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Consumers and businesses paid nearly 90% of Trump tariffs in 2025, new analysis found

February 12, 2026 / 5:10 PM EST / CBS News

Almost all of President Trump’s tariffs last year were passed on to U.S. consumers and businesses in the form of higher costs, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

As the average U.S. tariff on imports jumped to 13% in 2025, up from less than 3%, “nearly 90% of the tariffs’ economic burden fell on U.S. firms and consumers,” the researchers wrote.

Who bears the burden of tariffs?

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The Trump administration maintains that foreign companies and other exporters pay the lion’s share of tariffs.

In a Jan. 30 Wall Street Journal op-ed defending his tariff agenda, for example, Mr. Trump said that “data shows that the burden, or ‘incidence,’ of the tariffs has fallen overwhelmingly on foreign producers and middlemen, including large corporations that are not from the U.S.”

“In many cases, nations that are heavily dependent on exports have had no choice but to ‘eat’ the tariffs to avoid even worse losses from their excess capacity,” he added.

The New York Fed’s findings, which align with those of most mainstream economists, challenge that view. For the eight-month period from January through August, U.S. importers bore 94% of tariff costs. By November, exporters were shouldering slightly more of the burden, but U.S. importers remained on the hook for 86% of tariffs, according to the analysis.

“In sum, U.S. firms and consumers continue to bear the bulk of the economic burden of the high tariffs imposed in 2025,” the report concluded.

Defending tariffs

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The White House on Thursday defended Mr. Trump’s tariffs, touting the economic gains.

“America’s average tariff rate has increased nearly sevenfold in the past year, yet inflation has cooled and corporate profits have increased,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement to CBS News. “The reality is that President Trump’s economic agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, tariffs, and energy abundance [is] reducing costs and accelerating economic growth.”

Recent data point to solid economic growth. The nation’s gross domestic product expanded at a robust 4.3% annual pace in the third quarter, the strongest growth in two years.

The job market also remains healthy, with employers adding a stronger-than-expected 130,000 jobs in January, according to employment figures released earlier this week.

Tariffs could be struck down

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Economists predicted last year that elevated tariffs on imports were likely to drive up inflation. For the most part, those price hikes have failed to materialize.

In December, the Consumer Price Index rose at an annual rate of 2.7%, unchanged from November. The Department of Labor is scheduled to release the January CPI data on Friday.

The Treasury Department collected $287 billion in tariffs in 2025, up 192% from the previous year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Yet President Trump’s scope to wield tariffs in future is uncertain, with the Supreme Court expected to rule soon on his authority to impose levies under a federal emergency powers law.

If those tariffs are struck down, the U.S. government could owe businesses as much as $168 billion in refunds, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/how-trumps-foreign-policy-has-evolved/

Takeaways: Enforcement surge ending in Minneapolis as state and DHS officials face tough questions in Senate

By Michael Williams
49 min ago
PUBLISHED Feb 12, 2026, 5:17 PM ET

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott prepares to leave following a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee oversight hearing on Thursday.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

While White House border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday morning the federal immigration surge in Minnesota would be ending, state officials were facing tough questions about the circumstances that led to that crackdown in the first place.

Those officials, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the state’s corrections commissioner, Paul Schnell, in turn blasted the Trump administration for the way it has conducted itself in their state.

The testimony devolved into yelling matches between Ellison and two Republican senators who accused him of contributing to the violence in Minnesota and suggested he should be jailed over its expansive fraud scandal.

And later, top immigration officials in the Trump administration faced another round of questioning over last month’s killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good and the tactics of immigration officers working in their agencies.

Here are some takeaways from a busy day in Washington and Minneapolis as the deadline for the Department of Homeland Security’s funding draws closer:

Homan says monthslong surge is coming to a close

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White House border czar Tom Homan speaks at a press conference at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Thursday.

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Homan, whom the administration placed in charge of its operations in Minneapolis after Pretti was killed last month, said during a press conference on Thursday that the surge in Minneapolis that began in early December would soon be ending.

“I have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude,” Homan said.

At its height, about 3,000 federal officers were deployed as part of Operation Metro Surge in what was the largest immigration enforcement operation in the country’s history. The surge has led to weeks of protests, tense confrontations between protesters and officers, the killings of Pretti and Good by officers and attempts from the administration to paint both as terrorists who wanted to harm law enforcement.

Homan said Thursday that a small footprint of officers would remain.

The announcement was welcomed by Democratic officials, including Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and lawmakers both in Congress and the state legislature.

Walz said the surge did serious economic damage to the state and said he would seek repayment.

“The federal government needs to pay for what they broke here,” Walz said Thursday morning. “You don’t get to break things and then just leave without doing something about it.”

And while Homan was speaking in Minneapolis, top Minnesota officials testifying in Washington said the damage had already been done.

Ellison on the defensive

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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison arrives to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Testifying in front of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ellison said the surge had “caused real harm to our state.”

The Democratic attorney general asked that members of the committee exercise their oversight powers to compel several reforms within federal law enforcement, including requiring ICE provide full documentation of arrests and detentions conducted by its agents, allow oversight access into its detention facilities, and require that state and federal investigations into the deaths of Good and Pretti be conducted in tandem.

Ellison accused the government of inventing different pretexts to justify the surge, but said it wasn’t really about the fraud scandal that the administration cited before sending law enforcement to the Twin Cities. Instead, it was about carrying out President Donald Trump’s stated goal of seeking retribution against the state and its Democratic leaders.

“The government did not surge … forensic accountants to Minnesota,” he said. “They didn’t surge computer experts. Instead, they sent 3,000 masked, armed men who are now kicking in doors, demanding papers, killing Minnesotans – not fighting fraud.”

“The surge has hurt the fight against fraud,” he added.

Ellison faced tough questions from Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and Josh Hawley. Johnson accused Ellison of contributing to the deaths of Good and Pretti by encouraging Minnesotans to protest the law enforcement surge instead of telling them to stay home.

“You’ll never find me being against the First Amendment,” Ellison said in response.

Johnson said it was no wonder that ICE officers were on “hair-trigger alert” considering the number of people who opposed them and sometimes confronted them during operations.

“A tragedy was going to happen,” he said, “and you encouraged it, and you ought to feel damn guilty about it,” the senator said. Ellison described Johnson’s remarks as a “nice theatrical performance, but it was all lies.”

During a later exchange between Ellison and Hawley, the senator slammed how Ellison’s office handled the fraud investigation and said Ellison should resign.

Ellison responded that he thought the same about Hawley. Hawley retorted that Ellison should be in jail.

Who told Noem that Pretti was a terrorist? CBP commissioner says it wasn’t him

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Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott testifies on Thursday.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

After last month’s fatal shootings of Good and Pretti, top Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, rushed to paint both of them as domestic terrorists who intended to harm law enforcement.

Those assessments were proven to be premature, especially in the case of Pretti, who video showed never brandished his firearm as the administration had initially claimed. Both Noem and White House aide Stephen Miller said they used that description based off what they had been told by Border Patrol officers on the ground.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott, who had recently testified in front of a House committee, were asked about the killings and the administration’s initial depiction of both US citizens.

During today’s hearing, Sen. Gary Peters asked Scott, whose agency oversees Border Patrol, whether the description of Pretti as a terrorist had come from him.

“No, sir,” Scott responded.

Asked whether someone in his staff told Noem that, Scott responded: “Not to my knowledge.”

Asked how Noem could come to that conclusion, Scott said:“I can’t speculate on what someone else would say or why, sir.”

CBP, ICE chiefs shed little light on ongoing investigations

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A video of an ICE operation that led to the killing of Alex Pretti plays behind acting ICE Director Todd Lyons during a hearing on Thursday.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Both Scott and Lyons largely declined to discuss the killings of Pretti and Good, citing ongoing investigations into their killings. But both did answer general questions about the rights all citizens have while interacting with their officers.

They both affirmed that people have the right to film their officers. Asked whether yelling at their officers was a form of domestic assault, both said that it was not.

While he mostly avoided addressing the investigation into Pretti’s killing, Scott told Sen. Rand Paul that body camera video of the incident would be made public.

And responding to claims that his officers aren’t held accountable, Lyons said that ICE has actually opened 37 investigations into complaints of excessive force by their officers since last month.

He said 19 of those investigations remain pending, while one case has been referred “for further action.”

NYT’s David French warns Trump and allies may interfere in midterms: ‘Don’t call it just bluster’ | CNN Politics

By Dana Bash, CNN

Published 2:25 PM EST, Thu February 12, 2026

Longtime conservative writer David French joins Dana Bash to discuss his recent column, “This is not a drill,” where he warns about ways the Trump administration could intrude and sow doubt in November’s congressional elections.

5:50 • Source: CNN

House speaker condemns Trump Justice Department monitoring of lawmakers’ Epstein document review

Updated Feb 12, 2026, 3:31 PM ET | Published Feb 12, 2026, 3:16 PM ET | By Holmes Lybrand, Annie Grayer, Manu Raju

Attorney General Pam Bondi obtained Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s search history of the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files and even President Donald Trump’s most powerful ally in Congress has a problem with it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday said the Justice Department’s tracking of lawmakers’ search history was inappropriate, a rare rebuke from the Republican who is usually in lockstep with the administration.

“I think members should obviously have the right to peruse those at their own speed and with their own discretion and I don’t think it’s appropriate for anybody to be tracking that,” Johnson told CNN. “I will echo that to anybody involved in the DOJ.”

Johnson’s comments come after photographs of Bondi’s notes during a Wednesday congressional hearing revealed the Justice Department is tracking which documents lawmakers are reviewing in the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files, prompting some on Capitol Hill to sound the alarm.

CNN first reported the apparent surveillance from a photo taken of Bondi’s notes during her testimony, which included Jayapal’s “search history” of the documents, with a list of which files the congresswoman had searched.

Jayapal told CNN she did not know the Justice Department had surveilled her search until CNN contacted her Wednesday for comment on the matter.

“I think everyone should be concerned about this. It’s a violation of our separation of powers,” Jayapal said. “We should be able to look at any document we want and not feel like it’s going to be surveilled or used against us in any way. And this was just so obviously egregious.”

When Johnson initially called the allegation of DOJ tracking lawmakers’ search history “unsubstantiated” on Wednesday, Jayapal, who is close with the speaker from his days serving on the Judiciary panel, immediately called him to explain what happened.

“I said, ‘Mike, it’s real. That’s my search history exactly in the order that I searched it,’” Jayapal told CNN of her conversation with Johnson.

Lawmakers have been scheduling times this week to go into a Justice Department building in Washington, DC, to review unredacted versions of the files and have since pressured the Justice Department to unredact the names of individuals who were at one time considered as co-conspirators in Epstein’s crimes.

Lawmakers have not been allowed to bring phones or members of their staff into the building to review the documents and are limited to four computers set up with the unredacted files.

When Jayapal went into the room to view the unredacted Epstein files, a Justice Department employee logged her into one of the four computers available for lawmakers, the lawmaker said.

During the duration of her time in the room, Jayapal said DOJ staffers remained with her, and at one point one of the employees sat directly behind her, able to view her computer screen. Even though lawmakers were allowed to bring in notes with them, Jayapal said she was instructed to only take notes on the pads of paper the Justice Department provided her.

A department spokesperson said in a statement to CNN that “DOJ has extended Congress the opportunity to review unredacted documents in the Epstein files. As a part of that review, DOJ logs all searches made on its systems to protect against the release of victim information.”

Republican firebrand Nancy Mace has also spoken out about the monitoring of lawmakers’ searches, writing on social media Wednesday that “DOJ is tracking the Epstein documents Members of Congress search for, open, and review.”

“I was able to navigate the system today and I won’t disclose how or the nature of how; but confirmed the DOJ is TAGGING ALL DOCUMENTS Members of Congress search, open and review,” she said.

In the aftermath, Jayapal said the Justice Department needs to create a “completely different process” for lawmakers to review the unredacted files without fear of their search history being saved or used against them.

The congresswoman said wants to know why the DOJ set it up in such a way that a lawmaker’s search history could be reviewed in the first place.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said the most “charitable” explanation for tracking members’ search history was that DOJ wanted to “improve their service” by helping members find the most frequently sought-after documents. But Massie said that charitable view is undercut by Bondi carrying with her a list of Jaypal’s search terms at the hearing “where she clearly was prepared with oppo resesarch” and brought “flash cards with insults” to try to “embrass” the members.

“I think it’s kind of creepy that they were hoping to divine some line of attack based on our search histories,” Massie said.

Massie has also criticized the DOJ for having certain redactions in files that lawmakers were supposed to be able to view in an unredacted form. That makes it impossible, he argued, for Congress to access all FBI files in the millions of pages released by the Justice Department.

The law, passed by Congress and co-authored by Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, limited which redactions DOJ could make, including personal information of victims and materials that would jeopardize an active criminal investigation. But as CNN previously reported, some redactions described by the lawmakers did not line up with the law.

The Justice Department is also required to give Congress a privileged log explaining why certain redactions were made by February 15.

The surveillance is reminiscent of the CIA’s efforts to spy on Senate intelligence committee staffers who were conducting oversight into the CIA’s interrogation and torture tactics that occurred in the wake of the 9/11 attack.

In March of 2014, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chaired the intelligence committee, said she believed the CIA could have acted illegally in monitoring a standalone computer network in northern Virginia used by staffers to access classified CIA material.

The Justice Department ultimately declined to investigate the matter despite a referral from the Inspector General.

New York tunnel project expects to receive frozen funding

February 12, 2026 10:25 PM UTC / Reuters

节点运行失败

A construction crew works on the Manhattan Tunnel Project, which is part of the Hudson Tunnel Project, in New York City, U.S., October 1, 2025. The U.S. government has paused some funds for major transit projects in New York, including the Hudson Tunnel and the Second Avenue Subway, while the Department of Transportation reviews… Read more

Feb 12 (Reuters) – The commission overseeing the $16 billion Hudson River Tunnel Project in New York said on Thursday it expects to soon receive $205 million in frozen federal funding after a U.S. appeals court did not undo a lower court order.

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Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from transferring 20 former death row inmates to the federal “supermax” prison in Colorado, ruling the move likely violated their Fifth Amendment due process rights.

The 35-page ruling from U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sets up a dispute between executive authority and prisoners’ procedural rights.

Under Article II’s “take care” clause, the president is charged with executing federal law, and the Bureau of Prisons — overseen by the attorney general — has broad discretion to determine where inmates serve their sentences.

But Kelly said the administration could not transfer the inmates without first giving them a meaningful opportunity to challenge the move.

Kelly, a Trump appointee, stressed that his ruling had no bearing on the nature of the crimes committed by the ex-death row inmates, many of whom he noted have been convicted of “some of the most horrific crimes imaginable.”

“The placement of an inmate with a life sentence at ADX Florence raises no constitutional concerns so long as the inmate is afforded adequate process,” he said.

Instead, the ruling focused narrowly on whether the inmates were given a real opportunity to contest the transfer, and Kelly said they were not. The order is a temporary blow to the Trump administration’s effort to counter sweeping clemency actions former President Joe Biden took during his final month in office, moves critics described as a political “Hail Mary” that lacked proper vetting.

“[The Constitution] requires that whenever the government seeks to deprive a person of a liberty or property interest that the Due Process Clause protects — whether that person is a notorious prisoner or a law-abiding citizen — the process it provides cannot be a sham,” Kelly said.

Next steps in the case were not immediately clear, and the Justice Department declined to respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on whether it would seek to appeal the ruling.

The effort comes as Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Trump administration have sought to reverse Biden’s sweeping clemency actions, including the commutations of 37 death row inmates, many of whom have been convicted of particularly heinous and violent crimes.

One individual was convicted of murdering a married couple camping in the Ouachita National Forest in July 2003.

Another was convicted of kidnapping, robbing and murdering a 51-year-old local bank president by tying him to a concrete block and chain hoist and tossing him off of a bridge and into a lake.

Many had also killed prisoners while serving time, a factor that can be used in weighing whether to transfer a convicted felon to a higher-security prison.

“This [Department of Justice] will continue to seek accountability for the families blindsided by President Biden’s reckless commutations of 37 vicious predators,” Bondi previously told Fox News Digital in a statement.

ADX, the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” is the only true federal “supermax” prison in the U.S., and its inmates are among the most notorious in the federal system.

Among them are Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers; former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán, or “El Chapo”; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the co-founder of al Qaeda.

Though a commutation cannot be fully reversed, Justice Department officials told Fox News Digital, Bondi has prioritized ways to penalize these individuals in coordination with directives from Trump to ensure that the “conditions of confinement” are “consistent with the security risks those inmates present because of their egregious crimes, criminal histories, and all other relevant considerations,” according to an earlier DOJ memo.

Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI and other national news. She previously covered national politics at the Washington Examiner and The Washington Post, with additional bylines in Politico Magazine, the Colorado Gazette and others. You can send tips to Breanne at Breanne.Deppisch@fox.com, or follow her on X at @breanne_dep.

CIA releases new video aiming to recruit Chinese military officers

February 12, 2026 / 2:46 PM EST / CBS News

The CIA has released a new Mandarin-language recruitment video aimed at Chinese military officers, portraying a fictional, mid-level People’s Liberation Army officer grappling with corrupt leadership and ultimately choosing to contact the American intelligence agency.

The video is the latest installment in a public-facing recruitment campaign targeting China, which CIA Director John Ratcliffe has described as the agency’s top intelligence priority amid what he has called a “generational competition” with Beijing.

In the short film, the central character watches as qualified officers are removed and replaced by political loyalists lacking military credentials. Troubled by what he sees as corruption, and concerned about the impact on his young family, the officer decides to reach out to the CIA.

“The main character’s struggle represents the widely shared experience and values of those serving in the PLA,” a CIA official told CBS News, referring to the People’s Liberation Army. The video is meant to highlight what the agency describes as a growing gulf “between the Chinese elites who want what is best for their bank accounts and the Chinese citizens who want what is best for their country.”

The campaign is not directed at Chinese President Xi Jinping personally, the official said, but at individuals inside China “who may feel deeply concerned about the direction their country is headed in but feel powerless to do anything about it.”

In a statement, Ratcliffe said the agency intends to build on the reach of its earlier efforts.

“Last year, CIA’s Mandarin video campaign reached many Chinese citizens, and we know there are many more searching for a way to improve their lives and change their country for the better,” Ratcliffe said. “We’re going to continue offering Chinese government officials and citizens an opportunity to work toward a brighter future together.”

The agency declined to provide specific metrics but said its previous Mandarin-language videos “reached millions of people and inspired new sources.” The CIA has seen “more and more people with insights on China volunteering their services and information via our website on the dark web,” the official said, adding: “If the videos didn’t work, we wouldn’t be releasing more videos.”

The new video, like its predecessors, includes operational security guidance. Its final screen displays Mandarin-language instructions on how to contact the CIA securely.

Although major U.S. social media platforms are blocked in China, the agency believes its content can still circulate. “Their wall is imperfect,” the official said, referring to Beijing’s so-called Great Firewall.

The campaign comes amid high-profile leadership shakeups within the PLA, including the removal of several senior military officers in recent months. The CIA official declined to draw a direct connection but suggested the parallels were notable. “The question to ask is, is art imitating life or life imitating art?” the official said.

China has long been identified by U.S. intelligence leaders as the foremost strategic challenge facing the United States. Ratcliffe has said publicly that China represents the CIA’s “top intelligence priority” and that the agency must provide a “decisive intelligence advantage” in the competition with Beijing.

Public recruitment campaigns represent an evolution in tradecraft for the agency, which in recent years has increasingly used cinematic online videos to reach audiences inside rival states, including Russia and Iran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mCVjyXI-jM
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/inside-china-state-run-espionage-campaign-against-us/

Department of Homeland Security on track to shut down with lawmakers leaving Washington and an unresolved ICE fight

Updated Feb 12, 2026, 4:13 PM ET | PUBLISHED Feb 12, 2026, 3:57 PM ET | CNN Politics

By

[Sarah Ferris]

,

[Morgan Rimmer]

Updated 1 hr 38 min ago

Updated Feb 12, 2026, 4:13 PM ET

PUBLISHED Feb 12, 2026, 3:57 PM ET

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An ICE agent holds a taser in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on February 5.

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images/File

A bitterly divided Washington is headed for its third government funding lapse of President [Donald Trump]’s second term — this time, a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security over the issue of federal immigration enforcement.

With lawmakers leaving town Thursday, funding for the department is set to expire Friday at midnight. GOP leaders sent their members home after the two parties made no concrete progress toward a deal that Democrats are demanding must rein in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations after last month’s fatal shootings by federal agents of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota.

The next steps are uncertain. With talks ongoing between the White House and Democrats, the two chambers aren’t scheduled to return to Washington for 11 days, though GOP leaders could still call members back if a deal is reached.

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[Related article Community members react to federal immigration agents conducting immigration enforcement tasks in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., February 5, 2026. Seth Herald/Reuters A partial government shutdown is about to hit the Department of Homeland Security. Here’s what that means 4 min read]

Democrats have demanded that Trump administration end its “roving” patrols, require independent oversight of ICE, bar the deportation of US citizens and forbid ICE agents from wearing masks. Another major sticking point: Democrats want immigration warrants to be signed by a judge, not by an ICE agency official. But Republicans are firmly opposed.

“We will find out, I think, very quickly, whether or not the Democrats are serious,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters just after the chamber’s final vote Thursday. He said he hoped Democrats would soon show the GOP that they, too, are willing to compromise after the White House’s latest proposal, though he declined to say what new policies are being discussed.

“I think the White House has given more and more ground on some of these key issues,” Thune said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks with reporters on Thursday.

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

One senior White House official, who declined to speak publicly, was even more blunt: “At this point it seems clear the Democrats are going to walk away from that bipartisan conversation. They’re going to shut the department down.”

“We will not be held hostage on an issue the president was elected on,” the official said.

But top Democrats insist the White House needs to come closer to the party’s demands or risk national backlash.

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a top Senate Democrat, criticized Republicans for not understanding “the depth of the anger” across the country over Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts.

“Maybe this break will allow [Republicans] to go home and get yelled at — not just by people who are progressive, but everybody who thinks this agency is out of control,” Schatz said. “It’s gonna take them maybe another week to figure out how pissed off their own voters are about the idea of a masked police force terrorizing communities.”

Behind the scenes, top Democrats and the White House have been negotiating, but Democrats have criticized the White House for being unserious in those talks, refusing to yield to the party’s biggest demands to overhaul federal immigration enforcement.

Republicans, meanwhile, have argued that the White House demonstrated its commitment to the talks by sending a full legislative proposal to Democrats the night before — as well as announcing a formal end to its ICE operation in Minnesota.

Speaker Mike Johnson called the White House proposal in the negotiations for DHS funding “eminently reasonable” and criticized some Democrats for wanting “to impose pain.”

Speaker Mike Johnson attends an event at the US Capitol on Thursday.

Allison Robbert/AP

“I saw the last proposal sent over from the White House. It is eminently reasonable,” he told CNN, adding: “It seems to me, the appearance here is that some Democrats, House and Senate, want a government shutdown. They want to impose more pain on the American people. For what? I have no idea.”

Unlike in last fall’s full shutdown government, Democrats have so far offered a clear display of unity against the GOP’s latest ICE offer. The party roundly rejected the White House’s latest proposal in the ongoing negotiations over how to rein in ICE. Only Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who has repeatedly voted against any shutdowns, sided with Republicans on the Thursday votes.

Both parties are refusing to discuss the White House’s specific proposal. But it is clear the two sides are far apart.

Johnson maintained his hardline stance against requiring judicial warrants, saying it would “shut down the deportation of virtually all illegal immigrants.”

“You can’t do that. You can’t have an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program if you have to get a judicial warrant every time you go to arrest someone. That’s not how it works. It’s not how it can work. It’s not workable,” he said.

Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have been clear that judicial reform is one of their red lines.

Jeffries said earlier Thursday that Democrats need to see policy changes to ICE’s immigration enforcement that are “bold, meaningful, and transformational” — and that the White House’s latest offer did not meet that bar.

CNN’s Manu Raju, Adam Cancryn and Aileen Graef contributed to this report.

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CBS News poll analysis on words voters pick to describe the Democratic and Republican parties

February 12, 2026 / 3:35 PM EST / CBS News

Long before campaign season, the images or brands of the political parties are in the public mind. We asked people to weigh in right now on various descriptions of each of them.

Their answers reveal a portrait of a very divided nation. One in which one party is seen more as “weak” while the other is “extreme.” And while each set of partisans thinks they’re reasonable, they tend to say the other is not. And neither party elicits glowing descriptions from independents.

From a list of descriptors, “weak” is the way most voters describe the Democratic Party, while “extreme” is the word most picked to describe the Republican Party. These sentiments are generally similar to what we’ve seen in recent years and how Americans viewed the parties as recently as last fall.

The perception of the Democratic Party as “weak” is not necessarily an artifact of the party’s being out of power. Voters’ perceptions of the Democratic Party in 2022 (when the party controlled Congress and the White House) were similar: More called it “weak” than “strong,” and most did not describe it as “effective.” At that time, most voters also called the GOP “extreme,” so that dynamic also remains.

The Democratic Party continues to lag behind the Republicans in being seen as “effective” or “strong”, although the percentage who ascribe these words to the GOP falls short of a majority.

These relatively less positive descriptors for the Democratic Party are driven in part by somewhat lackluster views among its own rank and file.

The nation’s Republicans, on the other hand, are more unified and more positive in their descriptions of the GOP.

For example, 45% of Democrats describe their party as “strong,” compared to 80% of Republicans who pick that descriptor for their party. And more Democrats label their party “weak” than Republicans do theirs. (More Republicans do call their party extreme than Democrats do theirs, but it’s still relatively few.)

Relatedly, we’ve seen some of this in perceptions of how the Democratic Party deals with President Trump. Recent CBS News polling found few of the country’s Democrats have “a lot” of confidence in the ability of congressional Democrats to effectively oppose the president.

The most liberal wing of the nation’s Democrats is the most critical: Most don’t have confidence in the Democrats in Congress to effectively oppose Mr. Trump, and that may be reflected in how they describe their own party. They are less apt than the moderates to call their party “effective” or “strong.”

Beyond energizing their own partisans, the parties will look to appeal to independent voters.

Like voters overall, most independents view the Democratic Party as “weak” and the GOP as “extreme.” They do give the Republicans an edge on being “strong” and “effective,” while the Democrats have an advantage on being “reasonable” — though they give both parties relatively low marks on each of these measures.

*

This analysis is based on a CBS News/YouGov survey that was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,425 U.S. adults interviewed between February 3-5, 2026. The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to gender, age, race, and education, based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as 2024 presidential vote. The margin of error is ±2.4 points.

After letting Trump abuse it for a year, the legislative branch shows a little pride

Analysis by Aaron Blake
4 hr ago
PUBLISHED Feb 12, 2026, 2:01 PM ET

The US Capitol on Tuesday.

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

This week brought fresh signs that as President Donald Trump’s popularity withers, Republicans in Congress are starting to reassert some of the prerogatives — and pride — that they abandoned during his first year back in office.

It’s a contrast from just last spring when the Republican-controlled House voted to strip itself of power to stop Trump’s tariffs — and did so by taking some liberties with the concept of time.

It voted to effectively pretend that a day was not a day, in order to skirt a rule that says any attempts to cancel Trump’s tariffs emergency had to be voted on within 15 days.

The Constitution expressly gives Congress the power over tariffs. So here was the House not just declining to stop Trump from gobbling up that power, but willfully preventing itself from reclaiming it. All in the name of helping Trump.

If anything encapsulates Congress’ willful acquiescence and fealty to Trump, those votes had to be it. But it was part of a broader trend. The Constitution arguably makes the legislative branch more powerful than the executive and judicial branches, but GOP lawmakers have repeatedly ceded that power to keep the peace with Trump.

Some have even spoken as if their roles were to do whatever Trump wanted — as if their elections didn’t matter, next to Trump’s 49.8% plurality in the 2024 election.

That dynamic is hardly going away, but with looming midterm elections — in which they’re on the ballot and Trump’s not — GOP lawmakers are breaking with him in more ways.

Three House Republicans voted this week to prevent an extension of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s tariffs gimmick. And meanwhile, key Republicans have balked at a pair of major Trump incursions into the legislative branch: his administration’s apparent monitoring of lawmakers’ searches of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and its failed attempt to indict six congressional Democrats.

The tariff votes

The tariffs vote Tuesday was hardly a resounding reclamation of congressional power, given 214 Republicans still voted to continue ceding it to Trump. But it was a significant rebuke of Trump and Johnson that means we’re likely to see a bevy of tariffs votes in the coming months.

Those votes could test Republicans’ willingness to toe Trump’s unpopular line on tariffs in an election year — and potentially make the tariffs more difficult to sustain if the GOP defections grow.

Already on Wednesday, six House Republicans joined with Democrats to block Trump’s Canada tariffs. Given the Senate already voted against those tariffs, that means majorities of both GOP-controlled chambers are now on-record opposing what Trump has done.

(Still, even if both chambers passed the same measure, Trump could veto it. They would then need two-thirds majorities to override him, which would require much bigger GOP defections than we’re currently seeing.)

What happened Wednesday

Wednesday also delivered some more big moments in the relationship between the two branches of government.

Photographs of a document that Attorney General Pam Bondi brought to her testimony to the House Judiciary Committee suggested DOJ appeared to have monitored lawmakers’ searches of the Epstein files when they viewed the unredacted files at the Justice Department this week. (The department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the paperwork Bondi brought to the hearing.)

That raised the prospect that the executive branch was effectively spying on members. Democrats criticized it as a violation of the separation of powers.

Johnson’s usual response when such controversies arise is to punt or downplay. But while the GOP speaker allowed there was still more to learn, he told CNN on Thursday it wasn’t “appropriate” for lawmakers’ searches to be tracked.

“I think members should obviously have the right to peruse those at their own speed and with their own discretion and I don’t think it’s appropriate for anybody to be tracking that,” he said.

Also Wednesday — on a bigger scale — we saw a coterie of Republicans speak out against DOJ’s failed attempt to indict six congressional Democrats.

The effort traces back to a video in which those six Democrats had urged members of the military not to obey illegal orders. Trump and others around him suggested that message was akin to treason.

But Trump’s threat — that these lawmakers had committed “seditious behavior, punishable by death” — didn’t just come across as an effort to criminalize speech; but to potentially criminalize speech that effectively just restated what members of the military are already told.

Many Republicans have now criticized the administration’s effort to indict the Democrats, even as some assured that they objected to the six lawmakers’ video.

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who’s not running for reelection, called it “political lawfare.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska called it “chilling.” Sens. Josh Hawley, Bill Cassidy, Mike Rounds and Susan Collins all objected. Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker said the grand jury that rejected the charges “made the right decision.” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa said federal law enforcement should be targeting “real law-breakers.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune didn’t judge the attempted indictments as harshly but did suggest it simply wasn’t a legal matter.

“That wouldn’t have been my response to that,” the South Dakota Republican said.

Are all of these responses full-throated? No. And these Republicans all could have objected more strongly weeks ago when Trump telegraphed his effort at retribution.

But it’s rare you see so many GOP lawmakers speaking out on a subject so quickly. And that undoubtedly owes at least in part to what this effort could have meant for their branch of government.

What it means

Nobody should look at this week’s developments and deduce that Republicans in Congress are suddenly ready to fight Trump for the honor of the legislative branch.

So much of Trump’s project is built on claiming massive amounts of unilateral power. And Congress acting as even an equal partner would likely torpedo the entire thing — especially given the GOP’s House majority is so small.

And in many ways, the damage is done. The precedent has been set for a Congress controlled by the president’s party to effectively stand by — to try to let the president serve as a more authoritarian leader who can be checked (eventually and maybe) by the judiciary but rarely by the legislature.

But at some point, Republicans have to recognize that ceding all that power to the notoriously unwieldy and chaotic Trump has caused them lots of political problems, and that maybe this isn’t how they want to conduct business forever.

An election year, perhaps unsurprisingly, seems to be when they’re coming to that realization.