Trump took credit for a “trillion-dollar” defense budget. He falsely claimed tariffs funded a pay bump for troops. He alleged that last June’s Operation Midnight Hammer “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. He again falsely claimed he “ended eight wars” in the past year. “It isn’t funny,” he said as audience members snickered when he began to list the conflicts. 

He also boasted of deploying the National Guard to the nation’s capital, and falsely claimed “we have almost no crime anymore” in Washington, D.C., as a result. But homicides were lower in 2014, Defense One’s Meghann Myers reports, citing D.C. police statistics. Trump also said crime was down 100 percent in January 2026 compared to January 2025, which would have meant the city had experienced zero crime the entire month. D.C. actually saw a 30-percent drop in crime in 2025, which followed a similar drop in 2024.

But as the U.S. military masses Mideast forces on the order of the Gulf War and 2003 Iraq invasion, Trump said relatively little about a potential new war with Iran. Of the strikes last June that targeted Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, “We wiped it out and they want to start all over again,” he said Tuesday. “They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words, ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon,’” Trump said, and added, “As president, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must.” 

By the end of the historically long address, Reuters noted, Trump had “done little to explain to the American public why he might be leading the U.S. into its most aggressive action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.” The New York Times offered similar reporting on the subject.

“The brief case he laid out was not for nonproliferation, but for regime change,” said Tom Nichols, writing for The Atlantic. “He made the accusation—rightly—that Iran is an odious regime and a supporter of terrorism. He vowed that they would never get a nuclear weapon. And that was it.” Similarly, CNN described the annual address as Trump’s “chance to recast his unpopular mass deportation effort, explain why U.S. warships are massing for possible military action with Iran, and stare down Supreme Court justices who last week rejected his unprecedented use of tariffs.”

Instead, he used the occasion to award multiple Medals of Honor, two Purple Hearts, a Legion of Merit and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. One of those honored was Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover, a helicopter pilot wounded in the operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro last month. Both he and retired Navy Capt. Royce Williams were awarded the Medal of Honor; Williams was recognized for his role in a harrowing dogfight over Korea in 1952. 

“The only thing Trump did not do was explain his policies—especially about war and peace—to Congress or the American people,” Nichols wrote. 

Not attending Trump’s fifth SOTU: Ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, and more than three dozen additional lawmakers. 

For what it’s worth: “Six in ten Americans, including a significant slice of Republicans, think President Donald Trump has become erratic as he ages, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll” published Tuesday. That includes 89% of Democrats, 30% of Republicans and 64% of independents. 

Related reading: 

• “CIA offers tips to potential informants in Iran as Trump considers military action,” the Associated Press reported Tuesday; 
• “Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump,” NPR reported Tuesday; 
• “Supreme Court tariff ruling makes over $175 billion in US revenue subject to refunds,” Reuters reported Wednesday; 
• “From 'buy America' to 'bye America', Wall Street exodus gathers pace,” the wire service reported separately Wednesday; 
• Former Wall Street Journal reporter Vivian Salama describes “The End of Diplomacy” in Trump’s second term, writing Tuesday for The Atlantic;
• “Kash Patel’s use of jet delayed FBI team’s mass shooting response, whistleblower tells top senator,” MS Now (formerly MSNBC) reported Tuesday; 
• And in an update, “Judge says government may not search devices seized from Post reporter,” the Washington Post reported Tuesday. 

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter focused on developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so we’d like to take a moment to thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1991, the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact disbanded after nearly 36 years. 

Around the Defense Department

Several trends are shifting defense tech toward Europe, reports Defense One’s Patrick Tucker. They include new EU laws that require cloud providers to establish infrastructure on the continent and to safeguard data from the U.S. government. Tucker also points to the buy-European bent as the region’s militaries rearm, and the war in Ukraine that is serving as a battle lab for technology and acquisition practices. Read that special report, here.

Here are 10 charts about the Russia-Ukraine war, produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and published yesterday, on the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Some of the chart titles: “Russian GDP Growth Is Stagnating,” “Russia Is Advancing at Historically Slow Rates,” and “The Financial Burden of Supporting Ukraine Militarily Has Shifted.” See those and more, here.

ICYMI: “A war foretold: how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them” is the headline atop The Guardian’s Feb. 20 blockbuster report. “Drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders in multiple countries, this exclusive account details how the US and Britain uncovered Vladimir Putin’s plans to invade, and why most of Europe—including the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy—dismissed them.” Read it, here.

Air Force test pilots used tactical AI to evade a missile. “Late last year, test pilots at Edwards Air Force Base, California, received a simulated warning for an incoming surface-to-air missile while flying Lockheed’s experimental X-62A Vista jet. The onboard AI detected the missile and, without the pilot’s control, conducted an evasive maneuver,” Defense One’s Thomas Novelly reported from the Air and Space Forces Association’s conference in Aurora, Colorado, citing officials with Lockheed’s secretive Skunk Works research arm.

Related reading: 

• “Anthropic digs in heels in dispute with Pentagon, source says,” Reuters reported Tuesday; 
• And “Hegseth warns Anthropic to let the military use the company’s AI tech as it sees fit,” AP reported Tuesday as well;
• By the way, “AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations,” New Scientist reported Wednesday citing researchers’ work with GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 Flash.