Exclusive: No. 2 House Democrat to skip Trump’s State of the Union address
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark joined by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks a press conference at the U.S. Capitol, February 4, 2026, in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told ABC News she will not attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, making her the highest-ranking House Democrat to skip the event.
“And let me tell you why,” Clark told ABC’s Linsey Davis in an exclusive interview. “What we have seen from this president is a series of lies, of disrespect for the American people. He campaigned that he would lower costs on Day 1, he would keep people safe and secure. And he has done just the opposite.”
“So, I’m going to spend my evening, while he is spewing his misinformation tonight, talking to my constituents about their state of the union and how this administration is impacting them,” Clark said.
Dozens of Democrats, at least 45, are set to skip the State of the Union address. Many instead are opting to take part in a counter-program on the National Mall sponsored by the progressive group MoveOn.
House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Tuesday criticized Democrats who will be absent, saying it was “shameful that they would boycott an address.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has made the case for members of his caucus to attend without outbursts or to sit it out altogether.
“It’s our expectation that there will be some members who attend and attend in silent defiance, and there will be other members who will choose not to attend. And it’s up to every individual member to make the decision that makes the most sense for their constituents,” Jeffries told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.
Notable guests of Democratic lawmakers include survivors of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the business owner who successfully challenged Trump’s global tariffs and individuals affected by the administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger will deliver the Democratic response following Trump’s remarks. The two main themes she will focus on are affordability and the chaos the Trump administration has caused at home and abroad, according to Spanberger’s team.
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon on March 2, 2026 in Arlington, Virginia. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday defended the ongoing U.S. attack on Iran as necessary because of Tehran’s missile arsenal and nuclear ambitions, calling it “our retribution” for its yearslong role in sponsoring terrorism.
Hegseth declined to say how long the operation would last or rule out the potential of sending U.S. troops on the ground.
“We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their Ayatollah and his death cult,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth’s press conference was his first since the large-scale operation began two days ago. The attack resulted in the death of Iran’s supreme leader and some of its senior leadership.
President Donald Trump in recent days told reporters he expect the operation could last four to five weeks — a timeline Hegseth wouldn’t commit to.
Four U.S. service members have died, with several more severely wounded, according to U.S. Central Command.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who also briefed reporters on Monday, said the U.S. is sending additional forces into the region, primarily aviation assets.
“We expect to take additional losses and, as always, we will work to minimize U.S. losses,” Caine said, later adding, “this is major combat operations.”
When pressed on the missions objectives, Hegseth insisted the goals were clear.
“The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused,” Hegseth said. “Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and they will never have nuclear weapons. We’re hitting them surgically, overwhelmingly and unapologetically.”
Critics of the administration have questioned the timing of the operation though because of U.S. intelligence that has found the threat from Iran was not imminent. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, Iran is working on developing a missile capable of reaching the U.S. by 2035.
The U.S. also bombed three of Iran’s nuclear sites last year. Experts say there are recent signs of Iran trying to rebuild its program and begin again enriching uranium, but that there was no evidence they were close to building a bomb.
Trump said over the weekend that a preemptive attack on Iran was justified by “imminent threats” from the Iranian guard, though he provided no evidence, and to topple the Iranian regime.
Hegseth said Monday that Iran was “stalling” during recent negotiations with U.S. officials to buy time to build up its ballistic missile program and restart its nuclear ambitions.
“Their goal: hold us hostage, threatening to strike our forces. Well, President Trump doesn’t play those games,” Hegseth said.
Iran has responded with a massive attack on U.S. allies across the Middle East, targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and Gulf nations. Four U.S. service members have been killed, which Hegseth said occurred when Iran hit a tactical operations center that had been fortified.
The attack resulted in the death of Iran’s supreme leader and some of its senior leadership.
In a phone call with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, Trump said the “attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates” to lead Iran.
Hegseth, though, on Monday said the operation was not a “so-called regime-change war.”
“Turns out the regime who chanted ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’ was gifted death from America and death from Israel. This is not a so-called regime-change war, but the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it,” Hegseth said.
The defense secretary rejected that the U.S. would be involved in another “forever war” in the region, though he gave little detail on what comes next.
Hegseth declined to give a timeline on how long the military operation could last, after Trump told ABC News the attacks could last four or five more weeks.
“President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up, it could move back. We’re going to execute at his command the objectives we’ve set out to achieve,” Hegseth said.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene appears on ‘The View,’ on Jan. 7, 2026. ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in her first interview since resigning from Congress effective Monday, said on ABC’s “The View” on Wednesday that she disagrees with the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the focus on Venezuela instead of other countries that contribute to the flow of drugs into the U.S.
Greene said that while she served on the House Homeland Security Committee, “it wasn’t Venezuela that we were ever talking about” regarding drug trafficking, and that “you can’t hold Maduro accountable and not hold Mexican cartels accountable, who are number one”.
The Trump administration has said it is taking action on stopping the flow of drugs from various countries, including Mexico. On Sunday, Trump said Colombia could face a similar fate as Venezuela, and he said Cuba was imminently “ready to fall.” He also said Mexico could be next, as the administration seeks to continue its battle against drug cartels.
The former congresswoman, who has previously pushed back against other U.S. foreign policy endeavors, insisted as well that she remains “America First,” which she said does not align with the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela.
“We campaigned, and I went to countless Trump rallies and stood on the stage with the president and stood on the stage with other Republican candidates and said ‘America First. No more regime change, no more foreign wars, no more foreign intervention.’ Enough of this. That’s what America First means,” she said.
“Militarily invading a country, killing people in the process, arresting their leader and taking them out, then claiming this is for the Venezuelan people, and saying all the charges are about drugs, but then turning around and literally, every single statement is about Venezuelan oil and how it belongs to America … it’s not working.”
Greene also said a “deeper issue” for her on the U.S. action on Venezuela is that “if it’s OK to go into Venezuela and arrest Maduro, then why are we telling China you can’t go and take Taiwan? Why are we telling Russia you can’t go take Ukraine?”
Greene, first elected to the House in 2020, had established herself as one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies and a staunch supporter of the MAGA movement he spearheaded. Greene came to define the MAGA movement on Capitol Hill, fighting Trump’s second impeachment following the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat at then-President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in 2024.
But she broke with Trump more recently on issues such as the Israel-Hamas war and releasing files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump withdrew his support for Greene in November after she criticized him and his administration for their handling of the Epstein investigation, along with other matters.
Greene announced that month that she would resign from the House, dropping a surprise bombshell soon after she was one of few Republicans to sign on to a discharge petition forcing a vote to order the Department of Justice to release the files. Her resignation before the end of her term leaves House Republicans with an even narrower majority — with 218 Republicans against 213 Democrats as of Wednesday, after Greene’s resignation and the death of GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California on Tuesday.
Greene said Wednesday she made the final decision to leave Congress when Trump called her a “traitor” and soon after, her son began to face death threats. She said she herself had faced threats previously and was used to them.
“One of MAGA’s big campaign pledges was to release the Epstein files. And then having to say ‘Am I going to have to be the next Charlie Kirk? Is my son going to get murdered because I’m trying to continue to do this job?'” she said, referencing the high-profile conservative activist who was assassinated in Utah in September.
Asked how she would respond to people skeptical of her political transformation who think she is trying for a run for another office or to get ahead of potential Republican losses in the 2026 midterms, Greene replied, “I’ve been asked by every single person that’s interviewed me, ‘What are you running for?’ And I’ve said over and over again to exhaustion I’m not running for Senate. I’m not running for governor, I’m not running for president. So first of all, that narrative is just wrong about me.”
She added later that her focus is on “using my voice to pull Americans on the right and the left together to focus on our collective problems, particularly affordability.”
Yet Greene had sharp criticism for Democrats when asked if she’d consider becoming one, saying that Democratic policies and actions contributed to issues at the southern border and both parties had contributed to ballooning national debt.
She declined to say whether she’d leave the GOP.
“I haven’t said if I’m leaving the Republican Party, but my focus is America First, and my focus is — earn my vote,” she said.
As for what’s next for her, Greene told “The View” that she hopes to spend more time with her children, her mother, and friends.
Would she ever return to Congress if Trump asked her to?
“Absolutely not — the way he treated me. No,” Greene said.
ABC News’ Lauren Peller, John Parkinson, Jay O’Brien Will Steakin and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) walks through the Senate subway on December 09, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Republican Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday criticized President Donald Trump’s military mission off Venezuela’s coast, calling the seizures of multiple oil tankers in the Caribbean Sea “a provocation and a prelude to war.”
“I’m not for confiscating these liners. I’m not for blowing up these boats of unarmed people that are suspected of being drug dealers. I’m not for any of this,” Paul told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Paul also described the administration’s policy of handling suspected drug traffickers as “bizarre and contradictory.”
“And then why is the former president [Juan Orlando] Hernandez of Honduras, who was in jail for 45 years, why is he released?” Paul asked. “So, some narco-terrorists are really OK and other narco-terrorists we’re going to blow up. And then some of them, if they’re not designated as a terrorist, we might arrest them.”
Here are more highlights from Paul’s interview:
On Erika Kirk and Marco Rubio’s 2028 Vance endorsement Karl: Is JD Vance the heir apparent here?
Paul: I think there needs to be representatives in the Republican Party who still believe international trade is good, who still believe in free market capitalism, who still believe in low taxes. See, it used to separate conservatives and liberals that conservatives thought it was a spending problem. We didn’t want more revenue. We wanted less spending. But now all these pro terror protectionists, they love taxes, and so they tax, tax, tax, and then they brag about all the revenue coming in. That has never been a conservative position. So I’m going to continue to try to lead a conservative free market wing of the party, and we’ll see where things lead over time.
Karl: And that’s not JD Vance.
Paul: No.
On retaliatory strikes in Syria Paul: You know, it’s hard not to want to hit back when they kill some of our own. But I would like to go back, really, to the first Trump administration when he said he didn’t want the troops there. There’s like 900 troops, maybe a thousand, maybe 1,500. They’re not enough to fight a war. They’re not enough to be an effective strategic force. What they are is a target and a tripwire.
So we’ve done this retaliatory strike. Now, now, Donald Trump ought to do what Donald Trump proposed in the first administration, what Ronald Reagan did after the 1983 bomb. He left. There’s no reason for us to be in Syria. We need to leave Syria and not be a trip wire to getting back involved in another war.
On the potential for a one-year extension for ACA subsidies Paul: Look, we have health care in our country for poor people. It’s called Medicaid. All of the rest of this stuff has not worked. Obamacare has been a failure. President Obama said it would bring premiums down. Premiums gone through the roof. Every time we give more subsidies, the premiums go higher. I have a plan that says everybody in this marketplace, and it’s only about 4%, everybody in this marketplace should be able to go to Amazon or Costco or Sam’s Club and as a group, a large group — millions of people in the group — negotiate with Big Insurance to bring prices down. It’s the only proposal out there that — that has a chance of bringing prices down.
