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Feb. 20, 2026, 11:34 a.m. ET 50 minutes ago
Trump Administration Live Updates: President Acknowledges That He Is Weighing Limited Strike on Iran
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ImagePresident Trump, in a blue suit and tie, standing and waving inside a warehouse-type building.
President Trump was in Rome, Ga., on Thursday.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
What We’re Covering Today
Iran: President Trump told reporters on Friday that he was considering a limited military strike to pressure Iran into a deal. “I guess I can say I am considering that,” he said at the start of a meeting with governors at the White House. The New York Times has reported that Mr. Trump is weighing various options to strike Iran in the coming days amid negotiations over its nuclear program. Read more ›
Supreme Court: The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner, a major setback for his administration’s second-term agenda. Follow live ›
Iran
Rebecca F. Elliott
Feb. 20, 2026, 11:03 a.m. ET1 hour ago
Rebecca F. Elliott
Oil prices have climbed this week as traders weigh the possibility that a U.S. strike on Iran could prompt retaliation that would disrupt the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf, a critical oil trading route. Oil fetched around $66 a barrel in the United States on Friday morning, up 5 percent since last Friday. “We think there is a significant risk that round two between Tehran and Washington will be wider and more disruptive than the 12-day war in June,” RBC Capital Markets wrote earlier this week.
Tyler Pager
Feb. 20, 2026, 10:05 a.m. ET2 hours ago
Tyler PagerWhite House reporter
President Trump told reporters on Friday that he was considering a limited military strike to pressure Iran into a deal.“I guess I can say I am considering that,” he said at the start of a meeting with governors at the White House. The Times has reported that Trump is weighing various options to strike Iran in the coming days amid negotiations over its nuclear program.
Mark Mazzetti
Helene Cooper
Feb. 20, 2026, 9:41 a.m. ET3 hours ago
Mark Mazzetti and Helene CooperReporting from Washington
News Analysis
A second attack on Iran could be deadlier than the first.
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Men in blue uniforms and hats stand in front of a crowd looking at a missile.
A missile display at a celebration in Tehran this month.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
President Trump is considering committing the United States to another military campaign against Iran, a decision that carries the risk of igniting a conflict that could prove to be longer, deadlier and far more dangerous than last year’s 12-day war.
Last June, the United States joined a campaign against Iran that Israel had begun, and Mr. Trump gave the military a specific goal: to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities and set back Tehran’s ability to one day make a nuclear weapon. Within days of the U.S. strikes, all sides agreed to a cease-fire. There were no American casualties.
Now, the Pentagon is in the midst of the largest military buildup in the Middle East in two decades, and Mr. Trump is considering a far more expansive operation — this time led by U.S. forces — without saying publicly what he hopes to achieve. Would a campaign once again be focused on Iran’s nuclear sites? Would there be additional strikes to eviscerate Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, which Iran has insisted it would not give up through negotiation?
Or, could Mr. Trump’s goal be something he has often said was dangerous folly: using the military to remove a government in the Middle East from power? A war for regime change could lead to untold civilian deaths in Iran and a wider conflict across the region.
The president told reporters on Friday that he was weighing a limited military strike to pressure Iran into a deal.
“I guess I can say I am considering that,” he said at the start of a meeting with governors at the White House.
The ambiguity around Mr. Trump’s aims could, according to some U.S. officials and Middle East experts, be particularly dangerous, as it may lead Iran’s government to see an American-led offensive as an existential threat. As a result, Iran could escalate the conflict against the United States and Israel in ways it did not during the attacks last June, or after the U.S. military assassinated Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in 2020.
Vali Nasr, an Iran expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said there was a risk that Iran could calculate that its muted response to previous American military operations had only invited more threats from the United States, “and that it must escalate the cost of war for the U.S.”
In a letter on Thursday to the United Nations secretary general, the head of Iran’s U.N. mission said that if Iran was attacked, then “all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile force in the region would constitute legitimate targets,” and that the “United States would bear full and direct responsibility for any unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences.”
That could put the 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops currently stationed at 13 military bases across the Middle East at particular risk. Pentagon officials have been scrambling to move more air defense batteries to the region to protect the bases. Last June, Iran launched a volley of missiles against American troops at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, but Iranian officials privately warned U.S. and Qatari officials in advance.
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Rows of American soldiers in camouflage uniforms seated in bleachers.
U.S. troops listening to President Trump speak at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar last May. The base was attacked the following month.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
This time could be different, as a senior Pentagon official acknowledged earlier this week. U.S. troops could be at much greater risk, he said, if the United States — not Israel — initiates this round of strikes.
Israel, of course, could still take on the brunt of any Iranian retaliation. During the conflict last June, Iran launched hundreds of long-range missiles at government, military and civilian targets in Israel. Israeli military officials said they succeeded in intercepting more than 80 percent of the missiles, and yet the barrage still did extensive damage and killed several dozen Israeli civilians.
The Iranian missile attacks forced Israel to begin conserving its supply of interceptors, and some Israeli officials in recent weeks have warned that a much longer conflict could strain the country’s ability to defend cities in Israel.
Iran faces its own risky calculus if it considers a full-scale retaliation against U.S. troops or Israeli cities, something that would be an “enormous gamble for a regime whose paramount goal is survival,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It could lead Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to escalate further than originally planned — to make the ultimate goal of the war to bring down Iran’s government.
The formidable array of American ships, jets, bombers, drones, surveillance aircraft and air defense units headed to the Middle East is the most tangible evidence that the Pentagon sees the prospect of war lasting beyond 12 days.
“This looks like positioning for a much longer conflict,” said Katherine Thompson of the Cato Institute, who was a senior policy official at the Defense Department during the first year of the Trump administration. The Pentagon appears to be “anticipating an Iranian response that could be a significant risk to American bases in the region,” she said.
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A crowd of people waving Iranian flags and a picture of Ayatollah Khamenei.
Supporters of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, in Tehran this month.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
But even with advanced planning, Ms. Thompson said, the Pentagon is always aware that it has a finite supply of missile interceptors to protect its bases or Israeli cities — and that a protracted conflict could force difficult decisions. “The ability of the United States to sustain a prolonged defense of its forces and basing in the region, while also supporting Israel’s defense, is a major concern,” she said.
A second American military official said that U.S. Central Command is keeping two aircraft carriers deployed in the Middle East at a considerable distance from Iran, to protect them from becoming a target. Officials also noted that it was difficult to hit an aircraft carrier traveling at speed with a ballistic missile. In addition, the carriers are escorted by destroyers, which have the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles.
Hundreds of troops have now been evacuated from Al Udeid base in Qatar, Pentagon officials said, and there have been evacuations at the cluster of U.S. bases in Bahrain that house the Navy’s 5th Fleet. There are also American troops at bases in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
At least publicly, Trump administration officials insist that they remain committed to seeing if there is a diplomatic end to the standoff, one that could see Iran agreeing to new restrictions on its nuclear program. Privately, however, they say it is difficult to see what Iran may offer in the near term that could dissuade Mr. Trump from committing to another military campaign.
During his first 13 months in office, Mr. Trump has ordered seven military attacks in other countries, and he has been emboldened by the successful outcome of the military’s most recent operation — the commando mission in Venezuela in early January that captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and brought them to the United States.
Mr. Trump’s confidence is reflected in his blustery rhetoric aimed at Iran, pledging in one social media post in late January that “the next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”
That day, Iran’s mission to the U.N. responded with a warning of its own.
“If pushed,” it said in a statement, Iran “will defend itself and respond like never before!”
Tyler Pager contributed reporting.
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More Administration News
Chris Cameron
Feb. 19, 2026, 10:19 p.m. ETFeb. 19, 2026
Chris CameronReporting from Washington
Trump says he will release files on aliens and U.F.O.s.
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Trump Says He’ll Release Alien and U.F.O. Files
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After former President Obama made viral comments about aliens, President Trump said his administration would begin to release government files related to aliens and extraterrestrial life.CreditCredit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
President Trump said on Thursday that he had directed his administration to begin releasing files related to aliens, extraterrestrial life and unidentified flying objects, only hours after attacking former President Barack Obama for saying that aliens were real.
It was the latest effort by Mr. Trump, ever the television showman, to stir anticipation for the release of secret government documents, even as he has continued to lash out at reporters over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and his connections to the disgraced financier. The release of the Epstein files has dragged on for nearly a year and Mr. Trump did not set a timeline for files on aliens.
“Based on the tremendous interest shown,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, he had directed officials to “begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”
For decades, sightings of cutting-edge spy planes, drones, low-orbit satellites and weather balloons have driven theories about U.F.O.s, most famously at a secret military flight testing base called Area 51. While many reports of unidentified flying objects remain unsolved, the Pentagon has found no evidence that the government was covering up knowledge of extraterrestrial technology and has said there is no evidence that any U.F.O. sightings represented alien visitation to Earth.
But government assurances have done little to deter U.F.O. enthusiasts, who continue to trade theories and grainy videos of strange phenomena in the skies on Reddit and other social media platforms.
The beginnings of Mr. Trump’s latest planned file dump started with a podcast interview.
Brian Tyler Cohen, a YouTuber and podcast host, asked Mr. Obama in an interview that released on Saturday if aliens were real. The former president replied, “they’re real, but I haven’t seen them and they’re not being kept in Area 51.” He added, jokingly, “unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president.” Mr. Cohen did not ask any follow-up questions about aliens.
Mr. Obama’s remarks pinballed across the internet as commentators speculated about what he had meant. Mr. Obama later clarified on social media that he meant that extraterrestrial life likely exists out in the universe, but that as far as he knew they had not visited Earth.
He insisted, “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
When asked about Mr. Obama’s speculative remarks on Air Force One earlier on Thursday, Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Obama “gave classified information, he’s not supposed to be doing that.” When a reporter asked for clarification, and if aliens were real, Trump said that he didn’t know, but repeated his suggestion that Obama’s remarks had revealed classified information.
“He made a big mistake,” Mr. Trump said, with what appeared to be a smile. “He took it out of classified information.” Mr. Trump added that he did not have an opinion on the matter and that he would get Mr. Obama “out of trouble by declassifying” the relevant documents.
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Ashley Ahn
Feb. 19, 2026, 8:49 p.m. ETFeb. 19, 2026
Ashley AhnBreaking news reporter
The Justice Department’s headquarters becomes the latest federal building to display a giant Trump banner.
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A large, vertical blue banner hangs between neoclassical columns on exterior of the Department of Justice headquarters.
The Department of Justice in Washington on Thursday.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
Large banners of President Trump now hang from multiple federal buildings in Washington, including the nation’s top law enforcement branch, in a bold statement of power and influence over the government.
A long blue banner with Mr. Trump’s visage was draped on the exterior of the Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, making it the latest federal building to have a banner with the president’s face. The banner’s lower border says “Make America Safe Again” in capital letters.
The signage is a strikingly prominent indication of how Mr. Trump has eroded the separation that has long existed between the Justice Department and the White House to protect the department from political influence.
That careful distance has been dissolving since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s second term. He has installed allies at the top ranks of the department to oversee a retribution campaign and investigate perceived political enemies. Hundreds of agency lawyers have since been fired, and thousands more have resigned.
The White House referred all questions pertaining to the Justice Department’s banner — including the reason behind its installation, its cost and the duration of its display — to the Justice Department, which did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Similar banners were installed at other federal buildings last year, including the Agriculture Department and Labor Department.
The banner hung between columns at the Washington headquarters of the Agriculture Department says “Growing America Since 1862.” It hangs a few columns away from a banner depicting Abraham Lincoln.
An Agriculture Department spokesperson said on Thursday that the department was excited to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, “particularly the roles our farmers and ranchers had in shaping our nation.”
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The Department of Agriculture.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
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The Department of Labor.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
The Trump banner at the Labor Department says, “American Workers First,” also in capital letters, and carries the emblem for the nation’s 250th anniversary. Along the same frontage hangs a banner showing Theodore Roosevelt, with the same wording and emblem.
Those two banners cost roughly $6,000, and were originally created for Labor Day, said Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department. After receiving “tremendous positive response,” the department decided that they would stay up throughout the celebrations for America’s semiquincentennial, she said.
The banners follow a string of efforts by the administration to emblazon the president’s name and face on everything from coins to national park passes.
Such displays are more often a feature of countries run by dictators, not democratically elected leaders. “This is not just egotistical self-satisfaction, it’s a way of expanding presidential power,” Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian, told The Times recently. “A president is more powerful, I assume he believes, if he is ever-present than if he keeps his head down.”
The same day that the banner was hung on the Justice Department building, Mr. Trump hosted the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace, a new international body he created.
It was held at the Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace, a decades-old organization recently renamed for the president.
“Marco named it after me,” Mr. Trump said in his opening remarks at Board of Peace meeting, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat a few feet away. “I had nothing to do with it, I swear I didn’t. I swear. I had no idea.”
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Tyler Pager
Feb. 19, 2026, 8:26 p.m. ETFeb. 19, 2026
Tyler PagerWhite House reporter
Trump has a head-spinning day, but Republicans want him to focus.
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President Trump, wearing a blue suit and purple tie, points with his right hand while standing in a factory building.
President Trump used much of his speech in Rome, Ga., on Thursday to address tangents: railing against the Supreme Court, making false claims of voter fraud and calling himself a “schmuck” for donating his presidential salary.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
President Trump started the day on Thursday by celebrating peace in the Middle East while also threatening to launch a new, all-out attack in the region.
Shortly thereafter, he celebrated that his handpicked arts commission had approved his $400 million White House ballroom project.
By the day’s end, Mr. Trump was speaking to a crowd in northwest Georgia, where he was supposed to focus on the economy and jobs but spent much of the time on wild tangents: railing against the Supreme Court, making false claims of voter fraud and calling himself a “schmuck” for donating his presidential salary.
The president’s head-spinning day came as Republicans look to Mr. Trump to lock down a message that will resonate ahead of the midterms, when the party could face big losses. They want him to stay focused on an economic message to help his party keep control of Congress in November’s midterm elections — but Mr. Trump is never one to stay on message.
In fact, he sounded as though he wanted to move on entirely from the one issue they want him to focus on — affordability — as Democrats hammer him on the cost of living and high prices.
“What word have you not heard over the last two weeks? Affordability,” Mr. Trump said at a rally at a steel distributor in Rome, Ga. “Because I’ve won. I’ve won affordability.”
Earlier this week, the president’s top aides and cabinet officials gathered near the U.S. Capitol to discuss their midterm strategy. The takeaway was clear: The economy would be the deciding factor in the midterms, strategists and pollsters said, and Republicans needed to stay laser-focused.
But even if Republican candidates and Mr. Trump’s aides focus on the economy, they can never match the megaphone of their leader, who is not quite so laser-focused on the issue.
Still, Mr. Trump and his allies have been eager to celebrate his economic wins on the heels of two strong economic reports: Employment growth in January came in at more than twice the rate that economists had expected, and inflation was softer than predicted.
In his speech on Thursday, Mr. Trump attributed the country’s economic success to his tariff policies. He has vowed that the levies will reduce U.S. imports and shrink the trade deficit.
“Tariff is my favorite word in the whole dictionary,” he said.
But data released on Thursday showed the opposite of what Mr. Trump has promised has occurred: U.S. imports grew last year, and the trade deficit in goods hit a record high. Mr. Trump’s vision of reviving American manufacturing has so far not borne out either. U.S. manufacturers have cut more than 80,000 jobs in the past year.
Mr. Trump did not mention that data on Thursday. Instead, he regaled the audience with anecdotes of his conversations with business leaders who have told the president of major investments they’re making in the United States because of his tariffs.
He became most animated when discussing the pending Supreme Court case over his ability to institute sweeping tariffs.
“I have to wait for this decision,” he said, raising his voice. “I’ve been waiting forever. Forever. And the language is clear that I have the right to do it as president. I have the right to put tariffs on for national security purposes.”
In November, a majority of Supreme Court justices asked skeptical questions about Mr. Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs. A decision in the case could come as soon as Friday.
Even though the speech was billed as part of Mr. Trump’s nationwide economic tour, the president, as he often does, frequently veered off topic. He rehashed some of his longstanding grievances — including not getting enough credit for growing the economy, and the media not recognizing him for eschewing his presidential salary.
Throughout his meandering speech, Mr. Trump often found his way back to his core message: that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. destroyed the country and Mr. Trump has resuscitated it.
But not all of Mr. Trump’s supporters are feeling the economic renaissance the president described on Thursday.
Charles Painter, 47, of Ringgold, Ga., described himself as a longtime supporter of the president, but he is still looking for economic relief. He said his property taxes had tripled.
“It’s going slow, but hopefully it gets there,” Mr. Painter said.
Mr. Trump’s trip took him back to the district that was, until last month, represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a staunch supporter of the president. Ms. Greene said she broke with the president over his handling of the Epstein files, his commitment to “America first” ideals and his efforts to lower health care costs. She abruptly resigned from Congress in the middle of her term, creating a special election for her seat.
As Ms. Greene stepped up her criticism, Mr. Trump branded her a “traitor.” Ms. Greene did not attend Thursday’s event.
In the special election to fill Ms. Greene’s former seat, Mr. Trump has endorsed Clay Fuller, a local prosecutor. Mr. Fuller spoke before Mr. Trump on Thursday, and then the president invited him back to the stage because he “loved what he said.”
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Chris Cameron
Feb. 19, 2026, 8:03 p.m. ETFeb. 19, 2026
Chris CameronReporting from Washington
HUD revives a proposal to eject undocumented immigrants from public housing.
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A public housing complex in New York City.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times
The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it was reviving a proposal to prevent undocumented immigrants from receiving federal housing assistance, a policy that could displace tens of thousands of legal residents and citizens, many of them children, who live with unauthorized relatives in public housing.
The proposal comes as the Department of Housing and Urban Development has stepped up efforts to scrutinize public housing rolls for undocumented immigrants, telling public housing authorities across the country on Friday that they would face sanctions if they did not do more to verify the legal status of residents.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development had previously instructed landlords to follow existing rules that allow families of mixed immigration status to live in subsidized housing, so long as at least one household member is a legal resident. In those cases, the subsidies are prorated based on the number of eligible members of the family.
But Scott Turner, the former pro football player whom President Trump picked to lead HUD, said in a fiery statement peppered with references to “illegal aliens” and “fraudsters” that his department would now move forward with a “zero tolerance” policy aimed at ejecting all undocumented immigrants, who he said were “riding the coattails of American taxpayers.”
The move was a return to a policy, pushed by immigration hard-liners like Stephen Miller, that was first proposed in 2019, in Mr. Trump’s first term. Officials had said it was necessary to cut down on long waiting lists for public housing. The department’s statement gave similar reasoning on Thursday, writing that “HUD resources serve only a quarter of eligible households in need.” (The Trump administration issued plans in November to drastically slash support for long-term housing programs.)
The 2019 proposal faced stiff opposition from landlords and local officials, who said that it would displace some of their most reliable tenants and add major financial strains to an already cash-strapped system. Undocumented immigrants, they said, generally pay rent on time, in part out of fear of drawing attention and referrals to law enforcement.
According to a HUD analysis in 2019, more than 108,000 people receiving housing benefits were in a household with at least one undocumented immigrant. Because many of those immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens or legal residents, HUD estimated at the time that as many as 55,000 children who were in the country legally would have been displaced from public housing under the policy. There are more than 2.2 million residents in public housing nationwide.
The HUD statement on Thursday characterized the current rule allowing mixed-status families to live together with prorated benefits as a “roommate loophole.” The statement was headlined: “Illegals, Ineligibles, and Fraudsters: Pack Your Bags,” accompanied by emojis.
The Latest on the Trump Administration
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Targeting Noncitizen Voting: Homeland security officials, at the direction of the White House, are intensifying efforts to investigate voting by noncitizens in pursuit of Trump’s baseless claims that illegal voting by undocumented immigrants is a rampant and insidious threat.
Airport Name Trademark: Trump’s family business recently filed trademark applications for potential airport names, records show, an effort to preserve control over the use of his brand.
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