Google made sure its viewers knew its stance on President Donald Trump’s record-breaking State of the Union address with a flurry of elitist media hits against his speech on Wednesday morning.
In its coverage of Trump’s comments, Google News promoted eight leftist media outlets, while denying reporting from any right-leaning media outlets. Google painted a subtle but clear picture of its rejection of the president and his policies as it pushed reporting from outlets like The New York Times, Business Insider, National Public Radio (NPR), The Guardian and NBC News. The elitist media derided Trump’s speech, in some cases stating outright that it was rife with false and misleading claims, and in others framing stories around how Democratic lawmakers boycotted the speech entirely.
MRC’s Findings:
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Google News pushed reporting on Trump’s State of the Union address as its first eight articles, using elitist media outlets to undercut Trump in the top 20 of its morning edition.
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Google News did not promote a single article from a right-leaning media outlet on Trump’s State of the Union address, while the digital news gatekeeper promoted nine articles from left-leaning or center media outlets in the top 20 stories of its morning edition.
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The only “center” article Google News offered on Trump’s speech came from the government-funded, UK-based BBC.
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Below are the nine articles Google News promoted on Trump’s State of the Union address in the order they appeared:
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(1) BBC (Center): Trump’s State of the Union speech - at a glance
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(2) The New York Times (Left-Leaning): Opinion ‘A Tedious, Tiresome Performance’: The Best and Worst Moments From Trump’s State of the Union
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(3) The Guardian (Left-Leaning): Trump claims a year of wins and attacks old foes in longest State of the Union | First Thing
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(4) Business Insider (Left-Leaning): I went to Trump’s State of the Union. This was the moment when the room’s mood shifted.
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(5) NPR (Left-Leaning): Signs, silence, skipping: How Democrats protested Trump’s State of the Union
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(6) Politico (Left-Leaning): Abigail Spanberger gave Democrats’ response to Trump. But she didn’t have the stage to herself.
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(7) The New York Times (Left-Leaning): Democrats, Boycotting Trump’s Speech, Rally Outside the Capitol
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(8) NBC News (Left-Leaning): At Least 12 Democratic lawmakers plan to boycott Trump’s State of the Union address
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(20) The New York Times (Left-Leaning): Trump Puts On a Show, Casting Democrats as the Villains
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Google News did not hide its disdain for Trump in its morning offerings. The digital news gatekeeper completely shut out right-leaning outlets from the nine separate articles it offered on Trump’s State of the Union address.
Google did not even pretend to remain neutral. Eight of the nine articles Google elevated in its top 20 morning edition came from outlets rated left-leaning by AllSides media bias rating firm, and the only “center”-rated article was foreign government-funded BBC.
An opinion piece put out by The New York Times took the cake as arguably the worst of the elitist media outlet articles promoted by Google News. Its headline, “Opinion ‘A Tedious, Tiresome Performance’: The Best and Worst Moments From Trump’s State of the Union,” gives readers a glimpse of the cavalcade of anti-Trump derision that is to come later in the article. While the piece pretends to give a “Best Moment” versus “Worst Moment” sort of appeal, Times op-ed columnist Michelle Goldberg’s response to what she thought was the “Best Moment” seems to reveal what The Times really wants you to take away: “The moment when, after setting a record for the longest State of the Union in recorded history, it finally ended.”
Not to be outdone, Google News also elevated a piece from UK-based outlet The Guardian, headlined, “First Thing: Trump claims a year of wins and attacks old foes in longest State of the Union.” While that headline alone isn’t overtly biased, The Guardian’s subheader does the dirty work for Google: “President’s address was littered with false and misleading claims. Plus, how Trump’s big climate finding repeal could actually hurt big oil.”
Google News also pushed articles from NPR, NBC News and an additional piece from The Times that trumpeted Democratic lawmakers boycotting Trump’s State of the Union in headlines. The tech titan similarly promoted a Business Insider piece that devoted an entire section to “The Democratic side of the aisle was conspicuously less full.”
With the appearance of being the most benign story on Trump’s speech, Google News also pushed a BBC article that was anything but benign. While the piece’s first section touted the length of Trump’s oration, BBC’s next three sections dragged on with contentious moments like the president’s “face-to-face” encounter with U.S. Supreme Court justices “who struck down his tariffs,” the ejection of Democrat Al Greene from the room “again” and Rep. Ilhan Omar’s so-called “‘Stand up’ moment.” The BBC, meanwhile, buried the triumphal entry of “Victorious hockey stars” entering the room to “chants of ‘U-S-A, U-S-A’” as well as a section on those who received honors from Trump.
Google News once again promoted The Times more than any other outlet. In its third appearance in Google’s top 20 stories on Wednesday, The Times chose to color Trump’s speech as his attempt at a “survival strategy.” Right from the jump, The Times set the tone for a piece clearly trying to undermine the president with the headline “Trump Puts On a Show, Casting Democrats as the Villains,” and subheadline, “On the defensive over the economy and with the midterms approaching, President Trump made clear that his political strategy is to paint Democrats as unpatriotic and ‘crazy.’” The cherry on top comes just before the conclusion of the piece, whereby The Times makes sure to remind its readers of one of its favorite anti-Trump smears: Jan. 6.
Google News also elevated an article from Politico, but unlike the others, the Politico piece focused squarely on the Democratic Party rebuttal to Trump’s State of the Union address. Throughout, the Google News-promoted article highlighted how “[v]arious Democratic factions” hosted several events designed to “challenge President Donald Trump.”
Methodology: The day after President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Feb. 25, 2026, MRC researchers examined the top 20 news stories featured on Google News at approximately 8:30 AM ET. MRC researchers used the AllSides media bias ratings, which categorize an outlet as “left,” “lean left,” “center,” “lean right” or “right” to determine the overall bias presented by Apple News and Google News and analyzed the results.
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