Hakeem Jeffries invites Epstein survivor, family of Jesse Jackson to Trump’s State of the Union address
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the US House of Representatives, announced that he is inviting the family of Rev Jesse Jackson, the civil- and human-rights trailblazer who died last week, to the State of the Union address on Tuesday.
“Rev. Jackson was a transformative political figure and a trailblazer extraordinaire who fought to make America live up to its promise of a thriving multiracial democracy,” said Jeffries in a statement. “While far-right extremists wage an all-out attack on civil rights, voting rights and democracy itself, House Democrats are committed to carrying on Rev. Jackson’s work. In his name, we will continue to stand up for the American people until we can end this national nightmare at long last.”
Jeffries also invited Vonetta Rougier, a bus operator from Brooklyn who is bearing the brunt of the “skyrocketing price of housing, food and healthcare,” as well as Marina Lacerda, who was groomed and abused by Jeffrey Epstein when she was a teenager.
Key events
Closing summary
We’re wrapping up our live coverage for the day. We’ll be back on Tuesday. Here is a summary of today’s developments:
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Donald Trump’s decision to order airstrikes against Iran will hinge in part on the judgment of Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons, according to people familiar with the matter. The president has not made a final determination on any strikes, as the administration prepares for Iran to send its latest proposal this week, ahead of what officials have described as a last-ditch round of negotiations scheduled for Thursday in Geneva. More here.
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Trump has declared that he can use tariffs in a “much more powerful and obnoxious way”, as the UK and the EU said they were seeking urgent clarity on the US trade deals they struck last summer. Trump threatened to escalate his global tariff war on Monday, after a supreme court ruling last week that he had overstepped his legal authority to impose his “liberation day” measures last year. More here.
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The 21-year-old man who was shot and killed after having entered Trump’s Florida resort on Sunday – while carrying a shotgun – came from a North Carolina family of the president’s supporters and had reportedly become increasingly fixated on the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files. The focus of the FBI’s investigation into the intrusion attributed to Austin Tucker Martin is tightening on his movements and motives. More here.
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The US military launched a strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean, which killed three men – its third such attack over the course of a week. The Southern Command identified the three men killed as “male narco-terrorists” and clarified that no US military forces were harmed in the strike. More here.
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Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the US House of Representatives, announced that he is inviting the family of Rev Jesse Jackson, the civil- and human-rights trailblazer who died last week, to the State of the Union address on Tuesday. Several other lawmakers have announced they’re inviting survivors of sexual assault by Jeffrey Epstein.
After a rampant immigration crackdown by the Trump administration in Minnesota that led to the death of two US citizens, representative Ilhan Omar said her guests for the president’s address on Tuesday will include four Minnesotans affected by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Aliya Rahman, Mary Granlund, Mubashir Hussen, and Gerardo Orozco Guzman were invited by the Minnesota lawmaker.
Rahman was violently detained by ICE agents during a traffic stop in South Minneapolis last month, and said she suffered medical neglect while in detention. Granlund is part of the Columbia Heights School Board. Hussen was wrongfully detained by ICE agents despite letting them know he is a US citizen, while Orozco Guzman’s father, Eustaquio Orozco Verdusco, was taken by ICE under the Trump administration’s so-called Operation Metro Surge and remains detained in New Mexico.
Like Jeffries, several other lawmakers have invited survivors of sexual assault by Jeffrey Epstein to the State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Democratic representative James Walkinshaw of Virginia said he will host Jess Michaels, who was sexually assaulted by Epstein in 1991.
“For years, Jeffrey Epstein built a system of abuse that relied on powerful allies and enablers who helped him hide in plain sight and kept survivors from being heard,” said Walkinshaw. “The truth is coming to light because survivors of Epstein’s abuse have shown extraordinary courage and refused to be silenced.”
Representative Ro Khanna of California, and one of the authors of the Epstein Transparency Act, said he invited Haley Robson, one of Epstein’s accusers, to the president’s address on Tuesday. Robson said she was trafficked by the late sex offender when she was 16.
Representatives Jamie Raskin and Suhas Subramanyam announced they will be joined by Sky and Amanda Roberts, the brother and sister-in-law of Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who died by suicide.
Invitees are meant to reflect lawmakers’ priorities in their district or in the country broadly.
The US women’s hockey team, which brought home a gold medal from the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, declined an invitation from President Donald Trump to attend his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
“We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal-winning U.S. Women’s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement,” reads a statement from the US women’s team. “Due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate. They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.”
The president also invited the men’s hockey team, but it remains unclear whether the they will attend the speech.
Per the AP, the women’s players didn’t learn of the invite until late Sunday night, hindering their capacity to change their travel plans.
Maryland AG sues Trump administration over ICE detention facility
Maryland attorney general, Anthony Brown, is suing the department of homeland security (DHS) to halt the construction of an immigrant detention facility in Maryland.
Brown said in the lawsuit that the White House purchased the property and plans to convert it into an immigration facility without conducting an environmental review or receiving public input.
DHS, which oversees immigration enforcement, spent more than $100m on a 54-acre warehouse in Maryland’s Washington County, according to the lawsuit. The department plans to convert it into a detention center capable of holding 1,500 people at a time.
“A facility this size would generate nearly four times more wastewater than the site was designed for, risking sewage overflows on the property and backups throughout the surrounding community, increased traffic, air quality impacts and the burden of local emergency services were never assessed,” Brown said in a video posted on Facebook.
Besides DHS, secretary Kristi Noem, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, are named in the suit.
Hakeem Jeffries invites Epstein survivor, family of Jesse Jackson to Trump’s State of the Union address
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the US House of Representatives, announced that he is inviting the family of Rev Jesse Jackson, the civil- and human-rights trailblazer who died last week, to the State of the Union address on Tuesday.
“Rev. Jackson was a transformative political figure and a trailblazer extraordinaire who fought to make America live up to its promise of a thriving multiracial democracy,” said Jeffries in a statement. “While far-right extremists wage an all-out attack on civil rights, voting rights and democracy itself, House Democrats are committed to carrying on Rev. Jackson’s work. In his name, we will continue to stand up for the American people until we can end this national nightmare at long last.”
Jeffries also invited Vonetta Rougier, a bus operator from Brooklyn who is bearing the brunt of the “skyrocketing price of housing, food and healthcare,” as well as Marina Lacerda, who was groomed and abused by Jeffrey Epstein when she was a teenager.
NBC News is reporting that the office of the US Attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, will stop pursuing the case against six Democratic lawmakers who were denounced by Donald Trump after they made a video urging troops to refuse unlawful orders.
The move comes after a grand jury in Washington DC earlier this month declined to charge the lawmakers: Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan. They all have military or intelligence backgrounds.
Slotkin, a former CIA officer, organized the 90-second video, in which she stated that service members have a duty to disobey illegal commands. Trump condemned the video as “seditious behavior by traitors” that was “punishable by death”.
Because of the video, defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, formally censured Kelly and attempted to reduce his rank and pension. Kelly, a retired Nasa astronaut and navy captain, filed a lawsuit against Hegseth, arguing that the video was protected under free speech.
New Utah voting districts that give Democrats an improved shot at winning a US House seat can be used in this year’s election, a federal court ruled Monday while turning aside a Republican request to block the new map.
The ruling marked the second setback in recent days for Republicans, who also lost an appeal at Utah’s state supreme court.
A Utah judge imposed the new districts last November after striking down the congressional districts that the Republican-led legislature had adopted after the 2020 census. The judge ruled that the legislature had circumvented anti-gerrymandering standards passed by voters.
The ruling thrust Utah into a national redistricting battle being waged among states ahead of the midterm elections. Donald Trump has pressed Republican-led states such as Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to redraw their districts to give the GOP an advantage in the November elections, prompting Democratic-led states such as California and Virginia to respond with their own redistricting plans.
Read the full story here:
FBI director, Kash Patel, faces backlash from Democratic lawmakers and other public figures after footage of him celebrating with the men’s USA hockey team in Milan was released over the weekend.
The video, which was sent to a ProPublica reporter, was posted as news spread about the man who was shot and killed after having entered Donald Trump’s Florida resort, as well as the ongoing controversy over the Jeffrey Epstein files.
“3 million pages of evidence of a massive child sex trafficking ring and this is what the FBI director is doing right now,” said representative Sean Casten of Illinois in a post on X.
California senator Adam Schiff posted on Monday: “Patel deserves a gold medal, too… for wasting tax payer money, and world class hypocrisy. What a disgrace for our FBI Director to be passing this off as ‘official business.’”
Meanwhile, former CNN anchor Don Lemon posted a TikTok calling the Trump administration “gross” and “trashy.”
“Why are you even there? And, mostly likely, on taxpayer dollars. Yes, of course on taxpayer dollars,” Lemon said. “This administration is so tacky.”
The US department of education announced it will move some of its responsibilities to other federal agencies in efforts to “break up the federal education bureaucracy.”
According to a statement, the education department will hand off several tasks to the state department and the department of health and human services (HHS), which education secretary, Linda McMahon, said are better equipped to handle the responsibilities.
“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” said McMahon.
The state department will help oversee reporting about foreign money given to US universities, while HHS will help manage family engagement and school support programs, including emergency preparedness.
The American Bar Association condemned President Donald Trump after he called members of the Supreme Court “disloyal to the Constitution.” He made the comment after the court struck down sweeping tariffs he had imposed through executive orders, ruling that the tariffs exceeded the powers given to the president by Congress.
“While judicial opinions are always subject to analysis and critique, such disagreement must be voiced with respect for the facts and the law and must respect the independence and integrity of the courts,” reads a statement by the association’s president, Michelle A Behnke.
“Incendiary rhetoric has helped contribute to the alarming increase in attacks on and threats to our judges. It must stop,” Behnke added.
Republican representative Nancy Mace called for the resignation of Texas representative Tony Gonzales as he faces allegations of having an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.
“These text messages are disgusting and inexcusable,” Mace said in a statement. “She is gone now. Her son is growing up without his mother. And Tony Gonzales is campaigning like nothing happened.”
Mace added: “Tony Gonzales should resign immediately and be held fully accountable for what he’s done. She and her family deserved better. And Texans deserve a congressman who does not prey on women.”
Mace joins Republican representatives Lauren Boebert and Anna Paulina Luna in condemning the Texas lawmaker. The San Antonio Express-News reported last week that the former aide, Regina Santos-Aviles, wrote to another staffer in April 2025 that she had an affair with Gonzales. She died after lighting herself on fire in September.
President Donald Trump on Monday denied reports that Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, has cautioned him about the risks associated with launching a military campaign against Iran.
“I am the one that makes the decision, I would rather have a Deal than not but, if we don’t make a Deal, it will be a very bad day for that Country and, very sadly, its people, because they are great and wonderful, and something like this should never have happened to them,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The Guardian has reported that Caine has been less confident about the likelihood of success with attacking Iran than he was about the Venezuela operation last month, with concerns centering on the low stockpile of anti-missile systems.
A senior FBI official who was ousted by the Trump administration last year announced his bid for Congress in Maryland.
David Sundberg was fired in January 2025, just days after President Donald Trump began his second administration, which was part of a broader FBI purge that took place after the president took office. Sundberg will be running to succeed Democratic representative Steny Hoyer in Maryland’s 5th congressional district.
“I’m running for Congress because I believe in the rule of law, not the rule of one man,” said Sundberg in a statement posted on his campaign website. “I was pushed out for doing my job and refusing to allow politics to compromise justice. But while they took my job, they didn’t take my oath.”
Sundberg was the former assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, which led the bureau’s 6 January Capitol attacks investigation. The field office was also involved with the investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of sensitive government documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
