As we’ve documented recently at NewsBusters, CBS’s flagship newscasts have shown little wholesale changes under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss that we both initially saw and as had been reported. Instead, it’s been more of the same liberal drivel. But ironically, there have been a few moments at NBC where it’s come across as this was the network she actually leads and such was the case on Wednesday’s Today in reacting to President Trump’s State of the Union address.
While NBC was far from perfect, they were devoid of the negative descriptors and bellyaching we usually see elsewhere at ABC and, as we’ll see in a future post, CBS.
Hoda Kotb and co-hosts Craig Melvin were straightforward in the opening tease with Kotb stating “President Trump delivers his State of the Union” and Melvin finishing her sentence by saying “with his eyes on the economy and the next major election.”
“President Trump uses the longest state of the Union in U.S. history to tout his policies, take shots at Democrats and the Supreme Court and send a warning to Iran...And in a lighter moment, celebrating the triumph of American athletes at the Winter Olympics...We’ll break it all down,” Melvin added amid a number of clips.
Later tossing to senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake, Kotb said Trump’s address was “the longest ever clocking in at one hour and 48 minutes, heavy on patriotism, claiming a new golden age for America while also sparring with Democrats in real time on a host of issues.”
Haake accomplished the balancing act of painting the bipartisan messages as well as Trump’s jousting with Democrats. Right off the top, Haake framed it as “as a patriotic pep talk, with the President boasting about his economic record and highlighting the service and achievements of American warriors and champions.”
However, he added, Trump “also lashed out at Democrats repeatedly on immigration and other issues, creating some tense moments and stark reminders of our polarized union.”
Which network is Bari Weiss running? If you had been in a coma the last year and asked me to pick which one she took over, I would bet NBC with segments like this on Wednesday’s @TodayShow from @GarrettHaake about the #SOTU
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 25, 2026
“[T]he speech seemed designed as a patriotic pep talk,… pic.twitter.com/8KgKtgvP1p
He didn’t set off an economic doom loop, instead telling viewers Trump “us[ed] his nearly two hour speech to highlight successes of his first year, touting falling gas prices and a rising stock market” and “[tried] to put [Democrats] on defense over affordability.”
On the border, Haake simply said Trump “attempt[ed] to goad Democrats into standing up and clapping.”
The back end of his story — much of which he repeated in the second hour — found time to mention both the moments of unity such as the men’s Olympic hockey team as well as the left’s verbal outbursts and stunts about the Epstein files (click “expand”):
The biggest bipartisan cheers of the night coming for the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic hockey team...Mr. Trump adding that he plans to present goalie Connor Hellebuyck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and later awarding two Medals of Honor to military aviators of different eras: a helicopter pilot wounded in the recent raid to capture Nicolas Maduro, and a Korean War fighter pilot.
Viewers may have noticed two moments of disruption during the speech, with one Democrat escorted out of the chamber early after unfurling a sign on the House floor. And that exchange about immigration, which led to a brief but heated back and forth between the President and several Democratic lawmakers. Most of the protests against the President inside the chamber was silent, though, with dozens of Democrats skipping the speech entirely or inviting guests like survivors of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein meant to send a message just by showing up.
If Haake played good cop, senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson was the sort of bad cop.
On the economy, Jackson insisted Trump lacked the “I-feel-you-pain moment” at a time when “Americans — make no mistake, they don’t feel good” since his speech instead “celebrated what he sees as good news on the economy[.]”
“Polls consistently show that people say they’re not happy with how the President has handled issues like the cost of living. We didn’t hear much new on what a number of Trump voters before the speech told me. They wanted to hear about how to make their lives more affordable right now,” she said.
On immigration, she conceded the baiting of Democrats, but suggested this too was ill-advised because “the President is under water on this issue” and “[m]ore Americans say[ing] they disapprove of his handling of border security and immigration, and interestingly, the number of people who say they strongly disapprove is up double digits since last year[.]”
All that being said, she closed with fairly vanilla answers about Iran and the midterms which, if we were to summarize it, boiled down to a fluffy way of saying who wins will come down to turnout (click “expand”):
KOTB: All right, let’s talk about foreign policy. He brought up Iran later in the speech, right, Hallie?
JACKSON: Yeah, this was a back half topic for him late into the night, and one that a lot of people had been listening for. Hoda, what kind of case would the President make for possible military strikes on Iran as he’s building up military firepower in the region? This is a region on edge. The answer to that came down to Iran’s nuclear capabilities. You heard the President trying to square his previous claim that that has been obliterated with why he would need to take action now to prevent Iran from building it up. This is delicate for him politically. He ran on a pledge remember to avoid foreign entanglements, but, in office, he really hasn’t been shy about those. Just look at that raid on Venezuela, which he also, of course, highlighted in his speech.
MELVIN: So, Hallie, all of this, of course, coming with the first — first primaries, actually just a few weeks away. Now, how does last night’s speech tee up Republicans? How does it tee up Democrats as we head into the primary season?
JACKSON: Craig, I think that’s the right frame to look at this, because this is, in many ways, a tone setter here, the coalition that propelled the president to victory back in 2024 has started to crack. Now, of course, the President is not on the ballot himself in the midterms, but Republicans are hoping that his voters are going to show up at the polls to turn out to help keep seats in the House and Senate even with the Republican Party facing some historical headwinds here. So, in many ways, the State of the Union was setting the tone for the rest of the party in this key year. But far and away, the biggest issue in the midterms is going to be affordability and while there was some red meat for Republicans in the speech, not as much meat on the bone on how to make people’s lives less expensive. Now, with Craig and Hoda, the first midterm primaries coming up already next week.
It was a change of pace from the last two years when NBC was rather uninterested in Trump’s joint address in 2025 and then were ebullient over Joe Biden’s final address in 2024.
To see the relevant NBC transcript from February 25, click here.
