harmful substances and pathogenic organisms produced by industry and private households". The US state Maine also banned the practice in April 2022 after environmental authorities found high levels of PFAS on farmland soil, crops and water. High PFAS levels were also detected in farmers' blood. The widespread contamination forced several farms to close.

The new Maine law bans the application, sale and distribution of compost containing sewage sludge, but does not forbid it from being exported. 

But a total ban on using sewage sludge as fertiliser is not necessarily the best solution, says Cardiff University's Wilson. Instead, it could incentivise farmers to use more synthetic nitrogen fertilisers, made from natural gas, she says.

"[With sewage sludge], we're using a waste product in an efficient way, rather than producing endless fossil fuel fertilisers," says Wilson. The organic waste in sludge also helps return carbon to the soil and enriches it with nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, which prevents soil degradation, she says.

Microplastics are now on the cusp of changing from a contaminant to a pollutant – Evangelos Danopoulos

"We need to quantify the microplastics in sewage sludge so that we can [determine] where the hot spots are and start managing it," says Wilson. In places with high levels of microplastics, sewage sludge could be incinerated to generate energy instead of used as fertiliser, she suggests. One way to prevent the contamination of farmland is to recover fats, oil and grease (which contain high levels of microplastics) at wastewater treatment plants and use this "surface scum" as biofuel, instead of mixing it with sludge, Wilson and her colleagues say. 

Some European countries, such as Italy and Greece, dispose of sewage sludge in landfill sites, the researchers note, but they warn that there is a risk of microplastics leaching into the environment from these sites and contaminating surrounding land and water bodies.  

Both Wilson and Danopoulos say much more research is needed to quantify the amount of microplastics on farmland and the possible environmental and health impacts.

 "Microplastics are now on the cusp of changing from a contaminant to a pollutant," says Danopoulos. "A contaminant is something that is found where it shouldn't be. Microplastics shouldn't be in our water and soil. If we prove that [they have] adverse effects, that would make them a pollutant and [we] would have to bring in legislation and regulations."

 

 

 

 

Trump's 2026 State of the Union address, annotated and fact-checked

By Zachary B. Wolf and Curt Merrill,  CNN Published February 25, 2026

After more than a year of his chaotic second term, President Donald Trump got a prime time chance in a speech at the US Capitol to convince Americans the state of the union is strong.

Trump is on defense on multiple fronts. Opinion polls suggest a serious dip in the president’s approval ratings heading into midterm elections later this year when Republicans’ House and Senate majorities will be on the line.

The State of the Union Address was his chance to recast his unpopular mass deportation effort, explain why US warships are massing for possible military action with Iran, and stare down Supreme Court justices who last week rejected his unprecedented use of tariffs. There were Epstein survivors in the House chamber to push for more transparency and members of the US men’s hockey team to celebrate their victory over Canada at the Olympics. Trump awarded multiple Medals of Honor, two Purple Hearts, a Legion of Merit and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

There was also verbal jousting with Democrats, some of whom shouted or walked out of the chamber. Trump called them “crazy.”

Read Trump’s speech as delivered, annotated with context and fact checks, below, or jump to a topic in the speech.

 

Well, thank you very much, everybody. It's really an honor. Speaker Johnson, Vice President Vance, First Lady of the United States. Second lady of the United States. Members of Congress and my fellow Americans, our nation is back, bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.

Less than five months from now, our country will celebrate an epic milestone in American history, the 250th anniversary of our glorious American independence.

Happy 250, America!!! There are many events planned to celebrate, including an IndyCar race through the streets of Washington.

This July 4th, we will mark two and a half centuries of liberty and triumph, progress and freedom, in the most incredible and exceptional nation ever to exist on the face of the Earth.

And you've seen nothing yet. We're going to do better and better and better. This is the golden age of America. When I last spoke in this chamber 12 months ago, I had just inherited a nation in crisis with a stagnant economy, inflation at record levels, a wide open border, horrendous recruitment for military and police, rampant crime at home and wars and chaos all over the world.

Trump didn’t inherit the worst inflation in US history, and Biden never had the worst inflation in US history. The year-over-year inflation rate in December 2024, Biden’s last full month in office, was 2.9%. The rate in January 2025, the month in which Trump took over partway through, was 3.0%; the most recent rate, for January 2026, is 2.4%. The rate did hit a 40-year high, 9.1%, in June 2022, but that was far from the all-time high of 23.7%, which was set in 1920. Regardless, the rate then fell sharply over Biden’s last two-and-a-half years in office.

— Daniel Dale, CNN

Read more

But tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages. It is indeed a turnaround for the ages.

Trump probably truly believes this. Opinion polls suggest most Americans do not.

And we will never go back to where we were just a very short time ago. We're not going back today.

CNN’s Manu Raju reports from inside the chamber that Rep. Al Green waved a sign that read, “Black people aren’t apes.” It’s a reference to Trump’s recent sharing, and deleting, of a video that depicted former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys. Rep. Steve Scalise, the majority leader, tried to snatch the sign from Green’s hands. Green was led out of the chamber.

Today, our border is secure. Thank you. Today our border is secure, our spirit is restored, inflation is plummeting, incomes are rising fast, the roaring economy is roaring like never before and our enemies are scared.

The facts don’t corroborate the suggestion that Trump has presided over a massive economic boom since returning to office in January 2025. The US economy grew 2.2% in 2025, which was lower than in any year of the Biden presidency; there was 2.8% growth in 2024. (The fall 2025 government shutdown likely reduced growth in late 2025.)

— Daniel Dale, CNN

Read more

Our military and police are stacked and America is respected again, perhaps like never before. After four years in which millions and millions of illegal aliens poured across our borders totally unvetted and unchecked, we now have the strongest and most secure border in American history by far.

It’s not possible to fact check these kinds of statements. Trump says them all the time.

In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States. But we will always allow people to come in legally, people that will love our country and will work hard to maintain our country.

CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez notes: “The reality, though, is far more complicated as many immigrants going through the legal process in the United States have been swept up as part of his immigration enforcement crackdown.”

The flow of deadly fentanyl across our border is down by a record 56 percent in one year. And last year the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history.

This is the biggest decline, think of it, in recorded history — the lowest number in over 125 years. Year 1900, in fact substantially before my wonderful father — I had a wonderful father, Fred — before he was born, substantially before he was born. That's a long time ago. He wouldn't like me to say that.

But that's a long time ago.

Cities across the country have seen steep declines in their murder rates, continuing a post-Covid trend.

The Biden administration and its allies in Congress gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country. But in 12 months, my administration has driven core inflation down to the lowest level in more than five years. And in the last three months of 2025, it was down to 1.7 percent.

Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states. Under my predecessor, it was quite honestly a disaster; it is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states and in some places $1.99 a gallon. And when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline.

No state had an average gas price on Tuesday below $2.37 per gallon, according to AAA; only two states had an average below $2.50 per gallon. And while there are some individual gas stations selling gas for below $2 per gallon, they are scarce; Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for the firm GasBuddy, said during the speech that the firm found just four stations across the country below $2 (aside from special discounts) out of the roughly 150,000 stations the firm tracks, so about 0.003% of the total. Trump could fairly say gas prices have fallen during this presidency. They have declined from a national average of $3.12 per gallon on his inauguration day in January 2025, according to AAA, to a national average of $2.95 per gallon on Tuesday.

— Daniel Dale, CNN

Read more

Mortgage rates are the lowest in four years and falling fast, and the annual cost of a typical new mortgage is down almost $5,000 just since I took office, one year. And low interest rates will solve the Biden created housing problem, while at the same time protecting the values of those people who already own a house that really feel rich for the first time in their lives.

We want to protect those values; we want to keep those values up. We're going to do both. And we are going to keep it that way.

This is a great conundrum of housing. Mortgage rates have dropped, but are nowhere near the Covid-era lows. Americans who don’t own still feel locked out of the market.

The stock market has set 53 all-time record highs since the election. Think of that, one year — boosting pensions, 401(k)s and retirement accounts for the millions and millions of Americans are all gaining. Everybody's up, way up.

Not all Americans are in the stock market and not all Americans have 401ks. But those who do have watched their balances rise and may be more likely to approve of Trump’s presidency.

In four long years, the last administration got less than $1 trillion in new investment in the United States. And when I say less, substantially less. In 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion pouring in from all over the globe. Think of it, much less than $1 trillion for four years versus much more than $18 trillion for one year.

What a difference a president makes.

The $18 trillion figure is fiction. As of the night of Trump’s address, the White House’s own website said the figure for “major investment announcements” during this Trump term was “$9.7 trillion,” and even that is a major exaggeration; a detailed CNN review in October found the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than investment in the US and vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges.

— Daniel Dale, CNN

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A short time ago we were a dead country, now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world, the hottest.

Trump loves this line and he wants people to believe it.

As thousands of new businesses are forming and factories, plants and laboratories are being built, we have added 70,000 new construction jobs in just a very short period of time.

It's getting bigger and bigger and stronger. Nobody can believe what they're watching. American oil production is up by more than 600,000 barrels a day and we just received from our new friend and partner, Venezuela, more than 80 million barrels of oil.

This phrasing is bad news for anyone who hoped regime change in Venezuela would mean an opening for a more democratic government. The Trump administration is working with the remnants of former leader Nicolas Maduro’s repressive government rather than backing Maria Corina Machado, who gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been working to secure more of Venezuela’s oil.

American natural gas production is at an all-time high because I kept my promise to drill baby drill.

More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country. Think about that, any time in the history of our country, more working today and 100 percent of all jobs created under my administration have been in the private sector.

Well, except for the large number of immigration agents the Trump administration is hiring with $75 billion in new funding from Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

We ended DEI in America.

The Trump administration effectively ended diversity efforts at the federal level and is working to pressure businesses, states and schools to end theirs as well.

We cut a record number of job killing regulations and, in one year, we have lifted 2.4 million Americans, a record, off of food stamps.

And for all of these reasons, I say tonight, members of Congress, the state of our Union is strong. Our country is winning again. In fact, we're winning so much that we really don't know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much.

We can't take it anymore. We're not used to winning in our country. Until you came along, we were just always losing, but now we're winning too much.

Trump was all but yelling into the microphone during this portion, building up to the big reveal.

And I say no, no, no, you're going to win again. You're going to win big; you're going to win bigger than ever. And to prove that point — to prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud.

The men's gold medal Olympic hockey team, come on in. Go ahead.

What a moment. The hockey players, fresh from their overtime win over Canada, streamed into the balcony where reporters watch the speech. The women’s team, which also won an overtime thriller against Canada, declined the invitation to the State of the Union. Trump says he’ll meet them later.

That's the first time I've ever seen them get up. And actually, not all of them did get up. But they beat a fantastic Canadian team in overtime, as everybody saw — as did the American women who will soon be coming to the White House.

CNN’s Manu Raju reported from inside the chamber that it was the first time Democrats stood during this speech.

They were in the Oval Office before and I just want to say a second, very big congratulations to team USA. But I have to say that — and I told them this and we took a vote of the team. I said, anybody votes no, I'm not doing it. So they stood there and they weren't about to say no, because I've never seen a goaltender play as well as goalie, Connor Hellebuyck.

Think of it, 46 shots on goal. And I asked him, the one shot, the one where you put your stick in the back and it hit the neck of your stick and bounced off, do you practice that, or was that a little lucky? He refused to answer that question. But I just want to tell you that the members of this great hockey squad will be very happy to hear based on their vote and my vote, and in this case, my vote was more important, that I will soon be presenting Connor with our highest civilian honor, which we will be given and which has been given to many athletes over the years.

But when I say many, not too many, like 12. It's called the highest civilian honor in our country, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Great athletes have gotten that, very great, the best and I thought he deserved it. And I did take a vote, every single one of them. I said, I'm not giving it if anybody says no. And every single one of them rapidly put up their hand.

So I want to thank you all. What a special job you did, what special champions you are. Thank you very much.

Back in October, Trump gave the medal posthumously to Charlie Kirk after the activist was assassinated. Trump also presented it to Rudy Giuliani, his former lawyer.

I'm also pleased to say that the next time the Olympic torch is lit, it will be here in America for the 2028 Olympics and it's the summer version right in Los Angeles. We're going to do a good job in Los Angeles.

Trump won’t mention the Epstein files in this speech, but it’s notable that the leader of the committee in charge of the Los Angeles Olympics, the lawyer Casey Wasserman, is under pressure for his appearances in the Epstein files.

And Los Angeles is going to be safe just like Washington DC is now one of the safest cities in the country. And this year, and I must say, I got them both. I got them in my first term and I was disappointed because I didn't think I'd be the president when this happened.

But strange things took place and now I've got them because I got the Olympics and I got the 2026 FIFA World Cup and I wanted to claim the 250th, but I didn't get away with that one. I couldn't claim that one for myself, but we're getting the World Cup, so we have the World Cup and the Olympics coming and that is exciting news.

It is very exciting news for sports fans, although the World Cup tickets are quite expensive. FIFA and its president Gianni Infantino have done a lot of work with Trump. They awarded him a special peace prize.

So this will be a year to celebrate our country and the heroes who have kept it free, men like Buddy Taggart. At age 17, Buddy volunteered to defend America in World War II, serving in the Pacific under the great General Douglas MacArthur.

He fought bravely in the famous Battle of Manila, worked so hard. He was badly wounded and almost killed by enemy machine guns in Luzon. And 81 years ago this month, he liberated the largest internment camp in the Philippines, one of the largest anywhere in the world. But he earned many honors, including a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, came home started a family and tonight he is in the gallery looking forward to July 4th, 2026, his 100th birthday.

So Buddy, you're a brave man and we salute you.

Wow! Happy 100th, Buddy!

Even in times of challenge, setback and immense heartache, the spirit of 1776 has always shown through very brightly. It was July 4th of last year when flood waters tore through a girls' summer camp in central Texas, one of the worst things I've ever seen.

I was there. Rising 26 feet in the matter of minutes, tragically claiming many, many lives. You all remember that one. As the waters threatened to sweep her away, 11 year old Millie Kate McClelland closed her eyes and prayed to God. She thought she was going to die. Those prayers were answered when Coast Guard rescue swimmer Scott Ruskin descended from a helicopter above.

Nobody knew where he came from. It was Scott's first ever rescue mission, a young guy, but very brave, very, very top, always top in his class. And he lifted not just Millie Kate, but 164 others to safety.

CNN interviewed Scott last year. Watch.

People watched Scott from a distance and they couldn't believe what they were seeing. The winds were blowing, the rain was pouring, everything was going and that rapid water, nobody's ever seen anything like it. They said, wow, that's something.

Tonight, Scott and Millie Kate are here together, reunited for the very first time. Thank you, Scott, Millie Kate. And Petty Officer Ruskin, I'm pleased to inform you that I am now awarding you the Legion of Merit for extraordinary heroism, which is what it was, extraordinary heroism. Thank you.

And I'd like to have the military aid to please come down and take care of the service, military aid. Thank you very much. Take care of that very important service. Thank you very much. From 1776 to today, every generation of Americans has stepped forward to defend life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And they’re really doing it for the next generation, but now it's our turn.

Ahem. The national debt continues to grow. Social Security and Medicare will begin to be short of funds within the next decade. If Trump wants to help the next generation, he could address that.

Together, we're building a nation where every child has the chance to reach higher and go further, where government answers to the people, not the powerful and where the interests of hardworking American citizens are always our first and ultimate concern.

This is inspiring rhetoric and it’s true. Government will answer to the people in November, when control of the House and Senate are up for grabs. Republicans hold an extremely slim majority in the House.

That is the debt we owe to the heroes who came before us and that is the promise we must keep to America for our 250th year. Last year, I urged this Congress to begin the mission by passing the largest tax cuts in American history and our Republican majorities delivered so beautifully. Thank you, Republicans.

The tax cuts amount to $4.8 trillion, or 1.3% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), over a decade, according to the latest Congressional Budget Office analysis, released earlier this month. However, the bill is not the largest tax cut in history, experts said. It ranks seventh in terms of share of GDP since 1918, according to Chris Towner, policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

— Daniel Dale, CNN

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All Democrats, every single one of them, voted against these really important and very necessary massive tax cuts.

Democrats did oppose the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” arguing it spent too much on tax cuts for the wealthy. It also cuts future spending on Medicaid and food assistance programs that are expected to hurt lower-income Americans.

They wanted large scale tax increases to hurt the people instead.

But we held strong and with the Great Big, Beautiful Bill, we gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security for our great seniors.

The massive domestic policy package that Trump signed last summer did create an additional, temporary $6,000-per-year tax deduction for individuals age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for individuals earning $75,000 per year or more). But as the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged, millions of Social Security recipients age 65 and older will continue to pay taxes on their benefits – and that new deduction, which expires in 2028, doesn’t apply to the Social Security recipients who are younger than 65.

— Tami Luhby, CNN

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And we also made interest on auto loans tax deductible — the first time — but only if the car is made in America. Recently in Pennsylvania, I met Megan Hemhauser, a devoted mom who home schools her children — beautiful, two children — during the day while waiting tables at night as her husband works overtime operating very heavy equipment.

Megan is here this evening and she's happy to tell you that she is so, so much richer because, with no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and our expanded child tax credit done again by Republicans, Megan and her husband will take home more than $5,000 extra just for the year cutting her tax bill in more than half.

Megan, please stand up. We're fighting for you, Megan. Thank you.

Here’s who stands to gain from the tax bill. And who may struggle.

Under our bill parents like Megan can also activate their children's brand-new Trump Accounts and I didn't name it. I didn't name it. I did not name that. Nobody believes me, but I did not name it. It was named by a very tall man sitting right there in the third row.

Nice man, a good man. Tax free investment accounts for every American child. This is something that's so special and has taken off and gone through the roof. Millions will be prefunded courtesy of the US Treasury and private individuals like Michael and Susan Dell, who have donated $6.25 billion to fund the Trump Accounts for 25 million American children.

Democrats should be celebrating these accounts because it started as a progressive idea, although they will hate that the accounts are named for Trump. Sen. Cory Booker, for instance, pushed the concept of a “Baby Bond” during his presidential campaign. These accounts have real potential to help American children in the future. Related: What parents need to know

They're great people. You know, I asked Michael Dell, how do you make all that money? He said, well, I just sat in my dorm in school, and I made computers and I'd sell them to people. And I just kept selling and selling and selling and pretty amazing story. That's called the American Dream. He sold a lot of computers, a lot of those laptops.

So, I congratulate him on that, but I really thank him and Susan, as well as others like Brad Gerstner, a very tremendous guy. He was behind it right from the beginning, Brad Gerstner. Thank you, Brad. So, with modest additional contributions, these young people's accounts could grow to over $100,000 or more by the time they turn 18. Think of it, how much money is that for somebody that started with nothing?

Over $100,000, could be much more than that. To make this investment in our children's future go to TrumpAccounts.gov, TrumpAccounts.gov. And a lot of people are doing it. That setting every record in the book. It's popular. They knew what was going to — what it was going to take. I'm so proud of them. I'm so proud of the people that got it started.

Now it's just taken off. One of the primary reasons for our country's stunning economic turnaround, the biggest in history where the Dow Jones broke 50,000 four years ahead of schedule and the S&P hit 7,000 where it wasn't supposed to do it for many years, were tariffs. I used these tariffs, took in hundreds of billions of dollars to make great deals for our country, both economically and on a national security basis.

Tariffs are taxes on imports and they are directly paid by importers, although US consumers end up paying the cost. It’s a stretch to credit tariffs with stock market growth.

Everything was working well. Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. They were ripping us so badly, you all know that. Everybody knows it, even the Democrats know it, they just don't want to say it. And yet these countries are now happy and so are we. We made deals, the deals are all done and they're happy.

They're not making money like they used to but we're making a lot of money. There was no inflation, tremendous growth. And the big story was how Donald Trump called the economy correctly and 22 Nobel Prize winners in economics didn't, they got it totally wrong. They got it really wrong. And then just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court, it just came down. It came down, very unfortunate ruling.

CNN’s Manu Raju reported from inside the chamber that there was no reaction from Justice Amy Coney Barrett or the rest of the Supreme Court justices in attendance when Trump criticized them for declaring his tariffs illegal. Democrats cheered, however.

But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made. Right, Scott? Knowing that the legal power that I as president have to make a new deal could be far worse for them. And therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court's unfortunate involvement.

It will be interesting to see if countries who previously agreed to trade deals will in fact stick by them now that Trump’s tariff power has been clipped. He can now impose temporary tariffs and use other laws for more targeted tariffs, but his power to negotiate will be affected.

So, despite the disappointing ruling, these powerful country saving, it's saving our country the kind of money we're taking in, peace protecting. Many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs. I wouldn't have been able to settle them without them. Will remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes and they have been tested for a long time.

They're a little more complex, but they're actually probably better. Leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before. Congressional action will not be necessary. It's already time tested and approved. And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.

Trump imposed a temporary 15% tariff after the Supreme Court ruling. It only lasts for 150 days. Congress has the power to intervene in tariffs at any time, but it would take an overwhelming majority to overcome Trump’s veto.

Moving forward, factories, jobs, investment and trillions and trillions of dollars will continue pouring into the United States of America because we finally have a president who puts America first. I put America first. I love America. For decades, before I came along, we had the exact opposite.

Trump has built a mythology around himself where he has saved a failing nation. Reality is more complicated.

From trade to health care, from energy to immigration, everything was stolen and rigged in order to drain the wealth out of the productive hardworking people who make our country great, who make our country run. Under Biden and his corrupt partners in Congress and beyond, it reached a breaking point with the Green New Scam, open borders for everyone.

They poured in by the millions and millions from prisons, from mental institutions. They were murderers, 11,888 murderers. They came into our country; you allowed that to happen. And record-setting inflation that cost the typical family $34,000 in just a speck of time. Now the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly used the word affordability, a word — they just used it. Somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure.

Trump was inaccurately describing federal data. The Department of Homeland Security and independent experts have noted that the figure it appears Trump is referring to when he uses the “11,888” number is about non-citizens who entered the US not just under Biden but over the course of multiple decades, including during Trump’s own first administration.

— Daniel Dale, CNN

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You caused that problem; you caused that problem.

They knew their statements were a lie. They knew it. They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten, lie. Their policies created the high prices. Our policies are rapidly ending them. We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward. The price of eggs is down 60 percent. Madam Secretary, thank you.

The cost of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, rent, is lower today than when I took office, by a lot. And even beef, which was very high, is starting to come down significantly. Just hold on a little while, we're getting it down. And soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago.

Nobody can believe when they see the kind of numbers and especially energy, when they see energy going down to numbers like that. They cannot believe it. It's like another big tax cut. I'm also confronting one of the biggest rip-offs of our times, the crushing cost of health care, caused by you, since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as Obamacare.

Big insurance companies got rich. It was meant for the insurance companies, not for the people. With our government giving them hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year as their stock prices soared 1,000, 1,200, 1,400 and even 1,700 percent, like nothing else. That's why I introduced the great health care plan.

I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and instead, give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care, which will be better health care at a much lower cost. In addition, my plan requires maximum price transparency. That's a big deal. Sounds so simple, so big.

And I did that in my first term and the Democrats immediately terminated it with full knowledge that they were doing a very bad thing for the people. Costs we're going to go way up and that's what happened. And now I'm bringing them way down on health care and everything else. I'm also ending the wildly inflated cost of prescription drugs like has never happened before.

Other presidents tried to do it, but they never could. They tried. Most didn't try, actually, but they tried. They said they tried. They couldn't do it. They didn't even come close. They were all talk and no action, but I got it done. Under my just enacted Most Favored Nation agreements, Americans who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs, anywhere, the lowest price.

So in my first year of the second term, should be my third term, but strange things happen.

He still won’t accept that he lost the 2020 election. No person can serve a third term under the Constitution. This comment frustrated Democrats. Rep. Rashida Tlaib walked out of the chamber, although she later returned.

I took prescription drugs, a very big part of health care from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest. That's a big achievement. The result is price differences of 300, 400, 500, 600 percent and more, all available right now at a new website called trump.gov.

And I didn't name that one either, by the way.

No, US prescription drug prices are not the lowest in the world. But Trump certainly gets credit for focusing on this issue. He has used trade tools to pressure pharmaceutical companies into deals aimed at lowering prices and launched the TrumpRx website, although the jury is out on how much those efforts will help consumers. He is not the first president to take action on drug prices. President George W. Bush enacted Medicare drug coverage and under Biden, Democrats, after years of trying, gave Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices. Trump’s administration has continued to utilize that power.

And here tonight is the very first customer ever to get that big discount, and it is big, Catherine Rayner. For five years, she and her husband have struggled with infertility and they turned to IVF. One drug has been costing Catherine $4,000 to purchase. But a few weeks ago, she logged on to the website and got that same drug that costs $4,000, got it for under $500, a reduction of much more actually than $3,500. Catherine, we are all praying for you and you're going to be a great mom.

It’s worth noting here that Trump has retreated from his previous talk about directly driving down or subsidizing the cost of IVF and is rather relying on the site that sells generics.

So now I'm calling on Congress to codify my Most Favored Nation program into law. Now the one thing I'm not sure it matters because it's going to be very hard for somebody that comes along after me to say, let's raise drug prices by 700 or 800 percent. But John and Mike, if you don't mind, codify it anyway.

They may do it. Codify it anyway. Thank you. Many Americans are also concerned that energy demand from AI data centers could unfairly drive up their electric utility bills. Tonight, I'm pleased to announce that I have negotiated the new Ratepayer Protection Pledge. You know what that is. We're telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs.

They can build their own power plants as part of their factory, so that no one's prices will go up, and in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community and very substantially down. This is a unique strategy never used in this country before. We have an old grid. It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that's needed.

We’ll need to see the fine print here. Which companies are taking this pledge? How much of the burden will they shoulder? Will it actually drive down costs? Will they go nuclear or renewable? Coal? The rising cost of energy is giving Americans sticker shock.

So I'm telling them they can build their own plant. They're going to produce their own electricity. It will ensure the company's ability to get electricity while at the same time, lowering prices of electricity for you and could be very substantial for all of your cities and towns. You're going to see some good things happen over the next number of years.

Another pillar of the American dream that has been under attack is homeownership. With us tonight is Rachel Wiggins, a mom of two from Houston. She placed bids on 20 homes and lost all of those bids to gigantic investment firms that bypassed inspection, paid all cash and turned those houses into rentals, stealing away her American dream.

She was devastated. Stories like this are why last month I signed an executive order to ban large Wall Street investment firms from buying up in the thousands, single-family homes. And now I'm asking Congress to make that ban permanent because homes for people — really, that's what we want. We want homes for people, not for corporations.

While Wall Street investors make for convenient villains, CNN’s Allison Morrow has written that a much larger driver of home prices is lack of supply. America needs 4 million new homes.

Corporations are doing just fine, Rachel, thank you very much. Good luck with your home. You'll get one soon. We're also working to make it easier for Americans to save for retirement. And under this administration, we will always protect Social Security and Medicare. They are not protecting it for our seniors.

We will always protect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Since I took office, the typical 401-K balance is up by at least $30,000. That's a lot of money. We have millions and millions of people, because the stock market has done so well, setting all those records. Your 401-K's are way up. Yet, half of all of working Americans still do not have access to a retirement plan with matching contributions from an employer.

To remedy this gross disparity, I am announcing that next year, my administration will give these often forgotten American workers, great people, the people that built our country, access to the same type of retirement plan offered to every federal worker. We will match your contribution with up to $1,000 each year, as we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market.

This is a shocking and remarkable proposal for a Republican president. It will be shocking and remarkable if Trump’s fellow Republicans buy into spending this kind of taxpayer money.

Let's also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information. They stood up for that. I can't believe it. Did Nancy Pelosi stand up, if she's here? Doubt it. Pass the Stop Insider Trading Act without delay. I wasn't sure if anybody, even on this side, was going to applaud for that. I'm very impressed. Thank you. I'm very impressed. But when it comes to the corruption that is plundering — really, it's plundering America.

Pelosi applauded at this, according to a Politico report. Pressure has been building for a congressional stock trade ban. They must already publicly disclose trades. Some Democrats want to extend that ban to members of the executive branch, who could also benefit from insider information.

There's been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer. We have all the information and, in actuality, the number is much higher than that. And California, Massachusetts, Maine and many other states are even worse.

It’s possible this “$19 billion” figure will be proven true, but nothing close to that figure has been proven to date. In December, federal prosecutor Joseph Thompson, claimed that “half or more” of $18 billion in federal funds billed by 14 Medicaid services in Minnesota deemed at high risk for fraud might be fraudulent.

— Daniel Dale, CNN

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Trump and Republicans have tried to turn a legitimate fraud scandal in Minneapolis into an indictment of all Somali immigrants, who Trump has described as “garbage.” Look for them to replicate the argument in other states before the midterms.

This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn't believe. So, tonight, although started four months ago, I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great Vice President, JD Vance. He'll get it done and, if we're able to find enough of that fraud, we will actually have a balanced budget overnight.

This could be a very high-profile role for Vance if he’s able to uncover fraud in other locations.

It'll go very quickly. That's the kind of money you're talking about. We'll balance our budget. The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota, remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception. Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the USA. And it is the American people who pay the price in higher medical bills, car insurance rates, rent, taxes and perhaps most importantly crime.

If you’ve never read about the concept of replacement theory, this is what it sounds like.

We will take care of this problem. We're going to take care of this problem. We are not playing games. Delilah Coleman was only five years old in June 2024 when an 18-wheel tractor-trailer plowed into her stopped car traveling at 60 miles an hour or more. The driver was an illegal alien let in by Joe Biden and given a commercial driver's license by open borders politicians in California.

Under pressure from the Trump administration, California last year revoked 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses issued to immigrants overstaying their visas.

Doctors said Delilah would never be able to walk or talk, have a good life. She wouldn't even be able to eat again. But against all odds, she is now in the first grade, learning to walk. And she's here this evening with her dad Marcus, a fantastic man. Delilah, please, you are a great inspiration. Please stand up. Thank you, Delilah.

Many, if not most, illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs as to direction, speed, danger or location. That's why tonight I'm calling on Congress to pass what we will call the Delilah Law, barring any state from granting commercial driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

The Department of Transportation will also now require all commercial driver’s license tests to be taken in English.

And yesterday, as you probably saw at the White House, I hosted a ceremony with Americans who lost their treasured loved ones to the scourge of illegal immigration. People came into our country — how we allowed this to happen with our open borders. These are the Angel Moms and Families that for decades our government betrayed and our media totally ignored — totally.

It was terrible, hard to believe actually. In 2023, a 16-year-old high school cheerleader named Lizbeth Medina was supposed to perform in her town's Christmas parade, but she never arrived. Her mother Jacqueline went home to look for her and she found her lying dead in a bathtub bleeding profusely after being stabbed 25 times.

Lizbeth's killer was a previously arrested illegal alien who had broken in and brutally — just brutally extinguished the brightest light in her family's life, violently and viciously. Her heartbroken mother is in the gallery to remind everyone in this chamber exactly why we are deporting illegal alien criminals from our country at record numbers and we're getting them the hell out of here fast.

We don't want them.

While the administration promised to focus on deporting criminal aliens, many nonviolent aliens have also been swept up. DHS recently admitted that a public database of criminal deportees was rife with errors.

Thank you very much, Jacqueline. Thank you. We can never forget that many in this room not only allowed the border invasion to happen before I got involved, but indeed they would do it all over again if they ever had the chance. If they ever got elected, they would open up those borders to some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world.

The only thing standing between Americans and a wide-open border right now is President Donald J. Trump and our great Republican patriots in Congress. Thank you. Thank you. As we speak, Democrats in this chamber have cut off all funding for the Department of Homeland Security. It's all cut off.

Democrats argue it is Republicans’ responsibility to find votes to fund the government. They want to use the power of the purse to force changes in law to require immigration agents to remove masks, wear body cameras, and obtain judicial warrants before entering a home, among other things.

It's all cut off. They have instituted another Democrat shutdown, the first one costing us 2 points on GDP. 2 points we lost on GDP, which probably made them quite happy actually. Now they have closed the agency responsible for protecting Americans from terrorists and murderers. Tonight, I'm demanding the full and immediate restoration of all funding for the border security, homeland security of the United States and also for helping people clean up their snow.

We have no money because of the Democrats, and it would be nice — we'd love to give you a hand at cleaning it up, but you gave no money. Nobody's getting paid; it's a shame. So, you have to think about it. We have, in case you didn't know, a pretty large snowstorm out there. One of the great things about the State of the Union is how it gives Americans the chance to see clearly what their Representatives really believe.

So, tonight, I'm inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. Isn't that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself.

“You have killed Americans!” Rep. Ihan Omar yelled up at Trump. She was likely referring to Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both killed by immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis. This was an incredibly divisive moment as Republicans stood for extended applause.

That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens, in many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country.

They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country and you should be ashamed of yourself.

This does not seem like the kind of thing Democrats in the Senate would allow to pass.

That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens, in many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country.

They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country and you should be ashamed of yourself.

And perhaps most importantly, I'm asking you to approve the Save America Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections. That cheating is rampant in our elections. It's rampant. It's very simple, all voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote.

There is no evidence of rampant cheating in US elections. There’s no evidence of widespread noncitizen voting. It’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote. Americans already have to prove their identity to register to vote, although many (mostly blue) states do not require ID at polling places. The law Trump and Republicans propose would be more stringent than voter ID laws in nearly every state, according to the Brennan Center.

And no more crooked mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military or travel, none. And this should be an easy one, and by the way, it's polling at 89 percent, including Democrats, 89 percent. And even the new communist mayor of New York City, I think he's a nice guy, actually, speak to him a lot.

The incidence of fraud is also tiny with mail-in ballots, though experts say it is slightly higher than with in-person voting, and there is no basis to categorically describe them as “crooked.”

— Daniel Dale, CNN

Read more

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is not a communist. He describes himself a democratic socialist.

Bad policy, but nice guy. Just said they want people to shovel snow. They got hit hard. Wants them to shovel snow. But if you apply for that job, you need to show two original forms of ID and a Social Security card. Yet, they don't want identification for the greatest privilege of them all, voting in America.

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Mamdani about this claim on The Lead on Monday. Mamdani said federal law requires the two forms of ID for the snow shoveling job. He would not talk about his conversations with Trump. Watch.

No, it's no good, no good. Both Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly agree on the policy that we just enunciated and Congress should unite and enact this common sense, country-saving legislation right now and it should be before anything else happens. And the reason they don't want to do it, why would anybody not want voter ID? One reason, because they want to cheat.

There's only one reason. They make up all excuses. They say it's racist. They come up with things. You almost say, what imagination they have. They want to cheat, they have cheated and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat and we're going to stop it. We have to stop it, John.

If history is any guide, Democrats should pick up House seats, and potentially control of the chamber, in the November election. Trump is sort of prejudging that result here. Republicans have tried hard to move the election in their favor by redrawing congressional maps in multiple states, including Texas and North Carolina. But Democrats responded by redrawing maps in blue states like California and Virginia.

And here is one more opportunity to show common sense in government. In the gallery tonight are Sage Blair and her mother, Michelle. In 2021, Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents. Hard to believe, isn't it? Before long, a confused Sage ran away from home.

After she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland, a left-wing judge refused to return sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son. Sage was thrown into an all-boys state home and suffered terribly for a long time. But today, all of that is behind them because sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full ride scholarship to Liberty University.

Sage and Michelle, please stand up. And thank you for your great bravery and who can believe that we're even speaking about things like this. 15 years ago, if somebody was up here and said that, they'd say, what's wrong with him? But now we have to say it because it's going on all over, numerous states, without even telling the parents.

But surely, we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents will. Who would believe that we've been talking about that.We must ban it and we must ban it immediately. Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy.

The State of the Union is not usually where you hear name-calling.

I'm telling you, they're crazy. Amazing. [Inaudible] boy, oh boy. We're lucky we have a country with people like this. Democrats are destroying our country, but we've stopped it just in the nick of time, didn't we? No one cares more about protecting America's youth than our wonderful First Lady, now a movie star.

She's a movie star, can you believe it? Who would have believed that? Over the past year, she has had an incredible impact championing AI legislation advancing a landmark executive order on foster care and helping secure $30 million to launch the Melania Trump Foster Youth to Independence Initiative.

Amazon and Jeff Bezos paid $40 million for the rights to the movie and spent millions more on marketing. It’s not likely to make that money back. But it did, perhaps, curry some favor for Bezos with Trump.

It's a tremendous — really, a tremendous thing that happened and had a lot of bipartisan support. She gets much better bipartisan support than I do. I get none. She gets a lot. Someday you're going to have to tell me how you did that. And students and educators in every state have joined the First Lady's efforts in the presidential AI challenge, keeping America's next generation positioned to succeed and strongly succeed in the future.

Tonight, we welcome two young people whose lives reflect the First Lady's impact, Cierra Burns and Everest Nevermont. Thank you both. And Melania, thank you. I know how hard you worked on it. Thank you very much. I'm very proud to say that during my time in office, both the first four years and in particular this last year, there has been a tremendous renewal in religion, faith, Christianity and belief in God, tremendous renewal.

This is especially true among young people, and a big part of that has had to do with my great friend Charlie Kirk, a great guy, great man. So, last year Charlie was violently murdered by an assassin and martyred, really martyred for his beliefs. His wonderful wife Erica is with us tonight. Erica, please stand. Thank you, Erica — been through a lot. In Charlie's memory, we must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God, and we must totally reject political violence of any kind.

A sentiment everyone should be able to get behind.

We love religion and we love bringing it back and it's coming back at levels that nobody actually thought possible. It's really a beautiful thing to see. Above all, unleashing America's promise requires keeping our communities safe. We have made incredible strides, yet dangerous repeat offenders continue to be released by pro-crime Democrat politicians again and again.

No politician is going to describe themselves as pro-crime. And politicians don’t release people from jails, the justice system does. Few politicians — governors and the president — have the power to pardon offenders. It’s a subject Trump knows a lot about. He has used the power controversially in his second term.

We are honored to be joined tonight by a woman who's been through hell, Anya Zarutska. In 2022, she and her beautiful daughter — so beautiful, what a beautiful young woman. Iryna fled war torn Ukraine to live with relatives near Charlotte, North Carolina. And by the way, what's going on with Charlotte? Last summer, 23-year-old Iryna was riding home on the train when a deranged monster, who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no cash bail, stood up and viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body.

No one will ever forget — there were people on that train, no one will ever forget the expression of terror on Iryna's face as she looked up at her attacker in the last seconds of her life. She died instantly. She had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal set free to kill in America, came in through open borders.

It is a horrible story and a tragedy. Trump keeps returning to stories of young women killed by immigrants. It is the theme of this speech so far.

Mrs. Zarutska, tonight, I promise you we will ensure justice for your magnificent daughter Iryna. How do you not stand? How do you not stand? I'm asking this Congress to pass tough legislation to ensure that violent and dangerous repeat offenders are put behind bars and, importantly, that they stay there.

He again calls out Democrats in the chamber.

Starting last summer, I deployed our National Guard and federal law enforcement to restore law and order to our most dangerous cities, including Memphis, Tennessee, big success; New Orleans, Louisiana, big success; and our nation's capital itself, Washington DC where we have almost no crime anymore in Washington DC. How did that happen?

This is Trumpian hyperbole. Crime in DC is down, as it is in many cities. Crime is not over.

In fact, crime in Washington is now at the lowest level ever recorded, and murders in DC this January were down close to 100 percent from a year ago. They don't like to hear that. One of the — sick people. One of the brave service members who helped achieve this stunning turnaround was 20-year-old West Virginia Army National Guard Specialist, Sarah Beckstrom.

After a four-month deployment, she voluntarily extended her service, and her rank was going to be lifted. She was doing so well. They were so proud of her. But the very next day she was on patrol near the White House when she was ambushed and shot in the head by a terrorist monster from Afghanistan, shouldn't have been in our country.

It is, indeed, another tragedy. Read more about Beckstrom. The suspect had actually worked for the CIA for more than a decade in Afghanistan. He came to the United States in 2021 after US forces withdrew from that country.

And all because she wore the uniform of our nation, she was shot. He traveled here because he didn't like people wearing our uniform, he was sick and deranged. Shouldn't have been in our country. Sarah Beckstrom died in order to defend our capital. And we are honored to be joined by her wonderful parents.

Gary and Evalea, your daughter was a true American patriot, and she will be greatly missed. She was a great person. I saw reports on her; they've never seen anything like it. So sorry, thank you very much. A great young lady. I saw reports that were like perfect. She was perfect. Serving alongside Sarah that day was Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe.

The terrorist shot Andrew in the head, and no one thought he could possibly make it. The two of them, Sarah and Andrew, both shot violently in the head, neither was expected to make it. They weren't even given a chance, except his wonderful mother named Melody who I spoke to the same night, and she was so positive.

The doctors thought that Andrew was gone, but his mother said no, no, Mr. President, Andrew will be fine. He's going to make it. I've never seen anything like it. I mean he was given almost no chance. She said I have no doubt, sir, he's going to be OK. This was a conversation that I had with her that night with her son laying hopelessly in bed, blood all over.

Everybody is praying. She said sir, he will be OK. The doctors didn't understand what she was saying and, after looking at the results of the damage done, neither did I. She was so strong and conclusive that even Andrew's great father felt she didn't really understand the gravity of the situation, but she turned out to be right.

Right, Melody? She turned out to be right. Amazing, actually. I said where does this woman come from? She's the most positive person I've ever met. With God's help, Andrew has battled back from the edge of death — and we're talking about the edge of death, on his way to a miraculous recovery.

He's got a little work to do, but he's doing great. Nice to see — he's a good-looking guy. Nice to see you. Thanks, Andrew. Thank you very much. So, Andrew, while you're up, now I'm going to ask a highly respected General James Seward to present Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolf and the great family of Sarah Beckstrom with the award created by our late great president, George Washington himself.

It's called the Purple Heart.

This is a touching moment and one of multiple awards to be presented during this speech.

We love you all. Love you. We're proudly restoring safety for Americans at home and we are also restoring security for Americans abroad. Our country has never been stronger. In my first 10 months I ended eight wars, including Cambodia. Isn't it funny? They're sick people. Cambodia and Thailand. Pakistan and India, would have been a nuclear war.

35 million people said the prime minister of Pakistan would have died if it were not for my involvement. Kosovo and Serbia, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Congo and Rwanda and, of course, the war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level. It's just about there. And I want to thank Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for your help.

While Trump has played a role in resolving some conflicts (at least temporarily), the “eight” figure is a clear exaggeration.

— Daniel Dale, CNN

Read more

Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Jared. And I also want to thank the man they report to, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Thank you, Marco. People like you. You know, Marco got 100 percent of the votes when he was in — I think our next one was about 54 percent. And some of the Democrats are now saying, I can't believe we approved that guy.

And he said, it's an honor that they feel that way, right, Marco? You have done a great job, great secretary of state. I think he'll go down as the best ever. Under the ceasefire I negotiated every single hostage, both living and dead has been returned home. Can you believe that? Nobody thought it was possible.

Many Democrats stood and clapped here.

Nobody thought that was possible. Both living and dead. And those parents who had a dead son, their boy, they'd always tell me their boy, they wanted him as much as though he were living. It was an amazing period of time and they came back. And when we got all of the living hostages back and many, many before them but I always said those last 20 are going to be very tough, but we got many, many more, hundreds.

But I said those last 20 are going to be tough. We got them back. But we only got back 14 or 15 of the dead, of the 28. And believe it or not, Hamas worked along with Israel and they dug and they dug and they dug. It's a tough — it's a tough thing to do, going through bodies all over, passing up 100 bodies sometimes for each one that they found.

It is interesting that Trump focuses here on recovery of the hostages and not the peace settlement. He also does not mention his Board of Peace, the nascent extragovernmental body he convened for the first time last week.

Tough job. And they finally got it back to 27. And then Steve and Jared, they got it back to 28. They found all 28. Nobody thought that was possible, but we did it. And I remember the family of the 28th. They were so — grieved, but they were so happy, as happy as it's possible — possible to be. They had their boy back.

The mother said, sir, we have our boy back. What a period of time that was, but we got them all back. So thank you both very much. Great job. And we're working very hard to end the ninth war, the killing and slaughter between Russia and Ukraine, where 25,000 soldiers are dying each and every month.

Think of that, 25,000 soldiers are dying a month, a war which would have never happened if I were president, would have never happened.

Monday marked the four-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump failed in his promise to solve this conflict in a day after he was elected. Trump’s approach to forging peace has been mercurial. In an interview with CNN Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with Trump to “stay on our side.”

As President, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must. That's why in a breakthrough operation last June, the United States military obliterated Iran's nuclear weapons program with an attack on Iranian soil, known as Operation Midnight Hammer.

Trump likes to say the program was obliterated, but US ships are amassing near Iran and the United States is again threatening to strike Iran.

For decades, it had been the policy of the United States never to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, many decades. Since they seized control of that proud nation 47 years ago, the regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate. They've killed and maimed thousands of American service members and hundreds of thousands and even millions of people with what's called roadside bombs.

They were the kings of the roadside bomb. And we took out Soleimani. I did that during my first term, had a huge impact. He was the father of the roadside bomb. And just over the last couple of months with the protests, they've killed at least, it looks like 32,000 protests, 32,000 protesters in their own country.

They shot them and hung them. We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence. But this is some terrible people. They've already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas and they're working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.

After Midnight Hammer, they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program in a particular, nuclear weapons, yet they continue starting it all over. We wiped it out and they want to start all over again. And are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions. We are in negotiations with them.

They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words, we will never have a nuclear weapon. My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world's number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far to have a nuclear weapon, can't let that happen.

Will this convince Americans of the need to commit the US military in the Middle East once again?

And no nation should ever doubt America's resolve. We have the most powerful military on earth I rebuilt the military in my first term. We're going to continue to do so. Also, we just approved a $1 trillion budget. We have no choice. We have to be strong, because hopefully we will seldom have to use this great power that we built together.

For next year, Trump wants a $1.5 trillion budget for the Pentagon!

It's really called peace through strength and it's been very, very effective. So thanks to Republican in Congress, we're investing that record number of dollars, have no choice, in the United States armed forces, also creating a lot of jobs, but we're not even doing it for that reason. Because as I said, we have more jobs, more people working today than ever before in the history of our country.

That’s true, but the claim needs context: the number of people working tends to rise over time because the US population tends to rise over time. Economists say there are far better measures of the health of the labor market.

— Daniel Dale, CNN

Read more

And NATO countries, our friends and allies, and they are, they're our friends and they're our allies, have just agreed at my very strong request to pay five percent of GDP for military defense rather than the two percent – Which they weren't paying; we were paying for almost all of them. Now they're paying five as opposed to not paying for it. And getting that 5 percent was something which everyone said would never be done, could not happen. We got it really easily with one meeting and a big difference between 2 percent that's not paid.

We were paying the freight of many of them. Very few were paid out. Now 5 percent then they're paid. And everything we send over to Ukraine is sent through NATO and they pay us in full. They pay us totally in full.

Trump’s transactional view of NATO has little to do with protecting democracies and a lot to do with money. During a speech in Davos, Switzerland, last month he insulted NATO members when he claimed, incorrectly, that they “stayed a little back,” from the front lines when they came to the aid of the United States in Afghanistan.

Every branch of our armed forces is setting records for recruitment. This is so exciting. And every service member recently received a warrior dividend of $1,776. You know, they put it on my desk.

We got the money from tariffs and other things, a lot of money we have. We have much more money than people understand, have to rebuild that program a little bit, but it won't take long. But we got the money and it was $1,775 and they wanted my approval. And I said what's the number. $1,775. I said, wait a minute, for one more dollar we can have 1776. It's going to — I said we're going to figure that out.

I never asked anybody if we could afford it. One more dollar, I said $1,776. And I said that's good. And I'll tell you what, our military — that was four months ago, our military, I never see a person in the military that doesn't thank me for it. So, we're honored to do it. They deserve it and we call it $1,776, It was great.

The money was diverted from funds earmarked for troop housing, according to CNN’s report.

And we love our military; we love our law enforcement. We love our firemen, you know the firemen don't get mentioned enough. We love our firemen.

True.

We're also restoring American security and dominance in the Western Hemisphere, acting to secure our national interests and defend our country from violence, drugs, terrorism and foreign interference.

For years, large swaths of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico, really large parts of Mexico, have been controlled by murderous drug cartels. That's why I designated these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and I declared illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. And with our new military campaign, we have stopped record amounts of drugs coming into our country and virtually stopped it completely coming in by water or sea.

This is a big claim that’s nearly impossible to verify. What’s definitely true is that legal experts have questioned the extrajudicial killing of people in boats.

You probably noticed that. We very seriously damaged their fishing industry also. Nobody wants to go fishing anymore. We've also taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all. You saw that yesterday.

It seems like he’s bragging or joking about this. It may not be something to brag about.

In January, elite American warriors carried out one of the most complex spectacular feats of military competence and power in world history.

No one's seen anything like it. Foreign leaders, I won't tell you who, called me and they said very impressive, very good. They couldn't believe — they all watched; they saw what happened.

Trump says this a lot. It’s absolutely true in this case. Nobody expected the US Army’s Delta Force to snatch the Venezuelan president. Except for that one person who made $400,000 on Polymarket betting on Maduro’s fall.

This is a different fighting force than we had years ago when we fought to tie. No, it's a great fighting force. I'm so proud of it. Look at Space Force.

Space force is my baby because we did that. My baby's becoming so important. And America's armed forces overwhelmed all defenses and utterly defeated an enemy — good fighters — to end the reign of outlaw dictator Nicolas Maduro and bring him to face American justice. And this was an absolutely colossal victory for the security of the United States.

It was around this moment that Trump had been speaking for 90 minutes, when he officially surpassed former President Bill Clinton's record for the longest State of the Union speech. Trump had already delivered a longer speech in 2025, but that was not technically a State of the Union address.

And it also opens up a bright new beginning for the people of Venezuela. We're working closely with the new president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, to unleash extraordinary economic gains for both of our countries and to bring new hope to those who have suffered so terribly. They really did suffer. With us tonight is Alejandra Gonzalez.

She grew up in a tight knit Venezuelan family and was especially close to her beloved uncle, Enrique. But after Enrique ran for office and opposed Maduro, he was kidnaped by Maduro's security forces and thrown into the regime's really infamous prison in Caracas. Alejandra feared she would never see her uncle again.

She feared for her own life also. But since the raid, we have worked with the new leadership, and they have ordered the closure of that vile prison and released hundreds of political prisoners already with more to come. Alejandra, I'm pleased to inform you that not only has your uncle been released, but he's here tonight.

We brought him over to celebrate his freedom with you in person.

Trump has a flair for placing these touching moments in his State of the Union speeches. There is cautious optimism about the release of political prisoners in Venezuela. But many are wary of the remnants of Maduro’s regime that remain in power with the blessing of the Trump administration.

Enrique, please come down. Thank you, Enrique. Have a good time. Nice to have you back, Enrique. There were many heroes on that January raid to capture Maduro, really great heroes. It was very dangerous. They knew we were coming; they were all set.

But the deeds of one warrior that night will live forever in the eternal chronicles of military valor, Chief Warrant Officer Five, Eric Slover, planned the mission and was the flight lead in the cockpit of the first helicopter. A big, beautiful, powerful helicopter, it was a massive Chinook carrying, as you can imagine, many, many American warfighters.

Wearing the dog tags his wife Amy had blessed with holy water before he left, she knew it was going to be a rough one. Eric steered the Chinook under the cover of night and descended swiftly upon Maduros' heavily protected military fortress. This was a major military installation protected by thousands of soldiers and guarded by Russian and Chinese military technology.

How did that work out? Not too good. While preparing to land, enemy machine guns fired from every angle and Eric was hit very badly in the leg and hip, one bullet after another. He absorbed four agonizing shots, shredding his leg into numerous pieces. And yet, despite the fact that the use of his legs was vital to a successful helicopter flight — legs are the most important part of flying a helicopter — to deliver the many commandos who would capture and detain Maduro was the only thing Eric was thinking about.

Then even as he was gushing blood, which was flowing back down the aisle — a helicopter lands at a steep angle — the machine gun stood right in front of him. They were right in front of him, two machine gunners, who escaped the wrath of the previous planes. Eric maneuvered his helicopter with all of those lives and souls to face the enemy and let his gunners eliminate the threat — turned the helicopter around so the gunners could take care of business, saving the lives of his fellow warriors from what could have been a catastrophic crash deep in enemy territory.

Only after safely landing the helicopter with all the warriors aboard in the exact right spot, which was vital to the mission, we probably would have had maybe cancel the mission if that didn't happen, Eric told his copilot, also wounded but not as gravely, to take over, I'm about ready to pass out. The success of the entire mission and the lives of his fellow warriors hinge on Eric's ability to take the searing pain, it was unbelievable what's happened to his legs, of the bullets and keep on flying and landing and people knew what was happening.

This is an incredible story and the first details we are hearing about Slover’s bravery during the Maduro operation.

Everybody in the back of the helicopter knew because they saw the blood pouring down the aisle. Chief Warrant Officer Slover is still recovering from his serious wounds, but I'm thrilled to say that he is here tonight with his wife Amy. Eric and Amy, come on in.

So we have a surprise for Eric and Amy. In recognition of Eric's actions above and beyond the call of duty, I would now like to ask General Jonathan Braga to present Chief Warrant Officer Slover with our nation's highest military award, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Well, thank you very much, Eric and Amy, great to get to know you.

Medals of honor are not usually awarded this soon. The recommendation process typically takes 18 months.

I met with them and with a lot of their fellow warriors at Fort Bragg recently. You notice the name Fort Bragg, we have it back, we brought it back. We won the First World War with it, the Second World War with it and then they decide to change the name, but we changed it back. Everybody wanted it changed back too.

The name of Fort Bragg had been changed because Braxton Bragg was a confederate general. The Trump administration changed it back to Fort Bragg, but argued it was honoring a private first class who served in World War II who also had the last name Bragg.

And 10 of Eric's fellow warriors from that incredible night of victory will also be receiving medals at a private ceremony that will soon be held at the White House, and Eric, you'll be there. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. That's a big one. Tonight, We've celebrated many truly extraordinary American patriots, but there is one last living legend to honor before we go. He is one more heroic American aviator, navy fighter pilot Royce Williams served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, flying more than 220 missions.

CNN wrote a profile of Royce Williams in 2023.

In the skies over Korea in 1952, Royce was in the dogfight of a lifetime, legendary dogfight. Flying through blizzard conditions, his squadron was ambushed by seven Soviet fighter planes. It was his first aerial combat of the war and despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, Royce led the takedown of four enemy jets and almost destroyed the others, vanquishing his adversaries while taking 263 bullets to his own plane and being seriously hurt.

His story was secret for over 50 years. He didn't even want to tell his wife, but the legend grew and grew. But tonight, at 100 years old, this brave Navy captain is finally getting the recognition he deserves. He was a legend long before this evening. Royce, please stand up and I will ask the First Lady of the United States to present Captain Royce Williams with his Congressional Medal of Honor.

Gilroy said, thank you, Eric. I've always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed, I'm not allowed to give it to myself and I wouldn't know why I'd be taking it. But if they ever open up that law, I will be there with you someday. But, you know, that's our highest honor, Congressional Medal of Honor.

And that's a big thing and it's an honor to be in the same room with you. Thank you both, very much, Eric, thank you. Thank you. 250 years is a long time in the life of a nation, but in another sense, it's really a mere moment in the eye of history. Two of the gentlemen we met in the gallery this evening took their first breaths one century ago, 100 years before that on July 4th, 1826, the author of the Declaration of Independence, brilliant.

Thomas Jefferson drew his last breath. Just a single long human lifespan separates the giants who declared and won our independence from the heroes who stand among us tonight. Everything our nation has done, everything we have achieved has been the work of those few great lifetimes.

Trump is getting philosophical in his advanced years, as he approaches 80 and mulls the remainder of his second term.

In those brief chapters, Americans built this nation from 13 humble colonies into the pinnacle of human civilization and human freedom, the strongest, wealthiest, most powerful, most successful nation in all of history, Americans ventured out across the daunting and dangerous continent. We carved paths through an unforgiving wilderness, settled a boundless frontier and tamed the beautiful but very, very dangerous wild West. From empty marshes and wide-open plains, we raised up the world's greatest cities.

Together, we mastered the world's mightiest industries, shattered history's monstrous tyrannies, and we liberated millions from the chains of fascism, Communism, oppression and terror. Americans lifted humanity into the skies on the wings of aluminum and steel. And then we launched mankind into the stars on rockets powered by sheer American will and unyielding American pride.

We wired the globe with our ingenuity, we captivated the planet with American culture, and now we are pioneering the next great American breakthroughs that will change the entire world. All of this and so much more is the enduring legacy, unmatched glory of the hardworking patriots who built and defended this country and who still carry the hopes and freedoms on all of humanity's backs.

For years, they were forgotten, betrayed and cast aside, but that great betrayal is over and they will never be forgotten again because when the world needs courage, daring vision and inspiration, it is still turning to America. And when God needs a nation to work his miracles, He knows exactly who to ask.

There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome, no frontier too vast for us to conquer, no dream too bold for us to chase, no horizon too distant for us to claim. For our destiny is written by the hand of Providence and these first 250 years were just the beginning. From the rugged border towns of Texas to the heartland villages of Michigan.

From the sun kissed shores of Florida to the endless fields of the Dakotas. And from the historic streets of Philadelphia to right here in our nation's capital, Washington DC, the Golden Age of America is upon us. The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended; it still continues because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot.

A poignant and unifying end to a speech that began with rancor and division. Other presidents might have mentioned here that the United States is a nation of immigrants, but Trump unsurprisingly did not. He also does not explain who the United States, as a world superpower, is now revolting against.

And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder and more glorious than ever before. Thank you. God bless you and God bless America.