From matters of war to the search for alien life : a week in the life of Donald Trump – The Irish Times

irishtimes.com · Feb 20, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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US president Donald Trump is having a typically low-key end to the week. “Trump threatens attack on Iran within 10 days” is the headline on today’s Irish Times front page off-lead.He has said this time frame would decide if the US would strike Iran or agree a nuclear deal with the Islamic republic, as Washington stepped up the deployment of a large military force to the Middle East.The remarks came as he addressed his so-called “Board of Peace” in Washington on Thursday. “Maybe we’re going to make a deal [with Tehran]. You’re going to be finding out over the next, probably 10 days.”He also said: “They [Iran] can’t have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. They can’t have, you can’t have peace in the Middle East if they have a nuclear weapon.”At the same meeting he said that nations had ‌contributed $7 billion to a Gaza reconstruction fund that aimed to rebuild the enclave once Hamas disarmed – an objective that is far from becoming a reality.Amid serious matters of war Trump also announced he was ordering the Pentagon to release files on aliens and UFOs.It came after his predecessor Barack Obama was asked on a podcast if aliens were real.“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Obama said. “And they’re not being kept in, what is it? Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.” Obama later clarified he had not seen evidence that aliens “have made contact with us”, but said, “Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.”On Thursday, Trump accused Obama of disclosing “classified information” and told reporters that when it came to the prospect of extraterrestrial visitors “I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it.”Separately, our Washington correspondent Keith Duggan reports on how Trump is back on the road campaigning in advance of the midterm elections later this year.He writes that an event in Georgia on Thursday “was a forcible reminder that Donald Trump remains the irresistible force of the Maga movement”.And it looks like things are not about to get any less hectic in Washington.In a significant development on Friday, the US supreme court struck down Trump’s sweeping US trade tariffs that he pursued under a law meant for use in national emergencies.The court’s ruling rejected one of Trump’s most contentious assertions of his authority and it has had big implications for the global economy.Trump has leveraged tariffs – taxes on imported goods – as a key economic and foreign policy tool and these have been central to a global trade war that he initiated after he began his second term as US president.Ireland’s planned bid to repair transatlantic relationsThe Trump administration and its frosty relations with the Europe are on the minds of those in Government Buildings in Dublin in advance of Ireland’s European Union presidency. Europe correspondent Jack Power reports how the Government hopes to use its upcoming European Union presidency to repair transatlantic relations by building “more ambitious and mutually beneficial” trade ties, according to a confidential draft of the agenda for the influential role.Ireland would also support efforts to boost Europe’s defence industry and deepen co-operation between the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) military alliance, the draft document on the Government’s priorities stated.In his analysis Power suggests Irish Ministers will be in awkward positions on occasion.A push by European countries to become more independent of Washington, take a tougher stance towards US tech giants, massively increase military spending and crack on with the EU-Mercosur trade deal all have the potential to cause difficulty for the Government.Tech companies with large operations here have ideas of their own on how Ireland should use the upcoming EU presidency. As Ellen Coyne reported earlier this week, global tech giant Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, wants the Government to use the presidency to advocate for the scrapping of a law that would crack down on addictive social media features such as infinite scroll.No White House invite for Sinn FéinSinn Féin announced on Monday that its politicians would not attend St Patrick’s Day events in the White House next month. It is the second year in a row that the party will boycott the festivities due to the Trump administration’s backing of Israel during the war in Gaza. But, as political editor Pat Leahy reports today, a statement from the US ambassador to Ireland Edward Walsh said: “Announcing a boycott of an event for which invitations have neither been extended nor finalised is premature.” A Sinn Féin spokesman said: “Invites are usually made in the week before the St Patrick’s Day event, so the decision not to attend pre-empted any invite being made.”Arrest of a former British princeAcross the Irish Sea there is the huge story of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince. As our London correspondent Mark Paul reports the last British royal to face arrest was Charles I in 1647. Mountbatten-Windsor was released under investigation by Thames Valley Police shortly after 7pm on Thursday. There has been public anger in Britain over his links to the late US child sex offender, Jeffrey EpsteinMountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing in connection with the late US child sex offender, including allegations that a teenage Virginia Giuffre was forced by the late financier to have sex with the then-prince 25 years ago.The arrest on Thursday, however, had nothing to do with allegations of sexual misconduct. Instead, it was based on a suspicion by police that Mountbatten-Windsor behaved illegally in his former role as a UK government trade envoy by forwarding confidential documents to Epstein about trade missions and business opportunities.What is happening at home?The big issue on the domestic political agenda this week was the Government’s decision to pause a controversial review of special needs assistants (SNA) allocations after criticism from teachers, parents and unions. As Jack Horgan-Jones and Marie O’Halloran reported, the U-turn came after the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) contacted almost 200 schools indicating their allocations were being reduced. On Thursday junior education minister Michael Moynihan said schools approved for additional SNA care would get the allocations they require. As we reported, he added that if schools were losing their SNA then it was always going to be from September 1st, 2026, “not now or not some time at Easter”. Miriam Lord has been looking at Dáil debates on the issue and her most recent column, headlined “Taoiseach told to ‘put your policy where your mouth is’ as disquiet over SNAs spreads”, is here.Conor Gallagher has an excellent investigation detailing how electronic components from Irish companies are being shipped in vast quantities to Russia, where they are often fitted to “kamikaze drones” for use against civilian targets in Ukraine. Gallagher reported that was happening despite EU export bans, introduced following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, designed to shut off the supply of such technology to Russia. As Marie O’Halloran reported, the issue was raised in the Dáil, and Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the Government would “pursue” the issue of Irish components ending up in Russian drones.Martin told Labour leader Ivana Bacik “circumvention of sanctions has been a feature of the war and Europe has tried everything it possibly can” to deal with this.There is an almighty row going on within local Government in Limerick – the only place in Ireland with a directly elected mayor. On Wednesday we reported how mayor John Moran has questioned whether there was a strategy by some to make his role “unbearable” to “create sufficient pressure that I might simply walk away”. He made the remarks in an extraordinary post on his website after a dispute with some councillors over Limerick City and County Council’s corporate plan, which was approved by councillors last week. There have since been calls – including from Moran himself – for an urgent review of the law underpinning the office of directly elected mayor. In this piece we ask if the role of directly elected mayor is workable?