House cancels votes as Democratic lawmakers urged recess postponement to address AI regulation – US politics live

Key events

Joseph Gedeon

Former Biden commerce secretary Gina Raimondo and former Republican governor of Indiana Eric Holcomb, who both call themselves “AI optimists”, tag teamed this summer to launch Raise US, meant to address a transition for American workers to the AI economy.

Raimondo the Politico AI and Tech Summit that they’ve “raised almost $700m to be invested over five years to fund projects, experiments, pilots.”

While both sit across the aisle politically, they similarly agreed that they are against a universal basic income, reigning in China, and socialism.

Officials from the US met Houthi leaders over the weekend at the country’s embassy in Muscat, Oman, it has been confirmed, leading to the US decision not to intervene to help Saudi Arabia drive back a Houthi advance inside Yemen.

The Houthis reassured the US that the ceasefire agreement between the two sides struck in 2025 still held and the movement had no intention of attacking US shipping in the Red Sea. Only Saudi-linked shipping was regarded as a target owing to its blockade of Yemen, the Houthis confirmed.

The meeting helps to explain the decision from the US president, Donald Trump, to condemn the Houthi advance down the west coast of Yemen for threatening freedom of navigation through the Bab al-Mandab strait, but so far to reject any military response in support of Riyadh. The US is already embroiled in an expensive and resource-sapping conflict with Iran, which backs the Houthis.

Here’s Patrick’s report:

The decision to cancel tomorrow’s votes in the House comes as dozens of Democratic lawmakers have asked Mike Johnson to postpone the pre-election recess, that was due to start on Friday, to address the deluge of calls for Congress to regulate the development of artificial intelligence. This comes after industry executives and whistleblowers have expressed a need for greater regulation.

Johnson, however, has been reluctant to intervene – aligning himself with Donald Trump. “We ⁠cannot have a moratorium on the development of AI,” the House speaker told reporters on Tuesday. “Because then we will lose our edge to China, and ​that has serious national security implications for every American family.”

House cancels Thursday votes, sending lawmakers home early for midterm recess

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, has cancelled votes currently scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday). This means that lower chamber lawmakers will now head back to their districts for the midterm recess a day early.

The change to schedule means that the House will avoid voting on Republican congressman Thomas Massie’s resolution to impeach the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.

Trump's pick for surgeon general avoids mentioning vaccines in opening remarks at confirmation hearing

Dr Nicole Saphier, the president’s pick to serve as US surgeon general, avoided mentioning vaccines directly in her opening remarks. Instead she expressed her Make America Healthy Again bona fides.

“I have long believed that we spend too much time and resources treating chronic disease after it takes hold, and not enough time helping Americans reduce their risk before illness begins. And unfortunately, we’re seeing the consequences of that imbalance right now: rising cancer rates in people under 50, cardiovascular disease that remains the number one killer, but also is largely preventable in lots of cases,” Saphier said.

Later, the Senate health committee’s Republican chair, Bill Cassidy, pushed Saphier about whether she would tell parents concerned about the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine that it does not cause autism. A reminder that there is no reputable evidence that proves a link between the two.

“I’m so sensitive to this because I’ve had wriggle room from people sitting there … who later use that wriggle room to do things which are quite contrary?” Cassidy said, referring to the various promises that Robert F Kennedy Jr made to the top Republican in his confirmation hearing, only for the health secretary to renege on several occasions.

“Would you feel comfortable communicating with clarity … Is the MMR vaccine extremely lethal, as the president said?” Cassidy asked Saphier today.

The nominee for surgeon general said that she “cannot speak to what the president has said” but went on to say: “I do not believe the MMR vaccine to be lethal. I believe the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles.”

Saphier, who is a practising radiologist and Fox News contributor, added: “The best tool we have to combat these infections to save the most lives and to also create population herd immunity is vaccination against the MMR. I appreciate the president is trying to reach vaccine-hesitant people who are wanting more answers or who are concerned that there are too many doses.”

Cassidy, however, remained unconvinced by the president’s public health strategy. “I’m not sure that you reach people who are vaccine hesitant by feeding into untruths,” the chair said.

Later today, my colleagues and I will be hosting a live Q&A all about how united the Democratic party is ahead of the November midterms.

We’ll be digging into who are the Democrats running in the upcoming election and where they stand.

We welcome questions ahead of the discussion at 12pm ET/5pm BST.

Joseph Gedeon

Chris Jahn, the president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, said China is ahead of the US on chemistry and “that lead is growing”.

“There are more chemical companies in China that lose money than in any other sector of the Chinese economy,” Jahn said. “They are subsidizing their entire export machine with low-cost chemistry, and so that’s that’s why they have a $1.2tn surplus for the world, and so they are pushing us, frankly, out of the market.”

Joseph Gedeon

Republican representative Brett Guthrie, who chairs the Energy and Commerce committee waffled when asked at the Politico AI and Tech Summit about whether he supports an artificial intelligence moratorium, before diverting to throw shots at how Europe is regulating tech.

“If you want to say we’re just going to turn this over to a handful of elite educated people in a room to say … well that’s how Europe’s run,” he said. “There’s 1000s of them in Brussels that tell everybody what to do.”

Guthrie added Europe is “losing” on AI development, while it is “booming” in the US.

On legislation to implement guardrails, the Kentucky congressman said: “I’m not saying nothing will happen but I think a bill of that magnitude needs some needs work.”

Reporting from Johannesburg

The US has announced visa restrictions on some South Africans as Donald Trump’s administration continues to claim that South Africa’s government racially discriminates against white minority Afrikaners.

The announcement did not specify individuals who were barred from the US. Trump has spent his second term falsely claiming there is a “white genocide” in South Africa and railing against its affirmative action policies.

Since the start of last year, the US has cut aid to South Africa, barred it from this year’s G20 summit in Miami and set up a refugee programme for Afrikaners and other South African racial minorities. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been dismantling refugee and asylum programmes for people fleeing war and persecution.

“The South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority,” the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said in a post on X.

“The South African government has consistently failed to adequately address rural crime, violent and dehumanising rhetoric, and race-based discriminatory policies against Afrikaners and other minority populations.”

The US visa restrictions would target “foreign nationals who enact or enable policies that promote race-based discrimination, incite violence, or enable land confiscation without compensation in South Africa”, Rubio added.

The US ambassador to South Africa, the conservative media activist Leo Brent Bozell III, said on X: “As has been made absolutely clear, the time for endless ‘dialogue’ has run its course … This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America’s firm resolve in this matter.”

South Africa’s foreign ministry said in response that its policies were being misrepresented. “The announcement, once again, aligns with the mischaracterisation of South Africa’s domestic policies by fringe groups who wrongly portray themselves as representatives of “minorities” and Afrikaners in general,” the ministry spokesperson Chrispin Phiri said in a statement that was first published in Afrikaans.

We’ll also be monitoring the interest rate announcement from Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh, who is expected to announce a rate increase at 2pm ET.

We’ll be watching to see how Donald Trump reacts to the news, given that he routinely disparaged Warsh’s predecessor, Jerome Powell, to lower the rate. Warsh has maintained that he will uphold the central bank’s independence.

Trump pick for surgeon general set to face questions from Senate lawmakers

On Capitol Hill today, Dr Nicole Saphier, Donald Trump’s third pick to be the US surgeon general will face lawmakers on the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee for a confirmation hearing at 10am ET.

A reminder that the president withdrew his last two nominations for the top doctor position – Casey Means and Dr Janette Nesheiwat. While Means’ nomination fell apart after she was grilled by senators in February, Trump withdrew his support for Nesheiwat after questions circled around her academic credentials.

Saphier, a radiologist, will appear alongside Chris Klomp – Trump’s nominee to be the deputy health secretary who previously served as the director of the Center for Medicare. At an earlier confirmation hearing with the Senate finance committee this week, Klomp was resolute that the MMR vaccine is the “single most effective public health tool that we have against measles”. A notable contrast to Robert F Kennedy Jr’s anti-vaccine stance while leading the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Also this week, the Guardian reported that Saphier received more than $200,000 in business income from a company she owns that sells dietary supplements, according to her financial disclosure and ethics’s agreement she filed last week.

Donald Trump will begin his day in Washington. He’ll spend much of the day in closed-door meetings before traveling to Gastonia, North Carolina at 4pm ET. The president is set to deliver remarks at 7pm ET to campaign for Michael Whatley, the former Republican Committee chair who is also the GOP nominee for US Senate in North Carolina.

Trump has endorsed Whatley in the tough midterm race, where he’ll face former Democratic governor Roy Cooper in November. Republicans are hoping to hold on to the Senate seat in the Tar Heel state to ensure they retain control of the upper chamber in Congress.

US to bar some South Africans over claims of anti-white discrimination

The US has announced visa restrictions on some South Africans as Donald Trump’s administration continues to claim that South Africa’s government racially discriminates against white minority Afrikaners.

The announcement did not specify individuals who were barred from the US. Trump has spent his second term falsely claiming there is a “white genocide” in South Africa and railing against its affirmative action policies.

Since the start of last year, the US has cut aid to South Africa, barred it from this year’s G20 summit in Miami and set up a refugee programme for Afrikaners and other South African racial minorities. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been dismantling refugee and asylum programmes for people fleeing war and persecution.

“The South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority,” the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said in a post on X.

“The South African government has consistently failed to adequately address rural crime, violent and dehumanising rhetoric, and race-based discriminatory policies against Afrikaners and other minority populations.”

The US visa restrictions would target “foreign nationals who enact or enable policies that promote race-based discrimination, incite violence, or enable land confiscation without compensation in South Africa”, Rubio added.

The Trump administration has cut or frozen up to $177 billon in federal grants since the president took office for his second term, according to a tracking tool by a pro-democracy nonprofit and a group of researchers and scientists.

The cuts affected all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with health, nutrition, the environment and disaster relief making up the largest share of cuts, the States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness organization found.

AP reported that among the grants that were eliminated, frozen or delayed were ones related to maternal health in Michigan, education research in Mississippi and assistance to minority farmers in Iowa, the researchers found.

California, Texas, New York, Illinois and North Carolina saw the highest amounts of interrupted grant money. The tracking tool is called Lost Funds.

“By bringing thousands of funding disruptions from the Trump administration together in a publicly accessible, verified database, Lost Funds puts the magnitude of their impact on full display,” Scott Delaney, co-founder of Grant Witness, said in a statement.

House votes for a third time to end the Iran war as conflict drags on

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

For a third time, the US House has voted to end the war in Iran, approving a war powers resolution that would halt Donald Trump’s ability to continue military action without congressional approval.

The roll call late on Tuesday, 220-204, was similar to earlier efforts this summer, with a few more Republicans joining all Democrats voting to bring an end to the conflict.

None of the resolutions have made it to the president’s desk, where Trump would almost certainly veto the measure, the Associated Press reported.

“Remember when Donald Trump said that this war would last just a few weeks?” said Democratic representative Seth Moulton, who served as a marine during the Iraq war and pushed the resolution forward.

He said it’s time for Congress to “actually ask tough questions, as the constitution directs us to do, rather than be subservient to another warmongering administration”.

Republican Brian Mast of Florida, the chair of the House foreign affairs committee, questioned which military resources Democrats would want to remove from the region where he said Iran remains a threat.

Mast said Trump is against “forever wars, and that is what he is ending” – the decades of hostilities from Iran. “They are a continuous ongoing threat to the United States,” Mast said. “Enough is enough.”

The action is likely the last House vote on the Iran war before the midterm elections, in which the conflict overseas is playing a substantial role in the political campaigns.

In other developments:

As part of a $2.8bn package of military aid, the Trump administration plans to send Israel a type of one-ton bomb that was withheld by the Biden administration over concerns that they were being used to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Donald Trump “threw a tantrum” when he heard that Democratic congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a trustee of the Kennedy Center whose lawsuit forced Trump’s name to be removed from the facade of the memorial, had again prevailed in court.

A televised Michigan Senate debate in Detroit on Tuesday was distinctly one-sided, because the Democratic nominee, Dr Abdul El-Sayed, turned up, while his Republican rival, Mike Rogers, chose not to attend.

Todd Blanche, the US attorney general, alerted reporters at the White House to stand by for what he called “a big development” in the federal crackdown on voting by non-citizens to be announced by Ryan Raybould, the US attorney for the northern district of Texas. When it came, however, Raybould’s announcement, that his office had charged six lawful permanent residents and one undocumented immigrant for voting in federal elections over the past eight years, hardly lived up to the billing.