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Good afternoon. This is the Final NOTUS newsletter for February 24, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!

The Latest

This is where we’re supposed to talk about how important SOTU is. But the Venn Diagram between “people who care enough about politics to spend an hour or two watching the speech” and “people who are still undecided about Donald Trump” has exactly zero overlap.

If you do want to watch, the speech starts at 9 p.m. EST, and it will end … when it ends. Trump has promised a “long speech” because he’s got so much to talk about.

On the Republicans’ guest list: Erika Kirk, much of the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team (but not the women’s, though they were eventually invited), some astronauts, a kid who goes to an AI elementary school and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running against Sen. John Cornyn, who will also be there.

On the Democrats’ guest list: The family of Jesse Jackson, people affected by food bank and health care cuts, many Epstein survivors and the family of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, who was killed last year.

We cannot condone State of the Union drinking games, but this is what we’ll be watching tonight:

• The State of the Weave: In a new Reuters/Ipsos Poll, 61% of Americans say Trump has “become erratic with age.” It’s not just Democrats: 30% of Republicans and 64% of independents say so, too.
• Exciting New Adventures in Executive Power: The speech could be a place for Trump to soft-launch some new executive actions. One to watch for: The Wall Street Journal reports today the administration is considering forcing U.S. banks to collect citizenship information, including from existing customers.
• POTUS vs. SCOTUS: Just last week, Trump called Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson “a disgrace to our nation” and said Justices John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett were an “embarrassment to their families.”

The Hill

Tony Gonzales says he’s not going anywhere. The embattled Texas representative wouldn’t answer CNN’s Manu Raju directly when pressed if the text messages published yesterday were real or if he’d had an affair with a staffer, but he insisted people hadn’t seen the whole story: “What you’ve seen is not all the facts.”

• “I am not going to resign,” he said. “I work every day for the people of Texas.”

The House rejected an airline safety bill, written in response to last year’s Potomac River plane crash, after the Pentagon said it no longer supported it.

The Administration

The Department of Justice is suing New Jersey over Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s executive order banning federal immigration agents from nonpublic state property. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the policy was unfairly targeting immigration agents, an argument that was partially successful in a California lawsuit.

New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte said today that the Department of Homeland Security would no longer move forward with plans to convert a warehouse into an ICE detention center.

A whistleblower said Kash Patel’s use of an FBI jet delayed the agency’s response to the mass shooting at Brown University in December.

Epstein Watch

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey resigned from the board of a Nebraska-based energy company over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

You Should Probably Get There Early

Thank you for reading! Today’s newsletter was produced by Kim Breen, Matt Berman and Christopher T. Fong. If you like it, please forward it to a friend. If someone shared it with you, please subscribe — it’s free! Got a tip or comments to share? Email us at finalnotus@notus.com.