Closing summary This concludes our live coverage of US politics for the day, but we will be back on Thursday. Here are the latest developments:
Senate Republicans on Wednesday voted down an attempt to require Donald Trump to receive Congress’s permission before continuing the war with Iran, batting aside concerns from Democrats that the campaign is illegal and risks plunging the United States into a prolonged conflict.
Pete Hegseth and Karoline Leavitt were evasive when asked about the bombing of an Iranian girls’ elementary school four days ago, which killed 175 people.
A retired US marine was dragged out of a Senate hearing in Washington on Wednesday by the Capitol police and a Republican senator, Tim Sheehy, as he protested the US-Israeli attack on Iran by shouting: “No one wants to fight for Israel!”
As Trump tried to end a bitter Republican primary contest between John Cornyn, a four-term Republican senator, and Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, saying that he would endorse one and call on the other to drop out, Paxton went on a rightwing news channel to say he is not dropping out.
Steve Daines, a Republican senator from Montana, ended his bid for re-election on Wednesday, three minutes before a deadline, and endorsed an ally who filed paperwork to run for the seat just five minutes earlier.
Tony Gonzales, a Republican congressman from Texas who faces a House ethics investigation into a reported affair with a former aide who died by suicide, admitted on Wednesday that he did have the affair.
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In victory speech, Talarico offers Texas a vision of Jesus as a radical, anti-corruption activist Speaking on Wednesday as the Democratic nominee in the US Senate race in Texas, Jame Talarico, a state representative and Presbyterian seminarian, centered his campaign on a vision of Jesus as a radical, anti-corruption activist.
“My grandad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. He told me at an early age that we follow a barefoot rabbi who gave us two commandments: love God and love neighbor, Talarico said as supporters held up “Love Thy Neighbor” campaign signs behind him.
“My faith teaches me to love my neighbor as myself. Not just my neighbor who looks like me. Not just my neighbor who prays like me. Not just my neighbor who votes like me. I am called to love all of my neighbors the way I love myself,” he continued. “That’s what motivated me to go into public service — first as a public school teacher and now as a public official.”
At the end of his address, Talarico suggested that the story of how Jesus expelled merchants from the Temple was a model for how he hopes to fight against corporate interests.
“We’re running against the billionaire megadonors and their corrupt political system. They’ll call me a radical leftist. They’ll call me a fake Christian,” he said.
“Two thousand years go, when the powerful few at the top hurt those at the bottom, that barefoot rabbi didn’t stay in his room and pray. He walked into the seat of power and flipped over the tables of injustice,” he said. “It’s time to start flipping tables.”
As Trump calls for one Texas Republican to drop out of Senate runoff, Ken Paxton says he’s staying in Hours after Donald Trump tried to end a bitter Republican primary contest between John Cornyn, a four-term Republican senator, and Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, saying that he would endorse one and call on the other to drop out, Paxton went on a rightwing news channel to say he is not dropping out.
Asked by a Real America’s Voice host, John Solomon, whose pro-Trump pieces Trump has often shared on social media, whether he would drop out without Trump’s endorsement, Paxton said: “I’m staying in this race. I owe it to the people of Texas. I’ve spent a year of my life campaigning for – against John Cornyn, because John has not represented the people of Texas well. He sided with Joe Biden on second amendment restrictions; he sided with Joe Biden on bringing Afghan refugees to settle here.”
Paxton, who tried to keep Trump in office in 2020 by suing four swing states Trump lost over their pandemic-era embrace of vote-by-mail, added that Cornyn “has been against Trump in both of his elections, said he shouldn’t run last time, his day had passed, and of course he fought him on the border wall, he’s been an amnesty guy. Everything that Trump’s stood for, John Cornyn fought, but he was a big help to Joe Biden.”
With the encouragement of Solomon and his pro-Trump co-host Amanda Head, Paxton seemed intent on amplifying his campaign ad, which relentlessly hammers Cornyn for having broken with Trump on a number of issues.
At the end of the interview, Paxton said he looked forward to speaking with Trump and said he would urge him to either not endorse or “endorse someone that’s been a supporter of his and not an opponent”.
Republican senator Steve Daines ends re-election bid and endorses ally who filed minutes before deadline Steve Daines, a Republican senator from Montana, ended his bid for re-election on Wednesday, three minutes before a deadline, and endorsed an ally who filed paperwork to run for the seat just five minutes earlier.
Daines, who has served in the Senate since 2014, formally withdrew from the race at 4.57pm local time, five minutes after his ally, US attorney Kurt Alme, entered the Republican primary, the NBC affiliate in Montana KTVH reported.
At 5pm, the window for candidates to register for the election with the Montana secretary of state’s office closed.
“After wrestling with this decision for months, I have decided I will not seek re-election. It is time for a new leader like Tim Sheehy to spearhead the fight for Montana in the United States Senate,” Daines said in a video statement posted online.
Earlier on Wednesday, Montana’s other Republican senator, Tim Sheehy, helped drag an anti-war protester out of a Senate hearing as he denounced the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Daines quickly endorsed Alme’s five-minute-old campaign.
“I’ve known Kurt Alme for years,” Daines told KTVH. “He was appointed US attorney by President Trump in his first term and then reappointed when President Trump was re-elected because he did such a good job cracking down on crime.”
Minutes later, Donald Trump also backed Alme in a social media post. “Kurt is exceptional, and I will be giving him, based on Steve’s strongest recommendation, my Complete and Total Endorsement,” Trump wrote. “Governor Greg Gianforte and Senator Tim Sheehy have also Endorsed Kurt.”
Republican congressman Tony Gonzales admits affair with aide who took her own life Tony Gonzales, a Republican congressman from Texas who faces a House ethics investigation into a reported affair with a former aide who died by suicide, admitted on Wednesday that he did have the affair.
“I made a mistaken, and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith,” Gonzales told the rightwing radio host Joe Pagliarulo , in an apparent admission that he had been unfaithful to his wife.
“I’ve reconciled with my wife, Angel,” he continued. “I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has, and my faith is as strong as ever.”
The congressman had previously denied misconduct.
The House ethics committee announced a formal investigation into the Texas Republican on Wednesday, the day after he was forced into a runoff in the Republican primary in his district.
Retired US marine dragged out of Senate hearing shouting ‘No one wants to fight for Israel!’ A retired US marine was dragged out of a Senate hearing in Washington on Wednesday by the Capitol police and a Republican senator, Tim Sheehy, as he protested the US-Israeli attack on Iran by shouting: “No one wants to fight for Israel!”
The protester, who was dressed in a marine uniform and had been seated in the audience at the rear of the hearing room, was identified by the activist group Codepink as Brian McGinnis, a former US marine who fought in Iraq and is the Green Party candidate for Senate in North Carolina.
Codepink posted video of McGinnis being carried out of the armed services subcommittee hearing he disrupted as the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps was about to speak on the readiness of the force.
Video from the activist group Codepink shows a protester against the war on Iran being dragged out of a US Senate armed services subcommittee hearing on Wednesday in Washington DC. The Codepink video also shows that as McGinnis wrestled with the police, he called out to the marine general in the front of the room, saying: “Commandant, please stand up, as a marine, stand up for America!”
McGinnis began his protest by standing up from his seat at the back of the room and saying: “Israel is the reason for this war; America does not want to fight this war for Israel,” according to video posted on Instagram by another military veteran turned peace activist, Josephine Guilbeau, and a livestream of the hearing on the armed services committee’s website.
After two police officers started to drag McGinnis away, he shouted: “America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel! Your inability to name that shows your ineptness as leaders.”
“This is wrong, and nobody wants to fight for Israel” the protester continued to shout as he resisted being dragged away and toppled to the ground with the officers.
At that point, CBS News video shows, a third police officer and Sheehy, a former Navy Seal from Montana who served in Afghanistan and was elected to the Senate last year despite questions over his war record, joined the effort to drag the protester out.
Sheehy later derided McGinnis as “an unhinged protestor” and said that his own role in bundling him away was just an attempt to “deescalate the situation”.
In an Instagram video posted before the hearing, McGinnis told his followers he was there to demand accountability for what he called “this betrayal” by elected officials who had promised there would be no war. “Free Palestine. Free America.” he said at the end of the video.
Codepink also shared video recorded on Wednesday of it cofounder, Medea Benjamin, pressing another Republican senator, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, to explain why the US is at war with Iran.
Cramer first made the false claim that the international nuclear deal struck with Iran during the Obama administration, which barred Iran from making a nuclear weapon, “allowed Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.
The senator then told the activist that the US had to support its military ally Israel because “we have a biblical responsibility to them, as well as an allied responsibility to Israel”.
Chris Stein
Senate Republicans on Wednesday voted down an attempt to require Donald Trump to receive Congress’s permission before continuing the war with Iran, batting aside concerns from Democrats that the campaign is illegal and risks plunging the United States into a prolonged conflict.
The 47-53 vote on a war powers resolution introduced by Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine broke largely along party lines. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the sole Democrat to vote against the measure, while Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only member of the Republican majority to support the resolution.
The measure would have forced an end to the US air and naval campaign against Iran and require the president to go to Congress before re-entering the war. Before the vote, Democratic senator Chris Murphy said the resolution was necessary to prevent Trump from repeating in Iran the follies of previous US presidents in Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere.
“The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Republicans have learned nothing. Decades of American hubris in the Middle East, believing that US troops, US planes, US guns and US bombs could fundamentally change realities in a far off land. Democrats have learned our lesson,” Murphy said.
Trump ordered the military campaign after months of fruitless negotiations with Tehran intended to resolve the question of Iran’s nuclear program. While he notified a small group of top lawmakers beforehand, Kaine argued that the president needs permission from Congress to continue a conflict that has already resulted in the deaths of US soldiers.
Trump signs ‘pledge’ calling on AI firms to pay for electricity upgrades A short time ago, Donald Trump concluded the public portion of an event with big tech executives in Washington, by signing a proclamation calling on AI firms to protect Americans against higher electricity bills tied to datacenter power demand through a non-binding pledge.
The pledge was signed in the ornate, high-ceilinged Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower executive office building.
Donald Trump in the Eisenhower executive office building in Washington DC on Wednesday. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP Reporters were asked to leave immediately after Trump signed the proclamation, denying them to the chance to ask the president any questions about the war in Iran or about the optics of a pledge signed in a room named after the many treaties signed by the US government with Indigenous people that were not honored.
According to an archived White House website page from the administration of George W Bush:
double quotation mark The reason for the room’s name ‘Indian Treaty Room’ is a mystery. It is not clear where it originated, despite extensive research. Some believe it was due to the fact that during the 1930s the War Department stored papers there, including treaties with the American Indian nations. But this is not true, as the State Department used it for storage until the 1940s after the Navy Library moved out.
Rachel Leingang
Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democratic senator, served as a marine during the Iraq war, losing dozens of members of his battalion, including his best friend. The Iran war is “just a lot of deja vu ”, he told the Guardian today.
“You have a war that was hastily joined without any end goal, without any real reasoning, without full transparency with the American public,” he said. “And you know, it sounds and smells potentially like another quagmire we’re walking ourselves into.”
He said the war is illegal – there was no imminent threat, as the White House has said, that allowed the president to circumvent Congress’ role.
Ruben Gallego spoke last week at a news conference, alongside his colleagues Amy Klobuchar and Mark Kelly. Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters Democrats are pushing for a vote this afternoon on a war powers resolution that is likely to fail. Gallego said they should keep working to stop the war and get more answers from the president by leveraging the power of the purse, though he acknowledged there were “very few things we can do” with Republicans in control of Congress and the White House.
“We should be doing everything we can to stop this war,” he said, “to at least figure out how to get it terminated, how to push for a plan from this White House that tells us at least what the victory looks like, what the real angles are, and what Iran is going to look like after we’re done.”
The hasty start to the war and lack of clarity on its goals put civilians, military and US allies in danger, he said.
For active duty military, “it’s a scary situation, when you don’t hear what the plan is, what the victory is, when the president doesn’t lay out what the goals are. You don’t know what part you are in that mission, and what does that mean for your life. Are you likely to get activated? Are you likely to go? Anything of that nature. And that kind of ambiguity really scares members of the military as well as with their families.”
Here’s a recap of the day so far
Pete Hegseth confirmed during a Pentagon press conference that a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka . The defense secretary also said that “America is winning” the war on Iran, and suggested that in under a week the US and Israel “will have complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace”.
The defense secretary was evasive when asked about the bombing of an Iranian girls’ elementary school four days ago, which killed 175 people. “All I can say is that we’re investigating,” Hegseth said, while providing no information clarifying whose munition was responsible for the strike.
During a White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt was similarly vague about the strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school. “I would caution you from pointing the finger at the United States of America when it comes to targeting civilians, because that’s not something that these armed forces do,” the press secretary said.
Leavitt also said that Donald Trump plans to attend the ‘dignified transfer’ of the bodies of the six US service members who have been killed since the war with Iran began. “I understand the Department of War is working on scheduling this transfer, and we will provide updates at the appropriate time,” she added.
The House oversight committee voted 24-19 to subpoena the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, as part of the ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The motion was introduced by Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace, with five GOP representatives joining all Democrats on the committee to compel Bondi to testify.
Senate Republicans are on Wednesday expected to vote down a Democratic-backed war powers resolution that would prevent Donald Trump from continuing the conflict against Iran. Democrats have condemned Trump for ordering an air campaign against Iran without first seeking permission from Congress, but are unlikely to muster the 50 votes needed for the resolution to advance.
The House ethics committee announced today that it will open an investigation into Texas congressman Tony Gonzales, following accusations that he had an extramarital affair with an aide in his office. In a statement, the committee said it would examine whether Gonzales engaged in sexual misconduct or discriminated unfairly by “dispensing special favors or privileges”.
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett conceded to James Talarico today, after the state representative secured the Democratic Senate nomination in Texas. Crockett said that she called Talarico to congratulate him. “Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person,” she said.
House oversight committee votes to subpoena Pam Bondi as part of Epstein investigation The House oversight committee voted 24-19 to subpoena the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, as part of the ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
The motion was introduced by Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace, with five GOP representatives joining all Democrats on the committee to compel Bondi to testify.
Pam Bondi testifies before a House judiciary committee hearing on oversight of the justice department on 11 February 2026. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters Dharna Noor
At his meeting with tech bosses at the White House on Wednesday, Trump showcased his longstanding ire for wind energy.
The president said he told his environment secretary, Lee Zeldin, that his agency should speed permitting processes for gas plants, but he also told him: “Don’t worry about wind.”
“Forget it. It’s worthless,” Trump said. “You don’t get approvals for wind. We don’t do wind in this because it’s a loser.”
Trump went on to say that China makes “all the windmills”.
“The only problem is, they don’t have windfarms,” he said. “In China, they make the windmills, then they sell them to the suckers over in Europe.”
In reality, China has more wind capacity than any other country, equaling 40% of global wind generation in 2024, according to a 2025 report from the thinktank Ember Energy. It also has twice as much capacity under construction than the rest of the world combined.
The Guardian has repeatedly debunked the president’s baseless claims about China’s wind power – most recently during his remarks earlier this at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Green groups remain unimpressed with pledge to mitigate datacenter energy costs: ‘This is a pinky promise, nothing more’ Dharna Noor
As Donald Trump hosts big tech executives in Washington, where they are expected to sign pledges to protect Americans against higher electricity bills tied to datacenter power demand, green groups are largely unimpressed with the plan to mitigate utility price surges.
“This pledge is like asking the fox to guard the hen house. Data center developers have proven time and again that they’re interested in protecting their bottom line only,” said Sierra Club principal adviser Jeremy Fisher. “This is a pinky promise, nothing more.”
Fisher said the tech giants present at the event, including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and others, “must now take real actions and show up in state regulatory venues and hold datacenters accountable for every penny of their energy infrastructure costs, making sure datacenters are building lower cost, lower risk clean energy and minimizing impacts to local residents.
“The Sierra Club has fought for years for real, meaningful commitments by big tech, and we will not stop at a flimsy pledge to finally pay their fair share,” he added.
Trevor Higgins, senior vice-president of energy and environment at the liberal thinktank Center for American Progress, said the pledges are “vague and largely meaningless”.
“Unless all datacenters are required to pay their fair share for the costs for their power, companies can opt out or hide the true impacts of their datacenter development,” he said.
‘We’re doing very well on the war front,’ says Donald Trump As Donald Trump kicked things off for his roundtable event with tech companies today, he noted that those in the room “probably want to speak about war” rather than energy costs linked to the rapid build-out of datacenters across the country.
“We’re doing very well on the war front,” the president added. “If we didn’t do it first, they [Iran] would have done it to Israel … If we didn’t hit within two weeks, they would have had a nuclear weapon.”
He added that the ongoing military action against Iran is depleting the regime’s leadership. “Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead,” the president said.