The 2026 State of the Union Address will air live on Tuesday, February 24 at 9 p.m. EST, the same night that all three NCIS shows were scheduled to air their mid-season premieres.
However, now that President Donald Trump will be delivering the annual speech to Congress that night, CBS has opted to delay the shows until March 3, according to TVLine.
| NCIS Mid-Season Premiere Dates | Timeslots |
|---|---|
| NCIS (March 3, 2026) | 8 p.m. EST |
| NCIS: Origins (March 3, 2026) | 9 p.m. EST |
| NCIS: Sydney (March 3, 2026) | 10 p.m. EST |
On January 7, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson formally invited Trump to speak before a joint session of Congress, which the Republican leader has scheduled for February 24.
The State of the Union is an annual event in which the president updates Congress and the American people on the current state of the country and highlights achievements from the past year. The speech is typically followed by a rebuttal from a member of the minority party; the 2026 speaker has not been announced yet.
Whenever the State of the Union or any other primetime address by the president is scheduled, the broadcast networks rearrange their schedules to accommodate the speech. This usually results in several shows being postponed by a week, like CBS is doing with the three NCIS shows. At the moment, it’s unclear how ABC, FOX and NBC will rework their schedules that night.
The networks had to deal with a similar situation in December when Trump scheduled a primetime address to recap the first year of his second term in office. Networks like CBS and FOX chose to take a break from the Survivor and The Floor finales to air the speech and then resume the episodes once the address was finished.
The NCIS season 23 fall finale showed Jess Knight, now a part of NCIS Elite, being tasked with tracking Eleanor Bishop in a shocking revelation.
Meanwhile, Agent Gibbs and Diane Sterling got married in the NCIS: Origins season 2 mid-season finale, and the abrupt end to NCIS: Sydney‘s fall episodes dealt with the investigation of a sailor who was accused of murder.
The original NCIS: Sydney fall finale will presumably air on March 3, but CBS hasn’t confirmed this just yet.
All three NCIS shows have several ongoing storylines and cliffhangers that need to be resolved in 2026 after their fall finales aired in December. While fans might be disappointed that the current hiatus has been extended, at least the postponement is only one week.
